The Team House - Inside the Ukrainian Incursion In Kursk Russia w/ Marc Polymeropoulos | EYES ON | Ep. 36

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Today were joined by former senior CIA officer and friend of the show Marc Polymeropoulos to talk about Ukraine's incursion into Russian territory and Iran's possible retaliation on Israel.Find Marc here:⬇️https://x.com/mpolymer?lang=enSupport the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Andy Milburn here:⬇️Twitterhttps://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedInhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substackhttps://amilburn.substack.com/Andy's bookhttps://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations#ukraine #kurskBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey guys, it's Jack. I just wanted to talk to you today about a way that you can help support the podcast if you're not already. To support the channel is to become a Patreon member. So we have Patreon memberships that start at just $5 a month. And when you sign up, you get access to all of our episodes ad free. That's the big bonus for that. I mean, we also do some Patreon bonus episodes for our subscribers. But this is the biggest and best way that you can support the Team House. channel and podcast if you'd like to, and we really appreciate that. So go it and check us out at patreon.com slash the team house. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Aizan. I'm Jason Lyons. I'm Demetia Contacos. It's amazing.

We've got that absolutely down to a T, so we need to change that routine. Yeah. More importantly, we have coming back to us, Mark P., forgive me for referring to him as all of us can pronounce his name, but this is... I can. But simply, you know, his, he's familiar to a large number of our listeners, but we have a rapidly burgeoning that is growing audience. So for those of you who are not, Mark's an old friend of the team house

and we hope of us as hosts, at least now, for now, former senior as uh you're almost about to say say yes uh because that's that's kind of the deal of the tea house but even better um very senior um guy in the in the agency and um you know mark or mark's very uh self-effacing about this but um has some has an unusual operational background too for someone who started off as a case officer uh and and rose to the agencies and money agencies, you know, highest ranks. But perhaps more importantly, it's widely respected

among agency guys, but also a lot of guys in the military who've worked with him, especially in SOF and especially in Afghanistan. But since leaving the military mark has actually given life to that rather dead expression consultant and appears when you, appears on TV, he's actually worth watching. For one, I get a lot of material from Mark without plagiarizing him too much. Anyway, hey, a long, long lead-in. Mark, great to have you. What is going on in Kursk? Well, first of all, thanks Andy and Jason.

Indeed, thank you so much for having me. I love the show. Love coming on. It's great to do kind of a long-form discussion. I'm used to these 30 or 45-second soundbikes. it's, you know, on TV. And Andy, just one thing, kind of the secret of the business is, you know, everyone is humble. So I listen to what you all say to as well. I listen to others. There's no such thing as, there's no such thing as borrowing analysis from other commentators.

Because, you know, who the hell knows if we're, if we're ever right. Kursk has been, is been, let me put it this way. When I say fun, that's a horrible word to say in terms of war. But for a couple reasons, I've certainly enjoyed this. You know, first and foremost, there is a kind of a cast of characters in the foreign policy blob in Washington amongst some of the think tanks. And I'm not going to name names because that's stupid and I don't want to, you know, go down that road. But there's all this dooming always that goes on about Ukraine. That, you know, you know, it's always the end. It's almost impossible to find anyone to say anything positive that's happening. And so this has been pretty extraordinary. This is a success. You know, we can, we can debate

for as long as we want about why the Ukrainians did this. We actually don't know particularly, and we can talk about it, whether it's for morale boost, whether it's for future POW swaps, whether it's for future negotiations when Ukraine actually has Russian territory. But it's a positive story. And even, you know, Washington Post this morning ran a story. I thought it were the New York Times. I can't remember. And it's always, the Ukrainians are doing great, but it is impossible for kind of the analytic class following Russia to say anything good. I mean, it's almost, you know, we still keep treating Russia as 10 feet tall militarily. It drives me nuts. But here's where it's really important. Guess what didn't happen with this? There was no fucking U.S. whining. There was no complaints. Now, in all the press reports, we heard that this took the U.S. by surprise. That's bullshit. There is an incredible intelligence soak there. of human intelligence, signals intelligence, certainly imagery. And there's also, and not to get too much in trouble in this, when we work with foreign liaison, we also penetrate foreign liaison.

There's nothing fucking that happens in that country that we don't know about. I'm sorry. So the idea that we didn't know is bullshit. And, you know, I think that's done for. What we always mean is we weren't told. We weren't told. We knew that we knew. And Andy, guess what we didn't do.

We didn't whine about it. You didn't have the chief of station or the ambassador go and do the little finger wagging to the Ukrainians, which is incredibly annoying every time they did something daring in the past. And that's the story. So the story to me is the U.S. is okay with another country invading Russia. That's pretty fucking incredible. Yeah.

And so, you know, that's what we've certainly tried to kind of talk about in the media. And, you know, ultimately that is a sea change from the hand-wringing. And, you know, the NSC wakes up every morning. You know, you're always going to get unfiltered shit for me. And I've had a couple cups of coffee, so here we go. But the National Security Council gets up every morning. The first thing they do after taking a dump is they start worrying about escalation. That's the thing.

I think they have T-shirts made. But in this case, they're not doing it. And I think that is amazing. And maybe this is becoming too optimistic is at the end of Joe Biden's presidency, where the United States has done at the same time an extraordinary amount for Ukraine, but also withheld a lot and probably probably, cause a lot of unnecessary deaths, but maybe we're going to allow the Ukrainians to take the gloves off. And so I think that's the story. But you know what? I'm interested to hear your guys take on

this too. Well, I am. Yeah, I mean, I don't have any insight track on this. It struck me by surprise. But but the interest, here's some interesting things about it. So I, from my perspective, yeah, number one, I think that's, that that is so incredibly refreshing that we're not playing kind of, you know, this frightened old woman in the kitchen ringing our hands every time. And yet at the same time, starve Ukraine for ammunition. You know, that was the ironic thing, wagging our finger and yet going through this ridiculous domestic

kabuki dance, which that cost lives. We all know that. But more important, perhaps more importantly, shut up, sir. But perhaps more importantly, we lost some of our leverage there as far as, you know, the Arab, what we were doing to the Russians fire the Ukraine's and Russians were willing to adapt. So I think this is entirely positive. The other thing, but aside from the US reaction, what really surprises me is the Russian reaction

or lack thereof. Remember, you know, trying the counter ISIS campaign, if we even straight over that boundary into ISIS land, they went apeshire, right? You know, because they knew that it's symbolic. Well, the Russians know how important this as Putin does. We've seen one TV losing his mind. And yet the response has been pathetic. And the prisoners that the Ukrainians are rounding up, perhaps are an indicator of why that is.

You know, a lot of conscript, I mean, they're all conscripts, but, you know, the prisoners, guys from National Guard, internal military force. So this was an economy of force thing that the Russians, you know, that, they're defrauded. answer positions, brown curse, Ukrainians knew that, took advantage of it. And, you know, it's a theta complete now. And, uh, and I think the Ukrainians have surprised themselves with their success because of the lack of counter attacks. Last thing, though, they have now probably even, even with the lack of

resistance, they're approaching that culminating point and they've got to make a decision what to do, you know, so, right. So yeah, so what comes next? I mean, I don't know. That's a, that's a great question. but what is you know and and you know the the the other part of this of course um there's a there's a piece in the Washington post today that and I haven't heard snippets of this maybe you have as well is there there have been behind the scenes um kind of talks about future negotiations yeah and uh yeah that was pretty interesting wasn't it yeah and so you know and I and I'd heard that kind of just you know kind of through the great finding and frankly look if ukrainians want to do this it's up if my my view has always been Ukraine will settle this on you know when they're ready to

settle this and it should not be forced on by the United States. And so, uh, uh, and I guess, I guess, uh, you know, we'll see how this, how this goes. I mean, I don't know, I was, you know, watching, obviously, you know, following all the, the open source stuff yesterday. And I see, you know, they're dropping bridges. Um, I mean, this is this, using US armaments. So this is fantastic. Uh, and, uh, and, you know, let's see, let's, and, and, you know, the F-16s, how much are they in play, you know, who knows. Um, but I guess that the other point just to make is, I still don't understand why kind of this weird world that we live in, that it is impossible to actually celebrate Ukrainian successes without kind of the dooming that goes on.

I mean, you know, really, there's so much of Ukraine is doing well, but, you know, Russia is going to, you know, Russia reinforcements, Russia is going to do this. You know, it's very odd. I don't know if that kind of translates, maybe your contacts in the Pentagon, but it certainly is in kind of the think tank class. It drives me nuts. Yeah, I don't have an answer for you. I think, though, perhaps it's a response to the fact that pundits went strongly the other way back in 2022, right?

Yeah. It was this kind of euphoria and feeling that, you know, the war would end soon. I mean, it was kind of implicit. And I think that's probably kind of just a suburban Klauswitz reaction to the fact that that didn't happen. And it's, you know, any, any balanced story's got to, obviously, you know, there's enough to be pessimistic about it. It's very interesting what you said about the talks in Qatar. Yeah. Now, my understanding is those talks were exclusively focused, supposed to be exclusively focused from the Ukrainian perspective on kind of an agreement on the energy sector on both sides. Like hands off, hands off infrastructure, everything from, you know, for safety. concerns about nuclear plants to the fact that Ukraine's hanging on by its fingernails, you know, this last winter and is not looking forward to this next winter and wants to impose some costs on Russia in order to have a bargaining tool in Qatar. That was kind of, that was my

impression of it, you know, and from an official stance, Ukrainians are saying, no negotiation until all Russian boots are off, even at a Crimea. But it's interesting. Yeah, that was, that that's the first negotiation. Actually, the first kind of negotiating substantive negotiation, you could say, since the, you know, all the arguments about grain export. Right, right. Yeah. One thing I want to raise, though, for the audience,

and I think this is an important part, and this kind of applies to everybody here, you know, I always look at these conflicts as a former practitioner, which means I wasn't at the National Security Council. I wasn't at CIA headquarters. I wasn't attending, you know, White House meetings in the situation room. I always try to think about this as, okay,

what if I was with my old colleagues in the field in the AO? And we'll just, we'll kind of leave it as in the Ukraine AO to protect what we're doing and what we're not. But that means, you know, there's a great deal of side by sides with our Ukrainian partners. And, you know, for the, and I think there is always has been, and I'm talking to my friends who've come back from Ukraine, I mean, there's a little bit of embarrassment's the wrong word because we've helped them tremendously.

But, you know, we also have held back on aid. There is, you know, a big domestic constituency in the United States who is kind of viscerally opposed to U.S. assistance to Ukraine. So if you're a, you know, someone from you from SOF, from the intelligence community, and you're working side by side with the Ukrainians, there were some tough times. Yeah. You know, you had to do a lot of explaining, you know, why, for example, you know, if you're next to someone from, you know, Ukrainian military intelligence whose family is hiding in a shelter, maybe, you know, family members have been killed, you know, why the U.S. is not doing enough. So for the first time, what I was thinking about the other day was, hey, you know, if you're a U.S. practitioner on the ground, you know, this is a time where, you know, you're looking at your Ukrainian colleague across the table or sitting next to you, you know, having a, you know, having a beverage. And you can have some pride in that the U.S. is actually. kind of doing the right thing and we're letting the Ukrainians take the gloves off a little bit. That always kind of runs through my mind because, you know, it's, you know, one thing we do

to our detriment is we fall in love with our partners. I did that with the Kurds. I did that with Syrians. I did that certainly with the Afghans. But it's an American thing. I think it's an American thing. And we also then, and then we end up, but it's something we should be proud of too. Yeah, yeah. I mean. So I thought that was kind of, that's an interesting, just kind of, I, I'm sure. some of our old colleagues are feeling pretty good, that they can kind of sit with a lot of pride next to the Ukrainians in these days. It's an anomaly. We've spoken about this before on the program, Mark, and is that, you know, in our former professions, you know, military on the

intelligence agency, people tend to be right of center, right? You know, especially in the United States, less so in European militaries where you see more of a kind of an equal distribution. But serving the military, we tend to be, you know, pretty conservative, small, big sea. And yet we've got this anomaly where you have a conservative element within the United States opposing aid to Ukraine for reasons that defy me. You know, it's the chance to break down an enemy, a longstanding enemy, whether it's communist or now an autocratic state. It's an enemy of the United States breaking and reducing their ability to, to, to,

exert power on their neighbors is absolutely in our national interest. And if we can do that at cost only financial costs and not a single drop of NATO blood, why the hell wouldn't we do that? That is what blows me out of the water. And my colleagues, regardless of how they vote, or none of them can explain why that is the case, why we would refuse to support Ukraine. I mean, what the fuck? I mean, at a cost of money? company. Like, we're the richest nation on earth. We've all seen money thrown away on ridiculous

stuff in Afghanistan and Iraq. At last is a chance to see our buck actually buy something in terms of, you know, I hate to say, but the blood of our enemy. Right. Without cost to ourselves. But that is too expensive. Never mind, 20 years

of war, we're in our own blood and treasure for no gain at all. Could not have said it better. I agree a thousand percent. I've had huge arguments. I mean, there's, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine. He's a former Air Force still in the reserves. He said kind of on the Air Force blogs, there's this kind of viral and anti-Ukraine streak, too.

I just don't understand it. Well, I mean, that's, I think one thing we can explain there is it's an Air Force blog. I mean, it's a different type of cat. I mean, you know, I mean, it's super bright, but they are, when we talk in former military, I don't necessarily include the Air Force in that. You know what I mean? They're a wild call, right? In my conversations, when it's come up,

it's always been implied and sometimes outright said that it's because they are in office. We know who they is, you know, the other side. But if it was their side that was in office, they'd be all for it. So that's what I'm getting. I'm not saying that that's the majority and that's the whole reason, but that's, you know, what I'm hearing. know that they screwed up. You miss the old national security Republicans.

I mean, that's just, that's just a fact. I don't know what's happened. Yeah. Yeah. Now, you did have Lindsey Graham, you know, who is, you know, in, you know, the other day kind of screaming for, you know, former F-16 pilots to come volunteer to go to Ukraine, which I thought was, first of all, pretty funny. Nothing wrong with that.

That's a bolt from the blue. I mean, it was out of nowhere. It's okay. He's the same guy who's demanding that Zelensky comes and visits him in his office to explain. You know, I mean, these guys, yeah, there's no consistency. It's based on, on that perception of constituent bias, right, or emotion. I mean, Lindsay Graham is relatively hawkish, though.

He was talking about preemptive strike in Iran from. Oh, sure. Yeah, he's pretty out there. Oh, it's good. I mean, there are plenty of national security Republicans, the kind of old school ones. And some of them, you know, are, you know, run powerful committees in Congress. You know, you have all the mics. Who is it?

Mike Turner, McCall, others. And, but it's just the Republican Party changed. I mean, I'm sorry that, you know, the presidential candidate for the Republicans hates Ukraine and doesn't want to spend a penny on this. And so I think that's a problem. And I'm not, you know, I don't think I'm making a political statement when I. What's even worse is when they drag up a guy who's, you know, and we report political, but, you know, a PAO enlisted Marine and then quote him as though he's the, you know, I mean, we're talking about J.D. Vance. I mean, I have no opinion of them, you know, other than that. But let's put this in context.

He was an enlisted PAO, right? For six months in Iraq. Yeah. In Iraq. I mean, that doesn't make him an expert on national security. But his comments have been taken as though they came from the Delphi oracle. Yeah. Like that's absurd.

Anyway, back to. You digressed into politics. Exactly what we didn't want to do. Yeah. Anyway. No, I mean, I've, back to Ukraine. So what next, Mark, what do you think is going to happen? So I think that, you know, the kind of the key points on this obviously are November, the presidential election in the United

States. And, you know, so much, you know, rides on that. At the same time, though, you know, just having been in, I was in Greece for a couple weeks, I stopped in the UK, I mean, there is a feeling that the Europeans have stepped up. And if you just look at numbers in terms of European in assistance to Ukraine, it's pretty amazing. You know, again, charges that the U.S. has bankrupt, everything is bullshit. Ukraine has put up a huge amount of resources. And you have countries, you know, in central Europe or maybe the, not the, not the older, not Germany or France or the UK, but you have countries like Poland and frontline

states that are really hawkish, that understand the Russian threat. So I think that Europe, just in general, is in a much better. position on this. And one kind of one other note there, and, you know, perhaps, and I think I'm right on this, is that there's not, there's not political divides between left and right, for example, in the UK, you know, change in, you know, change in government policy and Ukraine's the same. And I think that's important. You know, Germany is having some issues now, but, you know, when I, when I've talked to my contacts in Germany, because, you know, there's been a kind of a halt on German assistance, this is, this is, you know, they're running around. This has to do with a budget issue,

rather than actual kind of, you know, lack of German resolve. And so, so ultimately, I think that, you know, Europe is in a much better position, too. And again, for this to kind of be a sustained fight, that's going to have to be the case. It will be, you know, if the Republicans win in the presidency in November, the United States, you know, U.S. is going to take a much different role, obviously, with Ukraine. And that's of some concern. But, you know, in talking to kind of senior European officials when I was there, as I'm sipping my Uzo on the Greek islands, I still had some contact with folks, they know what they have to do. And so I'm, you know, I'm not as pessimistic about the future. And the last point, too, is, look, I was certainly not a military analyst. But I do think that obviously the attack comes arrived. This is an issue we talked about for months and months and they've been put to good use. The F-16s are. are now, you know, flying over the skies.

And I do think U.S. kit matters. And so we'll see, you know, what the Ukrainians can do. Finally, if they're outfitted correctly, still huge manpower issue. I mean, you know, you guys know this even more than I do from time there. You know, what are they going to do about conscription? You know, Russia does have a numerical advantage of people. But, you know, the Ukrainians have surprised this time and again. And so we'll see.

I would not, I am not pessimistic, but I do think you're kind of right in the sense that we shouldn't kind of, you know, fall completely in the camp of Ukraine's about to win now just because they've had some success over the last, you know, nine, ten days. Yeah, certainly, you know, if you look at a map, DR, I found one that I'll send you, you can post however you wish. but, you know, the, it's really interesting as far as the decisions now in the Ukrainian general's hands or Zaneski's hands, you know, I mean, did they hold, you know, the immediate concern, did they hold that territory? I mean, I think, you know, regardless of all the reasons to do this and, you know, I think it's hard to argue against the fact that it, that it was inspired, but at the same time now had to take advantage of it. And the problem, is withholding that terrain is defending it, especially with air defense, is going to be a real issue

because, you know, as you know, Ukraine. So now it's extended its lines. There's already this kind of internal struggle between prioritizing air defense, whether on the front line or infrastructure. And so in a sense, now extending this makes that worse. So holding in place may not be what they can do, but certainly, and it would seem ashamed to withdraw back to their lines and make this kind of a raid and a blow. So I think probably somewhere in between, it's not great, all back to a more defendable position. But the key thing that you kind of contacted, pointed out, is that it's still kind of in a dire position in Dombas. I mean, the Russians are within 15 kilometers of Pock Roads, which is, you know, along with Krematos, the two major cities left in Dombard.

One thing to raise, this is actually something that I thought was quite remarkable, an incredible Wall Street Journal piece on Nord Stream 2. Essentially, the Ukrainians fucking did it. And so this is something that, of course, You told the story. This is a great one, man. But so, I mean, I've known about this for a long time from kind of all sorts of media contacts who is kind of percolated about.

So here's the thing at the end of the day. Nobody gives a shit. So, and that's incredible. And you thought about very briefly what happened or? Sure. So, so, you know, this was, again, I don't have anything in front of me here, but this is, what are we? Is it, it's a, it's a year and a half ago. It's quite something.

Yeah. Yeah, it was not yet exactly. It was 2022, wasn't it? Mid-2020. So, you know, the pipeline mysteriously explodes. And everyone thought the Russians had done it. I actually, I remember. September 26, 22.

I remember going on the. media saying that as well. So I was I was obviously wrong and at some point someone kind of called me and said, hey, you might want to stop saying that. Now, this is just for so the this is the pipeline. Can you just talk a little bit about the background what the pipeline does and go ahead. You're going to get you're going to do this better than me. I'm going to I'll box this. Yeah. So so the the pipeline we're talking about the the North Stream pipeline takes. I think it's a. again, I'm probably going to screw it up, but it's liquid.

It's LA, I think it's LNG. It's an LNG, right? From Russia to, you know, to Germany, right? Natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. Yeah, so I got it right. And it was a source of contention in the months leading up to the war because it put Germany in, you know, And the way that the United States and the UK looked at it, certainly within NATO, it made Germany kind of supplicant of Russia.

It gave Russia a great leverage over Germany. And it did look as though Germany was kind of politically voting, you know, with that knowledge in mind. That was the concern, right? Because the economy, they were very worried about economic effects that they shut off kind of that, you know, the input of gas. which, you know, that's, they're not, they were not incorrect to have that, to have that concern. But then, but, you know, and kind of many of us thought that the Russians were kind of behind this, some kind of covert action, but it turns out just, again, for the listeners, the Ukrainians, looks like with kind of this bizarre operation that had some kind of private involvement of

former Ukrainian, you know, special operations, divers, known to the Ukrainian military, Zelensky turned it off because the agency found out about it. I mean, this is the story in the Wall Street Journal, so I'm not confirming or denying anything. But ultimately, Ukrainians did it. And if this had come out a year and a half ago, it would have been a huge mess politically in Germany. But right now, nobody seems to care because everyone has kind of made that decision to support Ukraine. So again, the big picture on this, it's a spy story. It's a movie. Someone's got to write a movie on this. The real story is that nobody seems to really kind of bat an eye on this. And that to me shows the evolution of thinking in Europe.

And, you know, and there are certainly some of those, and I tend to agree with this, is that, you know, of course the German government has known this forever. And they kind of stuck it in these law enforcement, you know, legal channels. So it would take a long time to be investigated and to come out. So again, having made that political decision to support Ukraine, which might have been harder, if in effect, I mean, this, you could also make the argument, this was an attack by Ukraine on a NATO country. I mean, it's pretty funny. Yeah.

Do you think, I mean, probably what has helped play in Ukraine's fever here is the fact that there have been since then Russian sabotage attempts in Germany, right, all in all nationals. There's been Germans who have been arrested

for espionage. I mean, there's been this amazing exposés of Russian intelligence malfeasance in Germany too, right? So there's this, there's certainly a much more growing anti-Russian sentiment. When I talked to some German journalists on this, they're very, you know, very clear on that. But again, this, you know, this is one of those, one of those, this must frustrate the Russians to no end. I mean, they know they didn't do it. They were blamed for it. They know who did it.

There was no political repercussions for this. And so, you know, in some ways, it's going to make a hell of a movie. But I don't think it's going to have any kind of effect. I mean, other people, you know, might disagree. It's already old news. It's a old news. Yeah. It's a great. And some of these, you know, I remember, I think there's someone from the Washington Post who called me originally and said, you know, you think the Russians did it. And I said, yeah, you know, they were reminding me now how wrong I was. So, hey, sometimes. Mark, I got a question. We definitely helped, right? Let's be honest. You don't have to confirm it. You don't have to. Okay. Nope. All right. Sure. No, because, because, D, here's the thing. This is a time where, you know, we couldn't give a hello kitty bag to the Ukrainians without there being hard palpitations at the NSC. You know, you're talking about, you know, are, you know, our. MRI is going to cause, you know, cause World War III. So the idea that we help them do this is ludicrous. I mean, really, we just did not. The polls? I mean, I would, I would read the Wall Street

Journal piece pretty good. Okay. Okay. So I, and this was the time when in the Mozart group, I received a very formal letter from the State Department explaining how I was not breaking ITAR regulations by training Ukrainian soldiers. Okay, those of you who know about ITAR regulations, No, that's, you know, it just doesn't make sense when you're teaching. First aid. Yeah, when you're teaching first aid or, you know, how to break down in AK-47, ITAR has nothing to do with it. But someone, you know, this was all the part of, hey, what a second?

This is scary. These guys are Americans in Ukraine doing these things. They must be violating something. So they look for ITAR, you know. And do you explain what ITAR is real quick? Should I carry. I mean, it's a, it's a. It's a law that governs the exchange of technical, deadly information.

International traffic and arms regulations. Yeah. Okay. So teaching guys how to put on a pressure bandage is not. Or even teaching them how to shoot a weapon is not governed by ITAR. And most, you know, everyone in the State Department knows that. But the fact that we received this letter and then it became, you know, it became, that's what the intercept got hold of, and it became, if, hey, look, there they are

in Ukraine. But in retrospect, you know, ITAR regulations, really? Is that what you were worried about? No, of course, no one was worried about that. They were worried about escalation. They were worried about the perception of Americans being seen in Ukraine on the Ukraine side, and so they were trying to squeeze this out. Let me let me, let me tell, Andy, one more quick thing here, just because, again, I'm going to be, you know, I'm going to be an Atlantisist here. I'm actually, I'm very kind of pleased

to how the Europeans have reacted over the last several months. Fresh President Macron comes out and says, fuck it, let's put military advisors in Ukraine. Yeah. And, you know, and so, like, just that evolution. And the Brits have special operations, special forces. Well, that's the, that's the, you know, the story that hasn't been told on that is,

is the British Special Operations community and what they've done inside. Yeah. And which is our old soft college. colleagues who are training Ukraine's in Germany are kind of salivating at what the Brits are able to do. But again, putting this all together. So, you know, the incredible kind of British cost versus benefit calculus, there are, you know, there is no risk ofversion on the British government. They enter their shelves of storm shadow missiles. Right. Every single breaching, every single piece of a breaching equipment they had, they gave to the Ukrainian.

So it's amazing. So, I mean, so Europe has stepped up. And I think that's a, that's a really good. Yeah. Because of uncertainty about the U.S. in November. So, Mark, big question, big picture question for you. I noticed, I saw that one October that there's going to be a new Secretary General of NATO, Mark Rout, Ruta, R-U-T-T-E. He's a Dutch prime minister. Do you know anything about him? I mean, you know, tremendous ally of the United States. You know, the Dutch is, you know, is essentially a five-eyes partner, you know, and the five-eyes, D, you're going to jump in and say, what are the five-eyes? So, in essence, it's a historic intelligence sharing relationship between the U.S., the U.K., Canada, New Zealand, and Australia.

And the Dutch deserve to be in there as well because just the security partnerships that the way that the United States has with the Dutch. So, so, you know, the idea of, you know, we're going to have some certainly continuity in NATO. But I think this is a, this is, you know, a very positive development, Dutch are tremendous allies that should continue. And these things, Jason, you know, I mean, the elections for Secretary General of NATO is all very kind of political and done behind the scenes, but never done without the complete OK push and support of the United States. So I think we're in good shape. Mark, one thing you, when you talk about Europe kind of picking up the burden for supporting Ukraine or the responsibility to lead, yeah, I think that's an enormously, it's really interesting what has emerged from kind of the U.S.'s step back from global leadership over Ukraine, right? one is that Europe has

step forward a couple of things Poland Poland is now an absolutely a leading nation within Ukraine this is not something we could have imagined two decades ago

4% of committed to 4% of GDP and you're tracking all the other things they're doing I mean they are so you know and then and the Baltic nation says know in Estonia's done that study on ammunition,

a worst case scenario, if the U.S. can no longer provide specifically 155 shells, when is it that Europe can pick up that slack? And it's actually as early as 2025. Right. Late 2025. So, you know, if European manufacturing goes to surge capacity in order to do that, but the point is that these countries are thinking about that,

not just thinking about it, they're on a path to doing that, to kind of proof Ukraine from effects of the U.S. elections. And again, it's embarrassing, which is embarrassing. It is embarrassing, yeah. And for, you know, for the most part, this goes across the political spectrum in most European countries that really matter. So it doesn't matter, you know, it's not going to have as much of an effect. One, you mentioned Estonia. I mean, it's such an interesting example because, you know, this is the, you know, it's an extraordinary,

certainly front-line state, but their intelligence service is world-class. And, you know, CIA officers who have experience in that region, you know, every year, the Estonian's come out and they do it, they do a classified or releasable to liaison, but also an unclassified report on Russia. And it's one of the most kind of, you know, sought after, you know, open-source pieces. They are really good. And if you take a look and do kind of a whole bunch of digging, there's been some tremendous Estonian intelligence successes as well. So again, countries that you wouldn't figure would have that kind of resolve, but are more hawkish than any on Russia. And that's for, well, also for, you know, for good reason. But ultimately, I think the conclusion is that, you know,

Europe is in much better shape. And I agree with you, 2000, you know, it was always to get to 2025, which is, by the way, with the U.S. supplemental package of $60 billion was really designed. Yep. It's a bridging. And by the way, politically in the United States, States, that's smart. Because we're not going to say this is a never, you know, a forever war. And then we're not going to say we're going to throw, you know, tens of billion dollars every year. In fact, I think the administration was smart and saying this, this supplement, this package is going to get us to 2025. And then European contributions really start kicking in as well. And I think that's a, that's a good strategy. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I probably,

we probably feel a little bit ambivalent about it. But at this, you know, I mean, it's, it's, about the fact that people feel they cannot rely on the United States. Oh, it's terrible. But at the same time, this has been something that, you know, since the end of the Cold War that the U.S. has been kind of mumbling and moaning about and increasingly was participation in NATO. I never understood that, to be honest with you, because NATO, the only time NATO has ever reacted from Article 5 was on behalf of the United States.

The United States has gained way more from NATO. you know those of us who've served with you know i'm a moraine so i wasn't closely involved in nato from my service but i can recognize that we the united states have benefited far more from or equally from nato as nato has from you know you're right it's not first of all it shouldn't be transactional it's not i mean you know there's but and and you know but but the fact of the matter is over a thousand nato troops were killed in afghanistan and so you know and they stepped up and And I think that's, you know, again, when you start talking about, you know, the benefits of NATO, you're 100% right. Because when Article 5 was invoked, NATO partners came through.

And again, there's the, you know, other side of the political aisle or a side of the political aisle in the United States that doesn't seem to understand that. The idea that somehow, you know, Europe is freeloading off of us is just utterly ridiculous. I've never bought that argument. ever. Well, 40% of America. But, you know, all this may be irrelevant if the Middle East erupts in war, as it has threatened to do every days in the last 60 years. But what do your thoughts now about, yeah, your thoughts about Iran, you know, hey, before we go to that, I just one last kind of semi-comical point to this thing about

escalation. I just saw it's actually as we're here that the administration has said that they're okay that this is an acceptable use of American weapon rates, including driving striker armate vehicles in Russia. I mean, so it's like it up. drone strikes are not good, but you can drive the striker. strike her. I feel bad for the, actually, the DOD press, there was a, there was a press folks in the other day. She was, I mean, her brief was horrendous. They're out of death.

He's terrible, dude. I just, I just, I feel bad for them. Yeah, I mean, we use the word, but we deliberately choose PAOs who are geeky and out to lunch because that way people, people feel sorry for them. Well, okay, so maybe I'm calling into that, right? Like,

as though we know they're not going to wow journalists with their authority and So we put these guys who are like hanging out there on the edge of being in the military, just P.O. Ultimate P.A.O. weenies. So they can, and you can see journalists actually feel sorry for them, you know. But it doesn't work on this because how do you explain the difference between, in terms of aggression between driving an armed vehicle across someone's border or simply flying a drone over that same border? Most people would think the striker is a little more of violation of national sovereignty. But no, we've figured out that it is not.

But someone's going to use that against us. Watch. Someone will use this against us. They already have been. You've seen some of the like a little bit on Twitter and stuff. I'm not arguing with it. I think you should just say, hey, fuck it. We're all in, man.

That's it. Trip feeding weapons. We're either supporting you or we're not. but just supporting you never hate you all boundaries are off man Moscow fuck man of course it's and what are you going to do about it you know let me just let me just wait one point Andy I think that is missed in this too so you know we feel comfortable with these strange nuances and the verbal kind of word salad I don't even understand what the fuck they're saying you know what's okay what's not the

Russians think we're doing everything hey they think they're at war with us yes so we think we're making ourselves feel better Right. Right. I mean, so bring it, I mean, absolutely bring it on, you know. I mean, we don't have, I'm just saying one or two storm shadows in the center or, I mean, you know, attack him's in the center of a Russian city. Oh, God, I'm going to be criticized for this. Okay. Used judiciously to send a strategic message, right?

We'll save countless lives on the battlefield could save, you know? I mean, we just don't. Right. And. Yeah. Exactly. If we're reading what the Russians already had been saying about us since the outset of the war, they're at war with us. Yep. They're telling themselves out and out. All right. On to the Middle East. Yeah. Can you solve the problems in less than 15 minutes?

We'll give you 30. We'll give you 30. I'm good. I'm good. I've had a couple cups of coffee. And plus, like, I actually have to get on with my, I've had this permanent vacation status in the Greek islands and in the UK and then in Maine. So I got to this is good. I'm doing. doing something serious now. No, so the Middle East stuff is super interesting to me. That was the majority of my career was obviously, was based in the Middle East. I think I've told you all before, you know, I work very closely with all with the Israeli intelligence services, with the Jordanians, the Egyptians, the Palestinians. I've been everywhere. I've, you know, and so I have a lot of experience in this region. I guess first and foremost, let's, let's kind of tackle the biggest issue of the day. We'll leave the talks, ceasefire talks for a second, but is, you know, where is this Iranian retaliation?

And so a couple of things, I think, occurred is that one is that this, and first of all, the charge that somehow, you know, the Biden administration is not supportive of Israel is fucking ludicrous. It's the most pro-Israel White House in the history of the United States-Israeli relationship. And so we have, we deploy this incredibly. Arguably, it led to ending his career, right? Arguably. Well, right, yes.

That was a whole separate. It's right. But ultimately this kind of military package, which is now in the region, whether it's, you know, one carrier battle group, another one en route, you have a U.S. nuclear submarine, you have F-22s now. Of course, on the carriers. Well, also, F-22 deployments, I think they're in Jordan, but who knows they're being kind of secretive on where they parked them. But ultimately, and messages sent to the Iranians very strongly, both directly and indirectly. We have a channel. with the Swiss. But basically telling the Iranians, you know, be very careful on what you do. And I think that's worked. And so the threat of military force has actually really worked here and deterred the Iranians. And again, I think this is the resolve of the United States. It's certainly to resolve the Israelis. They're in no mood to kind of absorb another mass casualty event. And one thing, you know, what's interesting about Israel is that whether there's huge debate on what, you know, Netanyahu's hated given, there's a majority who want to ceasefire deal given. When it comes to Hezbollah, you know, 60,000 Israelis can't go back to their homes in the north, school starting in Israel soon. You know, politically, this is a, this is not an issue on how to deal with Hezbollah. That is all that controversial. And so I think there's been a lot of strong Israeli resolve, too. And so the Iranians seem to have blamed.

And I think that's a good thing. I, for one, have never been afraid of a confrontation with Iran because we've allowed the Iranians to kill Americans for too long. And the only way to deal with them is shows of strength and force. So for now, and again, this is obviously dynamic. But for now, I think the situation is stabilized. It's day to day. But clearly, you know, we're picking up on, I would imagine on imagery, the Iranian missile units and Hezbollah units standing down. A lot of this is going to be intelligence driven. The other point of this, I think as well is on the ceasefire talks, you know, the U.S. is, I think, is doing the right thing in pushing for this. But you have to have two sides that want to come to an agreement. I think the Israelis, Netanyahu is coming around a bit. He's been under enormous pressure from the Israeli national security apparatus from Assad and Shibat and Israeli defense intelligence in the sense of, look, the deal that the U.S. put forward, which was an Israeli deal as well as actually pretty good, we can deal with this.

And if you want to go in the nuances, it has to do with what's called the Philadelphia Corridor. Philadelphia Corridor is the Egyptian Gaza border. Who patrols it? You know, the Israelis are there now. It would be better for them to stay. Hamas is refusing this. And basically, you know, Israeli officials are saying we can probably deal with it if we pulled out a little bit. And so, you know, there's all this back and forth. But to me, the key question is, and one other point on that, too, is kind of the conventional wisdom is that, you know, Netanyahu is never going to make a deal because his government's going to fall, but it's not because the Knesset's not in session. That's the Israeli parliament. They actually go on a three-month recess, if you think that's fucking crazy what the United States does here. During a war. And so he is actually in no danger of falling until they come back in October. So he could cut a deal. So I guess the key question for me is more on the Hamas side. And, you know, everybody is always hammering. I think Netanyahu is an asshole, but everyone's hammering Bibi for being the party that that refuses to make a deal. But I think there is question now is what is Yai Asen-War going to do? Last point on this. And again, I always try to look at this from, I know you guys

have spent time in Israel. I look at it from the Israeli perspective. I'm not condoning their behavior, not condemning it. But, you know, the killing of Ismail Hania in Tehran, first of all, a fucking glorious operation from the intelligence perspective, you know, to put someone on the X like that in a denied area is pretty impressive. But Prime Minister Netanyahu, when he was given the opportunity to do this by Mossad and by the Israeli defense forces, you know, there's a question of should he have done this that would affect the talks. My argument is he had to do it. If that had leaked that the architect, the leader of the group that killed 1,200 Israelis was on the X and he didn't give the go ahead. He's in more trouble politically than he would be in any other situation. And for fuck's sake,

like, are you kidding me? Like, we would have done the same thing. So lots of, I'm kind of all over the place on all these. But I think I'm all over the place because it's tough. There's a dynamic situation, lots of different variables. And so, you know, next week, they go back to Doha and we'll see what happens on the talks. It enabled the method. I mean, it enabled the, I mean, it was a well-designed operation in number of ways,

but not least of which is it gave Iran kind of a face-saving way out that the U.S. was able to say, hey look this was you know this was a this was a foreigner yes but it was a foreigner who was involved in these things on your territory who was killed and the Israelis don't brag about it either yeah no arrainiens were killed no way you know let's you know call it a call it a buy and and let's move right look and and you know i mean the israeli said we're going to track down all these motherfuckers and kill them all they're going to do that they're these are dead men walking so No surprise. I think it embarrassed the Iranians for sure. One point I want to make on kind of the other assassination, it was like 12 hours of like, you know, insane Israeli intelligence and special

operations capabilities. And that's when the Israelis killed Fawad Chukar in Beirut. Fad Chukhar was, in essence, one of, you know, it was one of the top leaders of Hisbola. People were calling him the chief of staff to Nasrallah. For us, why does that, why does that matter? And Andy, for you in particular, why does that matter? And Jason. And Jason. Sorry, that's right. Both you guys. Two Marines. There's two Greeks. I would say, Jason, I apologize for both you. And it should be personal. Thuette Scher was responsible for the deaths of 241 U.S. Marines in 1983, the U.S. Marine Corps barracks. I'm actually, there's a book, Jack Carr just put out a book, or he sent me an advanced

copy of a book you wrote on this, on what was, you know, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks, and really almost the beginning of kind of the U.S. war on terrorism. And so, you know, no one should shed a tear that this, this, this senior Hezbollah member was killed. And so, you know, as I kind of, you know, I'm not always popular when I say this, when I kind of go on MSNBC and say this, but I said, I basically said, look, every, you know, former and current U.S. Marines should, you know, find their closest Israeli friend and buy him a beer.

They did us a solid on this. And also, Flet Schuquer had, you know, $5 million, you know, rewards for justice program reward, you know, on his head, too. So the one thing we seem to forget in the U.S. media is that we should not be neutral. Hamas is a terrorist organization, as is as is Ebola. Now, the U.S. has to play this kind of mediating role in trying to tamp down, you know, the prospect for a regional war. But this is not, you know, the U.S. just being a neutral party. It's not mediating between two sovereign states. It's not needed. Exactly.

That is supposed to danger. Parat al-Qaeda, Hezbollah killed more Americans than any other terrorist group. And on October 7th, over 30 Americans were killed by Hamas. And by the way, an American citizen with two passports, a U.S. and Israeli passport, we consider in the counterterrorism community to be an American citizen. I don't care what other passport you have. The U.S. government does not care. The FBI, who is the lead in investigating these things, doesn't care.

They're Americans. And so somehow we tend to forget it. In my background, you know, there's a term we always use, which is burden hand. If you got a terrorist on the X, you take them out. And the one thing that I always saw, too, in working with the Israelis, is they're really smart on benefit cost calculus. So they're not, they don't go in there and take a shot at Fouette Shooker or Ismail Hania and say, hey, this is going to be cost free. They might say, hey, we might lose an embassy somewhere. Or, you know, or our assessment is the Iranians will retaliate, but in a kind of a mild fashion.

but, you know, they do this with eyes wide open. And right now it looks like their kind of their calculus was correct. I mean, yeah, when you know that you're going to have a U.S. carrier group and a nuclear submarine steaming in, of course, you're going to be in your calculus. You know, like it's right. You're going to have backup. And that's, and so, so ultimately that kind of that that burden hand notion, which we used in the counterterrorism community in the United States. You know, whether it's drone strikes in Pakistan or in Yemen or other places, if you got a real bad guy, especially a high value target on the X, I can't think of a time, forget the whole issue with whether we had been Laden years ago. But I can't figure a time where we had someone of that seniority and we didn't take a shot.

In fact, if you look at Leon Panetta's autobiography, he talks about when we killed us, I think it was AQ number two or three. And we killed his family as well. And we did so knowingly. you know there are costs of this but you got to take the shot i'm glad he's really good mark before um you know before we we wind up here we've got an opportunity to talk uh what what's on your mind that we haven't already talked about even if it's just fresh memories of your holiday in greece no i think you know so so it's that's a great question because you know it's sometimes it's good to go on vacation and kind of reflect on stuff and career and things like that. And, you know, what I was thinking about, um, uh, are two things. One is what we talked about

earlier is this is a good time to be with our Ukrainian partners. You know, I miss that. I would love to be at a, at a time like this, um, working with the, with the Ukrainians, especially when they're kind of, you know, planning some of these, you know, pretty, you know, daring operations. And the other is just on the Middle East. Um, you know, what, what I think about a lot is, uh, and I'm, I think I'm disappoint what's on my mind is I'm disappointed in national security media. And I let me give credit to one one journalist. Shane Harris, the Washington Post is an excellent reporter. He covers the intelligence beat. He has for years. And you know, I remember talking to him a couple months ago and I was like, you got to go to Israel. Like, you know, so many of the national

security media here, you know, their sources, they, they talk to via signal. So they'll, you know, they'll signal their contacts at the NSC. But they don't go to the region, whether it's UK. But But so Shane went off to Israel and, you know, and, you know, I gave him some suggestions on who to talk to and he had great context to. And he came back with kind of a different, more nuanced view of because the conflict in Israel is, yes, Netanyahu is an asshole. Yes, we want him out. But the Israelis are traumatized from October 7th. And if you don't really understand that, you don't understand their response. Even even such things as, you know what, there's been horrible. civilian casualties in Gaza. There's no dispute on that. And what I'm going to say now, again, I don't want people to get upset is, but the Israelis don't fucking care. And you have to understand that. Now, I'm not saying that's right. In Israel, there's a lack of press coverage of civilian casualties inside. That's not a good thing. But if you want to understand. You can't say it on TV. You cannot. You've been there, Andy. So it's just not covered. Now, is that wrong? Well, I mean,

I think, you know, but the Israelis have are so traumatized from October 7th. that you have to understand their thinking now in everything. You know, my old contacts on Mossad and the Israeli foreign ministry for years were absolutely supportive of a two-state solution. They're not anymore. They said they're not ready. Now, the U.S. policy is to push for this. I believe in my soul. That's the right thing to do.

I spend a ton of time in the Palestinian areas. I think I've been to every city in the West Bank. I work with Palestinian intelligence. And I think the Israeli practices in the West Bank are abhorrent. But that's not where Israel is right now. So it's just the idea that I think the national security media, you know, doesn't do enough kind of field reporting. You have to go to these areas. And it goes back to my time at CIA.

You know, one of the things that we did is that when senior officers would come back from the field, often they'd go down and see the president. And so we, you know, we take, you know, chief of stations from all across, you know, the land. And because the president wants to hear from the guy or the girl on the ground. not from the analysts, not from the policymakers, but from someone who has actually been on the ground in a certain area. And that to me is invaluable. And I think that I wish the national security media would do the same. So I've been pondering that recently when I kind of, I mean, I, of course, obsessively follow, you know, everything, whether I read the journal, the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post. I will painfully watch Fox News sometimes.

Sorry, that's my, I have to do that as well as CNN and MSNBC. And so, but nobody really does the hard work. You get out there and go to regions and talk to people. That's how you really can understand things. That's a really good point, I think. And you see that in Israel, but you saw it in Ukraine to an extent too. You know, the journalists who went beyond Kiev, there were very few because they thought that they could get the story via WhatsApp or signal, local.

I think, you know, at the same time, there is a handful. There are a handful. Wall Street Journal has a coterie of them. New York Times, to be fair, and of journalists who really, you know, guys like Eric Schmidt with the New York Times who really do root out the story. But I think that's a really fair point in your comments from my part of absolutely accurate. And so I'm sorry, go ahead, Mark. And I think the, you know, kind of the last piece is, is I would love, I don't even know if there's going to be a debate.

But if in the next, you know, I guess there's one schedule for early September. And I know Americans don't vote on foreign policy, but I would love to see foreign policy covered in the debate between Harris and Trump if it happens. Because I think, you know, again, that's my world. And I think that there could be some profound differences that should be kind of discussed. I would be really interested in kind of a to see a comparative poll of how many, you know, maybe compared to two decades and then four decades ago, how many Americans really are interested in foreign policy. Because when we do get to foreign policy and debates, it's the level of debate drops to kind of middle grade, middle school level. You know, it's them bad, us good.

There's, you know, it's a very, and for the most part, candidates don't have a good understanding of debates. It makes me laugh when we see candidates who, not laugh, that's not fair. I'm glad to see candidates who are veterans. But it does make me laugh when there is an assumption that because someone's a veteran, they must know about foreign policy, right? Because they've been on the pointy end of it. Let me add one quick thing for, for, uh, for the listeners. And I think this is an inspirational thing. You know, when you serve overseas the United States government, you know, oftentimes you're working at a U.S. embassy. And, and I always believed,

you know, I remember walking down the street when I was serving in Damascus. And, you know, at a time where the U.S., well, we don't have an embassy there anymore, but U.S. Syrian relationship was in the toilet. And I would walk down at night and I'd see the American flag there and was flying, you know, silhouetted, you know, it's dark at night, but the lights on the flag. And it meant something to me. But it also meant something to ordinary Syrians. And here's my point. At every U.S. embassy, there is a line outside the consular section that sometimes runs around the corner. And that's because America is still seen as the bright, shining city on the hill, you know, and in terms of economic liberalism, political, and this is not liberal versus conservative.

This is economic freedoms, political freedoms, you know, what we stand for. That's really important for this to continue that America has to be seen in that light. And so, you know, to me, that was one of the inspiring things about serving overseas is that America stood for something. That is what we have done in Ukraine. And I guess my worry is I wonder if that will continue with kind of our political divisions. That's something that concerns me. Yeah, great, great points to ponder, Mark. We need to have you on again before this long, this last long break. Anytime. Yeah. You're one of our close friends. I don't know how you feel about that.

Come on. I love it. I need some bling, though. Are you guys doing any like t-shirts or mugs or anything like that? D. You got to send me some stuff. I'll get it done. I'll get it done.

Three to six months. And I've lost a little weight now. I just dropped 20 pounds. Thank God. Nice. We were having problems, silk screening, D's image on the back of our. switch. I will walk around with Dee's image on a t-shirt anytime. Don't say that because I will send

it to you. I will send you a t-shirt. Mark, where can they find you? So fortunately or unfortunately, I'm on Twitter at M Polymer. I tweet mostly as Dee knows about the Red Sox, but a lot of stuff about politics, a lot of stuff mostly about foreign policy. You know, one of the things that I did was, and it's hurt me, but I, you know, my kind of, as a, as an old national security centrist, I mean, my political views are pretty well known. And so people get pissed at me sometimes about that. But I'm on Twitter. I'm also on LinkedIn,

which I think has gone kind of crazy. That's a little, there's a lot of weird shit on LinkedIn now for people doing stuff. And, uh, what do you mean this weird shit on LinkedIn? I haven't noticed it. I, it's gotten too political.

I mean, you know, it's to me, people are putting it on LinkedIn what they used to put on, on Twitter. And I don't like that. LinkedIn is it was a freaking business thing in the past. Yeah.

Or at least, you know, a place for adults. to discuss things. Right. Let's see. I'm on MSNBC all the time. I'm on a couple times a week. So if you, they have me on it at 5 a.m. these days on, and so that's early. But it's good. I get up early. I'm an early rise or I come back. I get the rest of my day. And so yeah, so it's, I've been, I've been busy enough and got to make it up to New York City again sometime soon. I just was up there. This is, we talked about this before the show. I took my son to see Slipknot a

a couple days ago. I'm still a 55 years old. I'm still a crazy heavy metal fan. Dee was trying to get me to come into studio, but I said, no, I think we're going to be out too late and banging our heads against the wall. Also, you have your podcast, too, above average intelligence. I have a podcast above average intelligence. Which you're going to bring over soon to the Team House network. Yeah, don't say that. And that's been fun. It's a, you know, it's a kind of a different format. It's a quick 30, 40 minutes where I just, you know, can chat about. stuff. But I make fun of myself on that as well, because usually we kind of devolve into my

drinking habits at the Vienna Inn or my love of heavy metal in the Red Sox. And so a little bit of national security here and there. But it's a- You have some great guests on it, too. It's a great podcast. Well, I mean, I'm trying to feed them to you guys. You should have Andy Milburn or Jason Lyons on it. I would love it. Or Jack Murphy or Sean Naylor. Now you put them on the spot. See how this works, guys? You see how this works? It's good. It's fun doing that. People helping people. Yeah. No, these. And, you know, it's, you know, it's fun just having a chat with kind of old friends. So I like that.

And the other thing, too, is, I mean, D, you're good on the metrics. I have no fucking idea how many people listen to these things. They don't tell you. I just, I sort of pay attention and I don't. And I don't know. I mean, the one thing, and for everyone here on this show understands this, when you get into this kind of space, you got to have thick skin. You know, there are, and I, it's been hard because you kind of put your whole life out there.

Yeah. And if you want to kind of jump into the arena, there's going to be, you know, flip a coin, 50% of the people are going to think you're an asshole. And, you know, one of the things, a good buddy of mine is Dan Hoffman, you know, former CIA station chief in Moscow. He's the Fox News Intel correspondent, National Security analysis. And he always tells me, he's like, he's like, man, I wish I could do what you do because you just say whatever the fuck's on your mind. And but there's a price to pay for that. So some people don't like it, but it's a jump in the arena.

This is what you get. Which is why I am not on Twitter, because I'm. will fight, which is why I'm not on Twitter, because I will fight everyone. Oh, God. I was called, you guys will love this. Someone said, you're an Islamist, communist. Nice. They called me that the other day.

And I was like, I said, that's awesome. You know, that's, I actually wrote back. I was like, that is a good one. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to use that. You know, I've got used to, I mean, I don't mind the insults like that. What still bugs me and I've got to stop it, our accusations are lying. You know, so I don't, I don't mind people call me an asshole and anything, but I'll give you, you know, just recently someone questioned on, on D on that podcast when I said, hey, we had hotels hit by missiles four times. And some guys like, that's impossible, you know, who the fuck else remembers that? And actually it was more than that. You know, it was four times we know of for sure while we were in those hotels. But for some reason, that, I shouldn't tell people this because now everyone's going to accuse me a lying. But for some reason that really pissed me off. It pissed me off for a whole, I don't know. hour and then but you're right yeah you've got to evolve beyond that i mean think about think about

all the shit that's flying around now about you know the titans of social media you know the seals i mean we we can only aspire we are we're just grasshoppers at their feet when it comes to media propagation right so you know a guy like jock and this is not a hit on joc i i mean he's done very well good on him but even a guy like him with his following also has a, you know, has a determined counter following with people from apart, right? Well, I mean, we've had on the team house, we had a former seal that was in that world, never worked with Jocko, that has had some pretty damning accusations towards him. Oh, yeah, yeah, no, this is not, you know, just general.

I'm just saying, yeah. I'm just saying, yeah. So, you know, but the attacks came from the guy's own community, you know. Right. And that is particularly concerning. I don't mind attacks coming from the GP, general public. You know, I mean, that's part of the game. And of course, I'm always going to be attacked by a few Marines.

And I discount them by saying they're not real Marines. But, you know, when you're getting attacked by a substantive part of your community, then that is probably a concern, right? Yeah, that's happening too. Even among seals who, you know, who like doing, you know, they tar each, they're like a group of piranha, you know, whenever one of them. goes to bat if they all converge on him. All right, so here's my theory on this as we're going to kind of start rambling down the

road. But this is a good one. I like this. I was just talking about this the other day with some folks. And I really believe this honestly is that, you know, in this, in this strange world that we inhabited and we don't anymore and I think it's healthy. So what's the personality trait? And I know this. CIA recruits a certain personality trait. And that's narcissistic sociopaths. And so and so on the one hand, it can be incredibly effective. If you, you're running a surveillance detection route alone carrying $200,000 in the back sprites of, you know, Baghdad or Kandahar or Damascus. And you have to, you have to determine, are you surveillance free? You have an asset meeting. All these things where you're this incredible, you have this

incredible capacity to operate on your own. That makes you a really kind of shitty teammate later on. That affects, that is nothing to do with on how you can manage. And it promotes kind of a zero-sum mentality. And so that was always my kind of my issue at CIA. And so, you know, ultimately, my success now in the media, and I don't call it success, by the way, I'm just out there talking. Trust me, I don't make any fucking money. It's very, everybody pays very low. We pay D. We pay D. We pay D. We pay D. there on this podcast. That's right. And so, so, but, but you know, but you're, you know, the, there is, there is no way that people get up in the morning, a lot of our former colleagues. are happy for your success.

I'm sorry, that's just not, but it's because this weird, I think, personality trait on how we recruit folks into the organization. And to me, that is just, I've never kind of figured out how to crack that nut. I think ultimately, one of the things that we might want to do, and I'm not going to speak for the special operations world, is maybe we're actually recruiting the wrong people. Maybe those, you know, maybe you don't need that kind of sociopathic narcissist. because ultimately

it leads to that notion of like, hey, if you have success, that means I'm failing. It's a zero. I don't know if you found that in your old world. I certainly... Well, 100%. You know, I mean, the story of the Mozart group became that. You know, it was, you know, as soon as we were dealing with our own,

you know, bad actor within the organization, of course, a lot of people want to jump on the bandwagon or simply cut us that, you know, the people who have been fighting on that. same bad wagon. And I agree with you 100%. A lot of those guys were former military, and it's made me think hard over the last few years about how we select people within the military. So I'm very, you know, I know this is a whole different program, but I can only speak about my community, and I think, no, we don't do a great job ultimately, because we still get too many officers who are risk of us who are bureaucrats and are driven by very selfish motive is you know that comes comes down

to careerism and we see it even in the wrinkle even though we love pretending that we are exempt from that right as we you know and um and i think egotism narcissism are part of that um but i think to me certainly within the military the biggest part and i can't put my finger on this just comes this bureaucratic mentality that people use time and time again to persuade them into doing nothing. That's on one side. And then on the other side, you've got the other extreme within the soft community of people who think that the rules don't apply to them. They, you know, hey, we are super talented. We pay a heavy price. To us, the rules don't quite apply the same way in the words of the seal master chief. The boys just need to blow off seal steam. So, you know, this mistaken feeling

that which has destroyed us in the sock and what's hurt us in the soft community you know because of all the bad publicity and that turns around it so i do think about that a lot i think you're onto something i'm not sure um what the answer is except that we do need to instead of patting ourselves on the back we need to really look at the people that we have in these positions especially as warfare evolves right and you need a far more cerebral guy you need a guy who is just as tough but he needs to be cerebral and And in the Marine Corps, we have not done that. We have too many idiots among our officers. I know there are those on this show who will say, all our officers are idiots.

I would say, no, for the most part, most of our officers are great, but we still have too many guys who do not belong in uniform. Okay, I'm sorry, I didn't need to. But I'm great. Yeah, absolutely. You know, it matters to us because we spend all our adult lives in an institution. Right. The agency made the Marine Corps.

it's my family and it's your identity i mean it just yeah exactly i mean 26 years my life and i and i take it personally when i when when i see fucked up marine corps officers doing bad things i don't mean just being incompetent but i mean you know just anyway enough just not being marines what kind of personality would fit besides like that type a narcissist sociopath go get her let me let me flip let me just tell you a story this is a great story so so so i have to sanitize this So a long, long time ago, I handled one of our top penetrations of a Middle Eastern country. It was an intelligence officer. He was in line to be, you know, within their leadership ranks.

And one of the things, and I was not the recruiting officer, I was the handling officer. And so one of the things you do when you take over a case, you know, Jason knows this, is, you know, you're going to sit down with the asset, you kind of have to go over the history the case. But I wanted to get into his head. Like, you know, why did he, why did he end up? And he, he volunteered. And, and the mechanics of when he approached us. And he said, he goes, well, look, he said, I, you know, I was, I was, I was watching at every diplomatic reception how CI officer, how US diplomats were reacting, goes, I could pick all of you guys out and gals out. And I was guilty this too. He goes, you know, you were the glad handler. You want to be the life of the

party. You know, we're going to have, Jason's going to laugh. We're going to, you're going to be the one running like the, you know, the scotch tasting at the military attache circuit or, you know, organizing the soccer games or, you know, you know, but you are the life of the party, kind of this domineering American. And he said, and then I looked in the corner of the room and I saw some guy. You know, he showed up to every reception, but he didn't say a word. And so he goes, I said to myself, that not only is a CIA officer, not one, and by the way, everyone else in there is as well, but they're just kind of these type A American assholes. He said, but that, guy's going to keep me alive. I want an introvert. I want someone who is, is, you can't even tell.

Nobody even knows him, knows his name. And so that's the person he ended up walking up to one day and said, I'm from so-and-so country. I'd like to talk to you privately. And I remember in the station bullpen, everyone's like, well, that motherfucker didn't do anything. It was a volunteer. And I was thinking about it later, I was like, actually, no, he did everything right. But he was an introvert. So you don't have to be this kind of type A asshole. And so, you know, I, so I, you know, I, you I've thought about that over the years. And so I would think that, you know, kind of the used car salesman, maybe that's not the best, the best model we have for an intelligence officer.

Yeah, the analogy that a mentor told me was the sticker on, the bumper sticker on the car, said, if there's an accident, a crime, whatever it is, you know, police are going to show up, they're going to ask questions, and someone's going to say, you know, oh, the thing I remember about that car that sped away is they had a bumper sticker on the back of their car. car. And he told me, if you go out in the parking lot, you look at my car, I have no bumper stickers because I want to be the gray man. I want to be the guy who people are like, I think it was a blue car, but, you know, there were no distinguishing marks. So I've always carried that with me, you know, to always be, I don't want to be the bumper sticker on the car. It's just like with people

who I've had this conversation with people that I, uh, are big two A guys, which I'm, I'm fine. I'm proponent of the second amendment, but they're always screaming. A lot of them are screaming about their guns being taken and just like the mentor was telling me um you know if you are so adamant that they're coming for your guns why do you have all these gun stickers all over your cars you're the first person that they're going to look for so uh it kind of goes to what that uh asset was saying you know i've always tried to picture what that's going to look like when they come for our guns black helicopters yeah exactly because the guys i shouldn't actually mention it's going to be your local sheriff that you know who's going to

show up at your door. That's what it's going to be. But yeah, so it's pretty, pretty cool analogy. But yeah, you just, and that's how I tried to my short career at the agency. I tried to be that cliche gray man. Well, in my case, it would be dark gray, but that gray man, you know, as much as possible. I think that's, that's, that's great advice that you, that you got. And I guess the, the answer probably is that, you know, why do we have to have this kind of personality test, you know, why are we recruiting narcissists, sociopaths, or intelligence officers? Maybe, but, you know, maybe we should actually look at, because also I would argue that, and the agency is horrible leadership.

We don't teach leadership, you know, you know, you guys both know this. If you're in the military, you have a 20-year career, you probably, what, spent one or two, one-year assignments at some kind of leadership school, the agency, we have three one-week classes in your 20 years. And so, but, and all the attributes that, make you a great case officer, again, make you a terrible leader. Because you have to make that switch from line officer to manager where it's not about you anymore. It's about all the people under you. And people have a terrible time doing that. So when was that few when you took over at Coast?

I mean, was it? No, no, no. 2003 was my first management job. I was chief of operations in Kuwait. And I sucked. I was fucking terrible. I'd come off a tour in Iraq where I received the Distinguished intelligence medal, the agency's second highest of war. So I thought I was the baddest person on the planet. And all of a sudden, I'm managing a whole bunch of folks thinking I'm still the baddest person in the world, not realizing it's all about them, not about me. And I look back at my decisions and how I acted and it was abominable. And I got better. Yeah, yeah, but the point is you're looking back and saying that, right? If they really were abominable or you were a bad leader, you wouldn't be saying that. You wouldn't be doing that at all, right? Because those guys just don't

So for flank. Look at a cable you wrote 20 years ago, if one can. And, you know, how much, it's the use of the first person. Yeah. It evaporates very, you know, and because, again, it's the, at the end of the, you know, my last, my last couple jobs, I mean, my last job when I was the, the office chief over Europe in Eurasia, you know, technically I had probably 2,000 people working for me. But what did I want?

I wanted everybody there smarter than me. I never would have said that, you know, in 2003 in my first management job. But I wanted to be the dumbest person in the room. I'll be your leader. I have the experience to make decisions. I want to surround myself with greatness. That is so against the grain of a CIA case officer. It's completely not what you want at all because you are kind of indoctrinated to be this badass.

And to work hard, right? We have this thing. If we're not working hard. No, that's the whole thing. It must be going on. Right. right so i i could talk for hours on this issue we're not doing activity i made i i literally went out i remember one time to a stay i got in trouble for this uh and i was wrong i went out to a station as a

manager uh the station wasn't working hard enough and i basically said you know um you know everyone can kind of make their reservations to go home i want you guys out seven nights a week um at the end of your tour i want you crawling up the stairs of the of the plane i thought i was given a rah-rah speech and it was pretty stupid. Because especially in places where people are coming off of war zone tours are exhausted, you do have to have this work-life balance. I mean, the notion, even now, I have disagreements with former colleagues. At CIA as a case office, you've got to work at night. That's fine. Got it. But you know what you can do. You can go home for dinner, see your family. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and you have to be able to take care of. We need time in and the gym. You know,

everyone should be working out. I mean, so there's, you know, it's, it's, I learned a good buddy of mine who was a former command sergeant major of, he'll get mad at me of, but of Delta, Rob Lively, I don't know if you guys know Rob. He's a great guy. And him and I have gone down to the Philly Police Department to teach some of the leadership stuff and especially some of those Philly SWAT units.

And Rob has a thing he calls it, the combat leadership chassis. And I was like, that's the, first, and I stole it immediately. Just like you guys can poach my guess and I'll have you guys on my show. Like, you hear something good. But he said, he goes, you know,

you get up in the morning, you know, is everything working? hydrate. This is, this is basic, hydration, nutrition, exercise. You know, these are your controllables. No one taught me that at CIA. It was more of like, hey, how much did we fucking drink last night? And I got to go out again tonight. But it's, it's sleep hygiene. And so, you know, when you, when, no one ever taught me that. I think that's really important. And so, you know, I just, I've kind of evolved in that as well, last point is, whatever it is, what is it, Gen Z? Is the new generation now? They are not going to tolerate bullshit from us as leaders. And so, you know, what happens at CIA if someone, you know,

has a boss who's going to work them to death, it doesn't allow them to take care of themselves, they're going to quit. And right when I left, CIA did a study of why people at the five-year mark were quitting. And it was, it was like 90% said because they had shitty first-line managers. So that's an indictment. Yeah. But I mean, that's feedbacks they get, right? that gives you serious that's the thing that bothers me sometimes about surveys they use to inflict discipline or impose discipline on individual commanders but they're not necessarily used to fix systemic problems which is you're talking about you know i once had 360 feedback they said mark thinks he's a lot smarter than he really is and i was horrified when i thought about that a lot

i was like yeah maybe that's true and i you know you know i kind of took that to heart it was that's i mean that's that's that's the that's the uh um that's the pious lie that we tell us ourselves and what is especially i think the biggest thing is humility like you got to be humble as a as a leader um especially with kind of the stuff we were doing so let me go on that that that uh assignment in Kuwait when at what point in your career did you realize oh shit i wasn't doing like i don't think i was doing the right thing or I wasn't a great leader there or whatever like was it early on or was it like with benefit of hindsight and experience like probably a combination of things but certainly looking back um mostly how I okay so so this is this is a really important point um I was having a very

hard time making the transition from one of the boys and gals in the back um to leader and so you know so what does that mean it means at the Marine house at midnight go fucking home if you're a manager sorry nothing happens at a Marine House after midnight that's good if you're supervising your officers they can they can do whatever the hell they want but you know it's things like that you can't and so I'm not their friend anymore just not and so and and in a place like that I was still too close to the officers who then you end up having to possibly discipline and so I think about you know and that that's a that's a struggle that case officers have or any managers probably have and from having this intense, you know,

environment where you're right next to someone to all of a sudden to then, to then being their boss. Because guess what you want to do? You want to be liked. Yeah. It's the American thing. You want to be a leader. That's not, that's really not part of the whole fucking leadership equation.

Can't give a shit about that. And so that I really, that's the thing I really struggled on. And eventually, you know, you get better at it. And you get better because you screw things up. You get better because you're paying attention and you're willing to, and you're honest with yourself. Yeah. Right?

That's why we all know four stars and three star generals who've had all the experience in the world but are still shitty leaders because they haven't reflected on that experience. You know, it's all, they've used it all to bolster their image of themselves, which is positive. The one thing when I've gone and I wrote a book on leadership when I've talked about it, and I try, of course, and so, you know, I remember I got a, it was actually pretty funny. I got it from a very senior former agency officer I really like, he sent me a text one time, he said, hey, can you teach me some leadership with a little smiley face? But the point I'm making is that not that I was a great leader at all.

It's just I'm just trying. These are just lessons on leadership that I found mostly from me screwing up. But I made a ton of mistakes. And so it's, I think that that is where it's important to, you know, to have that kind of mentality of, you know, of understanding, you know, being humble. And, you know, it's a, it's a really tough business. I mean, you know, this is not, you know, we're not, we're not. not worrying about, you know, whether your sales of Coca-Cola went up and down. There's a lot of life and dust stuff.

And so, but, but being, I think the biggest, the two biggest best traits for intelligence officer to be humble and then to be curious. It's not like a Ted Lassow thing. Be curious. Yeah. Yeah. I like Ted Lassow. All right, boys.

This is great. Andy Milburn, Colonel Andy Miliburn, his book is available. The link is in the description. You can find them on LinkedIn. You can check out his substats. everything will be in the description. All of Mark's links will also be in the description. D, can I say something real quick?

Absolutely. Very quick about the substack. Hey, guys, please read, well, don't check out. And if you want to read it. But I wrote an article, I'm just about to release, actually, about the worst year of my life, which was the lawsuit. Dee's familiar with the story.

Smith, you are. I'm not going to go into it now, but I fought two lawsuits in the last two years, one of both. On all counts, both dismissed. But it was expensive and it was incredibly painful. And if I hadn't had the backing of a major media organization, I would have been finished. I would have been done.

And it's taught me how fragile the First Amendment is. But most of all, it's really talked about humility. It's brought me face to face with a type of fear that I never, never knew during active duty, never knew facing death, fear of just losing everything, you know, my family, everything that I built up. that's what I was facing last year. So, you know, to me, the article is more interesting in that sense and scary and frightening than any of the stories I've told about combat for what it's worth. And I'd love to get any feedback, positive feedback, of course. I don't listen. I will read that. That's amazing. Wow. But I'm a better, I'm a changed man. And after that year, and I'm not, you know, I like to think for the better. You're welcome, Andy. This was not about me. No, no, no, it's great.

No, we touched on it slightly. I didn't take that opportunity to do that. Yeah, we touched on it slightly on your last team house episode, which is good. Markia, an alleged rapist who sadly was a Marine reservist brought a lawsuit against me for going off from Ukraine, going off from him. By the dad, I mean, I was asked to put out a description of him. He claimed that I was trying to get the Mozart group to assassinate him, which is this was early days of the war, the Russians.

And anyway, the lawsuit was a $20 million lawsuit. And it was a frightening year. Oh, sure. Very interesting things happen in that year to include his lawyer having a total stroke. And first day in court, you know, there's weird acts of, I wouldn't say acts of God, but things. I'm not going to go there. But weird things happening. Anyway, I'm alive.

I'm emerged. And I'm, you know, and I won. But I'm a vastly poorer, vastly wiser. person than I was. Well, hopefully adversity like that makes it stronger. I mean, that's sad. I'm not sure I do it all again. No, agreed.

Also, Mark, the Red Sox stink, by the way. Yeah, they wanted to win last night, 12 to 10. It's painful. I see you have the schedule in the back, like, get the whiteboard out. Going to Baltimore on Monday, so Sunday. I'm going to see Red Sox on. I think I might be up there over, there's a, there's a counterterrorism conference, September 12th and 13th.

And I think that Red Sox are playing the Yankees. So I'm through, bro. Let's grab dinner. Yeah. Got to do it. Got to go. We went to a Greek restaurant last time.

No, we went to a Lebanese place. We got to go to your Greek restaurant. No, so we went to a Greek restaurant last time, but it wasn't my family, my families, but we can go to my families when hopefully it'll be fucking open. No, it'll be open. Yeah, we can go.

It's out. It's up Lee Greek Kitchen. If you're in Brooklyn, go check it out. Yeah. It's right. There is awesome. Yeah. Me and Andy went.

Yeah. Yeah, really, really good. All right, boys, Patreon.com slash the team house. That's how you support the show. Don't forget to do that. And don't forget to like and subscribe. And yeah, thanks, guys. Mark, you're great having you on.

Thank you so much. Anytime. You all were great. Thanks so much.