The Team House - India & Pakistan at War? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: May 8, 2025

Today Andy breaks down what is happening with India and Pakistan and whether it will escalate to a full fledged war.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?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_appBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.sociBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Andy Milburn, Colonel Andy Milburn, retired. Right? You told me I got to refer to you as colonel, so. No one bug, bad. Yeah. I'll have to meet you, Contacos.

Thanks for joining us. Do us a favor. Don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're listening to an audio rated five stars and check out our Patreon. Patreon. com slash the team house. All right. Plugs out of the way.

and Andy Milburn's book When the Tempest Gav there's link is in the description Andy how are you first and foremost Yeah I'm doing great I'm just love life here in Riyadh Saudi Arabia

Beautiful sunny I think it's probably very sunny Riyadh Honey very healthy There's no alcohol Oh good Live on a compound There's no way to get into trouble here

So I'm doing very well Thank you for us Almost like prison but nicer far nicer yeah and you're getting paid so it could be it could actually be prison um all right so a lot happened last night uh india hit back on uh pakistan and uh retaliation for the attack in kashmir that killed 26 people um islamas uh india saying it was islamist militants in kashmir um india hit Pakistan controlled Kashmir and they also hit like Pakistan proper. They say it's all like militant groups, infrastructure and stuff like that.

As far as we know right now, nine people have died. I'm sure it's more. Pakistan is saying that they've shot down three to, it goes from three or five aircraft jets, you know, fourth generation plus fighters and drones. I don't know if that's been confirmed. confirmed. They have been since the retaliation, been trading artillery. So what the fuck is going to happen, Andy? I mean, is this going to spiral out of control? Yeah, put it on my plate. Well, actually,

I don't think it will, Dean. I'll get back to this. So just, you know, a little bit of background. And, you know, I know we're not supposed to insert ourselves into the story, Dean, you warn us about that all the time. I never warn you. But I'm actually very, you know, You know, I mean, I've been to Shrinagar three or four times. I'm probably one of the few Americans who has been there, and I'm old enough to have been there before it was blocked off to tourists. I went there as a teenager twice and just love the most beautiful area in the foothills of the Himalayas. It's just extraordinary.

The people there are wonderful too, you know, and needless to say, of course, it's very sad that it has been such a boned contention. between India and Pakistan going back as we talked about to the 1949 partition. I'm sorry, 47 partition. I was thinking of the birth of, I was thinking of 48, 49 birth of Israel. 47 partition between the two countries. So here's what I am seeing right now, Dean. I could be absolutely wrong.

and that there's a lot of speculation in Twitterland. But what I'm saying is this, that both countries are actually, despite the usual bellicose statements, both countries are kind of playing according to unwritten rules. All right. Yes, to your point, the tit for tat, the strikes have strayed out of Kashmir into areas of Pakistan, But if you look at what the targets are, and you look at some of the photographs from the media, the aerial photographs, it does seem as though India is making an effort to avoid collateral damage.

And who knows whether the reports of civilians being killed or true or not, but when you look at the photographs, it is individual houses or compounds that have been struck. and I think probably most of our listeners are aware of the province that India has had with homegrown Pakistan or Pakistan supporting terrorist organizations, allegedly supporting terrorist organizations like Lashka al-T-L-Tib, right? Hopefully I haven't mispronounced that L-E-T and J-Sha-Mohmet. And those are two. and Lashkar, LET, is the organization that launched the 2008 Mumbai Rade that resulted in several hundred dead civilians. And that was, there's actually a movie about that that I talked about. It was a very well-planned raid, and it was, by all accounts, commanded and controlled

from L-E-T, by L-A-T in Pakistan. And then, you know, India has, there's been a number of attacks since then. And there have been a number of clashes since then in 2016 and in 2019. And again now. And, you know, everyone is worried that here are two nuclear powers apparently on the verge of war. But let's look at a couple of things. Okay, so I talked about the fact that these strikes seem to be quite limited. and Pakistan, for its part, has hit targets in Kashmir.

Pakistan is talking about now striking India. Certainly has the capability to do that as quite a missile array. And India, of course, has the ability to return that. But so far, the targeting has been quite specific. And the other thing is kind of interestingly. So the Pakistani has reported that they've shot down, between three to five Indian jets and a heron drone. The Indians have clearly, I mean, not clearly,

they're admitting they've lost aircraft, although the photographs that are appearing on Twitter are from, they're not recent. They're from last year or back in 2019. But, you know, safe to say that the Indians have lost aircraft. Those aircraft actually crashed in India, raising speculation that they were, you know, these were accidents, but it's entirely possible that Pakistan shot them down.

The Indians haven't actually been flying over Pakistani airspace. So when I talk about their attempts to limit actions, they've been hoisting, launching, lofting missiles from the Indian side of the border towards Pakistan. And so they may have been, you know, intercepted in the air over, but certainly they crashed in Indian territory. So I will pause there in case you have any questions. So maybe I'm just being overly optimistic, but I don't see this going down the path to war. You know, then neither country stands to gain from this.

It is true that Modi, who's the Indian Premier, he stands to gain. He's got a tremendous, he was in the past tremendously popular in India, but there has been some dissatisfaction recently. with him not just over ethnic tensions, over a plateauing economy, which may not be entirely his fault, but he's getting blamed for that. And so he does benefit by rattling sabers at Pakistan,

which he's happy to do from time to time. But it certainly doesn't benefit him to go to war. And certainly, although the populations of both countries have been brought up in this atmosphere of, I would say hatred, that's a strong word, but near enough towards the other country. And although both countries went to war, you know, 50 years gone a very bloody campaign over what became Bangladesh was then East Pakistan.

Again, the, you know, the undercurrent of, the real undercurrent of feeling, if you're to look at reflections of India and Pakistan social media, is not, hey, let's go to war, let's bash him. it is a real concern that they will go to war. And I think that their leaders will pay attention to that. Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about tonight's sponsor for the show, which is Ridge Wallets. I've been using this for about six months now.

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So I've given them away, too. And our producer, Dimitri, has one. So please go and check out Ridge Wallets. Yeah, I mean, let's hope so. And then, you know, last we talked about, I believe it's in 1998, there was perhaps the both countries came closest to the brink of fallout, of war since they had been since 71. and there was open talk about nuclear preemption,

both countries using nuclear weapons against the other. And apparently, you know, I only know this for sure on the Pakistani side, that there is a policy of preemptive strike. In other words, if they suspect that the other country is preparing to or threatening to, then they are authorized within their own kind of strategic doctrine to strike first with nuclear weapons, which is obviously concerning. Sure, yeah.

And also giving command and control over to generals and stuff sounds a bit wily coyote. It sounds a bit nuts to me. Yeah, it's more of a danger really on the Pakistani side. So, you know, one thing. And I would say the US foreign policy has consistently fallen short, honestly, when it's come to Pakistan. And I know there's a large audience out there who is going to be horrified by me saying this

because we all remember that the Pakistanis supported, or the ISI at least, supported the Taliban in Afghanistan. I mean, that is no secret. They supported the Taliban, but not necessarily, you know, not al-Qaeda. And I think that's an important distinction. And needless to say, we created a lot of the problems. in Afghanistan, which is my opinion, you know, with the Taliban. And when we were always trying to get Pakistan on side, we didn't recognize two things that the Pakistani security forces themselves

were taking heavy casualties from Islamists in what they call the tribal provinces, you know, the border adjacent with Afghanistan. That was number one. Number two is that they supported the Taliban as a bulwark against India. And we, the United States, never really kind of recognized that we, you know, during the Cold War, we wanted, you know, we courted both countries. And then, of course, when the Russians invaded Afghanistan, we were all in in Afghanistan. and we were, and we with the full collaboration with the ISI, with the Pakistani intelligence services were supporting the Mujahideen, of course,

many of whom became most of whom, you know, the Pashtun fighters who subsequently became the Taliban. And of course, the Arab fighters with Osama bin Laden, were a subset of that and became al-Qaeda. And there was a natural partnership that occurred under our noses. and in fact, arguably, we helped forge. We also were the ones who are supporting, you know, the Pakistanis on condition that they supported the Mujahideen.

So we created that bond between the ISI and the Taliban and then subsequently turned around and blamed Pakistan for having that bond. I mean, look, Pakistan is not blameless, of course, but I'm just saying that our own strategy towards Pakistan has been at the very least confusing. And so one other thing that is, I think, really concerning the Pakistan is obviously the threat of nuclear wars is concerning both countries.

But the question of water rights, I believe it's called the Indus River Agreement, someone will correct me, I'm sure in their comments, but basically they're, you know, both countries, well, Pakistan's dependent on India to some extent for water supplies. And now India is threatening to dam up its reservoirs and create a huge amount of silt making the water that reaches Pakistan problematic, difficult to drink. And that is going to be difficult to use. that is going to be a significant issue too. So there are things that both countries,

what India can do in particular to herd Pakistan, that don't necessarily involve firing missiles and just go on generating this tension between them. And yes, Pakistan, you know, I may sound quite supportive of Pakistan, but there's no doubt about it that there are extremist groups who have safe haven in Pakistan,

and I mentioned two of them, L-E-T and was there one, Jashal Muhammad. And both of those groups have conducted terrorist attacks, not just the Mumbai-2008 attacks, but consistently conducted attacks, not just in Trinigar, but in India, too, killing Indian civilians. And so when India strikes into Pakistan, and this was the same in 2019,

it always claims, and I think with some justification that it is going after these particular basis. Yeah, understandably so, I would think. Just bring it back to the ISI, Pakistan ISI. I mean, because some, you mean, the most high-profile terrorist was found living, you know, in the west point of Pakistan. And you don't think there was any ISI help in terms of like getting Osama bin Laden set up over there? Look, yeah, you know, I'm I'm sure that there was collaboration at that stage. But and you've got to remember that by then there was, again, I'm not. I know you're not. I know you're not.

Yeah. I'm just saying like what a dummy would ask. We, you know, we, the United States and taken eyes from the Pakistani point. view, okay? And I have, you know, I had one friend, I actually went through the war college with Marinko War College as a Pakistani general. So I, you know, I was able to see things a little bit from that side. And we had a very, very transactional, a hard relationship with the Pakistanis. There were times when we fired into Pakistan. You know, I mean, you're probably aware of this. there were at times when Pakistani soldiers were hit by U.S. artillery fire.

And I know we're going to get people popping up saying, well, there was a reason for that. Yes, I know. But the way that it was projected in Pakistan was U.S. aggression. And the United States is very, very unpopular among the Pakistani population. A lot of that is due to propaganda. A lot of it is perception of U.S. policy being anti-Pakistani or anti-Bakistani. Muslim. I understand that and a lot of it is propagated not by necessarily by the government, but by organizations and the media within Pakistan. So yes, I have no doubt that, of course,

Osama bin Laden couldn't have lived there for so long without some complicit help by the Pakistani government. I'm just saying that we, the U.S. are not blameless in creating that very fraud, relationship with with pakistan right yeah i feel like we're not blameless in any front relationships we have all over the world right like uh we always this takes two to tango really um i mean just a little bit more uh what's going on like right now on the ground there tanks moving towards the indian pakistani tanks moving towards the indian border i'm sure that could be just more saber rattling just pakistan showing that they are you know serious about this and they're not backing down. Do you think Pakistan retaliates? Maybe a tick for tat. Yeah. So you're saying there's

there's tanks moving towards the border on the Pakistani side. Correct. On the Pakistani side. Yeah. The Indian side, there is a state. It's Rajasthan, which is the, yeah, the closest to Pakistan. And they've gone on high alert there and closed airports. But I don't know, you know, There hasn't been signed of movements, unless I'm missing this, large movement of ground forces towards that. But there has been fighting already along the line of control in Trinigar, which is essentially the front line between the two countries. And there's kind of an agreement that what happens in Trinigar stays in Trinigar.

So I think that both countries are going to be quite eager to keep it there. But yeah, there's been exchanges of artillery. There have been casualties on both sides. Not, you know, not yet direct infantry fighting, but certainly artillery raids. Do you see there being a chance where Pakistan sends like a couple dozen ballistic missiles into India? Oh, well, that, you know, that would be definitely an escalation. I mean, you know, so Pakistan could portray it as not. stopping an escalation, having said, hey, look, the Indians have already struck Pakistani soil,

but the Indians are making it very clear that when we did that, it was going after these specific terrorist targets. Notice they haven't struck the Pakistani military in Pakistan, and that is an important distinction to both sides. So for Pakistan to go after, say, Indian military targets in India, definitely an escalation. And that is when it's certainly going to be concerning D because Modi, as you know, you're probably aware is he's populist. He's a nationalist. Remember the problems the Canadians have had with him over assassinating Sikh activists in Canada.

And the Indians just didn't back down on that. You know, it's basically, hey, who gives a shit whether you disagree with it or not? I mean, it was very clear that they did that. So, you know, and it's he's not going to want to lose face. So it's typical tell, you know, the Pakistanis, though, will understand this too. And it's going to be, you know, they're both playing brinksmanship because they're both playing to our home audience. Right. And it may be, it may be, and I'm not saying necessarily true, that on the Pakistani side, you know, where the military is concerned, because the, you know, the, you know, what's,

What's the saying that Pakistan, in most countries, you know, most democratic countries you have, they'll have a military, but in Pakistan, it's a case of the military having a country. You know, there's some truth in that. I mean, no civilian government in Pakistan has survived without support of the military. But my point is the strength there may be that is they don't have to play to a civilian population to get reelected. And, you know, I, and the Pakistani military is as aggressive as though may be sounding,

certainly don't want to plunge their country into war. And just a reminder for everyone, India is far bigger than Pakistan. Right. So, I mean, it would be a tremendously bloody, costly, pointless war for both countries. But Pakistan would be liable to emerge from this, the world. us. So what are like, what's the international community and like the U.S., I guess, more doing to like kind of pull these guys back and like, you know, talk a little bit more

sense and have everybody just relax a little bit? Yeah, that's the other concerning thing. So normally, you know, previously and not always with, with a great deal of effectiveness, but the United States has stepped up to the plate to try and mediate. And in 1971, it was Kissinger, who did make a determined effort to try and prevent that war. But he was distracted, obviously, by other things, such as Vietnam, the invasion of Cambodia, relations with China. But, you know, in more recent years, yeah, it's been the United States. It's kind of led the charge on trying to negotiate and calm things down.

I haven't really seen that. You know, there's been a little bit of, you know, Rubio has, he's commented about it. And he's, he, India's briefed him, he said. But there doesn't seem to be a very concerted effort to try and diffuse the crisis. And it's really, it's not clear whether the United States has he. or capacity to do so. I know the president said, it's a shame, you know, they've been fighting for many, many decades,

but that's not quite the same as reaching out to both leaders and saying, hey, knock it off. Yeah. I know you're not like, you know, you didn't work in the State Department, really, but what happens when there's no ambassadors to both countries? Like who's kind of taking the lead on this? Because, yeah, all right, you could talk to the Secretary of State,

blah, blah, blah, but like who's doing like the on the ground? ground stuff. Well, no one's doing it right now. Nobody. It's just not, yeah, I don't know where we stand with regard to ambassadors to India and Pakistan.

I know you had, who's who yet? Oh, last time, Louis Rita. Yeah. What did he have to say on that? He said, I mean, Lewis, God bless him. I love Lewis.

He's got a bit of a pessimistic view on stuff. He says no one's doing anything, really. Because I asked him about, like, what's this, like, see, look into like what a CIA station or or a state or an embassy is like doing he's like, listen, they're talking to their context, but there really probably isn't much direction. Yeah, I mean, I think he's, I think he's absolutely right. And but I honestly, I think India and Pakistan are going to sort this out.

You know, India has said, again, with some justification, and I'm playing the street down the middle, that it strikes were focused and measured and non-escalatory. pointing out that it hasn't struck the Pakistan military, economic or civilian targets, but what it calls known terror camps, and I think that's a fair statement. And, you know, Pakistan could respond with a retaliatory strike with, I mean, Pakistan's got a large, diverse arsenal of cruise and ballistic missiles, which you could fire into India without requiring jets to cross the border. It could do that, but it hasn't done that yet.

And I think it's because despite all the heated rhetoric, Pakistan's likely to choose the scale and nature of its response with a lot of care and doing enough to placate its own populace by saying, look, look, what we're doing and restore a modicum of deterrence. But without escalating the crisis. I mean, I think beneath the rhetoric, that's what you see from both the countries. Yeah, I mean, I guess that's a great thing. Yeah, I mean, you know, and just looking in Twitterland, the Indian Army's already declaring kind of victory saying justice is served. Yeah, I saw that. So that's the thing. Like how does it play to their populace, right?

Like at least someone, people have to save face. And I mean, I guess it does make sense that India did it was more of a measured kind of retaliation. It took, you know, three weeks, right? They didn't start shooting missiles into Pakistan. or Pakistan Kashmir, you know, a couple days after. So, yeah, I hope it could just be like a, you know, proportional on each side and like, you know, let's just go back to like really, actually we still hate each other, but let's not kill each other. Yeah, I mean, I do believe that's what we're going to see.

And, you know, I hope I'm not proven incorrect. What's funny is Lewis last week actually said that, uh, he, He's read, he's, they've had weather models and reports done surveys that if Pakistan and India had a nuclear exchange of just 25% of their arsenal, it, depending on the winds and stuff like that, it could have like seriously fuck up not only the world, but like the United States, I mean, because we live here, so we care about it more, I guess, but it could like kill crops in the United States, cost millions of people to die in the U.S. because it'll get all the way to the West Coast from. from where India and Pakistan are, which is, you know, insane to actually think about. Hopefully, like you said, and I'm trusting you, it doesn't go down.

Watch, once we sign off here, it's going to be Pakistan, you know, shoots 20 fucking ballistic missiles into India. Knock our wood, I hope it doesn't. No, I mean, I put money on it. I think we're going to see de-escalation over the next few days, which is good because there's, you know, that's what the world needs more.

right, this de-escalation. Yeah, absolutely. When is your, Andy, if you guys don't know, Andy's writing a new book about the conflict and the war going on in Gaza. When is that coming out? Do you have any idea? Yeah, it's going to come out towards the end of this year. I know that sounds a little bit vague, but that's my publisher can tell me. And it was, you know, honestly, I mean, it's been a tough book to write, as you can imagine.

I spent a considerable time in Israel and, I mean, all over. And, you know, I wanted to be, you know, I paused because it fair doesn't seem quite the right term. But I wanted to, I wanted to be absolutely accurate. I wanted to tell an absolutely accurate story from both sides. You know, why did this happen? Why was Hamas able to conduct these attacks? but why did Hamas plan the attacks? You know, what was some of the background to this?

And not all of this has been in the papers, by the way. And, you know, so I found I was very fortunate in that I had a number of contacts who are not trying to be mysterious, you know, who I can't name in the book, but who had a tremendous amount of knowledge about the background. from both, from both, you know, points of view. And so, yes, you know, how did Hamas plan the attacks? Was the detail that went into these planning? How did they prepare for it?

Some of this is astonishing material. It really is. And then, you know, why was Israel lulled into the sense of complacency? And, you know, we talked a lot about it being an intelligence failure, but it was really a failure of imagination. You know, because the intelligence was there. Admittedly, a lot of the collection methods had been steadily shut down because of policy and partly because of complacency.

But the, you know, the science was certainly there. Why were they ignored? And perhaps more importantly, you know, as an operations guy, I'm not an Intel guy. And so I know enough as an operations guy, you don't rely on Intel to give you an early warning. because very simply stated, all successful attacks rely on surprise, right? So you've always got to be on your guard. And there was an entire division, the Gaza division, that was focused on containing Gaza and a number of missteps,

both, you know, again, policy intelligence and the operational side. And then, you know, the attacks themselves, the performance of the IDF from responding, to those attacks were quite, I think we're part of the most shocking, not the most shocking, but we're part of the impact of the story to the Israeli public for whom the IDF had always been this kind of iconic institution to find out how seriously they failed, not just in the lead-up to the attacks, but on the day of the attacks. And then subsequently, in a number of ways, and the realization that they had kind of a two-tier army.

They had an army that was technologically very savvy, very good, considered it so very good at targeting, had some very good units, and yet the rank and file, the quality of the rank and file, the regular infantry units had plummeted considerably. And that's, you know, I'm jumping a little bit into the book here. Yeah, yeah. Look at the huge number of casualty.

of civilian casualties in Gaza, and there are a number of complex reasons for that. But one of the reasons is simply that the IDF couldn't trust their infantry to go in and do, for instance, what we did in Fallujah. I mean, I was going to say, you probably remember Flujia. You were a kid then, but, you know, having fallen my way through Fallujah, we made mistakes. We made a lot of mistakes. but we didn't we didn't annihilate everything in our path we had to go in and clear buildings time after time after time and anyone who pushes back on that I would challenge that is not the way that the IDF approached Gaza you know they

as you saw it was kind of a scorched earth policy they would flat places very very heavy reliance on fire support and that's kind of what you do when you have second-rate infantry is you have, you know, I'm not saying they had to do that. I'm saying that's what you find yourself doing. The very few, you know, set for the special operations units, who as I said were very good, very, very few incidents where soldiers had to go into a building and clear rooms the way we didn't flujia. And by the way, I don't advocate that at all.

You know, I mean, there are smarter ways to do that. You can do it now with drones, you can do it with unmanned vehicles, but certainly, you know, they say there's a lot of, a lot of parts to this story, and that's been one of the hardest parts about, about making this much more than just a narrative of massacre and reaction, you know, a story really about why it happened

and why it happened the way that it did without becoming too analytical. in the same time keeping the narrative going. It's been a challenge. It's tested my limited writing skills to do that limit. Yeah, I'm looking forward to it. It sounds like it's going to be a very interesting story because we just, it's just, and we're inundated with stuff,

so it's really good to, like, kind of hone in on why, why it happened and what was the reasoning behind it. IDF, like, in terms like second rate infantry, is it just because they're all, conscripts and not all professional soldiers? It's a number of a number of reasons. So, you know, you have to, you have to remember that, you know, back in, and I heard this time and time again.

You know, the last time that Israel was surprised so badly was in 1973. In fact, almost to the day, 50 years before in the Yom Kippel War. But the triumph of that war from an Israeli standpoint was that the, the IDF recovered and did so incredibly quickly. I mean, the majority of their casualties in that war were in the first 48, 72 hours, and they mobilized a huge number of reservists, threw them into the line, and they performed admirably. That was not the case in this case, as you are probably seeing a lot of the investigations now coming out.

So there isn't just Andy Milvan talking about what happened on 7 October. Israeli investigations are revealing it again and again that the idea failed to protect civilian communities for a number of reasons, you know, not having a quick reaction force, not being aggressive enough. There were kibbutzs where the army waited outside while the inhabitants were being slaughtered. I mean, this is almost incomprehensible. A beach assault where Hamas, fighters, a small group of them, by the way, eight of them stormed ashore and killed something like 20 civilians in Sakeem Beach. And there was a, you know, patrol and Israeli patrol who didn't even engage them. You know, I mean, it's...

Why not? Well, who knows? Who knows? You know, lack of initiative, lack of aggression, lack of courage. I mean, I'm going to get vilified to saying this. I don't know. I don't know the answer, But if you doubt what I'm saying, you can read the investigations in the Israeli papers about what happened. Now, don't get me wrong. There were lots of incidents

of where individuals and units showed great courage on the day. But there was a total breakdown of command and control, and a lot of commanders who just seemed to lack the initiative aggression to do what they were supposed to do. And that is why partly the story of why so many civilians died on the day. And it's, you know, to the Israeli public, it's a hugely shocking revelation.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm really looking forward to this book. I love an advanced copy. Please. Thank you. Yeah, well, just get me on your show The Team House. I'll try.

I'll figure it. I'll talk to somebody. We could probably fit you in. I know it's the kind of the second tier podcast in your repertoire. Yeah. absolutely yeah the little side project the team house um okay so indian pakistan are not going to trade nuclear weapons which is always a plus i feel like that's good hopefully yeah yeah um so the only other things that i would talk about and just in passing

you know while all this is going on all right and you know how i feel about russia's peace overtures, but Russia again stunked Kiev with four ballistic missiles and 140 drones overnight. It's last night or the night before. I'm losing track from seven hours ahead of you guys. So it must be the night before. And, you know, Zelensky's called for stronger sanctions on Russia to pave the wave to diplomacy. I don't know if anyone's going to listen to him.

And, you know, there is going to be a supposedly three-day ceasefire. The Russians have said in commemoration of what they call Victory Day, what we call Victory in Europe Day, which is 9 May. And so we'll see, you know, where that goes. Yeah, no shit, because they don't want fucking some Ukrainian drone blown up their fucking dais. And in fairness, you know, Ukraine has attacked Moscow with drones for the third consecutive night, which is quite a, you know, you notice. If I'm the SBU, that's what I'm aiming for.

But in fairness too, when you look at, yes, undoubtedly, I am sure that some of these strikes in the Moscow have killed civilians. But at the same time, the Ukrainian strikes in the Moscow are very clearly, deliberately aimed at military or political, you know, command and control type targets. But certainly they must have quite an effect on Russian morale. you know, hitting the Capitol, and they seem to enrage Putin, which is a good thing. There is some word that Putin was thinking about not going to the parade. Well, he has always been extremely paranoid about his personal safety. I mean, incredibly so. You know, even during COVID, he was terrified of catching COVID and it resulting in his demise.

Yeah. So, yes, he makes himself a very, very hard target. and doesn't announce his appearances and sometimes simply doesn't appear. Who knows? I mean, listen, that's got to be a propaganda win for the Ukrainians if he's not even showing up. If he doesn't show up, even if he's contemplating it, they should be projecting this everywhere and everywhere. Yeah, but I mean, but you're right, Dee, but in the end, the one thing, and then this

is a very complex question. We'd have to get Russianologists on to talk about it, but it's, you know, you know, it's really difficult to determine how shoddy or bad, you know, what effect it has on the war or policy or anything. Right. You show the Russians what a shitty government they have. I mean, they know it. You know, look at the slaughter in Ukraine. Look at how many soldiers they are losing every day.

I mean, it's just phenomenal. They are losing, they're losing as many soldiers just in Ukraine. And you can look this up. I know I keep saying that, but I'm very careful with my statistics. They're losing as many soldiers as the combined Allied armies lost in Normandy every day, right? Much smaller force. And so it's just staggering. And yet, you don't hear about things like fraggings, right, of soldiers.

rebelling or shooting their officers. It's just an extraordinary atmosphere, and I think it's partly cultural, historical, that they are just inured to suffering. And it's a very, you know, it's a very sad comment, but it really, the effect, so I guess what I'm saying is, whether you're talking soldiers or civilians,

there doesn't seem to be a correlation between low morale and affecting policy. And it was even better in Soviet days, arguably, because you remember the end of the Afghan war, in part was brought about by pressure on Gorbachev from within his party, and notably by a group of political lobbying group formed by mothers of soldiers in Afghanistan, and the war was extremely unpopular.

And yet the Russians suffered, what, 15,000 killed? you know, that's, that's a few days in Ukraine. I mean, it's a couple of weeks in Ukraine without exaggeration. And they, and, but that, that made it, the Afghan, that made it, that put enough pressure on Gorbachev. And of course, he's dealing with a ton of other things by 1989, the latest. Yeah. But to, to pull that up. And you just don't see that in modern day Russia.

Not at all, at all. So the only other. As we, you know, wrap up what's going on with the Truman, you know, another F-18 overboard. Yeah. And, you know, I know that I saw that meme on, if I sent you that meme of the cat pushing the. No, no, the Chinese broadcaster saying, you know, the Americans throw their airplanes in the water when they're done with it. So what's, I think the C.O. of the Truman was relieved, right?

So they, he's got, he was relieved because they had. Wasn't he relieved a month ago? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so this is a new CEO. I think his name is Hill.

And I feel for him because what seems to be going on. I mean, you can't point to necessarily the bad leadership. I mean, they lost one F18 to, it was shot down by another ship, right? Yeah. And then they lost one the other day, which was. In the hangar. Yeah, which was clearly, I didn't know. I mean, it was just, with bad training, bad, I mean, it was just clearly incompetence, right?

Where they just pushed it overboard. Yeah. Well, there's also talk that it was avoiding, trying to avoid a missile or a drone or something. When the second. Yeah, the second one, it supposedly was swerving to miss something. No, it's being towed. No. I'm telling.

All right. All right. whatever. We'll agree. When the investigation comes out, I think that's a excuse. Yeah. So the third one, but this seems to be a tentacle failure, right? I mean, it was a catapult.

Yeah. It wasn't catapulted hard enough of the deck, I guess. So which I guess, I suppose does get back to procedures and maintenance and all those things that gets back to. So certainly, yeah, but it's not, it's not covering the Navy with glory out there. I mean, listen, ever since we've lost, like, how many drones since when we started hitting Houthis in March 15th, you know, 20 drones, 28, Rieper, MQ9s. A 30 million bucks apiece.

Yeah, and three Super Hornets that are 60 million bucks apiece. Yeah. And, yeah. And still the Houthis were able to hit Bangarian Airport and stuff like that. Yeah, not even a superpower. And they got one through one of the most sophisticated anti-missile systems in the world. missile defense systems. Yeah. And there's some, it was funny because

Trump announced that some kind of ceasefire between us and the Houthis and literally once he announced it about an hour later, they were still trying to hit ships in the in the Red Sea, our ships in the Red Sea, like our military ships. So I don't know where we go from there.

Yeah, I mean, hard to tell her determined and effort. Yes, supposedly. Actually, it was a Truman, wasn't it? That they supposed to do. So I guess the Truman has had some luck at least. Yeah. Also at the same pace, like how much is it cost? How much is an SM6 fucking missile cost compared to, you know, $30,000 drones?

Yeah. You know, four, I think it's four and a half million dollars. Wow. Yeah. So. I mean, you know, ballistic missile, I mean, I'm sorry, drone, defending against drones is a very financially unequal fight. I mean, you just have to gain that.

for instance in Israel with the iron dome system and you and all patriot system in uh against uh you know we've used patriots the Saudis have used patriots and uh you know each one of those project us is what a million bucks and again you're dealing with a drone that at the most cost a few thousand dollars yeah um so there we go what else you got andy anything no that is all d and i and you're the audience will be very relieved to hear. Guys, don't. Don't freak back in a few days. Yeah, we'll be back over the weekend with the full crew.

Guys, don't forget to check out Andy's book when the Tempest Gathers. Incredible book. Andy's writings and everything. Links will be in the description. If you want Andy Miliborne, links will be in the description. Mick Mulroy, of course, Jason Lyons. Any and all info of our host, the links are in the description. My links are not in the description.

I don't want you to find me. do us what I do want, what I do need and what very much appreciate is going to Patreon.com slash the team house. You get ad-free versions and early access to both Aizon and the Team House. If you join at our $10 level, we will send you a patch as well. You get all those other benefits plus the patch and you just help support the show and we appreciate it. Thanks, Andy. This is great.

We'll see you. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Good night. Hey guys, it's Jack. I just want to talk to you for a moment about how you can support the show if you've been watching it, enjoying it, but you'd like to get a little bit more involved and help us continue to do this. You can check out our Patreon. It is patreon.com slash the team house. And for $5 a month, you can get access to all of these episodes of the team house ad free. The same goes with our affiliated podcast, Eyes On, with Andy Milburn, Jason Lyons, Mick Mulroy. That one, you will also go. get all of those episodes ad-free. And you support the channel and the show, and we really appreciate it. The Patreon members are literally what has helped this company, this small business, survive, especially during our early years. And you are what continues to help this thing going,

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