The Team House - “One Way or Another” Greenland | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: March 31, 2025

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Everybody, welcome to another episode of Aizan. We got Mick Mulroy, Jason Lyons here today, myself, Dmitryon Tacos. A lot popping off since we've had a last episode. We did have an emergency pod with Mark Pollymorpolis. It was for Greek Independence Day rather than the signal gate stuff. No special reason. Yeah, yeah. I didn't want any Marines, solely on a podcast.

but the Marines are back and we haven't spoken about Signalgate publicly. We've been talking about it on our signal chat, but just what's gone on and the subsequent events afterwards where, you know, the entire administration seems to just be spinning this as like not a big deal.

Incredible. I mean, everybody, I don't really need to rehash what went down. Mostly everybody knows what went down when Signalgate's been like the talk of the town for like the last week. So Mick, you start us off, your thoughts. What if you did this? Well, I mean, I'd start off with this.

I mean, if folks were upset about, you know, putting classified information on an email and sending it to a private server and all that, which I was, they should be upset about this. If you're upset about one and not the other, then it's really not about national security, is it? It's more about your performative partisan beliefs, which is up to you, but I don't have those. So people should deal with classified information the way it's authorized to be dealt with. It protects sources and methods. And to the extent that we're talking about the recent event, it protects military members going into harm's way. So everybody knows that. Everybody that's served in the military and the intelligence community, this isn't, this isn't a hard call,

in my opinion. I've seen, I've been in the Pentagon when we've had, I've been obviously on missions. We had a mission chat, you know, my version of it was a little smaller than the Department of Defense. When I first got there and saw an actual like full military operation mission chat, I was incredibly impressed. But that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about today is taking the TikTok from that, which is definitely in a classified system. Everybody knows it's in a classified system. This is talking about we're going to attack

an enemy using this platform at this time. And people say, well, it didn't say a location. Well, the enemy knows where they are, guys. Right? So all you need to know is an F-18, where the F-18 come from. USS Harry Truman, man. That's where they come from.

Did they know where the USS Harry Truman is? Yes. They have Iranian surveillance vessels all over the Red Sea. So if you're know it's coming in two hours, you know where you are, because they're going out to Houthi leadership, and we'll get to that, which is a good thing. This disclosed very sensitive, classified information that never should have been out there. It is what it is. Should you signal, yes, you're allowed to use signal. You're also allowed to pick up an open phone in the government,

but you're not allowed to do either of those with classified material. So I would say the best to do, which is a little too late now, and they're not asking me, is take responsibility for your actions, admit you screwed up, come up with these, and take the consequences, and it's up to the president,

and come up with a better way to do this in the future that never lets this happen again. That's the way everybody's taught, first day at boot camp or OCS, but that wasn't what happened. It was, you know, excuse for this and blame this and not. So that's my take.

going forward we got to hold everybody accountable for how they treat classified material it does come down to sources and methods there's a lot more you could talk about that was put out there in this chat you know when it comes to sources that are conducting clandestine operations and other stuff like that but ultimately this stuff should never have been put you can you cannot add somebody to a classified system that is not in the system right you can on signal uh and it probably means that this person was already in somebody's, you know, contact list. If you're, if you have portable systems that you could use, they can set up a tent. I think I forgot the name of the tent, but maybe Jason remembers it, but in a, in a hotel room, you can obviously

go to a skiff, embassy that has a skiff and jump into the CIA spaces. There's a thousand different ways to do it other than to go on a commercial app, which is probably penetrated by our adversary, certainly they're trying to. The last thing, and I thought over Jason, is every one of these persons is on the highest collection list for Russia, China, Iran. I was on the highest, and I was not obviously the Secretary of Defense. And I still am on their list. They try to get into your personal devices and government devices every day.

Anything that touches the Internet they're trying to do. And they also do that against journalists. especially if they report on national security. Because who do they talk to? National security people. So they should probably do an entire review of this, figure out how to make sure it never happens again, and determine whether any of these devices had already been penetrated, just to make sure that we know what the enemy might now know.

Yeah, I agree with everything that you said, Mick. Like you said, from day one, you're taught, whether it's in boot camp, OCS, onboarding when you're going to an intelligence agency, whatever it is, that number one, personal responsibility is huge because that will guide everything else. And also, you know, stay off of unclassified platforms to discuss classified things. Like, even if you're something that we were taught when I was a CIA was, even if you're down the street, I forget the name of that pub that's right down the street from headquarters. and you're with your classmates or your friends or whatever it is, you're not discussing classified information. You're not discussing work, period, because you just don't know.

Even if you think the room is empty, you don't know if that room is miced up. You have no idea. So you have to be aware of that kind of stuff. And also, as you touched on, every one of the people that were on that group, they've had these briefings, whether they want to say they didn't or not, they've had these briefings. And common sense just tells you that, you know, this is. a platform that probably kids use. You know, yes, it's a, you know, it's a secure, quote-unquote,

secure platform, but everybody uses it. So this shouldn't be discussed here. As you also said, everyone's a target on, especially everyone on that group. And I was thinking, I was talking with a friend about it. And he did the whole, you know, wasn't classified thing, all this other stuff. And I said, okay, I could almost give it to you if the discussion was had a week after it happened. or, you know, a month after it happened. But this is two hours before it happened. And if I'm not mistaken, and maybe I am, but I believe that it was called the Houthi Working Group or something like that.

So it's not hard to put it all together, you know, if you're someone who's in there. And I also want to add that the fact that, you know, along with the mental gymnastics of dancing around taking responsibility, but people talking about charging this, the reporter or the editor-in-chief for this? For what? You know, that's just, it's ridiculous.

And I'd be having, just like you said, this same conversation, just switching names out if this was a Democratic, you know, Democrat administration or somebody else, because wrong is just wrong. So. Absolutely. So Jay Gilbert's is what you're talking about, Jay. Jay Gilbert.

Yeah, everybody's going to go there. But yeah, you want to run into some agency people. Yeah. I would point out to the last point that Jay made is, if that's the idea, like it didn't say classified, then technically anybody in a SCIF could read a document that has TSSCI code word this and take all the information out of it, take it outside, not take the, and just text it. And it's not classified. I know someone, sorry to interrupt. I know someone who got fired from the agency for doing just that, cutting, printing out, uh, they were printing out cables, cutting the classification off the headers and the footer and not taking it out of the building,

but like discussing what people that didn't need to be discussed with. Yeah, it's just common sense. Yes, it is the sources of methods, but especially in this case, it's the information. Yeah. Right? This is stuff that could get people killed.

I'm not partisan, so I'm just going to call balls and strikes all the time. I just wish more people would, you know, decouple themselves from being, partisan and just focus more on just being American and saying, hey, this is obviously something that should not have been done. And it needs to not happen in the future. And then if the next step is talking about Yemen, that is actually what we should be talking about. If there wasn't for this, you know, I think series of mistakes, because this is a pretty substantial escalation in a region.

Yeah. One quick question about like when you do, when you are a principal and you're starting in a new job. And let's say you are a Whitkoff or you are somebody who's not really been in the governmental world like national security world. Hexeth, right? Like he's never been, he was in the military, but he's never been to that level. I mean, the first day, you've got to be getting fucking briefs on like what to do, what not to do, right? Like, that's got to be first and foremost. So it's not exactly like it was a couple years ago and the things slipped his mind. Like this is like relatively recently. And you have a serious fucking job, man.

Like, take it seriously. And you are provided with communications where you can chat with people about what's going on. Do that in the right way. Like, I said the joke last week with you guys. Like, you know, my dumb friends from Brooklyn have better, like, opsec than some of these people that are supposed to have, like, the highest secrets that we've, you know, the Secretary of Defense, like you're the top of the food chain, national security advisors as well, you're top of the food chain.

So it's just kind of mind-boggling how this could happen and how they could add a reporter, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic to the crew chat. And yeah, like, go ahead, Mick. And you have a staff, too. I mean, so, you know, one of the things I told my staff was, if I'm screwing up, tell me, you know, Don't think you're going to hurt my feelings. I'd rather just do it the right way than get counseled by my staff than the other. So every one of their staff, I mean, and they have active uniform advisors, obviously, to the Secretary of Defense all the way down and his staff.

I did. They'll be, they'll turn you up real quick if you're, especially if you're breaking op-sac when it comes to a military operation, right? They take that very personal. So I don't know how this broke down. There's certainly a question of whether this. This is just the first time to Jay's point. It said the Houthi PC small group. PC small group is the normal term for the principals committee meeting of,

that's paired down because it's sensitive, right? You don't need the secretary of treasury. Even though he was in there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, they can pair it down. Sure, sure. The small means it's not the full PC where you have every secretary agriculture and all that.

So that's a question. of whether this is the only time it happened. I mean, they're labeling it of what you would label the actual meeting. So I don't know. I don't know. I wish people would just own up to it and then come up with the policy that, you know, fixes it. And then we can start talking about, wow.

So 100 sorties in like a 24-hour period. Yeah. Getting off just trying to hit the target facilities or the launch facilities, rather. They're going after the leadership. Yeah. Which is great. I think. Yeah.

It's about time that these, these Houthi leaders that like to get on with their, you know, 500 ribbons and talk about, you know, if I can, innocent,

unarmed civilian vessels, you know, trying to get through the Red Sea. Start time, they start paying the price. So hats off, those who carried off the mission. And I think it was the right policy decision.

We'll see if it works. But the only way you're going to find out is to actually do this. And they're moving. I think the USS Carl Vincenzons in Guam and Stephen now, it'll be there mid-April, I think. That is publicly available information. I just Googled it.

They are moving, and I know we're going to get into this. I think there's multiple B-2s that have moved to Diego Garcia. There's an F-35 squadrons coming in. I mean, they are getting ready to tune up some. Houthi rubber. And I think that's the right answer. And it's also supposed to send a message to Iran, which I think it will. I think that's basically what the main thing is about, right?

Like sending the message to Iran. Because, I mean, you don't need five B-2s to hit Houthi targets, right? Like, what are we doing? Right? And the B-2, like we discussed last week, is the only plan that can carry the mop, the big boy, you know, 30,000 pound. Petrator. What are you trying to hit with that, right? And yeah, thank you.

And like, you know, B2s can probably move around without their transponders on and get to from 1.A to point A to point B where it's not getting picked up on open source Twitters and stuff that follow aviation. Like, let's be real, right? Like, so there's a reason why they're putting this out there that we're moving such, like that much hardware to a certain place, which is in striking distance of Iran. Like the B-2s can take off from St. Louis, from Missouri, and bomb Iran and come back. You know, it's not exactly like.

So, I mean, it's kind of clear what's going on. Hopefully it does make Iran come to the negotiating table for their nuclear weapons. And hopefully Israel doesn't pop off beforehand. One quick last thing with Pete Hexseth and the Signalgate stuff and the lack of obsec. From the Wall Street Journal yesterday last night, Hexsett brought his wife to sensitive meetings with four. military officials. Mick,

you were in the DOD. Did you bring your wife to sensitive meetings with other, you know, your, your counterparts from foreign militaries?

No, I mean, I don't, I don't know what they're mean by, and I don't mean that as a way just to defend Secretary of Ex-F.

Is it a meeting where... Like a meeting, great. Yeah, I don't know. I mean, they definitely, you know, my spouse has pulled apart

a lot of these. Like I've been to events, a lot of events where I was there as the Dasty with my wife. Right. She's been doing that for 30 years, right? So you're like, right, man, I've gone to a lot of meetings. I didn't really want to go to. So I don't know what the meeting was. So it's impossible for me to really.

Sure. It's not like a state visit where it's a dinner or dinner party or something like that. Yeah. Sorry, one last last thing. I'm curious to ask you. I'm saying curious because I don't know the answer. As to the legality of, and I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard that the meeting, the signal group chat was set to disappear,

the messages to disappear after a certain amount of time. I don't know what that violates, you know. I do know, and Mick, you know as well, that the mantra is, if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen. So I don't know if that's what we're doing here, you know, but I'm just curious about that. That's a good point, Jay. So there's a record law, which is like they take, even at my level, they would take,

they took all the notes that I wrote. I'm sure nobody can ever read them. But yeah, there's a, you have to keep all, especially in this, especially in the PCC meetings, like that policy coordination committee, which is the baseline inside the NSC, which is the old executive Bill and right of the White House. right so there's there's people from the od cia state and folks that come and meet in the nSC and it goes uh the policy coordination committee uh which is what my level was then you have the deputies committees the deputy secretaries of this that and the other then you have the PC

which is the principals committee so the actual secretaries and then if the president is there it's called the NSC. So it's the PC plus the president makes it the NSC. But all that stuff, there's recorded. I don't think they actually recorded, but they take notes and then people actually sign off on what was said. So we all agree. Primarily, we could agree what we agreed to and what we're all going to do to make it happen. Right. Under the Reckage Keep an Act, that way, under the like transparency of government, that people can eventually one day when it's declassified say, oh, that's how the bad pigs happen. Yeah.

So a little bit more about Hexeth's wife just to get the facts in there. Hexeth's wife, Jennifer Hexeth, has been president at two meetings where sensitive information were discussed, according to the Wall Street Journal, citing multiple people who were president at the meetings or have knowledge of her presence at them. The first meeting was a high-level discussion at the Pentagon with the top U.K. military officials, including the U.K. minister of defense, John Healey, took place in early March. The day after the U.S. was announced the U.S. would stop sharing military aid and intelligence with Ukraine. And the second was in Brussels and mid-February at NATO headquarters during a meeting of the Ukraine defense contact group, a forum of about 50 nations meant to help coordinate military support for Ukraine as it tries to fight off its invasion from Russia. Yeah. I mean, again, sensitive is.

Sure. if it was a meeting in which classified information was being discussed and I don't know that it was then the rules apply to everybody so if you don't have a clearance or need to know it shouldn't be in there if it's yeah if it was just high-level discussions that weren't classified I mean that's yeah I don't know I can't I don't I'm not you cast the judgment on something that I don't know all the facts and and I'm really not here to cast judgment I'm just to explain what I think the rules are also yeah so back to the huthies and you know yemen we did hit them yesterday as well um the last couple days hit a bunch of targets i think they said over 75 um so it's still going on i mean

hopefully at some point um retz he kind of loosens up a little bit in terms of uh trade yeah absolutely i mean this has been going on um um When I was still in government, so this idea, it's all about Gaza. I mean, they've been attacking. They attacked the Saudi oil facilities. They attacked you. They almost hit the international terminal in Abu Dhabi, they'd be in the hooties. They obviously tried to attack Israel.

I mean, I saw one report where our destroyer going through the Red Sea was they tried to attack it 120 times. Right. So, and then they've hit and killed crew. on commercial vessels. So they're terrorists. They're doing terrorist activities. They're attacking the U.S. It's not primary.

I mean, the U.S. has taken the lead because we're the ones, and you can see that in the chat, actually. Yeah. We are the only ones that have the capability to do a lot about this.

The French have an aircraft carrier there right now, I think, near the Bob Al Mended. But essentially, no country can do this without the United States. So we have a coalition, but it's really led by us.

It's not, I mean, I think that's our place in the world, a leader in the world. We have the capability. But China gets more energy from this region than we do. Europe does send more trade through this region. Other countries need to step up. But I think it's the right decision by the United States. You know, you can see the disagreement in the chat.

I think that ultimately the president made the right decision that we need to amp up our efforts against the Houthis. because what we're doing before clearly wasn't working. And there's no guarantee this will work. But people tend to get at, you get their attention when you start killing them, right? When the leadership starts to see, it's not just the, you know, Joe Schmo that's, that's trying to launch these drones that's getting shwacked when it's, you know, the head Pooba general. And a lot of them got killed on these last few strikes.

We've started focusing intelligence. The CIA has obviously got their stuff together and are up and running in Yemen. and they are taking out some of these senior leaders. And I think that's a good thing. If you want, if, you know, I got asked on the foreign media a lot, like, well, isn't this going to destabilize the region? Well, Iran's destabilizing the region. So if these guys want to stabilize the region, stop attacking commercial vessels in the U.S. military. If you did that, I'm sure that the stabilization would come back to the full.

But this is Iran, and I know we're going to get to Iran. And this is the Houthis. and I think we'll see how it goes. It's going to take a while, but I think this was the right policy. It's interesting, too, because, like, the UK's got aircraft carriers. You know, China does.

China's got a base in Djibouti. Like, what's up, guys? You know what I mean? Like, they can step up. I mean, it would make sense if they kind of did, too. And I get there's more to this than just, like, the free passage of goods and stuff.

it's definitely a message to our eight-year-round let's not kid ourselves. You know what I mean? Yep. Because like it seems like the Houthis for the, for right now at least, are like the only proxy force that's kind of still

I guess tough because I'm sure Hezbollah is still very active and as well as Moss, but they're the only proxy force that's really kind of in Israel's kind of periphery, I would say, rather than their focus on Hezbollah

and Hamas and stuff like that. And yeah, that's all I got. I don't know where I was going with that, but whatever. So, yeah, Iran, what happens? Make, speculate for me. So I think you're 100% right, Dee. This is a message to Iran for two reasons. Iran supports all these groups, right?

The Houthis didn't come up with advanced drones that can go from northern Yemen and hit Ben-Gurian airport. right this came from iran they're targeting information on the u.s vessels comes from the surveillance ships that are on i think that's all this stuff is ira they backed and they started hesbola right it was the irgc kutz force kind of a combination of our CIA and jaysock they started hesbalah that's their most significant and Israel's done a number on them they funded Hamas 90 percent of their support came from Iran and if they didn't have military support they wouldn't be conducting attacks right and they support the Houthis I'd say the Houthis are probably the least

able to be directed by Iran but they're still in the proxy category and if they didn't give them weapons they wouldn't be I mean who cares if they're just up there ran and raven in the mountains and they don't have any ability to do it so they're responsible for these folks and we have to start with that second uh president Trump said a letter apparently this is in the media to the regime in Iran and said, you need to come back to the table. We need to discuss a new nuclear agreement. The past nuclear agreement, the biggest criticism was it didn't address the proxy operations. It just addressed them not getting a nuke.

There was a lot of discussion when we decided to get out in 2018, that we should still keep it because we still don't want to have a nuke, and then we should just address the proxy separately. But we decided to get out. we did get out. We put a lot of sanctions on them. It was called the maximum pressure campaign. I did think that had an effect with them funding,

but they still obviously kept funding. They figured how to wait around the sanctions and to sell their oil and all that stuff. And now we're to a point where in a breakout scenario, they have enough enriched uranium up to 60%. Breakout scenario could be a month, and they would have enough enriched, uranium weapons grade uranium, it's nuclear weapons. Then they would have to, they have to come up

with a triggering mechanism and then of course figure out how to deliver it. But you could deliver it on a barge or a Dow, which is a small boat. So it's a triggering mechanism, but they could get that from North Korea, Russia. So this is a very real concern for multiple administrations. We've said it's completely unacceptable for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. There's got to be, some meaning to that. And I think what the Trump administration, the second one, is doing is saying there is meaning to that. So we see six plus maybe B-2s that are in strike distance. And I think you're right, D, they turn those transponders on for a reason. So everybody knows. And there are officials telling reporters right now, U.S. officials, like, this is the reason why we're sending the B-2s.

The two-month period for Iran to come back in the negotiation table is up. The next step, clearly from President Trump's comments, is potential direct military action. So I don't think anybody should view this as just bluster. I think it's meaningful. And I think we're really the only country unless we do a lot to support Israel that can actually carry this out. Israel might do it if they feel like they're, we're not going to. But the U.S. has a capacity. It would be a significant military event.

But it is doable. And they're getting everything into place because it's not just the bombers, right? I'm not going to go into details. But you got to mitigate air missile defense systems. You've got all that stuff to make sure we can do it. So it requires a lot of other. But you're seeing all this stuff flowing to the region. And I hope Iran takes the right decision.

comes to negotiation table because the U.S. is offering a diplomatic way out. If they choose not to do that and to go for a nuclear weapon, then unacceptable us means. How are you, June? I mean, agreed. There's not much more I can say. I think that, yeah, this was all put out there publicly for a reason. And like you said, hopefully Iran will take the message and come to the negotiating table willingly rather than having to be physically dragged because, you know, they just got decimated.

Their country was decimated militarily. So hopefully they'll take it. And I'm going to rare time say this. I applaud the administration for, you know, this is the one one of the times that I say being public about it and blustering, quote unquote, about it is, you know, it could work. I'm not going to say it's absolutely going to, but it's something that past administrations have not done. And I think it's high time for it. Yeah. Well, this could be an interesting next month. Yeah. Yeah, um, this past week, too, though, which kind of went out to the radar, obviously, um, Israel sent a delegation to D.C. to discuss what to do, I guess, with Iran, um, and whether they go with solo or with our help or with us, you know, involved completely. Um, I mean, listen, man, if you're, if, I,

I know Iran's the enemy and stuff, but if you're Iran, like, what else do you see in terms of, like, if your proxies are decimated and you have Israel who's extremely belligerent, what else, what other move is there to do to secure your regime? I'm just thinking pragmatically. I'm not a fan of the Ayatollah. I mean, crazy idea, but they could basically give up their proxy operations, stop their nuclear ambitions, have all the sanctions released. are relieved and unleash their economy. Yeah. I'm sure you guys know, the Iranian population is very modern, very sophisticated, very educated. They have a middle class, certainly from the education perspective they do. They would do really well on the international economy, I think.

And yeah, does that preserve the regime? I don't know. They're going to say, well, you know, the middle class gets maybe they'll, well, yes. but it's unacceptable. I mean, they have caused essentially, if you look at behind the curtain, all of the problems of the Middle East, right? Israel doesn't want to pick up a war with Iran. Why would they? I mean, it's stupid.

Israel is a burgeoning economy, very modern place. But yet they got to get attacked on four sides all the time. So, and that propagation leads away from any kind of diplomatic resolution to the Palestinian issue. do right now you go to israel you know i go there quite often i mean even right right left and center now they don't want to hear about two-stage solution right people that were adamantly for the two-state solution because of the current situation they weren't talking about iran does not help the palestinian people uh at all i mean look at look at gaza it's completely decimated it looks like you know stalingrad or dresden or something um that was because ultimately iran they they gave

the weapon systems to Hamas that they used to attack Israel on October 7th. You don't have to be, you know, a national security analyst to figure out what Israel is going to do to an attack like that. And it happened. So Iran is the problem of the Middle East. I think that's clear. And they could, they're at a fork in the road. So we'll see which for which direction they take. I think, I hope they take the diplomatic path. It's better for everybody. Yeah. I think in my in my, in my minuscule knowledge of, uh, of all of this. It's like common sense. If you do it now, if the regime comes to the table now, they can get out of it with savings,

with some face saving, you know, I don't think this is going to be a, uh, post-World War one pre-World War II Germany where it's like just devastated economically, militarily and everything and, you know, has to, you know, bend the knee. They could get out of it saving some face and say, well, we did this, you know, We willingly did this for our people. Whereas if they take the step, they get the trigger, they're just about ready to launch and they just get destroyed. Well, now it's going to be a pre-World War I, Germany. You know, so I think it comes down to power and ego with any, you know, regime, any government.

It's we don't want to let go because we have the power and we don't want to bruise our egos by admitting that we just took it too far. That's a great way to put it. The administration literally ought to just take what you just said and use that. That is a clear path. And you're right. Safe face. Yep. The emperor did it after the Japanese emperor.

He did it. He said, I'm doing this for my people. You know, we're giving this up for our people. He was able to save some face, you know. But power and ego, getting the way every time. true yeah really well said a little bit of history though right like i know this is like this kind of more of like a thought exercise like if we didn't go into iraq would iran be this like regional as big of a regional power that it is now oh yeah i mean it would have been a different scenario i'd take i

take your point. But Iran had already started Hezbole. Hezlil before 9-11 was the most significant terrorist organization against the U.S. They'd killed more Americans than any other groups. So Iran was super destabilizing before the Iraq invasion, what, 2003. One could certainly argue we shouldn't have done that. Sure. They had little to know nexus to 9-11.

but to point out, her NATO allies still win with us. They still went with us and a lot of them got killed just because they honored the treaty, even though they certainly could have made an argument like, wait a minute, so al-Qaeda attacks you and now we're taking down the Saddam. So just a point there, just a point of history in NATO.

But I do think Iran, that was their intent. they have utilized our invasion of Iraq to a certain extent to their advantage, but they always do. They always abuse, they take any kind of destabilized situation and turn it into essentially a worse situation and they think it's in their national interest. Right. Speaking of our NATO allies, are you guys looking for a property in Greenland? or what are we going to do? Because that's also been in the news, unfortunately,

kind of like, I don't know why, absolute waste of time. You know, and Greenland is technically a territory of Denmark, correct? Yeah, Denmark's lost guys in Iraq and Afghanistan, the war on terror.

Like, they stepped up for us and we're trying to take a piece of their land, which is absolutely, for somebody who prides himself or talks himself up about being a night. isolationist, annexing land doesn't really scream that out to me,

unless it's like a new age isolationism. I don't know. Mick, what are your thoughts? Because I could see you, I could picture you just sitting in a DOD meeting and they're talking about something with Greenland and you're like, what the fuck? I mean, you wouldn't do it, but you're like,

what the hell's going on here? Like, we got real shit to deal with. So, like, before we came on, we started recording, I told you, like, I geeked out on the Arctic when I was in the Pentagon and people kept reminding me, I was the freaking Middle East guys. So, beat it.

Right. But ultimately, this is about, this is about the Arctic, right? So the ice cap is melting. There is massive amounts of oil, gas, and rare earth minerals in the Arctic region to include Greenland. And there is passageways. It makes the world much, much, much more small. I mean, take your globe, look at it from the top.

and see how close Europe and the United States and everything actually is from that direction. So, and I won't, I don't want to, you know, drone on too much. But essentially there's eight countries that have direct access to the Arctic, almost all except for Russia are in NATO. So we have a huge advantage. In the United States, thank to the smartness of purchasing Alaska, is one of them, right? But we also have key NATO allies, all the rest of what Norway, Iceland, Canada.

Yeah, allies. Maybe not so much anymore. Well, I mean, they always were. No, I know. I think people we know. I think the Canada and Greenland interest is not, it's not, you know, economic equality. Maybe there's a part of it. And Greenland's not because, you know, they're not defending themselves.

It's about U.S. wanting to dominate the Arctic, right? So China's trying. they got the polar silk road. They're, they're, and I don't know why they're allowed. They have some scientific bases in Iceland and I think Norway. That should be kanked. They've tried to get into Greenland and Greenland and Denmark, as well as the request of the U.S.

tanked it. So there's actually no Russian or Chinese military presence in Greenland, not accurate. The U.S. used to have three air bases. in a in a in a in a navy base we had over 12,000 groups there it was significant during the cold war we had intercept and detect missile launches and we even had ground-based um i think launchers for nuclear we had um strategic bombers um we basically withdrew all that so um one of the countries that has neglected the security of greenland as it relates to the u.s is the U.S. We now have one base with 150 Mo Diddies there, right? So that is not a big investment

by the United States in Greenland security or since it's always been about our security because it's because of its positioning our security. So I think we could go back and ask Denmark and Greenland if we could put more troops there, have more direct access to the Arctic and Russia, of course, claim like more than half of the Arctic, which is not accurate, and so did Canada. And so all these overlapping claims of economic zone. It seems to me that the way to do this that is more likely to be successful is to go in with our NATO partners that have Arctic presence and combine for the exploitation of oil, gas, and push back against Russia. That's the Wadman out in this circle, literally the circle, right? And if we need to put more military, Russia has 50 bases in the Arctic, by the way.

So they're doing the opposite. They have, you know, the TU 160s, the strategic bombers, the biggest heavy-slifting, fastest strategic bombers that could drop nukes on the United States. They have them up there. They have Meg 31s. They've got nuclear-powered ice cutters. They have gone all in. So if we need to catch up, I think the best way to do it is to catch up with the partnership of our NATO allies and focus on the adversary, which in this circle is Russia, not Iceland, not Norway, Denmark through Greenland, not Canada, obviously.

Anyway, that's my. I mean, that sounds like an understandable strategy from a common, like a common sense, thoughtful person. strategy that seems to be coming out of the administration seems to be the antithesis of what you know. Maybe it's the same goal, but annexing allies doesn't exactly sound like great strategy to me. I'm a dummy, but, you know.

Yeah, I agree. I think that bare bones of it is, it's a great want. It's a great, you know, strategy, but or I should say it's a great long-term plan and need. But the way it's presented to the world, when you're a world leader and you use words like, when you say things like, we're going to have it one way or another, that doesn't, you know, that doesn't generate any kind of confidence from your, your allies, especially the people of Greenland. You know, and then when you use words like,

annex me personally when i hear annex automatically go back to pre-world war two germany you know i start thinking of you know things like that so it's people can say oh it's just blustering it's just you know miss speaking well when you're a world leader and you're a world when you're a superpower words mean things they have you know really really big meaning so um i think if it had been like one of those behind closed doors like mick said you know hey with our nato allies and go behind closed doors. We come to some sort of agreement and then open the doors, have a press conference and say, this is what we agree to instead of saying we'll have it one way or another, because that's all people are going to hear one way or another. And even if they didn't mean militarily, that's what people are going to think. That's what other world leaders are going to think. So we got to do better with the way we're, and when I say we, I mean, the president and his cabinet, the way they speak publicly about these things, they have to do better. Because the way. the message is getting lost in, we're going to take it whether you like it or not. Right.

And now, am I, like, if we're to the vice president's point, that we need Greenland to be secure for our security, which certainly can make the argument that it is, then we could send more troops there. Yeah. And they will let us, I think. Yeah. I think they would. Except for now.

Yeah. Because they're going to be like, wait a minute. It's a slow invasion here. You know, so, yeah. I mean, I think that the interest is right. The policy interest in the region is right. I think the focus on trying to annex NATO allies territory when we could simply cooperate with them, have joint ventures.

I mean, all these rare earth minerals that we're interested in require a lot of investment to actually get out of the ground. And so we could come in with the investment, the U.S., right, and then we could reap the benefits. So could our NATO allies, you know, and that's another way to do it. That's what I'd recommend. And if this is just rhetoric, I kind of feel like this is, even if they have no intent, obviously, invading Greenland or something like that, I think it makes the whole cooperation more difficult. To Jay's point, what Jay just said. Yeah, I mean, case in point, the vice president was visiting Greenland and no one came to see him.

He went to the one base that we do have there for a few hours and then headed home. I mean, yeah, just the way they're doing things. What's the word? That's a good word. It's not a bad word. Is head scratching. I'll be honest. Yeah, it's completely head scratching.

on the form i would say on the substance i think it's a good thing that we're starting to look at not being so reliant in every other country in some cases are adversaries for stuff that we know we're going to need right so some of these rare earth minerals what they make all these these you know advanced uh technological devices which the whole world's running on now and a lot of them coming out of China. So I like the idea, personally, that we have more autonomy for the United States on making things and having access to things. I would just advocate for a different way going about it. Yeah. All right, guys. That's all I got. What do you have? Anything else on your mind that you want to get, you know? I don't think that's a lot of stuff. Yep. Guys, of course, if you want to

find folks out there if you want to find the guys the links are all in the description mcmolroy fogbo lobo lobo institute all in the description um jason lians of course any and all links andy milburn his book in the description do us a favor patreon dot com slash the team house you get both a team house and eyes on ad free if you pay ten dollars a month you get all that plus us a patch sent to your home we ship internationally as well like europe and stuff. I don't know if we could send it to like Djibouti or something, but I'll figure it out. I'll make, I'll try and get it to you.

If we have one fan in Djibouti, by the way. Yeah, and that's it. Thanks, guys. This was great. Thanks, everybody.