The Team House - Is the U.S. Actually Going to Attack Venezuela? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: October 27, 2025

In this episode of Eyes On Geopolitics, Dee, Andy, Mick, and Jack discuss the current geopolitical landscape, focusing on Venezuela's military situation, U.S. foreign policy, and the implications of military actions. They explore the complexities of regime change, the legal and ethical considerations of military engagement, and the public's perception of foreign interventions. The conversation also touches on the ongoing situation in Ukraine and Gaza, highlighting the challenges and strategies involved in these conflicts.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseSubscribe to our new newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinNew merch, patches, and stickers! ⬇️https://theteamhouse-shop.fourthwall.comJack:⬇️https://thehighside.substack.com/Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQFind Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio"00:00 Start00:57 Venezuela: Military Presence and Drug Trafficking05:29 Regime Change: The Case for Action08:31 The Complexity of U.S. Foreign Policy10:40 Military Strategy and Covert Operations12:13 Legal and Ethical Implications of Military Action14:51 Economic Factors and U.S. Interests in Venezuela16:53 The Role of Congress in Military Decisions18:54 Public Perception of Military Engagements20:31 The Future of U.S. Foreign Policy23:43 Ukraine: Military Support and Strategy56:38 Conclusion and Final ThoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of Aizond Geopolitics today. We have Andy Milburn, Mick Mulroy, Jack Murphy, and myself. A lot happening, as usual. Kick things off. First and foremost, do us a favor. It's a little bit of house cleaning. Like and subscribe. If you're listening to us on audio, give us five stars.

Subscribe there too. That's important as well. And if you want, add free episodes of both Aizon and the Teamhouse. You can go to patreon.com slash the teamhouse. all these guys if you want to find out what Jack's working on what Mick's working on what Andy's working on the links are in the description as well anything and everything you need to find is in the link down in the description Mick has a new podcast called the pub and the porch applied stoicism it comes out every Monday link is in the description there as well videos coming very soon it's a great podcast check it out please thank you all right now the shit show that is the world um Venezuela we have a USS Gerald R. Ford

steaming in Andy's favorite weapon system, of course, the carrier. Around 14% of the Navy's assets are in the Caribbean, the most in decades. Continued strikes going on on boats drug traffickers. This time, it wasn't just

Venezuelan. They hit on the Pacific and they also hit Colombian drug traffickers as well. That also kicked up a little bit of a firestorm between Columbia's President and President Trump. Right now, let's just focus on Venezuela. It looks more and more like we're ready to go for it,

or at least we're pushing for a regime change. Where are you guys at? You guys can, you know, paper, rock, scissors to see who goes first. Thank you go first. I picked. Okay. So some of the facts before we get into the analysis. The drug issue, there's more drugs that are produced in Peru, Colombia, and Mexico,

especially fentanyl. I think Mexico is like 90% of fentanyl production. in Venezuela. I'm not saying that Venezuela doesn't produce a lot of drugs. I'm just laying it out there. Right. You mentioned it. 14% of, you know, the naval assets are now in the Caribbean. That's not necessary to interdict drug boats. I think it's fair to say. That is either an intimidation factor for getting Maduro to potentially flee themselves, maybe a Noriega type operation to go in and get him. Certainly not enough to occupy in as well,

not that there be any political will do that. They have an amphibious group with view. That's not enough. They could potentially see the Port City or something like that. The issues, of course, are, is this about regime change? Is this about stemming the flow of illegal narcotics? The United States is killing America people.

Both. Some of the legal issues. If we start doing strikes internal to Venezuela, that's a sovereign country that seems to violate several international laws, including Article 2 of the UN Charter that created the UN. The United States is going to say, at least if you're talking international law, Article 51, which is an error right of self-defense of a country, but that has to be to oppose an armed attack or an imminent threat, right? So the White House is going to say, yeah, that one, imminent threat.

They bring drugs, people take drugs, people die. It's up to you guys, everybody, to determine whether that would lead to the definition of an imminent threat. You know, a drug boat that's off the coast of Venezuela, it's about 1,300 miles for the United States. You take about 20 refueling of those types of boats to get to the United States. And then, of course, with all this major military activity, including B1 bombers flying around the outskirts of Venezuela, we have the president acknowledging in a rare event, the president acknowledging that he's authorized covert actions,

not just intelligence collection and support military operations, but he doesn't have to authorize the CIA does that all the time, but actually to take some form of action, we don't know what it is because we don't know the finding, But that finding could be lethal, it could be influence, it could be whatever the president essentially wrote it to be. And that's all going on at the same time as this major military buildup. So I guess I'll stop there, but hopefully that kind of late.

Oh, and then the last two parts, internal to the United States, to use the military, then you have the War Powers Act, right? It's the War Powers Act, although no president has acknowledged its constitutionality, says that if the president uses the military, they have 60 days to do so before either Congress declares a war or he has to withdraw him. He has 30 days to do so. So we're going to hit that clock here and then hopefully, I don't know why it's taken this long. The Supreme Court's actually can decide whether that act is constitutional. As Congress says, Article 1, we're the ones a declarable. The president is the commander-in-chief after we declare. But that's never been

resolved. So I think that kind of lays out a lot of the issues. Boys. Andy? Yeah, I was, you know, I was waiting for Jack, the visiting Star, to jump in. But Jack is very circumspect on these things and waits for us to talk and then tears us up. So I will, um, I, you know what, I'm kind of getting the same feeling that I didn't get, but should have had. before our road to war in Iraq, right? Although, I mean, in retrospect, of course, that was a dreadful disaster at the time because we were still in post-9-11 shock. It seemed like a lot of the arguments were rational.

But nevertheless, it was kind of the same shoehorning of intelligence and public statements into one particular country, as it turns out, that was largely irrelevant in the war on terror. And in this case, as Mick points out, Venezuela, I won't say the country's irrelevant, but it's certainly not the main actor as far as propagation of the drug trade, you know, through in the United States.

We've talked about this. You know, if you want to go to the origins of fentanyl, of course, you have to go to China. And if you want to go to Midway, points for drugs across the spectrum from fentanyl through cocaine, then you go to other countries such as Colombia and even, you know, Mexico, but not Venezuela. So it's curious. And then you have the Southcom commander resigning.

and, you know, I've written about under what circumstances should you resign or refuse to obey orders, etc., etc., and so I was hoping for some kind of public statement afterwards to explain why that had happened, because I would assume that within the U.S. military, there are those who don't think this is a particularly good idea who regard regard, you know, other countries as posing a greater threat to U.S. national interests. The last thing I'll say is, you know, the administration's policy during the campaign and repeated often since then is, hey, no more foreign wars, right? And I suppose they mean, they just meant no more foreign wars in the Middle East or no more foreign wars in the Middle East or no more foreign wars. and the defense of NATO or near the homeland, it seems as though perhaps we have a case of the tail wagging the dog. Bottom line is Venezuela is not, it's certainly not an existential of the United States, right? Yeah, I think that, you know, like Mick said early on, that, you know, what's the goal here?

Is it counter-narcotics? Is it regime change against a dictatorship or a communist regime that we don't particularly like? I'm like, what are we trying to accomplish and like what is the actual threat to the United States? But I think like these questions are almost like asking too much at this point because the foreign policy is just so incoherent and it doesn't make any sense. And at the end of the day, I mean, I'm just going to editorialize. I mean, is it really about Venezuela or is it about the Epstein files? Like what what's going on here? Why are we doing this?

And, you know, but it is a serious military buildup that's happening down there. J-Soc is doing exercises right off the coast around some of these oil platforms. And those exercises could be flipped live at any time. I'm sure that they deployed with an actual combat package and live ammunition for something like that. Something similar happened. And this is kind of a bit of a segue. But in 2004, J-Soc did a big training exercise in Thailand. And that was able to be able to be flipped live to go after Al-Qaeda high-value target.

I believe the guy's name was Humbali. He was a pretty high-level AQ guy at the time. And actually, the CIA liaison went and picked the guy up and they got him that way. so they didn't need to do some big heroic J-Soc raid. But the point is, there were like rangers with live ammunition sitting next to the helicopters, like ready to roll for that if it was needed. And then, of course, the aircraft carrier is, you know, depending on what argument you want to make, it's either a deterrent or it's a massive provocation.

I don't know which you would think. Yeah, so I have all sorts of questions of, you know, just sanification. tests like what are we doing here? Yeah, and if that's, if it is a case like a Noriega type effort, you know, obviously the CIA is going to be, and we're not trying to just kill them because it's easier to kill them, somebody to capture them. So everybody knows on this. But if it is to capture them to put them on trial, just like Noriega, essentially, then

having J-Soc do these, it's almost like conditioning type runs where they get used to seeing it, It's a training exercise, as Jack said. And then one day, they know where he's is and is in the best position. It looks like a training, you know, exercise. And all of a sudden, it's not, right? That's pretty risky. I mean, moving, you know, obviously the most elite force in the world, but everybody's vulnerable, especially during the movement too, right?

There is, I mean, they're, Maduro, he's even openly talking about it. was spreading surface to air missile systems all over the country. And so, I mean, you're going to have shit being shot at you from every direction as you come in. So it's super risky. Even with the amount of firepower we have, we certainly won't want to see anything like that happen. So it's a big decision. And I think you all said, like, we haven't actually made the case to the American people of why that would be worth the risk, you know. nor do I, unless I'm wrong,

Kirk may have wrong, I don't think the guy's indicted in the United States. Is Maduro even indicted? I mean, why wouldn't you take those initial steps, right? Yeah, as we did. You have some legitimacy of action or, you know, apprehending.

Yeah, I'm trying to remember in just cause, we indicted Noriega, right? And, I mean, there's some parallels, I suppose, right? but the level of provocation coming from arguably, you know, I mean, I'm not saying just cause was a particularly good idea, but the level of provocation at the time. So let me correct myself. He is indicted in the United States.

So, yeah, so that's important. That's an important point. He's been indicted since 2020. So they also, and they also bumped the reward to 50 mil, which I don't know if that doesn't anything so that's their that's at least justification potentially for a military action Japanese what's interesting to me about the whole thing is like because the Maduro government

signaled that they're willing to cut ties and contracts with China and Russia and you know do deals with us and you would think with this administration they'd be more open to you know they see dollar signs and that seems to be something that makes them more makes a move a little bit and since that's been floated out there it's been it's been said that like the u.s. has said no to you know that and like the whole i remember leading up to like a venas well has always been bad news and like we've always heard that china has its claws in there

and russia has its claws in there and wouldn't it make sense to like if they de if they decoupled with those countries and came towards the right that's what i'm saying And he kind of said no. Right. He offered everything to the United States. But he wanted to stay in power. And maybe they hope that he just flees the country and goes to Cuba or something. Maybe that's part of the kind of like deterrence or provocation, putting this much firepower in there.

You can go play Xbox with Bashir al-Assad in Moscow. Yeah. Go have a hot doctor. I have a suit tester. I mean, you think about it. That's really. It used to be one of the wealthiest countries in Latin America, and it has 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves.

It's like worth $14 trillion, I think, I read. And yet they have seven million people fleeing the country because it's a collapsed economy, right? It's a, if you really want to see socialism and it's pure form, there you go. It's not working too well. So keep that in mind. mind, not that we're talking politics here, but there's a reason that the country who should

be doing very well and is credible. It's got more proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia. Think about it. And yet, its economy is essentially collapsed. I was going to say something mean, but I'm not going to do it. Not to always, I mean, I guess Saudi Arabia is the dictators we do like. Sorry, Andy. Whoa, whoa.

Don't say anything, Andy. Yeah, yeah. Keep your mouth shut. Sorry. We'll move on. Also, there is an argument to like where you could say because of all the sanctions over the years and stuff like that. That's why they weren't allowed to be in the world economy like any other country or most other countries is why their economy is trash. There's an argument there.

I'm not saying it's totally black and white like that. Obviously, and Maduro's not a good guy. Neither was Hugo Chavez. So, you know, I checked it, right? Like if they weren't charged, then they would be. Yeah. And maybe that's part of the, I mean, they probably should spend more time talking about that. If that's the intent, talking about how well, then as well it could be doing, if it had a legitimately elected Machado essentially was going to win.

So he declared that she was ineligible to run. You know, that's like the oldest, you know, autocrat. trick in the deck. And then she picks somebody to run who most international watchers of the polls believe 170% of the vote. And then, you know, Maduro just declared himself the victor. And that's where we are now. So he's completely illegitimate.

And yeah, I think the U.S., if it is a regime change, ought to just be really open about it. And there's a lot of reasons why that would be not only beneficial for the United States, because of the flow of illegal immigrants coming from Venezuela, but also the people of Venezuela. You want to have to make the case. You don't need to do it covertly. I'd be interested with what the U.S. policy. You know, surprisingly enough,

I mean, just cause supposedly was supported by 80% of U.S. population. There was a catalyst, right? I mean, it was the killing of an off-duty Marine, but clearly U.S. was a catalyst. prepared to do it beforehand. And, you know, I'm just... I doubt it. I'm sorry to be a skeptic.

To agree with you. Yeah. I mean, because in... My point is this, that I think the appetite of U.S. public for foreign adventures, even those on our doorstep is pretty low. And I think I would have thought that would be a significant obstacle to a decision by not any legal obstacles, but certainly that. I think it's pretty incredible how inoculated the American public has become to the point that they don't really see air strikes or special operations as being war.

And we've seen that with these strikes in the boats in the Caribbean and now the Pacific. I mean, there are people raising concerns about the legalities of it, of course, particularly people like in our circles. But like John Q Public doesn't really seem particularly bothered by these types of strikes. And I think that unless you have Marines coming home in body bags, I don't think the American public's really going to raise too big an eyebrow about it. It's just something we've been conditioned to accept for, you know, decades now. Yeah, and it's the idea, I think, to your point, I mean, we saw this for 20 years and still see it with strikes and, you know, in Syria and stuff with the military just doing what they do.

based on AOMF that was, you know, decades ago, right? Al-Qaeda and civilians, now we declare another group that does obviously, obviously have not supportive of narco-terrorists, but they don't have anything to do with al-Qaeda, right? So now we just declare them a foreign terrorist organization. And I think the public just says, okay, well, I guess we do the same thing against them. But there's no, there's no A-U-M-F equivalent for military action against, you know, narco-terrorism. So I guess the question would be whether you're supported or not. I mean, the system is supposed to have Congress give continuous operations, lethal operations, give the military authority to do so.

If not, then what's the authority? And I think that's the legal question. Even if all these people are, you know, smuggling drugs that are getting killed. And I would assume that the targeters are not presenting targets that aren't valid. But even if it's if we're presuming they are, which is fine. Like that doesn't the executive branch need some authority from Congress to continue this, you know, or if not it, they can just do it in perpetuity. We can strike every boat that we think is carrying drugs going north.

I am. So a couple of points in that. I agree. I think Jack brought up the legalities, Congress's role. both in authorizing military force, you know, the War Powers Act, all these things, I think the American public just doesn't understand. It's one thing not understanding the, you know, the path that got us to where we are now with the War Powers Act, with the AUMF, but they don't understand in principle the role that Congress should be playing as a check on the, executive, right, when it comes to too foreign policy. And I'm not sure they even care. You know, I think there's a lot of Americans who are just, hey, the bad guy is getting killed,

and you guys are, I mean, make your points absolutely well. Taking strikes overseas, whatever, whether it's Afghanistan or whether it's against drug boats. They don't, they don't understand that there's good reasons why we adhere to these legal niceties. both domestically and internationally. I mean, they represent norms, right? And the concern, of course, we talked about it here on the show before, is if we're going,

if we think that lethal force is okay to exercise automatically without any kind of approval against people who are violating U.S. law overseas or intending to violate U.S. law overseas, then legally and ethically we've opened the door for any country that wants to take out their own citizens in the United States or anyone in the United States was violating the laws of their country. You know, think about what India did and supposedly did in Canada against Sikh activists and everyone made such a big deal of that, although no one really cares about what the Canadians, you know, think. And of course, there are enemy now anyway.

But, you know, I mean, my point is a, I think it's a serious one. It's the same thing when we talk about killing people with drones in another sovereign country without the government of that country agreeing. We are implicitly opening our doors or ourselves to other foreign powers doing the same. And so I, and the last thing I'll say is, I'm not even sure Congress, understands. All right? I mean, you expect the senior chamber, the Senate, there to be greater concern. But I, but certainly, you know, across the board, there's some dithering around. There's some, hey, I'm not sure this is exactly right. There are discussions. But there isn't a

coherent, serious questioning of, of these, of these acts. I mean, another another drug boat get struck or we think it's a drug boat, you know, who knows. I mean, there's no serious opposition. Yeah, and you would think there'd be a robust debate going on in Congress. One would hope, yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's oversight committees, right, for both armed services and intel. They should be able to see the intel that they're using the basis for the strikes, right? So they should be able to make their own assessment or whether they're accurate.

And then they're supposed to have an authority. under the Constitution. I mean, Article 1 is Congress. It's not a presidency. So they, if we're going to get away, and this isn't a political statement, if we're going to get away from Congress having any play in the use of the military and foreign conflicts, which one can say this is, then it's simply like the Unitarian Executive Theory or whatever. The folks have won basically a more robust presidency.

He doesn't even need to go there and talk to them. That's not how the system was set up under the Constitution. It's a balance. That's the point that people have made in recent days about, you know, with the government shut down and this guy who's a private donor giving a hundred and some odd million dollars to the administration. Yeah, is a guy Mellon who is this like reclusive billionaire sort of heir to an empire of railroaders, I guess. but anyway, he donates this money to keep the troops paid. As I understand that it comes out to like $100 per troop,

so it's not really paying their paychecks. But nonetheless, the point being is that if the soldiers are being paid, our soldiers, American soldiers are being paid with private funds, then do we really have a republic anymore? Is that what this is? Or have we become something else at that point? It gets back to, I know I'm sounding like an old fogie, but what is being taught in our schools? You know, what is being, ironically, immigrants who have to go through the green card process and get citizenship,

have a better understanding of the fundamentals of, you know, what U.S., what the institution is founded on, you know, and the fact that one of the founding fathers' biggest fears was an untrammeled executive, right? You know, I mean, that's why the U.S. system was supposed to be so messy because they didn't want a king. You know, I don't mean to go down that road again, you know, but intentionally. But then I think we've probably in the last, you'd have to go back to Vietnam and the 70s really to look for, a serious debate right within government about the role of Congress and foreign policy. I mean, the War Powers Act arose in the aftermath of Vietnam because of Vietnam. But even then Congress, even then Congress, many argued, was slow to act.

And that was when all Americans had skin in the game because we had the draft. But then we went through 20 years of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. were only a tiny percentage of the U.S. population was paying the price. Congress certainly didn't provide very, for a number of reasons, didn't provide rigorous oversight of those wars. And one of the reasons may have just been aftermath of 9-11, but one reason undoubtedly was they had no reason to do so because their constituents were not, they didn't have skin in the game. You know, domestic policy was all important. What happened in Afghanistan and Iraq didn't even make the top fold of the paper. And so I think everyone kind of got used to this somnolent attitude of Congress to foreign policy.

And now you have certainly a group of our population now who seem all in on just increasingly strengthening the powers of the executive and see any attempts to restrain the powers of the executive as being close to treason. You know, it's an extraordinary state of affairs. And I can only say that it does stem from a huge collective national lack of education about what this nation was founded on. I mean, I've done the citizens test with my friends who are American citizens. You did them for your friends, did you say? No, I used to do a podcast, like a comedy podcast,

and I thought it would be funny to test my friend's knowledge and, like, U.S. history and stuff like that, and it was pretty bad. These are full-grown adult men. Citizens of the United States, they had no fucking idea what was going on. So, I think there's something there to that thread you just said about education. Yeah, well, you're not, I mean, you're not far off, you know,

your father was the first-generation immigrant, right? Yeah, yeah, he came here from Greece. all that. So another aspect of this is the national defense strategy, which hasn't came out yet, right? There's reportedly this shifts from all traditional strategies in the past. We focused on China, Russia, and North Korea, Iran, to both the Western Hemisphere, which I think we can see playing out,

and Homeland Defense, which has got a lot of people raising their eyebrow, because we obviously have Northcom. The U.S. is going to defend its homeland, of course. But to have that as like the principle is a kind of turn toward isolationism, right? That you're going to focus your military efforts on homeland defense. Again, not that that's obviously something they're going to do. But withdrawing from the world is what people are that oppose this. And this is completely counter to the first Trump administration.

I mean, I was part of that, the national security strategy, defense strategy, and the military strategy, it all flows from each other. But it's based on essentially a prioritization of the White House. And if the priority now is the Western Hemisphere and our homeland, that's going to be a shift from every president of, that I can think of, at least in modern sense. Since Woodrow Wilson. Yeah, yeah, since there's a good point since Windrow Wilson. but this this might be the we're seeing the activity before we see the strategy is I guess my point

yeah we're seeing them focus on the Western Embassy so we're just going to let China eat our lunch that's it that's the move that's the National Defense strategy it's a big concern with cut foreign assistance around the world and withdrawing because if if the military strategy right so that's when that's when the rubber hits the road right so the National Security Defense strategy is just what it sounds like. It's more strategic. The military strategy then says, okay, you're saying that humble defenses. So I don't need to have this many of our forces in the Indo-Pacific or Europe, all the other places that you've now set as a lower priority. So if it was consistent with the way strategy and implementation works, you would see a shift

of forces, I guess back to the United States or at least in Southcom. It's interesting to see these articles that keep getting published in the Atlantic or foreign affairs, which I unsubscribe to actually this year because of kind of what I'm about to say, publishing these articles about a new Pacific strategy, a new American grand strategy and all this sort of stuff. And these academics are kind of stuck in vapor lock here. And they just don't realize the current conditions and the current world and country we live in right now that those things are. our relics of the past. They're dead now. Like, that's not a thing. Like, like, this country is made it clear, I think, at this point, like, we're putting that prior strategy aside and we're going to something else. And I don't know if I want to put a name on what it is we're going to just yet, but, you know, our, you know, sort of like foreign policy experts and elites have not

wrap their mind around this fact yet at all, in my opinion. Yes. And there's a lot in the administration who were very consistent with the, you know, the old way of thinking and prioritizing. I mean, there's plenty of real China Hawks in this administration. And I guess they're just being muted when we've decided that they're no longer Chinat Hawks. Rubio? Well, yeah.

I mean, Rubio, at least in my experience, was a pretty traditional. Every time I see him on video, it looks like a hostage video. Like, he's just, you know, what does he do, Mick? You tell me, you were in the NSC. What does he do? I know he's a Secretary of State supposedly, but Wickoff and Jared Kushner Sheep to have taken that job. Well, I mean, I would say this. I mean, he's also the National Security Advisor, which doesn't really work.

I mean, that's no slam on Rubio, but you can't really do both jobs. So Secretary of State's jobs outside of the country, right? The National Security Advisor is supposed to be at the White House around the president at all times. Right. That's so it just doesn't, I know they've, I think Kissinger did it too, but I just, I just don't see how as a practical way that would work. I think Rubio, his voice is good in the sense, at least from my perspective, because he does have a long-term experience in intelligence and foreign policy and the military, at least from the legislative side. And he has a more traditional view of the world, which is not, I mean, you can look at the past statements he said about U.S. AID, for example, or why we need soft power. But, you know, part of taking the job is, you're not the one ultimately setting all the policy.

So, you know, it's something you had to decide. Andy? Yeah, I mean, I wonder who was a rhetoric question. But, I mean, the power behind the throne, you know, it's really interesting if you look back in the last 2030, actually, you know, back to the 80s, or the 70s even, I mean, Nixon is a great example. I mean, you know, it's very obvious to Nixon that Kissinger was the power behind the throne, right? And we talk about the guy who's Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, you know, hate him or worship him, Kissinger. was a personality who could do that, right? I mean, he had the gravitas, he had the knowledge, he had the ruthlessness.

I mean, he knew how to orchestrate power, and he knew how to make that work. But my point is that a national security advisor is a strange position, and it's unusual that Kissinger made Secretary of State and being the position it was. Where I'm heading on this, I'm not simply waffling. I'm just saying that every president, you know, has one or two guys who had the real power behind the throne, right? And they, and it's not, it's not position dependent. In some cases, it's the White House chief of staff. In some cases, it's a national security advisor. In some cases, it's being the Secretary of Defense. In this, in this particular administration,

you know, it could potentially be the vice president. But it's, it's hard to divine, make to your point the fact that people who have the credentials and the background in foreign policy are not the ones with the voice. And I think that is that that's a little bit concerning, you know, whether we call them China Hawks or not, the guys who are China Hawks at least have some, have some track record, right, in dealing in dealing with these issues. And a lot of these people came out of, you know, traditionally when they weren't in the administration, they were in a think tank, whether it was a Republican or Democrats. So they had, they built up this, this collective knowledge.

And you just don't see that in this administration. I think perhaps that is why, Jack, to your point, you're seeing a lot of these, a lot of these, I don't want to say traditional, but the concept, the perspective of foreign policy that has worked for the United States since 1946 being cast aside. And we don't know yet what is there in its place.

it seems right now, frankly, to be incoherent, right? Venezuela is a threat. Canada is, you know, Canada's a potential enemy. Russia's our friend. We seem to be all over the place. To me, it seems like, you know, reading these pieces in foreign affairs and so on, the way I take it is that these experts are really in mourning for the death of America's foreign policy. Like, they're going through the stages of grief. There's like denialism. There's coping mechanisms. There's all these different things.

And it's like, hey, guys, I need you to skip right to the end where you get to acceptance and understand what's really happening here because time is going by. You know, history is taking place very quickly these days. Yeah. And think tanks traditionally, when your side isn't in office, if you will, they go back to think tanks, right? But you still want to influence the policy. and that's been cut pretty substantially. And I mean, I'm in several, but like the Defense Department,

I think still they're not allowed to engage with think things, at least at what was for a while, which is very odd, because that's always been advantageous to the Defense Department to be able to talk to people who have really detailed knowledge, like spend all day worrying about, in some cases, specific sectors of foreign policy, and have that, kind of like CIA analysts in the sense that they just, they live it, breathe it, travel there, and they're just incredibly knowledgeable about it.

And that's a big advantage for the defense. The last least, I know that they, in addition to the cutting the media out, they haven't been allowed active forces to have these engagements. Usually there's fellows. Like you go to a think tank. Why? I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know. Actually, I can't even think of why they've done that. Because power comes from the White House down, and there's going to be no other advisors or courtiers that are going to come in and influence the decision-making process. I mean, but it's not even like dissent, right? Like, it's just analysis on, like, what's going on in a specific region, right? It's not even like, I'm against what you're going for.

That's what I don't. Well, that would be like a mature way to think of it. Like, if you're a giant toddler, it comes across his dissent and you get angry because you're hearing things you don't want to hear. Just to be who's a giant toddler? It would be the president in this case. Right. Yeah. And I think the real power behind the throne is the, sure.

Honestly, I think the real power or like a big faction of power that's in the White House is the. deputy chief of staff. I think he's pushing a pretty big agenda. Stephen Miller is his name. Yeah. Yeah. So this is interesting. Talk about waffling and a little bit of bipolar foreign policy.

So we had the meeting between Zelensky and Donald Trump at the White House last week. Before that, he had a phone call with President Putin from Russia. And Tomahawks got taken off the table. table. It seems reports have said that that meeting was not a great one between Zelensky and Donald Trump and the administration that was shouting. There was reports of like they pushed the maps towards the table and there was a lot of cursing from the president. And then a few days later, now there's talk about the sanctions act coming back to life. If you guys can explain to me the what the fuck the policy is regarding Ukraine.

That would be awesome. I guess to start with the positive, the sanctions that were put on the two largest Russian oil gas companies. That's a positive. Putin's came out and said it's not going to make a difference, which to me means it's going to make a difference or he wouldn't say it. The secondary sanctions are what everybody's looking. at, that's the bill you referenced in the Senate, the sanctioning Russia's at, Russia Act,

has at least 85 senators signed on. That's unheard of nowadays. But apparently Thune won't push it forward until the president gives him the greenlight. Not sure why we're waiting on that, that we need to cut off the spigot of the funding. Even to China, China buys, I think 47% of Russian oil, crude oil. That might be back right. So that would be significant. to cut off their ability to fund this.

On Tomahawks, yes, it takes a little while to be trained, but the best day to plant trees 20 years ago, the second best day is today, right? Why are we training? You know, and Ukrainians are smart as hell, and they've got all the motivation in the world to be able to learn this stuff. So when I know they've got to figure it,

so you can launch it from land and all that, but they can do it, they can do it. A positive that I think the White House denied, think actually happened is they have approved the use of storm shadow, which uses U.S. data, so we're participant in it, to go to have no limits inside Russia. So that's kind of a backdoor way of doing this. But I think we're going to have to give Ukraine not only the ability to defend itself, but to win.

And then they start winning if we want to see Putin actually come to a summit with any intention of a ceasefire. And then, of course, you also have frozen Russian assets that could be being released to Ukraine so they can buy, you know, Patriots, stuff like that. Right now, oh, the other thing I'd say on that, there's a lot of chatter amongst the think tanks. It's like, maybe Europe should take over the negotiation because we're not, we're just not getting very far with convincing Putin. It's interest to have a cease pirate in this couple. Meg, did you say they, so that part confuses. me about Storm Shadow because Storm Shadow is exclusively European. It's, what's it, the MD, MBDA, it's a European consortium defense companies that put it together. Apparently they use,

it uses our targeting data. That's the issue that's being reported that the US has not only approved, like you can still use our targeting data and shoot things inside. And they've, they've reduced the authority to make these decisions to the Ucom commander, bypassing, or not by bypassing, but so the SACDF and his staff are no longer making the decision. He's given it to the Ucom community, which the idea is that he's going to approve more. So we are going to provide our intelligence for storm shadow hits. Yes. That's what you're being in report. I think the White House denied it, but I think.

That's politically or part of the negotiations not to acknowledge it we agreed to. So, I mean, Storm Shadow is formidable weapon. It's like, I forget, it's like it's, I believe, I mean, it's a, it's another subsonic cruise missile. And I don't have the data to hand, but I. 550 kilometers. What's that? 500 to be short range.

It's pretty short range. And it's got, but it's got a bigger warhead, I believe. 450 kilos. 500 kilometers. It's not getting to Moscow, doesn't it? I think so. It's over on this Tomahawk, the block two of Tomahawk is 1500 miles. Yeah, it's a huge difference in range.

So according to the data, you just read out much the same payload. I think the advantage with Storm Shadow is it's more accurate and it's got, I mean, both of them have, cruise missile, you can look at some deep, but cruise missile's got, it's got, it's got, Like in addition to GPS, it's got an infrared. INS, IIR. Yeah, so it's an infrared navigation. So in other words, it can't be jammed by G. And the same thing with Storm Shadow, but it's a different system.

It's terrain profiling system. So they're both bypass Russian EW jamming, but I believe the Storm Shadow is even more accurate than the Tomahawk. But that's not necessarily what you, I mean, the Tomahawk is accurate enough. And that range is really the significant thing. I would, I don't, you know, that's an interesting point. I should know, but I don't know if, what was range again? It's like two.

It's like 200. It's 450 kilometers, so 342 miles. Okay. I'm not sure that does reach Moscow, but I don't know. I'm pretty sure. Hold on. Keep talking. I'll try to do some math here.

That's going to look it up. But the key issues is the Russian refineries, right? That's what the Ukrainians are going after now with considerable success. Depending on who you read or what media outlet, even the most conservative

are saying that they've slowed Russian oil production, final production by a third. Some go as high as almost a half. So that's significant. And given the Tomahawk, they could certainly do greater damage. And they can go after the, of course, the Shahed factories and wherever they are, Kyrgyzstan and all these other things.

There's a massive one in Russia that's like out there. It's probably a thousand miles in. Yeah. So, yes, it definitely gets you to Moscow. I have a question. Like, you know, Stormshadows made by a European company conglomerate. you know all right and we you know the ukrainians have been using the u.s intelligence for since the beginning of the war even before it so i don't know what the holdup would be like you can't use

our intelligence that we're already given you to use a european weapon to shoot into military and uh you know oil refinery targets in russia like i don't know why that's a stop like why do we need like why do we need to okay that it's just we've been okaying them to do covert stuff like Well, to me, we should have said right from the beginning when we knew they were going to invade that if they invaded that we were going to prove everything that they needed to win. Right. We keep doing this where we publicly debate whether we should give enough the F-16s or the Phromerooms or the Hymars. And then we wrang our hands and clutches the pearls and all that stuff.

And then it gives Putin the chance to say what is always going to say, well, it's complete escalation and we're going to nuke it. We should just approve these things and now it's easier said than done without the debate. public it's interesting it's you know a lot of my my friends you know would probably make the argument I know they they have made the argument that this is the same criticism they have about the Vietnam War that it was like this seesaw effect there'd be a pause in fighting because of the Paris peace negotiations and it would just kind of go back and forth forever we're doing that in Ukraine right now it's like why do we keep doing this little drips and drabs little baby steps getting towards something I I realize there's like this escalation matrix that you have to think about a little bit.

But so many of those norms, so many of those fears we had have now been destroyed. I mean, we've seen all kinds of things that were unimaginable previously. And it seems that unless we have like NATO troops storming towards Moscow, Putin's not going to use nuclear weapons. So to your point, Mick, I agree. Like, just give them everything they need to win the war. Like, let's stop dragging this thing out. We're either supporting Ukraine or we're not, and we've never understood that. We're providing lethal aid.

That is the red line decision, right? It's not the range of weapons systems or the number of range weapons systems. And we've drip-fed weapons and allowed Russia to adapt, as they indeed they have done, and they've done pretty well. I mean, you know, High Mars was effective for about two or three months, and then the Russians learned how to jam it. And we let Putin run this siops on us that like he pretends he's negotiating for peace and we humor it.

That's not what he's doing. Come on. He's just biting for time. Same thing with the attackers. I mean, we gave the Ukrainians 12 high mars, you know. We didn't it? I mean, we didn't even give them enough for, I mean, barely enough for one per division. And the Russians easily, easily learned how to counter that.

Same thing with the Tackams. I don't think that, I don't think we've really ever, I mean, two things. To Jack's point, we've never understood Putin. And secondly, we don't understand just the dynamics of providing military aid. That, you know, the countries adapt in war very, very quickly. and Russia's always been strong at electronic warfare. They have massive systems every 10 kilometers along the line. The Ukrainians are losing.

I mean, you can look this up, look up how many drones the Ukrainians are losing per month. I think you'll see it's something astounding. It's in the thousands, right? Just hit EW. And, you know, it's a, the methods of warfare there are beyond. anything that our own defense industry can adapt to in a hurry.

Estimated monthly loss is 10,000 drones per month. 1,000 drones a month. 10,000 to EW. You know what I mean? And yet they keep churning them out. Can you imagine if that was being done to us? You know, we've got like a handful of MQ1s, MQ9s at 30 million bucks apiece. We'd lose those right off the bat in the first couple of hours.

That's what I mean by the fact that we're all. prepared. We don't have, we don't have the ability to generate 10,000 drones a month. I guarantee you that. What's interesting about that is you see so many, like in the startup space, there's so many drone companies that are popping up, you know, like for the, particularly for the U.S. And the differences in Ukraine, they're all tied into the industrial defense establishment. You know, high tech and defense are together. And the Ukrainians, thing we talked about this on this show, but they've just developed a unmanned tank because armoured vehicles are proving to be absolute, they're proving to be a liability. Okay. And tanks was,

you know, armed personnel carriers infantry fighting vehicles. No one uses that those things anymore. There are, you know, they see the Russians on dirt bikes and stuff. Absolutely death traps. Yeah. Every, you know, every single Bradley that we provided to the Ukrainians has been blown away. what are they using they're using motorcycles and they're using a you know and and and foot mobile infantry well dispersed to do infiltration um and so what the ukrainians have done because you because as much as i laugh at marine tankers and i still think they're absurd in their opposition to us getting rid of time when i don't i don't it's like i don't want to open myself up to that but the point is you still need a rolling gun platform

a rolling gun platform, direct fire capability, reaching out to two to three clicks or even four in case. Whatever sort of terrain you're in, whether you're fighting in mount or you're fighting an open terrain, that is an incredibly useful weapon to have. The problem is that once you put human beings inside, it becomes larger, slower, less maneuverable and more vulnerable. Whether Ukrainians now have an unmount tank,

that uses, I mean, you can look it up, I forget what it's called, but it uses A1, AI. The source? It uses AI for target acquisition. And, you know, my point with that is you don't even need an operator to be, with a narrower field of view. You've got a, I mean, obviously there's some disadvantage. with using AI for target acquisition within a tank. But the point is they've developed it, and I guarantee you within a few months,

they're going to mass produce these things. Probably at a decent price too. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because they are essentially expendable. They don't have human beings inside. Most of the expense is based on trying to protect the humans inside, right? Yeah. I mean, you can imagine.

heavy and so expensive. If you can generate, if you can have hundreds of these things on the battlefield, can you imagine? Hundreds of these things rolling in on you, being able to target human beings automatically covered by drones.

It's called the Phantom UGV to our cyber overrewards. That's what it's called. By the way, are you polite when you asked when you talk to chat GPT? I am. You know they'll take over one day, right? I'm relatively polite until it starts fucking around,

and I get kind of upset with it. And I'm like, you got to look at this before you fucking send me it. I'll drop an F bomb in there. And he's like, I'm so sorry. Yeah, that's the same thing I tell you, Dee. When you send me stuff, you use AI to generate. Yeah. Well, listen, Dee talks 30 to Siri.

So I think you're asking the wrong guy. Sorry, I missed that. I don't know what you guys are saying. Better off, probably. All right. Also, a bit of news, there was an agreement between Sweden and, well, Saab and Ukraine to sell Ukraine 100 to 150 sob grip and ease, which is a fourth plus generation fighter. Yeah. Which is probably perfect for Ukraine too because, like, they're able to, like, land and take off on, like, a fucking highway and stuff like that.

I feel like that's probably gaps for what they need. So Europe is stepping up for sure, I think, right? So, and this is definitely not a cheap package. I think it's like 150 million a unit per per plane, but that's with like the weapons and stuff like that. They've been talking about that for a while. I'm glad to see that it's finally gone through. Anything out? I mean, we could touch on Gaza and like the precarious situation there.

The piece is still kind of, I guess, holding a little bit, even though Israel seems to be bombing the shit out of Gaza still. I mean, we could touch on that. I mean, with the trip of Vice President Vance, I think it's pretty clear that the U.S. wants to see the entirety of the 20-point plan happen. While he was there, the Knesset voted on annexing part of the West Bank, and you saw his pretty direct reaction. And then President Trump basically saying the U.S. would cut off all support to Israel if they did that. I mean, I don't know if you could get any more direct than that. So the ceasefire is holding. You're going to see skirmishes because that's just going to happen.

The AIDS coming in, which is great, obviously. My group spends a lot of time on that. And, well, the biggest issue is a moss disarming, right? They're going to have an issue disarming because they're very vulnerable, even though on the plan it gives them sanctuary and potentially safe passage. I don't know the country that would take, I don't know, 5,000 moss people. And then this international stabilization force, which Secretary Ruby has said recently, I think during his visit, is being established. So I haven't seen really –

Who's the bulk of that, Indonesia? Well, Indonesia volunteered Egypt, Turkey, but Turkey's a big issue for Israel. Israel said they don't want Turkey in there. The U.S. came back and said tough. So, I think, it's clear that the U.S. is being a little tougher on Israel than in the past. So whether it'll have an effect or a long-term effect, we'll have to see. The big issue is, what are we going to do with Hamas, collect them? Are they going to be allowed to stay in Gaza?

Are they going to be confined to a certain, like, Hamas section? Are they going to be forcibly disarmed, which means the major combat? So the big, the log pole intent is the disarming and demilitarization of the law. Anybody, boys, Andy, Jack? Yeah, I mean, I, no, most of what I've, what I'm about to say, I've said before at some shape or form, you know, the bottom line is, and I always preface this discussion with this comment that at least it's, an agreement, at least it's something that was hard to imagine three months ago, but the devil was in the details, and there are so many details that are potentially problematic. And Mick just hit on a couple of them, along with the nature of the security force.

And the government itself, you know, who's going to administer Gaza, while the Palestinian Authority supposedly meets certain criteria that enable it to do so? you know i mean and and and is the pa even capable of doing that and then you've got you've got some interesting dynamics among the local the neighboring arab countries or just countries in the region you know mick commented about turkey and turkey being the turkish contribution to gaza security force being something that the israelis oppose but you know the arab government And the Egyptians, I think, are probably the only potential donor of security forces that are credible right now, as far as a country that has agreed to do that. Easier to deploy.

Egypt has a history in Gaza. In fact, Egypt owned Gaza until 1967. They weren't particularly popular occupiers there either, but more popular than the Israelis. And, of course, there's a, you know, cultural affiliation. But that's not, but Hamas still is going to remain a problem. I mean, the Egyptian government has no love of Hamas. In fact, that's one of Cici's biggest concerns is during all of this, that Hamas was going to get increasing support within Egypt.

All of which is to say, yeah, it's great that the killing has stopped for now. Most of the killing has stopped for now. It's great that some aid is getting in and that there is at least, and the U.S. has its weight behind A-P.'s plan, but there's no more clarity on the details one month ago, and time is ticking. Right. So we'll keep track of this.

Jack, what do you got? Not much. That's about it. Okay. I want you guys to do me a favor before we go. Check out Mix New Podcasts. Pub on the Porch, the Applied Stoicism. Link is in the description.

It's a great pod. Andy Milburn's got a great book, When the Tempest Gathers. Link is in the description as well. Jack Murphy's wrote a plethora of books. Some would say he's writing too many books. No, I'm joking. He's got a great book.

We Defy the Secret History of Special Forces. That link will be in the description. Highside, his outlet with Sean Naler, the guy who wrote the book on J-Socque, where they do deep-dive investigative stuff. They have some crazy shit cooking up. I can't mention, and I won't mention publicly. It's awesome. Check that out.

out the high side substack. It's down in the description as well. And where can you support the show? I'll tell you where. Thank great question. Patreon.com slash the team house. You get both Teamhouse and I's on episodes ad-free early. And you help support the show.

We keep doing this. Guys, as always, it's a pleasure. Do you guys have anything else? You want to say you want to plug something else? Yeah, I want to plug a suggestion that the Team House have an off-site party this year, maybe in Dubai. Is that in the budget, Jack? Yeah, we're going to, like, fly everyone out there.

Yeah. Well, Andy's kind of close, so you'll be cheap to get there. You only need you guys out there. I mean, a lot of people can attend remotely. Mick and I will attend that person. We'll take that under advisement. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, guys. Always a pleasure. Thank you. Thanks, guys. All right. Thanks everyone Discussion Hey guys

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