The Team House - Gaza Aid Finally Happening & Counter Insurgency vs Counter Terrorism | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: July 28, 2025

In this episode, Dee and Mick Mulroy discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, the complexities of ceasefire negotiations, and the tactical debates surrounding counterinsurgency and counterterrorism. They also touch on the importance of national security and technological investment in the context of the space race, emphasizing the need for the U.S. to maintain its leadership in space exploration and defense.Sign up to our newsletter here!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comFind Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social00:00 Humanitarian Aid in Gaza: A Glimmer of Hope06:03 The Logistics of Aid Delivery12:07 Ceasefire Negotiations: The Stalemate17:55 Counterinsurgency vs. Counterterrorism: A Tactical Debate31:09 Integrating Covert Operations into National Security Strategy34:11 The Role of Covert Actions in Modern Warfare39:30 Ukraine's Resilience and Covert Operations41:02 Military and Economic Pressure on Russia48:40 The Importance of Space in National SecurityBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Aizond Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mulroy today. I'm Dmitry contacos. A lot happening, as usual. Some good stuff. Humanitarian aid is starting to be allowed into Gaza, which is great. I think they are opening up some food truck routes and also airdroves and a slew of other things. So, I mean, usually we're always talking about doom and gloom.

This is actually, I mean, it's not perfect, but. where it's kids are going to hopefully stop starving, hopefully they can get the medical aid that they need. I think a lot happened over the last week with like the picture, more and more pictures of like kids severely emaciated being shown and kids dying. I think that's kind of what turned the tide. And I hope, you know, happily, like hopefully, not happily, obviously, but thankfully some food medicine and supplies are getting into Gaza to the people that really need it.

So, Mick, what's going on? What are you tracking with this? First greetings from the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., where it's hot as Hades out there. I got to tell you. It's a little bit of Montana appreciation for me right now because, man, achievement. But yes, there is some doom and gloom, unfortunately, I think, in some of our discussions today. But like you said, it's certainly a good sign that he's humanitarian, corridor is going to be opened up, these tacka pause is going to happen, and all these countries

have stepped up to get food into people who are in desperate need right now. I think every adult around the world, or even non-adult, but certainly adults should find it completely unacceptable that children are starving to them, no matter where they are, no matter when it happens. But to step back a little bit, you know, we had the breakdown of the ceasefire negotiations with both Israel, the United States, withdrawing our negotiation teams. That's a bad sign. It seems to me that Hamas is not going to get to a place where they agree to a ceasefire without the complete withdrawal of the Israeli defense forces. And that's simply not going to happen until there is something. kind of suitable security arrangement for Israel. And I'll think any country would leave a place

that attacked them like they did on October 7th without guarantees of their security once they withdrew. So that's it. We're in a very difficult position there, but I would say it's, if you haven't figured it out already, Hamas could care less about the civilian population in Gaza, right? They, they simply don't even put that in their calculus. They're trying to stay in some form or fashion after this conflict is over. But that said, it is the obligation to every country under many international laws, Geneva Conventions. I've looked these up, by the way, 55, 57 article.

The Protocol 1 that came 30 years after that. And then several other declarations, which most countries are a part of, to not allow a civilian population to starve, to not allow, to not use it as a element of warfare, starvation. Let the audience decide for themselves, but this is clear that this is something that is going to be looked at, and people are going to be held responsible for their own actions. But to your point, D, we have a good sign. I think the powers it be have seen this. I think that the U.S. administration has seen it.

I think certainly internally to the Israeli administration has seen it. The IDF, apparently, according to New York Times, are the ones that have leaked the report on Hamas not being a big factor when it comes to the diversion of aid. And let's remember there's two million plus people in Gaza. Hamas is probably down below 10,000. now, thanks to the good work of the IDF, they've been reduced substantially. So it's important to point that out just on the calculations, it's just how much aid can be diverted for them. I'm sure they're doing everything they can to tax it, steal it, all that.

But ultimately, it's important that food comes in by all means available to the population who's on the verge. We've already seen, I think, in the last 48 hours, 127, people die of starvation, 85 of them are children. This is only going to increase substantially, almost exponentially, because when this starts, that's when everybody starts going. So I would agree with the aid community. I agree with them on almost all of this, but the ground corridors are by far the most efficient and cost-effective way to get aid into Gaza. But but airdrops can be supplemental, they can get to isolated populations, and quite frankly,

if you or your kids were starving, you don't really care how the food gets there. So if countries are willing to step up, and even though it is more expensive, do these, I would argue that they should be at least commended. And perhaps because they have done this, they have put pressure to open these corridors and have these tactical clauses. So we're not out of the woods, But I agree with you, D, that we are moving into a place where we are starting to address absolute critical need in Gaza, which needs to be done immediately. Question. What, how long does it take board? Like, let's say trucks start going in.

All means available are being used, right? And people are getting food, water, medicine. my question is like how do we turn it around like how long does it take for a kid that's malnourished or on the brink of starvation to like turn around right because it's not like here's a couple like crackers and you're ready to rock you know yeah that's a very good question so when you're at and i'm not an expert on this certainly not a medical uh professional uh but when you hit a certain stage of malnutrition, you can only eat certain things. So there's special stuff that the World Food Program and other aid agencies use. Plumpy Nut is one of the products. They have a certain

mixture of vitamins and minerals and they're digestible. You can't just feed them regular food, is my point. So a lot of that needs to get in there. Then a lot needs to get in there to essentially flood the zone to fill up the storehouses that are empty so that people can see that there's food and they're not going to run out because that's when the desperation kicks in. I mean, before the conflict, there was about 500 trucks a day of food aid going into Gaza. I think that was in addition to regular food that comes in and sold commercially. So at least five to 600 trucks a day. and I think last month was 600 trucks in the month.

Yeah. So that needs to happen and it needs to be continuous and we need to restore the food stocks in the country to the point where the civilian populations can see that they're there. And I think that would, there's huge distribution problems. The distribution needs to be conducted in a means that is consistent with the principles of humanitarian aid, which means the NGOs need to be allowed in to do this.

There's been NGOs that have been on the ground for years. They know how to do this. They are most familiar with it. They just need the food to do it. And that needs to happen also. But then, of course, long term, this is an immediate crisis. So I understand why everybody is rightfully focused on it. But there has to be, I think, a way to get to a place where the war is over.

It should be, I think I saw another analyst. it should be an all for all. So every hostage should come out. Every bit of food that needs to go in, needs to go in. And this war needs to stop with a security guarantee for Israel and a path forward for the people of Gaza and the Palestinian people. I know it's easy to say on a podcast. Right. But ultimately, we're just going to talk about the daily crisis if this isn't something that not only the U.S.

U.S. pushes, but our partner, our key ally, and Israel, and everybody that has any kind of influence on the people of Palestine, minus Hamas, which seems to be completely incapable of looking at anything other than their own interest. Of Hamas. Right. Question. So, like, for the food trucks and stuff like that, where does most of that come in from? Is it coming from Israel or coming from, like, the Rafah, or?

like from Egypt. Like how does it, this is more logistical question, I guess, but like, what's the, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah. They have stored quite a bit of aid. And of course, once it was cut off, it piled up. Yeah. So I don't know the details of that,

but the aid is there, I think is the answer to your question. D, and it's miles away in many cases, which is another reason why this crisis is so. hard to watch. This isn't a drought. This isn't a typhoon that came in and took out

crops and the ability of people to feed themselves. Just like in Sudan and other areas of the world, this is a man-made catastrophe when it comes to the humanitarian and a human crisis. The food is there. It can get in. It can get in relatively quickly. It just needs to happen.

Literally probably a matter of hours, right? Because like Gaza's ship's not that big. Yes, only 25 miles long, like six, seven miles wide. And, you know, both from the ground corridors and the air corridor. I mean, think about it. If they fly out of Jordan or Egypt, it's like a 20-minute or less flight, right? So this isn't a hard place to reach. We need to get the situation, the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

taken care of and quite frankly that will i think you know help is real when it comes to its efforts to get this war over with and to address their very valid security concerns uh and how this goes forward the humanitarian crisis needs to be dealt with immediately yeah and hopefully in the next couple weeks we see it we see it turning for the better um i going to the ceasefire or like the lack thereof are like the negotiations that are ongoing are not ongoing. Where are we at with that? What's the big rub? Hamas wants to stay in power? Yeah. So we're really in a bad place now. There's no negotiations. They've withdrawn their teams. I don't think we know the details of what Hamas rejected, but it's been pretty clear that Hamas doesn't want to accept anything that doesn't

end with the complete end of the war. Right, with IDF out of Gaza. Right, which means the end of the war, right? And that's before they even release all the hostages. So, I mean, think about it from the perspective of Israel. Like, there, that's a maximalist point of view, in my opinion. You should be able to have a humanitarian pause, a tactical pause with the fighting stops, humanitarian aid, which I think should be free flowing anyway, but would come in in bulk.

And these hostages who, I mean, there is. is reporters that are starving in Gaza right now. There's doctors and nurses that are starving in Gaza. Everybody in Gaza is starving right now, which also means the hostages are in the same scenario and maybe worse. So they need to come out immediately. Immediately. Obviously, shouldn't be there in a first place, but it is in the instance of the hostages

to get humanitarian aid in there. But it's also in everybody's interest to see this war come to an end. My understanding was that, like, as a negotiation, were going on in Doha. The political wing in Doha of Hamas was like obviously more willing, I think, to like cut a deal. And they either couldn't get in touch with or the actual on the ground military wing of Hamas was not going for it. Right. So it does seem to be a little bit of like either it's miscommunication or non-communications.

I mean, I don't know. I mean, but I'm sure whatever. communications are being had or completely penetrated and Israel and the U.S. is likely listening to it, I would assume, I mean, if we're any good at our fucking job. I would make, I would say that's a safe assumption. And the question is, is there really a political military wing or is there essentially a spokesperson for Hamas that is doing the negotiations? So what I mean by that is if the military leadership of Hamas in Gaza doesn't go for it, then it doesn't matter what the individuals in Doha are saying, right? So they're not, they don't really the political wing in the sense that they

have any authority. And of course, Israel's done a heck of a job killing the military capacity of the terrorist capacity of Hamas in leadership in Gaza, which is a good thing, but I don't even know who's in charge right now. So it, which we need, we need to have somebody who's in charge for the purpose of the negotiations. Yeah. That has the authority to say, yes, we're going to stop fighting and then stop fighting. We need that simply for the need of the negotiations.

I would hope that they would take what I think would be an offer of Israel to leave Gaza. You can catch them later, right? To end this conflict, if we could get the, the leadership of Hamas in Gaza to deploy. part. And then we can do what we do later down the line. But right now, for the sake of the hostages and for the sake of the innocent civilians in Gaza, that would be a good solution. But I don't, I don't know and I haven't read and I haven't heard exactly what the breakdown is. I do think it's been, it's probably the same, which is Hamas wants the whole war to end and the Israelis to leave. And Israel is not going to accept that without obviously,

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Thanks, guys. Even if, oh, here's my thought was wouldn't it make more sense for like if the IDF were to withdraws and, you know, make a deal? hostage deal and stuff like that, get the hostages back, make a deal where the IDF does withdraw. Hamas kind of reconstitutes itself and you take them out more strategically in Gaza, right, with airstrikes or special operations, what have, I mean, it's not exactly far away. So you don't really have to worry about exits and entrances, right? Like, or logistics in that way. I'm obviously not a military expert or a covert operations expert, but.

You know, I mean, if they had more kind of freedom of movement where they thought they were safe, where they reconstitute and like kind of poke their heads up, it would be easier for the IDF to take them out and Musa to take them out strategically, at least like they're the head guys, the top management. Yeah, and I think that would certainly be on my list, my task list of things to do once the war was over is just to continuously, on the on the on the black side of things as you say the covert side of things uh take out terrorist leaders that are want to do harm to my country and my uh people right just like the united states is doing right now right we don't talk much about the global war and terror yeah but it's still cooking it's still cooking yeah and you know what the enemy gets a vote so you know one day we wake up and there's a large terrorist act in the united states and it's on uh but it never went away right so

there's a lot of uh hardworking quiet professionals in the background right now that are uh that are doing just that. I think Israel, who has proven they are exceptional at it, will continue this even after. And so would we. And so are we. So I think that's going to be part of it. We just have to get to a point where the actual hot war, the overt war, is over. Yeah.

And it's extraordinarily taxing on the IDF, right? There's, you know, a lot of the IDF, especially in the war that goes on this law, relies on reservists. So these folks, and I, I know a lot of them have put their life on complete hold. Complete hold. Like their ambitions, you know, and you can say, okay, what does that matter? Well, it does matter. I mean, it's everybody, right?

You wanted to be a doctor. A lot of them have decided, well, I guess I'm not because I've been doing this for over two years. So I've missed it. So there's a lot of internal pressure on the political leadership from their civilian population who has dedicated the last two years of their life and sometimes their lives literally to this that's going to keep pushing for this to come to an end in addition to the you know everything else that is a reason for this to come to an end yeah man i hope it fucking does uh again going back to the good thing is that there is aid going in um because i mean i don't give a shit what you are

muslim jewish christian hindoo or whatever martian uh kids starving is no bueno anywhere right like uh Yeah. Last time I was in New York City, we were up there talking to the UN on, well, not just all the issues of the world when it comes to famine and humanitarian aid delivery. And I didn't know this, which might surprise you, but the person it was talking to obviously knew my name and said, hey, by the way, have you ever gone to battery park and seen the, saw the memorial to the Irish famine? right I like no I never heard of it so I literally left there and walked straight to it there I recommend everybody going to it not not because of my ethnic background but because it is a horrible example yeah of and you know people say oh the plate the potato blight yeah I wasn't about the potato blight they were still exporting food lots of it beef wheat everything else at Ireland at a time when one million people starve to death of a population that was three million. Think about that. And it went on from, I think, you know, I know this from my family stories, like 1845 to almost 1860. And two, and a million people left over a million to try to save the population that remained. And I bring it up because, again, it was caused by man.

Yeah. It was caused by man. And I think that is something that people, people, and it's almost always a conflict. In that case, it was more just about colonialism, domination, and serious bias against the Irish. But this is going on. It's well past that. But it is, it is, it still goes on in a world and I think everybody should. Yeah. Remember these lessons and try to.

It's very interesting how history kind of repeats itself a little bit. It's kind of scary. also talking about like yeah like the u.s getting busy and sent com getting busy in the agency getting busy you know they swacked a couple of ISIS people in Syria recently last week or so and you don't really hear much about it but you know you see that like j-sock ground branch and you know the 160th or all like still working right the job absolutely wide professionals that are are, you know, and I think the idea that we're going to, I hope so, get out of this war against terrorists, people who, you know, have this doomsday cult. It's just not going to happen.

And quite frankly, you know, you don't see cops sitting around talking about the end of crime. I wish crime would be. Right. But they don't spend a lot of time talking about, should we declare, you know, the success against all crime? They just accept the fact that they're going to have to fight criminals in perpetuity. So I think we need to accept the fact that as long as there's still a terrorist organization that wants to harm our citizens, we're going to fight them. And maybe it's a good thing we don't talk about it too much because that means it's not, they haven't been that successful, right?

Because if there's another 9-11, that's all we're going to talk about. So, you know, God bless the men and women that are out there in J-Soc and the CIA and everybody else. It's out there doing what's needed so that we aren't talking about it every day. There's an interesting debate to be had to. I'd love to have it on this show or even on Teamhouse where we get a bunch of professionals, like, you know, guys who've been in the GWAT, yourself included, where, you know, the GWAC kind of went a little astray a little bit, right? when we went into Iraq and stuff like that, where it went from like a counterterrorism, you know,

bias to a counterinsurgency bias and nation building and stuff. And there was this debate to when Obama came in, right? Like I remember Obama's first term about like, what do they do in Afghanistan? Do they, like, they'll add some troops to focus more on the counterterrorism aspect or do actually pull, you know, more into the counterinsurgency. And they unfortunately decided, I think, more on counterinsurgency. there is a, because terrorism's been around, right, forever.

It's not, it didn't just happen in 9-11. So I really love to have that debate with you guys, like where you guys, who's, who's, because in my opinion, I don't think counterinsurgency, and I don't have a, I'm not an expert. I just see what happened in Iraq and Afghanistan, like counterinsurgency, unless you have literally generations, 550, 100 years will not work. And I don't think any country really has that kind of political will to do it. Yeah. So I think the issue is essentially the concept of nation building.

Yeah. So if you think that even as strong and as wealthy as the United States, you're going to go in and, you know, change a dictatorship to a Jeffersonian democracy and then rebuild or actually build, in the case of Afghanistan, and all these institutions from scratch that are somehow going to immediately duplicate how we do business, you're going to have a massive counterinsurgency. Right. Effort because they're going to push back against it.

So if you have, if you find yourself in a massive counterinsurgency effort, then it should tell you that your nation building efforts aren't going to work. Right. Right. They go together. They go together. So, and it's not, it's not, I mean, counterinsurgency, there's key tenets to counterinsurgency. they're not wrong, but again, it's the nation-building part that, you know, that I think we're getting wrong.

That requires us to then pull out all these, you know, doctrines on insurgency or countering it. That's the issue is actually what is their overall intent. I think, you know, I mean, it's water. It's not water on the bridge for a lot of people. It's still very, very raw. But if the U.S. would have went in, say, to Afghanistan, or acts another animal, right? Yeah. actually had nothing to do with September 11.

But we would have gone, replaced the regime, which is now back, and focused our efforts simply on mitigating the threat from al-Qaeda. We could have used far less people, primarily the groups we already talked about. And then we could have just contributed like every other country foreign assistance for Afghanistan, but not a trillion dollars of U.S. taxpayer, which have now proven to be completely thrown away. Yeah. Completely thrown away.

So, you know, people are entitled to their opinion, but not their own facts. That's the fact. So it turned out to be a really bad decision to do that. But we could have maintained the ability to mitigate the threat

emanating them, just like we're doing in Syria right now. Yeah. Right? With a, with much fewer people. We had very few few people relatively speaking than other times at the end when we withdrew. Right? And we were not losing people.

We're basically enabling the Afghanistan forces that we put together. So I hope they do a real apolitical assessment and I'm sure the Pentagon will. But it needs to be more than just

the military. It needs to be military intelligence, covert action, diplomacy, USAID at the time, you know, AID, how that all fit in. What we did right, what we did wrong. And it needs to be honest because, you know, sugarcoat and that stuff is not going to help anybody in the future. It needs to be a real, you know, what we call after action review.

But on the grand scale. Yeah, I found it like super fascinating, like where it all kind of went wrong. And I get it. Like some guys want to be in the history books. I'm turning a nation around. But it's like, this isn't theory. right this is like real fucking life uh i'm talking about david petraeus to be completely honest uh i it's anyway we're getting off topic i i would love to do a fucking yeah like you know a bunch

of guys talking about it who like we're practitioners in both you know i'm assuming you're more counterterrorism because like you're a military officer so yeah well there's no i mean counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, all part of irregular warfare. It's not right or wrong, right? It's the policy, right? So if there was an insurgency in the United States, let's God hope it's like there's not.

Yeah, not going to counterinsurgency. For sure. You believe you believe in counter-surgency. You see what I mean? It's not an ideology. It's a tactic and technique. It's what political decisions did you make that you have to then use countered surgency techniques

and if you're trying to nation build and you have a sizable portion of the population that wants you to hell out Yeah, you're going to have to come. You see what I mean? It's the policy. It's the policy. It's not the, it's not the, you know, the theory under a regular

warfare. Yeah. You've got to be able to do all of it. And it's the policy. It's a political decisions made by political leaderships primarily. Not the generals. Not the generals. I don't blame it on them It's kind of nuts

You know Well he kind of got I guess Petraeus kind of got tagged As a Kilkoin guy You know what I mean Yeah but that's yeah Yeah And I'm friends with David Kilcullen

He was just in Whitefish Last week I was hanging out with him and his His wife Janine Davidson Also very Very accomplished in her own right Super smart on

Counterinsency If I had to do counterinsurgency I'd call David Kilcullen Yeah. But you're not responsible for the decisions necessarily that got you in the place that you have to use counterinsurgency. Sure. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. There's another great debate I'd love to have, especially with you and some like maybe case officers, not paramilitary, a perit, espionage versus paramilitary. And I know it works hand in hand and it should be a like symbiotic relationship. But like who gets, who should get more of. the lion's share, right? Like, because that's also been like a debate that I've heard come up every once in a while where it's like espionage versus paramilitary and like what's the CIA's role should be in like

the world and stuff like that. They definitely have to have both in their bag, right? Like both tools in their bag, but. Totally. Yeah. I kind of feel like that's a Washington debate. Yeah. Like, you know, it's like you take the, oh, is it China or Russia?

No, man. it's both. Right? Like it's a kind of a fault. No, we should send everything to the end of Pacific. Oh, really?

So if Russia beats Ukraine, you think that's going to make China less likely to want to take Taiwan? Right. So it's a vast debate. So the CIA, which obviously I am an alumni of, very proud of that, can and should and will do both.

Yeah. So there's going to be times when it's going to be skewed toward one or skewed toward the other. But that's, That's what leaders do. They go, hey, this is what we're facing now. So we're going to take more of our resources and put it toward that or that. And then they adjust, just like the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when it comes to military resource,

looks at going on on the world and sends assets to. But there's never the argument should be we have to be able to do both because certainly our enemies. And I think one of the things I want to talk about with Ukraine is all the covert stuff that Russia is doing. we have to be able to do both. So it needs to be that. And the other point I would make on covert, and I wrote an article for ABC a long time ago, it needs to be completely integrated

to the national security strategy and defense strategy of the United States. I think oftentimes covert operations are like, oh, man, we can't figure this out diplomatically. We can't do this militarily. it's a it's a it's a it's a dumpster fire hand it to the covert guys yeah yeah yeah so the problems that nobody else can fix and we're at the verge of collapse can hand it it needs to be integrated with everything so just and i know you guys a shit sandwich like go nuts right right just like oh this is

it needs to be integrated in part of the entire strategy for the u.s when it comes to the national security and there's stuff that people can't know that they're involved in that but There needs to, what I propose is a covert action annexed to the national security or national defense strategy. So that there's an integration where everybody knows how we're driving to get where we want. What the strategy is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

I think, I think that needs to be a lot more done. And it's a huge part of what the agency does. By the way, it's not just paramilitary folks. My tribe. There's everybody in the agency, particularly on the office. the DO, the director of operations to include operations officers, case officers all the term. They're all involved in it. So it's not just like, hey, that's that, their guy stuff.

Yeah. We do a lot of that, as you know when it's publicly out there. But it's a collective effort. But I think it's just a false argument to say, you know, should it be A or B? That's a fair point. I mean, because over the last 20 years or so, I understand like the CIA's, you know, basic, like, if not Aang, but like what everyone was really talking about was more their paramilitary side, I would say. Like that's been more in the news and in the headlines where like, and it's probably

grown exponentially since like the mid-90s probably, rightfully so and like what you needed to do when you were in Afghanistan and Iraq and other places. So that's a fair point. And like you said, like there needs to be both tools need to be in the tool bag. You know what I mean? Like you can't just. Yeah, 100%. You don't say, okay, so you're going to be.

We're going to war. We're doing a lot of, you know, what you're called paramilitary stuff. So we just need to have a bunch of paramilitary hammers. Right, right. Like, you actually need to have the screwdriver that collects critical intelligence on Russia, China, tensions, in Iran, North Korea, all that stuff, 100% all the time. Because you fail that, you've got, you know, you've got catastrophic consequences. But you also do need to be able to, and the agencies prove really good at,

and we've already talked about this, eliminating the, threats that never go away to our country, whether it's terrorism or the enemy's version of us, because they have it too. Yeah. This is another question that has nothing to do with topical stuff. I mean, I guess it does, but you were talking about having like a covert like kind of annex where you can kind of synergize like information and stuff like that and make it like so there's a coherent strategy between all like, you know, military and, you know, all national

security agencies or fiefdoms or whatever, do you run into a problem doing that where like there are these fiefdoms, right? Like where people are going to protect information. And I'm not saying obviously give stuff that they don't need to know, but like overall strategy, right, where like how do you make it where it's more seamless in terms of like being able to share information with other parts of the government to be able to work together easier and get, you know, react faster and stuff like that and be better. So obviously the covert nature of what our government does is one of the most highly

classified and security information. So it would likely have to be at the deputies and above level that would have a general and maybe even detailed knowledge and input on what this annex would be. Yeah. Right? But, you know, because there's a treasury aspect, there's a law enforcement aspect, there's obviously a military, and of course, a diplomacy should lead. Yeah. They come up with, this is what we hope to do, you know, our strategy and our objectives.

This is how each component of our national security apparatus can play a part. They don't have to know all the details. Sure. But at that level, you know, if you can't trust the, you know, the deputy secretary of defense or the treasury. What are we fucking doing? and rethink your whole system. And they at least get to see how all this, and of course the president of the United States,

who's at the top, they can see all this, like this is how this is going to work together to accomplish our strategic aims in China or wherever it is. And it's integrated. And it's not all action, right? There's influence component.

There's all sorts of things that go into this. Yeah. On the covert side that need to be included. And, you know, not everybody needs to know everything, but I think at that level and above, and, you know, you get them the right security clearances and you get them, you know, they periodically are checked for fidelity to that information, which we are. That is important. But, you know, I'm talking in general.

So the other thing I was bringing up, we're looking at Ukraine, right? So Ukraine right now, the Russians figure, okay, we got 50s. days, I think we're at 37 days left, just to do everything we can. Yeah. So it's proven ineffective to give them this long 50-day period. But it's a poor to point out. When Russia went into Ukraine, they did obviously overtly, which we can all see the horrible damage they've done, trying to take over a country for themselves.

But they also had a giant covert program against NATO. And it was assassinations, its political influence in minors. population, attacking critical infrastructure by cyber means, covert, basically paramilitary means, sabotaging undersea cables, use cyber to screw up grid systems. You know, I don't know what we're doing or I wouldn't be talking about it. I haven't been in government for a long time, but not only the U.S., but now I'm proposing that all of our NATO partners, if they don't have this capacity, they need to get this capacity. It can't just be about tanks and aircraft, which is important, but it has to be,

you got to, you fight the enemy the way the enemy fights you, or you're going to lose in that arena. And if they're not, they need to, because that's the way the Russians fight. They have no problem, you know, throwing bags of money to get somebody elected in some of these Eastern European countries that's going to basically be their puppet. You need to, and I don't, again, I have no idea. Maybe they're all doing it and all the they're all going Mick you don't know what you're talking about because we're all doing it's great I hope I hope I'm right but if we're not this needs to be a collective holistic effort to push back against our enemy in this case Russia and their enemy that's right on their doorstep that's right on their door I mean I have to I mean listen

places like Estonia Lithuania all those little satellites that used to be in the Soviet Union that are now NATO I don't know if Lithuania is but Estonia is you know they don't have massive militaries right so it's like they're one thing where they could probably be pretty effective is likely intelligence and i would hope you know covert operations and stuff like that because they're not dummies they have pretty uh advanced economies and stuff like that so and poland too like poland we all know poland's getting down so which is good which is you need that because they're like literally right on the fucking door step of Russia and Belarus and stuff.

So when did you, when did you retire from CIA? About 2017. That's when I went to the Pentagon. So you dabbled a little bit in the, when Crimea popped off the first minute about what was happening. I'm impressed with, I'm impressed with the Ukrainians and was then and am now. But then, you know, and they are very good. I mean, they prove they're very good.

Yeah. On the, on the, on the covert front, right? And a lot of the innovations that we're seeing are being integrated into that, you know, with the drones popping out of the back of, you know, trucks. The truck driver didn't even know was in there, right? And then taking out, you know, substantial amounts of strategic aircraft, for example. But this is, it's an all. It's not a one or the other. Right.

It's not a, you need to have a very strong conventional military, a very strong special operations military. in a very strong covert capacity, action, in your intelligence services, which doesn't mean intelligence services don't collect intelligence. That's her primary mission. But it needs to be all, any argument where it needs to,

one needs to go away is seriously underestimating the world's situation right now. And looking at it from the perspective of our adversaries. One, well, I think I grew up with the phrase, but, you know, turn the map around, which means you have to look at the world from your enemy's perspective, not just your own,

or you will miss a lot. Yeah. Yeah, really well said. I mean, so we got 13 days left till this, the 50-day, whatever deadline thing is, for what, to talk about a ceasefire? I mean, are they even talking? Because all I see is Russia bombing the shit out of Ukraine.

The last meeting I read or was told was 40 minutes. Russia's not interested in a ceasefire. So what needs to happen? You know, almost a broken record on this. Russia doesn't really bend to economic pressure, which is not me saying that we shouldn't put economic pressure on. Sure.

We should. We should do secondary sanctions. That is what's going to cut off some of the money that they use, most of the money, because if people don't buy their energy, how are they going to fund this thing, right? But military pressure. Military pressure would be sell whatever our NATO allies, especially if they're buying it. I mean, there's no reason not to. I mean, I think a lot of it should be donated by the United States.

But however it gets to the Ukrainians, they need defensive, offensive weapons. They need to be unrestricted. Yeah. Unrestricted. You can't tie Ukraine's arm behind their back and expect them to be able to win against an enemy that's four times their size and supported by China, North Korea. Korea and Iraq. Unrestricted, right? They're not putting any restrictions on. Completely, yeah. Right? Russia focuses on killing civilians.

They focus on civilian targets. So we need to take, I mean, we should not, because, you know, the best thing is to not be like your enemy, allow them to use our weapon systems against civilians. But to be able to strike military targets, wherever they might be in Russia, that should have been done a long time ago. Total green light. Total green light. Yeah.

The other thing that combines the economic and military pressure is start releasing this frozen assets and trotches that puts pressure on them to be able to buy these weapons that we're talking about right now. That's a military and economic pressure that comes together with impact. Or we just basically gave Russia 50 days to try to make every bit of advancements by any means necessary against Ukraine, which only puts Ukraine in a worse. position for negotiations yeah so like those secondary sanctions right I'm assuming I know I read that like Russia is selling majority not a lot probably a majority of their oil to China and I think India is right right so that those secondary sanctions would hit that those like that money that's being there yes and I it look I'm not an economist so if there's an economist out there maybe they can

add to our podcast the consequences. I'm told there's serious consequences. Like this could have a big global disruption. So I'm not, I'm not ignorant to that, at least not that ignorant. But we have 85 plus senators that have signed on to the sanctioning Russia Act, which would put a 500% tariff on those that buy energy. I think the best case in area was they stop buying the energy. Right. Right. I think that would not cause the global disruption. Maybe it will with the oil prices. The smart folks on that, I hope they add to, you know, the Congress section. But that is what the plan is. And from a perspective of how to counter Russia, it should have a big effect. Like, they just can't make money. And

there's a whole fleet of, by the way, they're not just selling it to Indian China. No, I know. Black fleet, covert side. It's run through the covert. To your heart. To your whole. Dude, they park in, like, the Laconian Bay, like, where my dad is, like, at lives. He sent me pictures of, like, these fucking tankers that are just parked over there. And those are, like, all Russian tankers. All Russian tankers. So Europe needs to do a lot better to win themselves off of, you know, they're funding the war that they're obviously against. Yeah.

There's a lot of, there's a lot that needs to be done. Can't somebody just shoot Putin in the face and get this done with? I mean, whoever comes after would be, who knows, right? Like, there's probably, you know, theories. That's the issue on these political assassinations. They can be a domino effect, of course, but you never know who replaces them. And I think Putin probably spends most of his time ensuring that he stays around. Right.

His security apparatus, which is obviously he's very good at, is there. From the Ukrainian perspective, he's a valid target. I mean, he's the commander-in-chief of the Russian forces, and they employ. For sure. They invaded Ukraine and I'm sure they view President Zelensky for sure. We know this as a valid military target. I remember last year, I think it might have been last summer. He was somewhere in the east in Ukraine with the Greek prime minister and a missile hit like maybe 100 meters away from them.

I wonder what would go down if like a NATO allied leader gets clipped in the same kind of strut. a strike as like Zelensky. Like, what does that mean? How does that play in terms of like Article 5 and like what, you know, being there? Right. Because I think even President Zelensky was joking that he was going to give Lieutenant General Kellogg, the special envoy for Ukraine, a passport. So he'd stay in Ukraine because essentially is when he's there talking, you know, there's

no strikes on Kiev where he is. Right. Because, I mean, if you kill a, you know, Lieutenant General Kellogg, who's, I think, doing a very good job, you've essentially attacked the United States. That's how I'd view it. So Article 5 is Article 5. Well, I mean, we don't even need Article 5 because he's our guy. He's part of the administration, right? He's like a full-blooded member of the administration.

So it's not like some guy who's a contractor, who's there. you know he's actually doing official works uh man i don't know it's just going to be like drag i feel like it's just going to keep dragging out with Putin right like he doesn't give a fuck how many people of his own people die certainly doesn't give a shit about any Ukrainians doesn't give a shit about his own people he literally i mean there are 850,000 casualties they're taking like 1500 a week i don't know how they can stay keep to stay in it's hard to keep up with it. Yeah.

They simply don't care. You would hope that the Russian people would have, they're going to lose an entire generation of males. Yeah. I mean, even the guys that come back, already has. What do you think the guys that come back are going to be like? Do you think they're going to be well-adjusted human beings? Missing arms and legs and had no, no, no choice of whether to go and fight, right?

So let's not turn it all against the Russian people. It's the Russian regime. Right. It's not turned against the Russian people. It's a Russian regime that's making these calls. And the Russian people need to step up and say, well, never should have happened. Start it in the first place. But can't unchange that.

You can change whether you continuously to send your young men specifically to these meat grinders. It is the war in Ukraine. Yeah. All right. So you want to touch on like the space race? That's what we're tracking with that. Yeah. I know we've been going for quite a.

bit, but, you know, this week, we saw that it was 4,000 senior leaders from NASA. The investment in science and technology is something that benefits the United States, in my opinion, as an analyst, not only every aspect of our society, you know, health, welfare. Yeah. The ability to produce energy, for example, safely and cleanly. but it is definitely a part of our national security strategy, right? I mean, we created the space force for a reason. Yeah.

And we have spent a lot of time, effort, and resources making sure the United States should be first and foremost in the space environment. Why are we cutting 4,000 highly experienced NASA personnel? It makes no sense to me. It's countering your own efforts to say that the U.S. is going to be successful in our competition with other countries in space or a competition with ourselves. I mean, space just by itself is enough of a challenge and colonizing other planets, certainly all of that. That needs to be something that is bipartisan or nonpartisan. we need to be successful in that and we need to be able to defend ourselves because I don't think we should weaponize space but I also am not into unilateral you know disarmament so if our enemies

are going to unfortunately we need to be just like we are on earth we got to be ahead of them we got to be better than that yeah right so investment in science technology everywhere but certainly in space, investment in our ability to explore space and lead it. It needs to be a priority, and at least that indicates it's not a priority. It just, you know, put your money where your mouth was, put your resources, which includes funds and personnel. The trippy thing is it's like 4,000 people from NASA. It's like in the scale of what the federal budget is, you know, does that really make

a dent? It's a fucking rounding error. You know, it's not like you're doing this to like cut spending to a point where we're going to be in a surplus and be able to pay down the debt. Like, what are we talking about? You know, it's such a. Is a minor part of our expense. And that's, I agree with you, D, it's a minor part of our overall expense. I think it is, maybe we could ask Senator Kelly, our previous guest.

But I think it has actually a big impact on NASA because NASA is not that big. Right. Yeah, that too. Their budget's not this massive budget that's like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

So at a time we're talking about doing the, you know, the golden dome. Right. So that the senators that talked about this, you know, it was billed as $125 billion. Senators from both sides saying, oh, it's going to be trillions. Yeah. Right? So, you know, it's unclear whether it will work. I'm not saying I'm against the concept, but we need to really balance what we're doing.

We need to be successful. And if our enemies are going to weaponize space, bad. But if they are, we need to be better at it than that. Right. Just like we are on Earth. And it requires resources and experience personnel to do that. Yeah, I totally agree. Mick, this was great.

I know you're super busy, so get you the hell out of here. Mick always works. Even Sundays, he works. So do us a favor, like and subscribe. Don't forget to check out mixed stuff All the links are in the description And patreon.com slash The Teamhouse. Make you got anything else?

I think we could everything. I think we did a good job too. I want to get some of you former spooks in a room to like start yelling at each other About I really do Counter it, counter espionage versus paramilitary who should get the Who should get the bigger piece of the pie and stuff

Because I know that happens in It has to happen like a budget Yeah, but also so to be frank, both sides play a part in the other side. Sure. I agree. I think if you shut the door and there wasn't anybody listening, they'd be like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Let's just do what we do and do it better than we did before. Yeah. Well said. All right, bro. We'll talk next time. All right, my friend. Have a good wish you, so.

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