The Team House - Ukraine War Update & Putin Helping the Houthis | EYES ON PODCAST

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Subscribe to the new EYES ON  YouTube channel.⬇️https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJytcQbSOEKLGyhNwkqpd3AToday we talk with Doug Livermore about all things Ukraine war and Russian sabotage across the globe.Doug Livermore is the Director of Special Operations, Irregular Warfare, Special Programs, and Sensitive Activities for the Deputy Under Secretary of the Navy. Additionally, he is a Special Forces Lieutenant Colonel in the Army National Guard currently serving as the Deputy Commander of Special Operations Detachment – X. Previously, Doug served as a sensitive activities advisor to both the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict and the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security. Multiple international affairs and security studies journals have distributed Doug’s works, including many publications in War on the Rocks, Small Wars Journal, and the Military Times. Doug is the National Director for External Communications for the Special Forces Association and is also the Director of Communications with West Point’s Irregular Warfare Initiative. Additionally, he is on the Board of Directors for both No One Left Behind and the Special Operations Association of America where he has been instrumental in the ongoing evacuation and resettlement of Afghan interpreters and their families. Doug earned his undergraduate degree in Military History at West Point, his graduate degree in International Security Affairs from Georgetown University, and exceled in the Army Command and General Staff Officer Course.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseFind Doug Livermore here:⬇️https://irregularwarfare.org/team/doug-livermore-3/https://www.linkedin.com/in/dolivermore/Find Andy Milburn here:⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023https://amilburn.substack.com/https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everyone, Andy here. I just want to put in a quick plug for the new channel, Eyeson. Previously, we fell under Team House and we shared subscribers. And what we're doing here is branching off, still within the Team House franchise. But it is important that we build up Steam with our own subscription base. So please, cost you nothing. Click on the subscribe button. Thank you. Hello, everyone.

Welcome to another episode of IZON. I'm Andy Milba. I'm Jason Lyons. I'm D'emichon Tacos. And today, we are thrilled to have a guest, Doug Livermore, who's an old friend, a former SF dude, Army SF dude, but otherwise a good guy. He was in 310, did a couple of tours in Afghanistan, ended up buried in special activities. And that kind of set the course for the rest of his career because he has, he is known in the

regular warfare community as being a, he'll challenge me on this, but as an expert, frankly. So he's, right now he's senior vice president of a company called, well, for solution engineering, for a company called CENTCO Group, and probably the best way to describe CENTCOG group is that they support the intelligence community and special operations forces in a variety of ways. And before that, he spent three years as a director of sensitive activities, a regular warfare in the office of the Department of the Navy. And before that, he was in the office of ASD Solit, which is special operations and low-intensity conflict.

And before that, worked for the Undersecreted Defense for Intelligence and Security with a portfolio focused on a regular warfare. And his publications are many and very. If you Google him, you'll find out. And he works also as a volunteer for evacuation efforts for foreign interpreters out of Afghanistan, for no one left behind. And if we have some time at the end,

I'd love to ask him to talk about that. Doug, welcome. What do you want to talk about today? What's going on in? Hey, thanks, sir. Thanks so much, Andy. And yeah, the only thing I'll push back on that, we have been friends a long time. But I would agree that anyone who claims to be an expert on irregular warfare is lying to because, you know, as I think we're going to get into a little bit here this morning, that space is constantly evolving, particularly as we see around Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

And there's always something more to learn, something new, something to adapt to. And I think to that end, when we start talking about what's going on in Ukraine today, we have to start at the micro level internal to the country. And what I'd like to do, of course, the conversation has moved a little bit more outwardly. So to start off with what's going on right now on the ground, as you mentioned through my nonprofit experience, I've managed to maintain some pretty close ties within Afghanistan, kind of similar to I'm sure that you have with your prior experience. I'm also the vice president for the Special Operations Association of America, and one of the many efforts that we have undergoing is support to the International Legion, the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, and a few other entities. So we do get fairly decent on the ground reporting,

which we and SOA then use to have in-depth and regular conversations with U.S. policymakers, legislators, and folks like that. So yeah, so let's start on the Ukrainian, on the eastern front, if you will, in Ukraine. I think you've probably seen some of the more recent reports, even this morning. The Russians continue to make slow progress, seizing another key village in eastern Ukraine. This is part of the ongoing push where, frankly, it looks like the Kremlin's continuing to just exchange bodies for meters of ground gained, hoping to grind down the Ukraine. really probably before the end of the fall fighting season and things kind of slow down a little bit for the winter. What we've seen on the ground in eastern Ukraine has been really just like a hybrid between World War I style trench warfare with Ukrainians on the defense and really like high end next generation ghost fleet style high tech war.

you've seen all the integration of first-person drones, some of the more advanced, even unmanned ground vehicles that the Ukrainians are starting to field. But that combined with what you just see really, really horrific casualties, mostly are on the part of the Russians. The British government release probably has, because of their access on the ground,

has probably some of the best analysis on what's going on in eastern Ukraine and what they're projecting, as you see anywhere between like a one to five to a one to eight casualty ratio between the Ukrainians and the Russians, which, you know, prior to the last couple weeks, I would say that the Russians absolutely can't sustain and eventually they'll run out of steam. What we've unfortunately seen in really like the last two weeks, and again, I know you've been following this, but for the sake of your audience, the introduction of North Korean troops into the fight. Specifically, I know about two weeks ago there were some of the first murmurings, some of the initial intelligence. reports that were being pointed to by the Ukrainians and the South Koreans, interestingly enough,

indicating that in honoring the recently ratified security cooperation agreement between the Russian Federation and North Korea, North Korea was going to start contributing troops on top of what it was already doing with missiles and other systems, some of the short to medium range ballistic missiles that the North Greens have been providing in addition to the ungodly amount of artillery ammunition that the North Koreans were already providing to Russia. So anyway, over the last two weeks, there's been kind of the usual Hemming and Hying where neither NATO nor the U.S. or any of our other partners and allies were willing to confirm the presence of North Korean troops on the battlefield.

But just this morning, NATO headquarters confirmed that there are, in fact, North Korean troops inside Ukraine fighting alongside the Russia. So I only offer that when we start talking about the Eastern Front, in particular, Ukraine and some of the strategic overview. Because as I and you have told many people, we can't confuse Russia of today with the Soviet Union of yesterday. Everyone points back to the fact that the Soviet Union basically steamrollered over Germany and they're willing to endure endless casualties, and you can't break the Russian will on casualties alone.

I would point out that Russia is not that country. Its population is significantly smaller than that of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union rolled over Nazi Germany. It did so with a lot of Ukrainians in its ranks and part of the Soviet Union. So anyway, what the introduction of North Korean troops provides to Vladimir Putin is really a lot of relief on that, those casualties, rates that we were just talking about, you know, be it one to five or one to eight in favor of the Ukrainians. Putin now gets a little bit more breathing room if you can start sacrificing North Korean soldiers instead of Russian soldiers.

Most folks forget that one of the major contributing factors to the collapse of the Soviet Union was the mother's movement that grew up around the Soviet casualties and particularly the Russian casualties that were suffered in Afghanistan. that was only around 15,000 total casualties over the 10 years of the Soviet Union's involvement there. So I do think that depending upon the size of the North Korean contribution to the war and the progress or lack of progress that the Russians make here in the next couple months before winter really sets in an offensive operations in eastern Ukraine and grind to a halt will have a huge influence on the outcome of the fight, at least in eastern Ukraine, and probably more broadly strategic. I mean, right now the Russians are holding roughly 18% of the overall Ukrainian territory, which is fairly insignificant, but it is starting to get up towards what Putin's declared

objectives were of occupying all of Luhansk and Donetsk. The rest of Karasun, Ovalos, is probably outside the reach of any Russian offensive, particularly given the presence of the Yipro River between. the two banks. But yeah, so if Putin can clear the rest of Donets, Lujansk, he's still holding Crimea, and I suspect that there'll just be a decision not to pursue the rest of Karasan oblast.

Putin could theoretically declare victory if he clears those three, or sorry, those, well, if he holds the three complete oblasts and at least half of Karasan. So, you know, I think, and again, it's really unknown right now. I think the latest estimate I saw from the Ukrainians and the South Koreans was they think that North Korea has committed some 11,000 or 12,000 troops to Russia to use on the front lines. And I know we said we were going to start micro and work macro, but I will say my perspective is that North Koreans can probably contribute far more troops than that.

for one, most of their troops are starving to death due to poor crop production and conditions on the ground in North Korea. And frankly, despite all of the bluster from the North Koreans, I don't think there's a world in which they actually think that, you know, the United States and South Koreans are going to come across the border, across the, cross the demarcation line and can try to invade North Korea. So with the North Koreans having nuclear weapons as kind of their ultimate fallback, and frankly, aside from internal security, not a whole lot of requirements for the massive army they've built. My fear will be that they will just continue to pump tens of thousands of more troops into the fight of Ukraine. So, I do think the next several months or the next two months will be very, very telling. I do know that the Ukrainians are pretty severely outmanned, just in pure numbers on the eastern front in Ukraine.

and as the Russians continue to make that creeping advance, particularly if they can start now trading, say, like, North Korean bodies, instead of Russian bodies for that terrain, that will certainly give them some advantages. So I'm going to pause there on the eastern front. So can I jump in very quickly there? So essentially, and what you just said is, I think it's an important point that the,

You know, we're not being polyanarish, but there is no sign of a Ukrainian collapse. And it is clear that the Ukrainians, you know, they just gave up Vukadar, which essentially was, you know, is a ruined settlement. But they're trading, as you point out, terrain for casualties. And just to give everyone a scale Russian casualties, the British Ministry of Defense estimates the Russians are losing a thousand a day. So, you know, all casualties killed and wounded, a thousand guys a day. And that is not unusual. When you look back throughout the war in Dompass, that's kind of been the norm. And in fact, in the fighting for barmuth, it was even higher than that.

That's an extraordinary amount. But even, you know, at that, even at that level, this 12,000, the storm core will last, you know, two weeks. And that's what the Ukrainians are predicting. even if they do fight, you know, even if they are good and they're not, and even if the Ukrainians, you know, I'd like to see them use psychological warfare to much greater extent than they are. But if the Ukrainians jump on board that and start messaging these guys as they're arriving at the front, perhaps with, you know, North Koreans, former North Korean defectors sending these messages, I think that, you know, the talk about, you know, the talk about,

these additional numbers in North Koreans of Koreans may, they may not be, it doesn't, it doesn't look as though they're going to be a strategic game changer, I guess, is what I'm saying. Do you think all of that is fair? No, and that, Andy, that's a great point. I know there have already been reports of decently large numbers of North Koreans surrendering, surrendering or defecting, you know, I think you can probably mince words as to which one it actually was. But yeah, so there's already been that. I do think that in that, in particular, if we were to see North Koreans more heavily employed on the front lines, as I said previously, there were some reports of them up, and we'll talk to the curse counteroffensive and that here

at a minute. But like, if you start seeing appreciable numbers of North Koreans directly engaged in assaults on Ukrainian positions, I do think you're going to see that number start to move up. And like you said, you raised that great point about the casualties. Like, a thousand, at least recently, from what I've been seeing on the daily casualty counts for the Russians, is at least, like, that's the bare minimum of a thousand a day. That's a situation. But, oh, it's, yeah, in this last week, you've seen, you know, 1,400 plus on some days and obviously some fluctuations based upon what's happening on the front. And again, you know, obviously there's a fairly wide disparity in the numbers that get presented, like the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense has one set of numbers. I think this morning when I looked, it was 687,000 total Russian dead and wounded.

I think that number is probably a little bit inflated, but even the United States, even the U.S. government, as of our last, the Department of Defense, the last number we put out, was a little north of 350,000, which again, at the end of the day, when the entire Russian army started off at, I think it was a little bit over a million. Like that's a catastrophic impact. So yeah, to your point, I do think one can be both provide sober assessments, but also look at the grand strategic design and recognize that Ukrainians do have a very good chance of winning this thing. And frankly, if you look at where we were in March, April of 2022, when the Russians were at the dates of Kiev, or Kiev, and there was the major battles in it around the city, and the Russians ended up having the draw and defeat and, you know, fall back all the way back to Belarus and back in a Russian

territory. And the fact that we went from that to today, the Russians basically expending every ounce of their military might to hold on to 18% of Ukrainian territory. Like the threat of a, there is, I don't see, I don't see a threat of a complete collapse in the front. And Russians, like you hear from the Russian propagandists that they're going to be back in Kiev in a matter of weeks. And that's all very, very wishful thinking. And, and, Again, I'll just, like, close up that thought on your point about the North Korean contribution again. I don't, you're right. I don't see it as a game changer.

I do see it as a bit of a desperate ploy by Putin that Tim is going along with to say, hey, I'll give you North Korean bodies to you can keep, well, you can try to keep some level of popular support for the war, which is another important point. I think the latest polls that were conducted out of, I think it was the Moscow Times, about a month, month and a half ago actually saw for the first time a very sizable, well, not quite a majority, but I think it was like a 49% of Russians that were saying that the special military operation, otherwise known to everyone else as the invasion of Ukraine, wasn't worth it and that there should be a negotiated settlement to end the war.

So you are seeing these massive casualties and all these expenditures, the absolute destruction of the Russian economy. starting to have a very significant impact on Russian popular support for the war. So if you're seeing like a 49% in a public forum or in a public poll, you can be sure that the actual, the hidden thoughts and feeling that the Russian people are holding are probably significant higher. They're running low on munitions too. One thing that hasn't been hitting the news is the Ukraine's been hitting that ammunition storage depots.

And so the ratio, I mean, you remember. remember at its worst, do you remember when the Ukrainians were waiting for ammunition for, and the ratio dropped to like 10 to 1, right? 10 Russian shells for every Ukrainian. Well, now that gaps closed to, I forget, but it's like, it's like two to five or something, you know, to Ukraine. So there are things happening, I would argue behind the scenes that don't make it as pessimistic as you might read and some of the papers.

Yeah, 100%. And yeah, I know at the worst, we were looking at like one to 12 on the artillery exchanges. The Ukrainians did, and actually I wrote a piece about this a couple weeks ago now, but yeah, at the irregular warfare initiative. But what the Ukrainians have really been really, really amazing in implementing, has been a sustained unconventional warfare campaign against the Russians. and that's working by with and through, interestingly, both Ukrainian partisans and the occupied territories. So Doniats, Wuhan, the parts of Karasana, they're still occupied.

But really what's been fascinating has been the work done by the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces and Intelligence Services, Russian partisans, inside Russia. And as you alluded to, there have been very, very significant. In fact, one of the numbers I'd seen just in the last couple of days was those that the sabotage and deep strike drones that the Ukrainian special operations, forces, intelligence services, and working with Russian partisans have undertaken, had affected something like 12% of Russia's oil production, which at the end of the day, like John McCain said, Russia is a gas station run by gangsters. It's what the entire economy is based on. You look at the, like you were saying, the munition attacks.

There's been a series of some of the larger munition depots inside Russia, inside the occupied territories that have been destroyed. And yeah, you're right, that rate of artillery exchange, which again, kind of like I was saying, saying before, this war has seen an odd mix of like World War I style trench warfare where artillery is most definitely king with high tech like drones and whatnot. But we've really seen that rate come more into balance. What's also been interesting in the last, I'd say, year, really, is the rate to which the Ukrainians have undertaken domestic production of artillery.

drones, missiles, because as we were saying, like the west of the country has largely been unaffected. There are still the occasional drone strikes and missile strikes in like Leviv and some of the areas in western Ukraine. But that actually provided a space in which the Ukrainians have undertaken a lot of their own production. A lot of European companies, I don't think any American defense firms have just yet. I know like the Germans, Rine Metal and some other major European defense firms have actually looked at and some are planning on opening up facilities to co-produce munitions and armored vehicles and things like that inside Ukraine. So that development of an indigenous military industrial complex is going to be super, I think, beneficial. And as we see, unfortunately, I think as we see this war, or as we see this war, unfortunately stretch on, we'll have a strategic impact and allowing Ukrainians to really.

really sustain the fight regardless of international support, which may wane or strengthen depending on a number of factors. Doug, very quickly, though, I would argue, and maybe you have insights into this, but the Ukrainians are not good in the information warfare space. They were great at the beginning of the war, but now the narrative from, you know, the Russian narrative that is being picked up here, you can hear very strongly in the United States, is that Ukraine cannot win the war. And to me, that seems like something that the Ukrainians need to focus more on.

And we talked about psychological warfare. You know, my personal experience is so dated now, but I can tell you during the year, you know, the year or so that I was there, there was very little effort to get Russians to defect, you know, the tactical. which could have a huge effect, even strategically, I would argue. But are you saying that they're getting better at that, both from the strategic? Yeah, so it's fascinating. One could have, you know, I think there is an important differentiation between what's happening at the strategic level and what's happening at the operational and tactical level.

I think let's start big and work. Well, let's start small and work big. So I think, I'm sure you've seen a lot of the material that the Ukrainian minister, of the Ministry of Defense been putting out regarding, in particular, around their prisoner of war system and how well, I mean, you just have to watch videos that the Ministry of Defense puts out talking about how well these Russian prisoners are kept. They're fed well, they get all the medical support they need. They, you know, they're allowed, well, as part of the Cyops campaign, they're also allowed to communicate with their families back home, which I think also has an effect in really showing common Russians. the true nature of the war. And my impression has been, particularly like what you saw in the curse counteroffensive now to almost three months ago now,

was that you did see a large number of Russians surrendering to Ukrainians, fully recognizing that they were going to be well cared for. And in many cases, better cared for than they were when they were in the service of the Kremlin. And you compare that to what we've been seeing about summary executions and starvation and all the deprivations that are visited upon Ukrainian prisoners of war being held by Russians. So my impression is at the tactical and operational level, the Ukrainians, I think they're

getting better at that part. You know, you just got to go on social media. And I know you've seen you've seen me share a lot of these, but like the videos from the tactical and operational level successes that the Ukrainians are having. I mean, they are considerable. Yeah, check. I just want to add in the plug. Check Doug out.

I mean, you know, yes, not in that sense, but on, you know, social media, his LinkedIn account, when Doug posts he gets, I mean, we have audience envy, Doug. So please do plug us to. But yes, I haven't seen anyone else post what you are posting. So I just want to add. at please continue and forever now. So if you want to know what's going on in Ukraine, follow Doc. We'll put in his information at the end.

Well, thank you very much. Yeah. So every time the Ukrainians trade, a first person drone, you know, probably a grand or two worth of equipment, counting the munition for a Russian air defense system at $50 million or something like that. That is a good exchange rate for both the Ukrainians. And as I've argued frequently and loudly, also for those of us that are supporting Ukraine.

at the end of the day, the Russians are destabilizing force and anything that could be done to both liberate Ukraine, but then also prevent the Russians from using that equipment elsewhere, I think is a win-win for everyone involved. But so then once you start looking, I do agree that the Ukrainians have certainly had some struggles at a strategic and geostrategic level when it comes to their messaging campaigns. I mean, I agree. Like you look at February of 2022, probably until mid-2023, the Ukrainian strategic campaign. impact of their influence ops was undeniable. You know, when, when, uh, when president Zelensky said, you know, I don't need a ride. I need more ammunition.

And I think that was like late February of 2022. Like that was the give me liberty or give me death moment, um, that went all around the world multiple, multiple times. And there's just been, there was obviously that very considerable support, I'd say, in the first year and a half. Um, and the Ukrainians were very, very good about. And I think it also helped from the. the battlefield successes. I mean, you saw kind of like the little engine that could, the

underdog Ukrainians, like I was saying earlier, pushing the Russians back out of all the territory that they had conquered. I think probably the turning point was the struggles and the challenges and I'd say the ultimate failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the summer of 2023. And we could do a whole other podcast on the reasons why that happened. I think there's a ton of delay in getting the equipment that the Ukraine's needed, a ton of delay in training them on it. I mean, I was, unfortunately, I was still in the government at the time, so I was watching, I was reading the reports, like watching the Ukraine, or sorry, the Russian defensive belts get built and fully knowing that, you know, the Ukrainians are going to have to fight their way through

that, and then ultimately they were unsuccessful. I do think once that momentum was lost, because if you remember correctly, in summer of 23, there was the first kind of the, I'll call it the stutter step where everyone was looking at the south. And then the Ukrainians went north into Harkeve and liberated like all the Harkev, pushed the Russians back, liberated hundreds of square miles of terrain. And that was a huge, huge win. But in the south, they did not. And then the lines stabilized, I'd say, late 2023 into early 2024. And then what the result of that was, was, I think it was probably a combination of the Ukrainians, I think, lacking some of the big, big, big, big, good news stories like that, like the liberation of territories in late, you know, late 22 and early 23, as well, two things at the, at the global level.

There is, I think, growing fatigue with donor support from donor countries, which we've actually seen this very interesting bifurcation in there where countries in Europe on the eastern flank, the Poland's, Baltic states are actually like upping their contributions to Ukraine. But then other countries like the United States, I mean, we went, we were like you were alluding to earlier, we went through that whole nightmare of trying to get the additional aid released in just earlier this year. And that was largely influenced by, again, you and I have talked about this, but for your audience, the massive disinformation campaign that the Russians have been engaged in. I think it was a month ago now

that there was the indictments from the Department of Justice against the Russian-based payments that were going to American social influencers that were basically spewing all sorts of, like you were saying, like Ukraine can't possible win, all your money is going. Some of my old friends, Doug. Dark hole.

Yeah, yeah. No, 100%. It's been an interesting, well, I mean, you and I, You and I have been on social media for a while fighting those fights. The gray zone. Yeah. The gray zone.

Yeah. No, go ahead. Sorry, I, I, I, I, I, see, just a personal thing, you know, the guys who went after me, when I appeared on the team house, have, had their names have appeared now in this, was it, State Department, I forget, but as being associated with RT, which was no, surprise, but now it's official. And I believe, I don't know for sure, but the Gray Zone

had its charity, what's it called, 501C3 status, removed because of its association with the Russians. Yeah. I'm saying I believe, because I don't know that for sure, and I want to avoid it. Yeah, I don't know.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. And I'll just say like that, and the insidious nature of those disinformation information campaign is, A, like, there are the more cut and dry cases, like when the DOJ has presented the evidence that says these Russian nationals were providing money through these mechanisms, you know, these financial cutouts that went to these social media influencers that were then going on and talking about how Ukraine was entirely corrupt and like their army was collapsing and everyone, you know, and the Russians were going to be, we're going to conquer

the whole country, which, but what might be even more insidious than that, I mean, obviously we have to do things about that. We have to be on guard against that. And like you and I have had conversations amongst, you know, with between us and other folks online. It's like, you have to check your sources, right? Like, you know, I, it blows my mind, particularly in the social influencing space, folks that like have zero background in, in defense or security matters. They have zero on the ground insights. But like, they're chasing the likes. They're chasing, well, in some cases, like in the COJ case, they were chasing the money to the tune of, I think one of the guys who's getting like $400,000 a week and never stopped question. And what's the source of this money and why is somebody whom I apparently don't know willing to pay me this kind of money to say the things I'm saying.

But yeah, the more insidious side of that is like the influence it has. And how do you, how do you math and track that? So I would offer, you know, I don't want to get partisan. I'm a lifelong Republican, but you and I were, And I know a whole bunch of other people were scratching our heads over the recalcitrance, the reluctance to authorize more aid for Ukraine coming from the Republican right of Congress. Yeah. What's weird is, which...

You've got the extreme right. I mean, you've got the right and the extreme left converging in common cause. Yeah, absolutely. Yep, there was the extreme left and the extreme right that had, you know, were binding, binding themselves together to oppose. age to Ukraine just when they need it the most. And I would offer that a lot of the challenges that the Ukrainians, as you know, as they had in, uh, over probably up until August when there was the curse counteroffence, or the offensive into Kersko Blast in Russia, um, just absolutely a

horrific time, um, on the, particularly in the Ukrainian eastern front where we were talking about there, excuse me, that one to 12, uh, artillery exchange rate just because like the Ukrainians, their ammo depots are running dry. Obviously, the U.S. did eventually kind of, I think that was Churchill who said that Americans will, I'm paraphrasing, we'll do everything the wrong way until they finally do it the right way. I know that's not the exact quote.

And it's true. We came through eventually, but how many Ukrainian members... Can always be relied upon to do the right thing after exhausting every other possibility. That one, yes. Yeah. Yeah, and it's absolutely true. But unfortunately, like, I had a real cost.

How many Ukrainian service members? How many Ukrainian civilians died because they didn't have patriot interceptors? They didn't have enough artillery. So, you know, it is easy for Americans and folks that aren't following this closely or have people on the ground there to lose side of effect. Like, these are real lives at play. Disinformation is deadly. I mean, I think that, and real quickly, one of the things, I'm a student of history, military history major from West Point.

And one of the things that has been absolutely fascinating to me is when you look at now of like the history that has come out post-Cold War of how the Soviet Union's engaged in active measures, the disinformation campaigns that were designed to influence U.S. audiences, it's incredibly difficult to measure exactly what impact those disinformation operations. had, but you know that it had to me. So I'll be curious to see in another 20, 30 years from now when the history of this period is being written and the FSB archives are open, kind of like the KGB archives were opened after the Cold War, who was on what payroll, who was talking to whom, who was getting run by whom. I think I'll be both fascinating and sobering. But like in the here and now, how do we combat that? How do we, as a country,

reunify with our historical partners and allies, the British, the French, the other members of NATO, to get behind what is very clearly a worthwhile cause that serves all of our interests. So, on a positive note, but wouldn't you agree that, you know, kind of our political uncertainty, I suppose, is the kindest thing to say,

has awakened countries in Europe, especially Eastern Europe, to really step up to the plate now as far as being long ball-hitting members of NATO and great contributors. You know, Poland's a great example, which is now, Poland's now like a leading nation, spending 4% of its GDP on defense. And, of course, you mentioned the Baltics, you know, everything from building up their military to domestic. munition of production has stepped up with an eye on the possibility that they will not be able to rely on the United States after the elections?

Yeah, undoubtedly. That has been a huge plus. I mean, it's not lost on anyone that one of Putin's stated objectives in invading Ukraine was to prevent the expansion of NATO any further onto Russia's borders. But in response, he's now got Sweden and Finland, two incredibly powerful countries. that have joined NATO and have contributed their military might to the alliance, the defensive alliance. I do think you're absolutely right.

We've seen an absolute revitalization of domestic production, of European domestic production of munitions and equipment and really kind of a recognition that in particular, as going back like we were talking about before with the, again, I don't want to get political, but at the end of the day, there was instructionism in Congress that blocked the aid to Ukraine. you have certain political candidates that are talking about not supporting NATO allies if Article 5 gets invoked, which is a bit mind-boggling to me because, in fact, Article 5 has only been ever invoked once, and it was by the United States. Yeah, in response to 9-11.

So, like, technically the United States has been the only beneficiary of the NATO Article 5. So because of that recognition, because of some of that political uncertainty, which I don't think serves America well at all, yes. Our NATO allies and really a lot of our allies around the world and other regions, be it Taiwan, Japan is another great example, have just, I think, made the wise decision that, you know, perhaps we are not as reliable of partner right now as we used to be, and as such, they should pursue their own capabilities.

I mean, one of the potential strategic game changers of this whole, bringing in a full circle what we were talking about before, the introduction of North Korean troops by the Russians into Ukraine may actually convince the South Koreans to open up their massive military industrial complex to provide support to Ukraine, which I think ultimately will be far more beneficial to Ukrainians than a few thousand malnourish, poorly trained, inexperienced North Korean soldiers are going to be for the Russians. But yeah, it's a perfect example. We have seen over the last three, almost three years since the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, a real revitalization and a re, I say, reorientation of a lot of America's partners and allies to be far. more self-sufficient, which ultimately, I think, makes, again, if we're willing to participate

sincerely in those alliance structures that we, the United States, had helped build and maintain for last 50 or 60 years, I do think ultimately the United States will benefit greatly, as will the cause of global stability. So we talked about kind of the micro, and it's good, you know, I'm glad to hear your your views on the terrain versus casualty peace. I, you know, about a month ago, I was really concerned to see that the Russians were within 10 kilometers of Pockrosk, which is, you know, a shithole town that I spent too much time. But, but it is a rail hub and it's saying, you know, it's kind of a stepping stone to Krematosk. But interestingly enough, they haven't moved much since then.

And as I said, you know, the Ukrainians gave up Vukador, which was not a big. thing, but they've held on to strategic places like, what's it called? Chessivya, you know, the hilltop positions, Touretz. Yes, it is called Touretz. We used to joke about that, not Tourette's. So there is certainly a method behind it, and again, it's not a route. But I wanted to, you know, I wanted to ask you, talk to you about something that that is quite sensitive on that. And that is, How is Ukrainian morale? How is that shifted? Are the Ukrainians, you know, we read a lot about Russian desertions,

but anecdotally now we're hearing about, you know, Ukraine does have manpower problems, and we're hearing about some moral problems at the front. Do you think these are significant, or do you think that these are a product, again, of disinformation? So it's never as easy as, you know, column A or column B. I will say there are certainly what we're seeing, some significant morale problems.

I mean, many, well, many of the units that were originally on the line in February of 2022 have seen almost 100% turnover, if not more in personnel, just from casualties, which you have seen. It's interesting, you know, I'd say that the Ukrainian army in February 22 was probably at about a pinnacle because, and I had this conversation with a bunch of folks, and most folks don't realize that actually the U.S. and our NATO, partners and allies had been supporting Ukrainians and helping them reform and revitalize and rearm their military going all the way back to 2014 when the Russians first annexed and

occupied a bunch of territories under the little green men auspices completely illegally. But anyway, the point being is that in February 2020, the Ukrainian army was actually really, really good. And we saw that performance played out during the Russian invasion. We saw in particular, well, I'm a bit biased, but like the Ukrainian Special Operations Forces, the territorial defense forces, obviously working with the conventional elements of the Ukrainian military,

kind of like chopped up the Russian army as it came in through Belarus. And then like we were talking about, the liberation of Harkiv and then the liberation of the northern flank of Kyrsong, north of the Nipro River. I do think that this, with the failure of the counteroffensive

in the South in the summer and then of 23, and then really getting back into kind of this grinding World War I style of trench warfare. We have seen fluctuations where, yep, NATO partners and allies are training a ton of Ukrainian forces, cycling them back into the fight. But frankly, the Ukrainian army, I think, is very, very tired. They've made tremendous sacrifices. Right now there doesn't seem to be an end in sight.

So we have seen morale issues. In particular, I'd say running up to and probably has a secondary effect of, that delay that we've been talking about in American military aid. Morale, I think, hit a low point at that point when, again, it was like a 1 to 12 artillery exchange. The aid got delivered. Ukrainians launched a masterful offensive into the Kersk Oblasts into Russia, territory that they still hold and probably will continue to hold at least through the end of the year, if not longer.

That was tremendous for Ukrainian morale, talking to my folks on the ground. and key they said, you know, it was like complete revitalization. But to your point, there have been problems with desertions. I think the last number I saw was like 80, 85,000 suspected desertions. I just saw a map the other day looking at the number of Ukrainian like court marshals related to desertion. You know, you see a smattering few thousand here and there along the front, which is not insignificant. I think, you know, another huge, I guess the last thing I'll say is there,

or on that before I say something else on the disinformation side is there are challenges on the recruiting side that Ukrainians are facing. And again, nothing that you don't know. There's both the issue of the diaspora or the refugee populations in which you've seen the not insignificant number of Ukrainian military age males flee the country. I just published a piece with IWI last week where I was talking about, you know, some of the incentives. or the incentives that the Ukrainian government working by with and through. Some of those countries where the refugee populations exist could go and pursue some of these military age males that should, frankly, be conscripted. And then similarly, the issues with the minimum age of conscription for the Ukrainian military.

Right now, it was just lowered earlier this year from 27 years old to 25 years old. Ukrainians obviously they have serious concerns about like we were talking about before. They need to maintain a certain group of men, a certain sizable population of men to run their military industrial complex, to maintain their population by having more kids. I don't think that in the United States, our minimum draft age is 18. I don't think the Ukrainians should probably go that low, but they should probably take a look at dropping the age limit again and opening up another couple bands of military age males for conscription. I mean, this is an existential fight for the Ukrainians. Now, on the opposite side of that, I do think the Russians are doing a great job of amplifying those concerns. In particular, over the last couple months, you've probably seen a lot of the videos of Ukrainian conscription officials going into the nightclubs and the bars in Western Ukraine to try to round up folks that should be conscripted.

And while I'm sure that's happening, I've seen the videos, I've shared the videos, I do know that the Russians are going to great lengths to amplify that. I mean, let's not forget the fact that more Russian military-age males fled Russia during the last mobilization, like to the tune of a couple million, then we're actually conscripted into the Russian army. So like the Russians know that their problems are worse, but they also know that particularly in Western audiences, amplifying the problems that the Russians are, sorry, the Ukrainians are having.

on their manpower side and their morale side is beneficial to them. So, you know, on the one hand, as defense or security, I won't call us experts, but fictionados, like, we have to be sober about our assessments and where we in the United States and our partners and allies are putting resources, but we also have to be very cognizant that war is at the end of the day a very human endeavor and emotions get involved. And I will say that, yes, Ukraine's have challenged, but the Russians are also really, really, really good. They've got decades and decades going all the back to the Soviet Union of playing off of those emotions in a way to really achieve their strategic ends when they can't seem to do

it on the battlefield. So Doug, switching gears here for a sec, staying on Russia, though. I'm not sure if you're familiar with the latest story about the IC has come out and said that they're pretty sure that Russian operatives are behind a recent video. I'm not sure if you saw it showing supposed ballot being ripped up in Pennsylvania. And I just want to see, I mean, it's near and dear to me because I live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. I've not seen the video, but I wanted to see if you had any thoughts on that. Yeah, so, I mean, no election is perfect, right? Like, at the end of the day, we know that's true.

I will say, and I know CISA had done a ton of work to try to secure the upcoming election that we have here, in like a week. But I will say that it benefits the Russians. And I'm certain the Russians are behind it or at least part of it. Again, there's this weird mix of there are certainly Americans that benefit from spreading disinformation and undermining faith in the U.S. government in our election process. But, I mean, at the end of the day, this is very much an effort by, supported by the Russian government to so doubt on our own upcoming elections.

You look at like, again, I hate to be a what I've been accused of what aboutism, but it's like in Russia, Vladimir Putin jails and murders and and, and, you know, forces his opponents to exile. And there's no, nobody believes for a minute that Russian elections are fair. In fact, just this week, we saw the election in Georgia, right, where the Georgia Dream Party has claimed victory. Obviously, we've all seen the videos of like literal ballot stuffing by folks paid off by the Kremlin. Moldova just had their election two weeks ago, where they very narrowly voted to pursue European Union membership. But again, like,

that was right after the Moldovan government broke up. I think it was something on the tune of like $300 plus million that the Kremlin had spent trying to buy votes and influence the election to get Moldova to stay out of the European Union. So back to your question about like Bucks County, Pennsylvania, like this is a playbook that the Russians do everywhere. We've seen it. So I think it is naive of Americans to think that they're not doing the exact same thing here because they have a, they have both a vested interest in the outcome of the election,

but even if their preferred candidate doesn't win, they also just want to undermine Americans' confidence in our electoral system because frankly then that makes the whole lot of, easier for the Russians to say like, hey, why are you opposed to our activities around the world? Like, you're just as bad as us. Look at your elections. And that's the danger of social media, right? Like, you can amplify. I don't know if the video is real or not. I've seen it. Like, you can make a video of anything, especially this day and age with AI. But you amplify it properly and shoot, like, you know, with Twitter or sorry, X, Facebook

and all the other social media platforms, you can buy audiences essentially. You can buy amplification of your message. So, you know, I, it's concerning. I think those of us that play and work in this space all the time, like we're very cognizant of it. It is just concerning the extent to which like the American people

and other populations around the world can't, like, they seem to be incredibly susceptible to it. Now, Paul to say, like, Russians are also very good of building in the doubt of the fact checkers into the process. So even when there is evidence presented to the contrary, well,

you know, so and so on Facebook said that, of course, that's, you know, you were going to lie about that. So I still believe the original thing, even though there's no evidence of support. So anyway, yeah, it's buckle up. It's going to be a crazy, I think several weeks. I don't think we're going to know the outcome of our election on November 5th. And I do think the seeds have been planted for at least some level of distrust of the outcome and whatever might follow from that. Yeah, I would think it seems to me that social media has made information

operations so much easier. If you're on that end of it, all you have to do is just take a video, make a video, and just drop it. And just, it's like throwing chum in the water. Just watch the show. You don't even have to have really bots anymore because the average American citizen on one side of the other is going to pick it up and be like, this is exactly what it is. And their echo chamber is going to spin that.

And it's just going to keep getting put out and put out and put out. So it's just, it's so easy for I.O. operations to run these days. Oh, 100%. Yeah, like the interconnected global information space has made information operations infinitely easier. Like the day, well, and we can, again, we could have a whole other podcast on how the U.S. kind of falls. I think we're pretty far behind in that capability. Most democratic countries are because we value, you know, we only speak the truth. We can't influence American population.

There's a whole another conversation we had about our challenges in the IOS space. the Kremlin doesn't care. The, what is that? The Internet Research Institute or IRA, internet research agency based out of St. Petersburg. Like, you know, we all know the impacts that they've had on past U.S. elections. I'm sure they're just churning it. And to your point, in our information environment,

and as divided as people as we have become around our politics, which is, again, absolutely mind-boggling to me. Because, you know, just a couple decades ago, Americans were Americans. And, yeah, you happen to be a Republican. You happen to be a Democrat. But that didn't become like a primary point of our personalities and point that now you see through information operations is incredibly exploitable. Yeah, absolutely.

It's become our identity, you know, instead of, hey, what's your sign? It's now what's your politics? You can vote for. It's crazy. And it just makes it so much easier to be an I-O bad guy. But thank you, though. Appreciate that. Thank you.

We talked about the information space, but what about more kinetic operations in Europe, you know, with the certainly the European papers and actually the economist have been covering the Russian attempts at sabotage. You know, there's the well-publicized ones in Germany. But it seems as though, you know, this is a concerted campaign taking place now across Europe.

What do we know about that? Yeah, so going back to the Russians are very, very cognizant of the fact that they cannot compete with Europe militarily in a conventional force-on-force fight. I mean, shoot, they can't even conquer Ukraine,

which is not a part of them. It's significantly smaller than them. So I think in recognition of that, in frustration with a continued and in some cases growing support from Europe to Ukraine. They have absolutely, the Russians have absolutely pursued a in the shadows covert sabotage campaign. That works alongside with, and oftentimes in hand with their disinformation campaign. So we've spent a bunch of time talking about IO. Certainly, like I said, we have a whole other podcast on that.

But yeah, we've seen in particular either, what's been fascinating is it's either Russian sells themselves, so GRU, FSB, or many cases working by with and through criminal enterprises, which I think was the case in Germany, in Poland, where I know the cases in Poland and Germany, the Russian intelligence services had hired local criminals to do some casing or some close target reconnaissance on potential targets. I think while the evidence isn't concrete yet, I think every indication is there that the Russians were behind the sabotage of the French railway system right around. the opening of the Paris Olympics. You'll recall, like, the morning of the opening ceremonies, all four main rail lines running into Paris were cut. Well, three were cut, and then one of them, one of them the attack was disrupted.

And that was in and around a whole bunch of other chatter. And in fact, I think other Russian nationals, I do know, other Russian nationals that had gotten arrested for suspicion of being plotting against the Paris Olympics. So now, like I was saying, again, don't want to spend a ton of. the time on it, but like that was also that where you see I.O. and kinetic operations working in conjunction with each other because, of course, Russia is super annoyed with France right now for their

continuing support to Ukraine. So they were looking at these attacks against the Paris games as a means to really more like do an I.O. kid against the, uh, against the French. But at the end of the day, it was actually fairly successful. Like I said, three of the four major lines and the Paris were cut, um, which caused all sorts of disruptions for the opening ceremonies and, of course, some level of embarrassment for the French. The extent to which, and this is where when you look historically at the Russians, they also tend to be very, very ham-fisted with these sorts of kinetic attacks and even their information operations, where, like, they're so blatant. My fear is always, when you start looking at things like these kinetic attacks, and I think France would have been a

perfect example. There was the one Russian national that got rolled up on the train into France who had gotten drunk who was telling everyone that he was an FSB officer there to like wheezing people. Right? And so like that maybe that was like the obvious hey I'm the rabbit

chase me chase me. Meanwhile some other teams were doing the hits on the rail line. And you know I think what gets lost in the discussion is and my fear is that like the Russians do appear very hamptested on some of these things, like very, very blatant.

The ballot stuffing in Georgia where you had like videos of Russian dudes shoving ballots into boxes. But if you, you know, if you do the blatant stuff then you might miss the more clandestine activities. And that is a danger, like the United States, I know that there

is a constant fear particularly. And again, this is where, unfortunately, the way we make certain topics very very partisan that it lets prevents us from getting a good solution. So like The southern border, perfect example. There is a very real fear that Russian or Chinese operatives can be moving through the in and out of the country through the southern border, allowing them to do surveillance on and set the conditions for potential attacks on critical U.S. infrastructure. Now, I think at the end of the day, probably the majority of those operatives are coming in via, you know, commercial airlines.

But regardless, that's something where there's a very real threat. We've seen it played out in Europe. We've seen it played out other places around the world. And because we made the issue so partisan, like we had a border bill get shot down that would have, you know, for all of its many failures, still would have provided a ton of money, resources, and more personnel to border patrol.

So, you know, at the end of the day, the Russians, they do this. We know they do it. They've got a history of doing it. I mean, you look at the Scrippal poisoning in the UK. Andy, I'm sure you remember that. That was like, what, 2009? That's my hometown.

Solispring. Yeah. Yeah. Salisbury, the Scripal poisoning. I know the Russians are trying to get back there, hit man that killed the, uh, yeah,

the Chechen in, uh, in Germany a few years back. They're trying to do a prisoner exchange for him. Um, so like, yeah, like,

none of this is new. The Russians do this. They're not particularly good at it. So you'll remember from the UK experience, like, sure, the guys got out of the country. but like when they when they pulled that whole hit that whole attempt of

assassination apart like they had video they had the real names like Bellingcat I know they did a great expose day on that here's like there's a video in the trash they threw the Novichuk in a dumpster after using it yeah so anyway like this is this is a part of the landscape I do think I did a piece in Center for European Policy Analysis probably a month ago now about fighting back against the Russians in the shadows. And I do think that this is an arena in which we seed the initiative to the Russians far too much. At the point at which the Russians clearly engage in illegal activity and do so oftentimes in such a

fashion, such an overt fashion, like there, in my opinion, there should be more steps taken both safeguard against it, but also punish it. Now, in our discussions before we went live, you mentioned, you mentioned. Russian involvement in Yemen. And so I can't let you go without expanding on that. Yes. So Western intelligence services have come forward and said, yep, we have all the evidence to support the argument that the Russian government

has been providing some form of intelligence support to Ansar al-Ala, which is the Boothi majority rebel group that actually controls a lot of northern Yemen. And so, yeah, going back several months starting, actually, let's see, there was the October 7th. Actually, we just passed a year mark. I just realized. Yeah, the October 7th attack by Hamas and Israel, and then Israel's response into Gaza. In response to that Israeli counteroffensive or invasion into Gaza, the Houthis who are, like I said, Houthi majority, Shia religious-affiliated group with deep, deep and longstanding ties to Iran. undertook a anti-shipping campaign in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, right around that Babel, Mondadegh Street.

And largely, the Houthis have been fairly indiscriminate in their attacks. They have a whole array of anti-ship ballistic missiles and cruise missiles and unmanned surface vessels. Most of the designs they received from the Iranians, though they have also developed a ton of indigenous production capability using the plan. off of those provided systems. What the Yemenis didn't have until relatively recently was good targeting data. So if you look at the ships that had been hit, they were generally fairly random.

In fact, they even managed to hit, I think, a couple Chinese and Russian-owned vessels, which of course wasn't really acceptable to the Russians of the Chinese who were aligned, I'll say, with Iran. And you actually saw some steps. I did a piece about this, probably about six months ago. NATO

in the crosshairs also at Center for European Policy Analysis, where we talked about, the actual agreements that it appeared that the Chinese and Russian governments had arrived at with the Houthis via Iran to not target their vessels. But anyway, but for what it was worth, the Houthis were having a ton of difficulty because while they could identify and shoot at ships in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden, they couldn't really necessarily know who owned the vessels. anyways in the last week there was the reports released that in fact the huthies had been providing or had been receiving some intelligence via the russians that was helping them refine their targeting data um you know if nothing else and the argument i made in that piece about six months ago is that the huthy operations against shipping in the red

sea and gulf of aden directly support or indirectly supports really that that authoritarian act or or that authoritarian group of Russia, Iran, China, in that you look at the massive amount of U.S. assets that were being committed to that region. I was still over to the Department of the Navy when the Houthi anti-shipping campaign started, and we were watching very, very carefully at the number of U.S. Navy ships, Coast Guard vessels, and really the munition bunkers on their ships as they were expending the surface-to-air missiles to shoot down all of these Houthi cruise missiles and drones and the anti-ship cruise missiles. So, I mean, that has a very real cost on us, right?

So it makes sense when you start talking about strategic competition and irregular warfare is the military component of strategic competition for the Iranians and the Russians to provide some form of support to the Houthis because their activities in that region take away our ability to respond elsewhere around the world. And I guess for what it's worth noting, and I've found about this, I know Vladimir Putin had made a statement kind of as an aside in one of his interviews about two months ago where he was talking about, hey, maybe Russia is going to start providing missiles directly.

He's drawing a clear comparison to the support the United States is giving Ukraine. I mean, obviously, I think there's a distinct difference because nobody recognizes that he sees as a legitimate government. of Yemen. There's, in fact, a Republican of Yemen government. But anyway, just to like contextualize and put what's going on in Yemen in this, in the broader irregular warfare, strategic competition conversation. Now, we talked about, and this, I know we're coming to an end, but we talked about what North Korea and Iran are doing for Russia. What are your biggest concerns about Russia, what Russia can do for those two countries in particular in return?

Yeah, so the reports that I've been seeing open source would suggest that the Russian government in return for the soldiers and the artillery and the ammunition and the other equipment that the North Koreans are providing are providing the North Koreans with nuclear technology or nuclear weapon technology. So, yes, the North Koreans have a handful somewhere, I think, between like five or ten, maybe a few more, very rudimentary nuclear warheads. but what they lack are really reliable means to deliver them. They do have a small family of ballistic missiles, nothing that would approach what the United States or our partners and allies possess. But at the end of the day, Kim knows that his regime's survival

is based upon the ability to deter any sort of external attack and really the only effective means that I think he has to do that is via nuclear weapons. So what we've seen is that, reports that the Russians are providing, maybe not like just straight up, hey, here's a missile system that you can put your warhead on, but at least providing some of that technical know-how back to the North Korea so they can improve their own systems. We know for a fact that that's been happening in Ukraine, where North Korean technicians have come along with the North Korean ballistic

missiles that they've been providing to the Russians to observe their use in an actual war, which then allows them to gather all the data, send it back to North Korea and use, even that just to refine the capabilities in their system. So I do think my fears, specifically when you look at the Korean Peninsula, is that the technical know-how coming back to North Korea will allow them to advance by leaps and bounds. I think we'll probably see a very similar threat with Iran. Everyone is very aware that the Iranians provided the Shahed 136s and some of the other subsequent generations of the one-way attack drones to the Russians.

In fact, there's entire production facilities now set up in Russia using Iranian tooling to produce sheheads. I am certain that in return, the Iranians are going to get some very, very important know-how on how to improve their own. In particular, I'd say the ballistic missile systems. I think what we've seen around with a tit for tat back and forth between the Israelis and the Iranians over the last month is that the Iranians recognize that their ballistic missile systems are wildly inadequate. I mean, you'll recall at the beginning of, yeah, beginning of this month, you know, the Iranians shot some 300 ballistic missiles at Israel. And I don't know. I think maybe there was like one casualty that was actually a Palestinian. In return, the Israelis just like obliterated a bunch of Iranian targets using their air force.

So I do think one of the things that the Iranians will be looking for and will probably receive back from the Russians will be improvements to their ballistic missile program, which combined with the fact that we think they're, you know, few weeks to a month out from breakout on developing a nuclear warhead, which of course would then take more time to marry to a missile system, does, I think, set the conditions for the Iranians to benefit greatly from this relationship with Russell. Doug, we have, I know we haven't exhausted all topics, but I bet we've come to the end of your time. So, thank you so much. D, over to you. I just want to say that we're absolutely want to bring Doug back on again. Yes.

Yeah, 100% Doug. That was incredible. Everything, all the links to find Doug will be in the description as well as Andy. Andy's book when the Tempest gathers. Don't forget to subscribe to our new YouTube channel. Eyes on. The link, everything you need to know is in the description. And of course, the best way to support the show is patreon.com slash the team house.

Thank you. Thanks, Doug. Yeah, thanks, smash. All the best, everyone.