The Team House - Ukraine/Russia, NATO Summit & Iran Going Nowhere Fast | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Episode Date: July 6, 2026

We break down Ukraine’s deep strike campaign inside Russia, the fight over Crimea, and whether Moscow’s war machine is starting to crack under pressure. We also get into the NATO summit, Trump’s unpredictable foreign policy process, Iran’s reconstitution after the ceasefire, and the growing split between the U.S. and Europe.Support the show on Patreon:⬇️https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouseMarc's new article:https://engelsbergideas.com/author/sam-worby-marc-polymeropoulos/Subscribe to our newsletter!!!!https://teamhousepodcast.kit.com/joinJack's news outlet:⬇️https://thehighside.substack.com/Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️Jon's Twitter:https://x.com/jonathanhackettJon's LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettJon's books:https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackettTwitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackettCheck out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️Apple Podcasts:https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQYoutube:https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️https://fogbow.com/Lobo Institute ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/Twitter ⬇️https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCALinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/Bluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.socialMick’s publications ⬇️https://www.loboinstitute.org/publications/publications-of-michael-mick-patrick-mulroy/Whitefish security summit ⬇️https://whitefishsecuritysummit.comFind Marc P here:https://x.com/MpolymerFind Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023Substack ⬇️https://amilburn.substack.com/Andy’s book ⬇️https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-OperationsBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.socialFind Jason Lyons here: LinkedIn ⬇️https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?uBluesky ⬇️https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social"Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio00:00 — Start01:22 — Ukraine’s Deep Strikes Inside Russia04:28 — MAGA’s Shift on Ukraine and Israel05:13 — Russia’s Fuel Supply Gets Hit08:38 — Russia’s Grinding War in Donbas11:51 — The Kerch Bridge and Crimea’s Symbolic Value15:09 — Ukraine Is Isolating Crimea17:22 — The Next Major Russian Energy Target19:18 — Trump’s Calls With Putin and Zelensky20:26 — Russia’s Political Theory of Victory21:54 — U.S. Policy Confusion Before the NATO Summit24:22 — Turkey, the F-35, and the S-400 Problem26:12 — Europe Braces for U.S. Troop and Asset Cuts28:17 — European Allies Reading Truth Social for Policy30:49 — NATO, Ukraine Aid, and the Iran War Fallout31:43 — U.S. Bases, Europe, and Access for War34:44 — Iran Exposes the U.S.-Europe Split37:53 — Access, Basing, and Overflight Problems40:21 — Iraq, Iran, and Selling a War46:40 — Intelligence Failures and Political Bias50:47 — What to Expect From the NATO Summit54:38 — Iran Rebuilds While Negotiations Drag On57:09 — Why Sanctions Relief Helps Iran Reconstitute58:54 — NATO’s Goals: Defense Spending, Ukraine, and Turkey01:01:44 — Trump’s Unpredictable Foreign Policy Process01:03:07 — The Broken NSC Process01:07:14 — Closing Plugs and Final ThoughtsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

Hey everyone, if you're listening to this, you are not a supporter of the team house. If you'd like to get ad-free episodes, both video and audio, please go to our Patreon. Patreon.com slash the team house. You get the episodes early and ad-free. You can also ask the guys questions. And if you're a team house fan, you can also watch our team house episodes as we record them live. So it really helps the show. We couldn't be anywhere without our Patreon supporters.

so we'd love for you to consider subscribing. It's patreon.com slash the team house, and that link is in the description or the show notes down below. Thanks, guys. Enjoy. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Aisong Geopolitics. We're here with the whole crew, Mick Mulroy,

Andy Milburn, Jonathan Hackett, and Mark Polymeropolis. Happy 4th to everybody. We just passed July 5th. I hope everybody had a safe holiday. Ate some hot dogs. Didn't blow your hands off with fireworks. It was fun. It was very hot here in New York, but it was still a good time.

All right, boys, a lot happening as usual. I think we should kick off today with talking about Ukraine. We have seen over the last probably couple months now, Ukraine hitting deep inside Russia. Russia's fuel supply being severely limited. Word is that they're buying fuel from India to try and keep up with demand. I did see a couple of things where, like, we really won't see a big difference. until like it hits like their lubricants and stuff and like their war machine gets hit a little bit more um russia also did come out the other day and um claim that they took over a town in a you know dombas

area which then ukraine sent down an assault force and basically took it back um so it's interesting what's going on they see russia seems to be flailing um yeah what do you guys track in here um Let's go with Mark Polymeropolis first, Greeks first, Greeks first. Greeks eat first. Oh, I like that. Greeks eat first. This is like a Mick Mulroyism, but throwing in the Greeks. By the way, I just have one shout out to Mick.

I've been, I don't have it with me. I've been reading all the Stoicism books. Very inspiring, and I start giving them to all my friends. And I have just on a serious note, I have a friend who's going to, not government related, who's going to see some really tough times. I gave him that book. You know, the obstacles the way. It really helped them.

So good stuff. Yeah. Most of the Stoics know me. So this is a book by a friend of mine. Two friend of mine just came out. One that runs the Aurelius Foundation, Justin Seed, and another one who's a professor at Oxford. Yeah.

We need these. We need them. I love it. I'm in. Sorry to interrupt. No, I like it. I gave a little plug for the Stoics. Ukraine.

So interesting in a couple different ways. And I'm going to throw a little curveball in this. because the thing that I've been mocks focused on, which is really weird. So first of all, there's certainly events on the ground. And I think maybe you guys can cover them in more greater detail. What is interesting to me is politically how things have changed in the United States. Laura Loomer just put out a post where she said, I am now pro-Ukraine. She loves Zelensky.

And she's railing against others in the MAGA world who are, who she is obviously claiming to be perhaps correctly pro-Prutin, pro-Russia. this is the Tucker Carlson's of the world, Megan Kelly and others. And it's really interesting to see. And I think this actually does, this actually does have some effects here in the United States because these individuals on the right, whether they're podcasters or influencers, certainly kind of move the way the MAGA movement and the Republican Party goes sometimes. And Laura Lumer has the ear of the president of the United States. There's no doubt on that.

So she now is a huge supporter of Ukraine. Now, you can kind of, you know, throw open your mouth and kind of, because she's kind of, she has her own issues, massive ones. But it's really interesting. And so, you know, how does this now translate when to get to the next part? There are serious, you know, issues ahead in terms of what the U.S. will or will not provide. I think the Ukrainians just asked us if they can co-produce patriots. So there's some things coming down the pike, you know, in which there will be some U.S. policy decisions. But the thing I'm really looking at, D, is this really strange divide in the MAGA movement over Ukraine. Did she give any kind of reasoning why now she's pro-Ukrainian? Or no, it was just like, I woke up today and that's fine. Probably because it looks like they're going to potentially turn the tides. Winning tends to win over people more than even logic sometimes. I don't know who you're talking about necessarily, but, you know, if we get more people on board,

even if it's for the right, wrong, in different reasons, I'm all for it. Let's actually help Ukraine win this thing. Yeah, the MAGA right have done a flip not just on Ukraine, but on Israel. Israel could do no wrong, and now Israel is the country, I'm paraphrasing, Maguilad, right here is the country that is leading us down into the dark abyss and has been feeding the president lies. And it's interesting, once that critical momentum starts, you know, it's difficult to identify the turning point in Ukraine or in Israel,

but it goes strongly the other way, suddenly, doesn't it? So, I mean, Ukraine, Senator McCain used to say was a, not Ukraine, Russia was a gas station with an army. And I think Ukraine said, great, let's take out the army and the gas station. Right. So that's what's happening right now. These long range strikes by Ukraine into areas, whether they're logistical hubs, refineries, storage facilities are now deeper and more effective than they were before. Ukraine's mass-producing drones, every month they produce more. And every year they'll produce more. They're seriously challenging in Crimea.

There was 14 significant strikes in the last 48 hours there. We're not seeing an imminent fall in Ukraine. We're not seeing an imminent, you know, anywhere close to an imminent withdrawal of Russia. But the Ukraine has gone from the back foot to the front foot, and I think people recognize it. All of a sudden, there's people going, oh, maybe we should support. It's like you can't support them when they're, you know, teetering on the brink, but you can now. Again, I would have hoped that the U.S. leader of the free world would have been leading this charge the whole time. But, you know, if it takes some people coming at the end, fine.

But that needs to be translated into direct support. The U.S. basically now just allows them to purchase things through NATO. I think NATO countries, European countries, countries around the world that want to promote democracy and stability. and counter, you know, naked aggression like Russia, need to throw in with Ukraine, like now. Not when they're on the verge of winning. Now. And this could push President Putin,

who's under an incredible amount of pressure internally. I mean, right now they've got, I think I saw the stat, if you're recruited, and by recruited, I mean, basically conscripted into the Russian army, you got about three-week life span. Amazing. includes going through training, right? Apparently on the battlefield now is like 40 minutes.

Yeah. Like once you step foot on a battlefield, you're dead in 40 minutes. So the whole generation of Russian males are being annihilated, and now it's become almost untenable, you know, because the fuel shortages, everything that's going on in Russia, is really putting pressure on Putin. He's going to do, of course, what Putin usually does, which is launch at civilians, right?

we saw in Kiev last week. I think it was like 500 drones and almost 75 missiles Senate Keith. But Andy can tell you he spent a lot of time there. I think that just makes them more resilient. Like there's no way you're going to kill more kids and they're going to quit. Like, it's the opposite. They're never going to quit. And this is only going to firm up their resolve to ensure that they save their country. So it's now, this is the time. time for the West and the supporters of Ukraine, including the United States, put more security assistance, direct security assistance, into Ukraine with the idea that it'll force, I think, Putin to the negotiation table

on terms that are more, or actually completely in line with what the Ukrainians want to see. Yeah, I mean, the war, it's flipped into a strange dual reality, right? So Russia's grinding out its symbolic prize in the Dombas. And the town you're talking about the is Constantinivka. I'm mispronouncing it. I don't want to pronounce it. We used to call it Constantinivka. So it's Constantinople with Nivka on the end, but that's totally wrong.

But anyway, it's a shithole of the place. But nevertheless, I mean, I've said that about Pock Ross. But the similarity, the point is the Russians, are grinding it out as they're taking this territory at just incredible cost. CSIS estimated that they're advancing 50 meters a day. They're taking eight times the casualties that the Ukrainians are, and those figures come from Rusey. So this isn't stuff that we're making up, right?

Eight times casualties. And they've seized this, you know, after years of trying, they never got Pock Ross, but they've, they may have got Constantinivka. The Ukrainians are challenging that. And some of the videos you've seen online of Russians waving flags there, apparently are AI generated. So they may not even have taken shithole town, right? But if they have it, it's at great costs.

They just can't sustain it. And so they're grinding this out, but simultaneously they're losing the strategic initiative. Ukraine's running, I mean, it's the most effective deep strike campaign of the war, you know, to a mixed point. I mean, going after, cohesively going after Russian energy sources, reducing production by estimates of 20%, which is huge, right? Not only that, but look what they're doing in Crimea. And Crimea has a tremendous symbolic value to both sides.

although it's probably a bridge too far for the Ukrainians to win back, but they've made it untenable. They've dropped the Kerch Bridge. They've dropped the bridge that, I forget the name, that goes from Crimea to occupied Ukrainian territory, you know, towards Kersan, and they keep dropping them. So the Russians there are trapped, and then systematically they've taken out the air defense systems. And so now what they're doing, you can see they're just, they're doing these mass drone raids on Russian infrastructure across Crimea. And apparently it's, you know, nothing can move there. I mean, you're looking at, they're hitting the roads. So Russia has Crimea, yes.

But it's kind of a hollow prize and it's becoming a death trap for them. And of course, it's, you know, the Ukraine is very clever at this. They know that Putin will continue to pour forces into Crimea in a vain attempt to defend it, but they're being attacked asymmetrically from the air. Hey, Andy, what's the PR value of them actually dropping the Kirchbridge of actually doing it, finally destroying it if they can? I mean, you see a lot of talk of that. You hear even in town here in D.C., Ukrainian officials saying that this is inevitable.

It's coming. And you could see that the public relations value in doing so would be rather massive. And then on top of that, a question for you is, and then what about the kind of the strategic move as well? And what would the Russian reprisal be? Sorry, go ahead. Yes, so on your first part, and Putin, I've, Putin has kind of staked his reputation at times on the Kersh Bridge. He keeps going on and on about it. It's the umbilical cord. I'm paraphrasing him that links Crimea to Russia, et cetera, et cetera. And so, yes, the Ukraine is, gone after it. They've made it on and off on tenable. But it's strategically, what they've done

is they've just isolated Crimea. I mean, totally. It's Crimea is now pretty much useless. I mean, it was useful for a number of reasons. It was a port, but the Ukrainians have decimated the Black Sea fleet through their kind of mosquito fleet, the Navy, which is ironic that Ukrainians don't have a Navy, but they've done, they've done to the Russians what the Iranians are doing to the Straits of Hormuz, right? Only they're using unmanned, they're using missiles, drones, and they're using unmanned sea vessels, right? So they've negated Crimea to the Black Sea Fleet. They've decimated the Black Sea Fleet, and now they prevented it from being a logistics hub for the Southern Front. They've prevented it being anything.

but just a giant missile and drone and bomb sump. And it's infuriating Putin because, remember, I mean, from 2014, he's banged on and on about Crimea. And now it's just, it's this black hole, right? And this decision could actually lose him Crimea to do the full invasion of Ukraine. which likely he would have kept Crimea. Yeah, exactly. As the viable and the Black Sea Fleet and everything. Yeah, you're right.

Yep. Is there a worry of reprisals because this means so much to Putin? Well, yeah. If they dropped a bridge, is he going to actually go even crazier than he has done so in terms of the attacks on civilian targets, et cetera? Yeah, I mean, but I think to point, Mark, I think Russia is doing all it can right now. I mean, we're always talking about why he's going to escalate.

like, what the hell more can you do? You know, he's already, he's already hitting Kiev. He's, you know, I think the consensus is despite him, it's threatening to go to nukes. He's unlikely to do that. And, you know, meanwhile, what's that? I said going nuclear, it'd be like throwing a grenade at somebody in an elevator. Like you're right next door, man.

They're literally right next door. So if you start using nuclear weapons, yeah. And, you know, one thing I forgot to mention, so they've destroyed a railroad bridge over, this is all, you know, everything that links Crimea to the mainland, Russia or Ukraine, they destroyed the bridges. They destroyed a railroad bridge over the North Crimean Canal.

They're even hitting, and now they're hitting ferries that Russians are using to move military equipment. And, and, um, uh, uh, the Federov says Crimea is being isolated by drones and effectively he's been turned into an island.

They've declared a state of emergency, you know, it's going to be interesting. And Moscow is the one that's cut to Kersh Bridge rail traffic just because of the risk to traffic going across the bridge. So Crimea has been isolated, it's been negated as being any sort of asset to Russia. And then you've got this deep strike campaign that's gone up again. So in just the last few days, right, the last week since the beginning of July, the Ukrainians have hit 12 Russian substations. The Bellograd, was it a Bellograd thermal power plant knocked out, which caused a huge total blackout, water disruption across the city. The main airfield in Crimea, Sakey, I think it's called SAKY, destroying Russian aircraft there. and St. Petersburg.

I don't know if you saw that, you know, the film of this massive black cloud coming out of the oil terminal in St. Petersburg struck by drones. So, I mean, it's a really, you know, it's come to the point where, and I agree with you, Mick. I mean, we should have been piling on, of course, the sport Ukraine years ago. But Ukrainians are turning the tide by themselves. of course, you've still got to win back territory. And that is the long pole for the Ukrainian state. They're running out of manpower. And that is certainly an issue for them.

But strategically, yeah, they have turned the tide. One of the major targets we should look at is the Yemal Cross. You're going to hear more and more about this junction of 17 gas pipelines. It's in, I think, northwestern Siberia. Once they can hit that, that could have a major, major impact. Internal to Russia. So I think we should be obviously providing a lot more security assistance, but we should also be doing, we don't have to be public about it.

We don't need to know about it and talk about it. But we should be doing a lot more to push the tides toward. Yeah, it's a, I mean, it's a fascinating topic. Iran's kind of a clip step, but what has been going on in the last three months is, it has been extraordinary. And, you know, even when Russia, I mean, his operational insight, even when Russia wins, right, in Dombas, it wins nothing. And I'm not just being facetious because Constantinivka and Pockrovska shithole towns. I mean, they are important to both sides, especially Pockrovsk, it's a rail terminal. But for the Russians, having ground, you know, Constantinvka,

Nivka is a ruins of a small city. And it's cost them tens of thousands of lives. And the Russians are exhausted. I mean, they're not, they're moving 15 meters a day, which is slower than the British moved in the Saan. And they're staring at tens of kilometers of mine, fortified, drone patrol terrain between them. And the next objective, which is Krematosk,

which is basically Ukraine's last line of defense internet. So, you know, even on the ground, the Russians are their prospects don't look. They don't look good. Well, you know, just the most recent development, which is the 90-minute phone call that Trump had with Putin yesterday during the 4th of July celebrations, which is a very interesting development. And as far as I know so far, what I've seen, the U.S. didn't announce the details of that call, but the Russian foreign ministry did, which I think is also a little bit interesting because that's similar to what was going on between the U.S. and Iran, where the U.S. was not announcing any of the points from the deal. Iran was, and it seems that Russia is doing the exact same thing right now, which means the U.S. doesn't have control over the narrative about what's being said in those calls. So that's an opportunity for the U.S. policymakers to seize control the narrative and actually say what needs to be said publicly.

And I believe Zelensky was also called yesterday as well. So my hunch is that these calls were made ahead of the NATO summit to get some things ironed out so that way those things can be discussed in person at the summit with other NATO leaders, of course, and that's why the Secretary General visited last week as well to get those things kind of evened out in person before they're discussed in Turkey coming up in the next few days. Yeah, I mean, the area of victory is right now it's purely political because they can't win militarily at 50 meters a day and half a million dead. So what it's doing is buying negotiating chips, right, but just by trying to seize a little more ground

in Donetsk and betting that Western patients runs out before Russian manpower does. And it's back far and miserably, right? I mean, his whole purpose was he was concerned about the expansion of NATO and the threat of NATO. Even though NATO's never been a threat to Russia unless Russia's a threat to it, it's a defensive alliance, defensive alliance, right? So because of his invasion of Ukraine, it's now expanded in two countries that managed not to join for the entirety of the Cold War, and now they have, and now, although they should have been doing it the whole time, but now they are. All the countries are spending more money on their national

security and defense. I mean, look at what Germany is doing right now, increasing the size of its army, Poland, all across Europe right now, and we're becoming a stronger ally to the United States. I think the United States should recognize that. We can take credit, I guess, if we want to. I think it's largely because of Russians and Asia, Ukraine. But what happened? you. We now have a more substantial military alliance than we did before Russia invaded Ukraine. And Ukraine is going to be the strongest military in Europe, by far. But especially with Finland joining. I agree with all that. The problem, of course, is we don't know what the U.S. administration wants to do because it seems so divided.

You know, there's all these reports that came out that Hegset was about to announce some very significant troop cuts. you know, Rubio and others kind of preempted him on this. I mean, there's this divide between kind of the Rubio, Randcliffe, and Dan Kane, versus Heggseth and J.D. Vance. But I think that, you know, the problem is, and when you talk to European officials, you know, nobody really knows what Trump's going to do when he gets to Turkey. Now, he's going there because Erdogan is his buddy, Delo Autocrat. And so, you know, he's doing that as a reward.

But, you know, you just don't know. At the end of the day, is the U.S. going to, announced significant true cuts in Europe. What kind of tone is Trump going to send? You know, is it going to be this kind of humiliation? Will it be more? And in the one hand, there is a notion, and I don't know if I subscribe to this, that because the Ukrainians are doing better, Trump wants to back a winner and that the Laura Loomers of the world and Radcliffe and others who kind of have kind of been feeding Trump the notion that Ukraine is doing really well, then Trump's going to just side with Ukraine because he's just transactional. And, you

believes in nothing. I don't know. One of the other things, too, to kind of think about is we have pressed Europe correctly to spend more, our NATO partners. The U.S. still only spends about 2.8% of GDP on defense, not 5%, not what we're asking that Europeans to do. And now we have a huge issue coming up politically in the United States in terms of rebuilding a military, which has been, which has, you know, significant shortfalls right now after the war in Iran. I know they want to do a trillion plus. I don't know if there's political support on either side for this to occur. And so, you know, lots of interesting things coming up. But this, and of course, D, you know, D and I are going to have heart palpitations over Trump's turn towards Turkey. The idea of giving

them the F-35 while Turkey has an S-400 Russian air defense system, I think is preposterous, but that's because my Greekness comes through. And Mick, you're an honorary Greek as well. I mean, the Greek establishment is probably going crazy at this point. That's a lot of reason for their turn to the Israelis, of course. But that issue of the F-35 are going to be really significant in this summit coming up. We'll see what happens. What's interesting about the F-35, though, is like we're still having supply change issues with it.

Like, there's supposed to be a new radar coming out for, like, the block 40. And we're getting delivered F-35s that don't have radars in them. and we're going to wait until they're ready. So just adding another country, I know they were in it initially Turkey, doesn't exactly make a lot of sense, especially like when we are in need of getting our F-35 fleet up to snuff. It just doesn't make sense, frankly, and also fuck Turkey, you know.

I do think there's a Putin realizes that there is a split in the Republican Party, like Mark said. but he has two more years of the Trump administration. So if you look at Secretary Rubio, I would call him more of a traditionalist when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. And a lot of the traditional Republicans, the Reagan Republicans, I would say, maybe more pro-Ukraine than President Biden was. It's a possibility. And it depends on what comes next, right? So Putin's got to realize that the chances of it being a new administration that's more pro-Ukraine or high.

So he's got two years. And then if it's a Democrat or if it's more of a Republican or Reagan Republican like I would call Rubio, he's going to be in a bad position, which is great, I think. So he's got to keep that in mind. And he's got a refurbish NATO who's focused on him like a laser beam. So this is not going his way at all. Huge strategic miscalculation. It's really, so someone mentioned in here that no one's really sure of what U.S. policy is.

And I think that's what's really unnerving the Europeans. I mean, they can, I think generally they can live with. with a diminished or a reduced US presence, but they need to know how much it's reduced and what that means. And there's a lot of focus on, you know, the withdrawal of a brigade, which actually isn't that many people.

It's like 5,000 troops, right? And I'm trying to remember, someone can probably look it up, but the NDAA, right? The NDA stipulates that there has to be I think it's a floor of about 70, it's either 70 or 75,000 troops in Europe. And that 5,000 withdrawal takes that level, maybe 1,000 guys below that. So it's not a huge deal. But legally, the United States has to maintain that troop level unless the law changes.

So I think, but I think the real issue, and I'm not sure it's covered so much by the media, but it's covered in, I know the, what's it, Der Spiegel did a story on the, this. It's not so much the troops. It's the fact that the U.S. has told NATO officials they plan to significantly cut other assets, fighters, strategic bombers, destroyers, submarines, tankers, drones, and most importantly missiles. And so that, and not having clarity on what exactly the numbers I think is causing the problems. I mean, yeah, the good news story, I agree 100%. I mean, is the fact that NATO has up spending across the board. So, I mean, that's one benefit, one advantage, partly of U.S. pressure, but mostly of just the threat from Russia that's caused

them to do that. Andy, let me just go one quick thing in there. It just came to mind because I know you focus on this too. I met with a senior European intelligence official. recently. I've got to keep it at that. And they said literally they, the first thing that that country's embassy does every morning is check true social. That's how they determine U.S. policy. That's insane. And so, you know, to me that was just, first of all, it's embarrassing, because that's, that's our policymaking. But that's the level of uncertainty in Europe. Their first thing they do, check what Trump out his 55 tweets, you know, the night before. Yeah. I do, I do think there's substantial security assistance for Ukraine that's coming out of the Senate and the House right now,

like close to a billion. So we'll have to see how it's implemented, right? But I think it's a bipartisan issue in Congress. Yeah, but is he going to sign it? I think it's at least part of it's in the NDA. Okay. Which is where it should be because. But the Ukrainians, I mean, I think Europe and Ukrainian,

have to just, there's a way to do this. And, you know, you plan for the worst. If this comes through, it's great. They cannot plan to receive anything from us, period. End of story. And if they do so, they're stupid. I think they've seen the writing on the wall ever since, yeah, ever since last year. If something good happens, that's great.

And that would be a significant boon. But there's no European that you speak with who thinks, who actually can plan for the U.S. to come, the cavalry is not coming. If it does, wonderful, you can't plan for that. And Andy, if you think this administration is worried about being in contempt of Congress, you're wrong with having like 1,000 less troops in the European theater. No, I mean, I agree with you. My point wasn't that the NDAA is, I mean, it is a benchmark.

I mean, it is, you know, a significant reduction below that would be problematic. But my point is that there are other assets that we're pulling out of Europe that are arguably more important. than troop strength, that are more of a deterrent. And then of course- Are we pulling them out because of what's going on in Iran? We need a shift assets there, or is it just like an overall, like we're looking to tighten our belt? Because we're asking for $80 billion from Congress for Iran. Yeah, I mean, the perception in Europe, I think it's fair to say is that it's,

it's retribution for them not stepping up to the plate in the war with Iran I mean but there are you know I mean

the positive aspect of this across the board self-defense and also defense of Ukraine European nations stepping up to the board stepping up to the plate and there's a program

and I forget what it's called but it's been running since last year where the NATO is provided it's like four to five billion worth of a billion dollars worth of equipment to Ukraine,

but it's bought by European countries in Canada from the United States and it's the parole program. I do think it was a mistake by NATO countries to prevent us from using their, the bases, to carry out the Iran. And I'm not saying that they should have to agree with the Iran war, but they cut our argument in half when we say, well, we were there for our own benefit. It gives us a platform to launch. And then they say, except for when they don't agree with us, and then we can't.

Right. And then you're like, okay, well, there is that. So I'm not saying that they have to politically or militarily support every thing that we get involved in, like the Iran War. But when they politically prevent us from using, you know, the bases that we're at in Europe, then you start shooting yourself in the foot when it comes to the people who believe that we are in Europe and their bases primarily for our own benefit. It does benefit them and it benefits NATO, which are part of. But, Nick, I push back just on that. These are European democracies.

And the European public was vehemently 910, 955 opposed to the U.S. actions in Iran. And so a prime minister in any European country, they want to, you know, maintain power and get elected again. And so they are responding to their constituency. And so I hear what you're saying. I think that the way to have done this would have been to sell this better. So this is where the Trump administration deserves a lot of contempt is that they made no effort to sell it to the American people nor to our European allies. And frankly, or to the Gulf. Or to the Gulf.

And so, but again, if you're the prime minister of the UK or France or anyone else, look, they're public. is against this. So by allowing that's, I get it. I get it. But then from a national security perspective, I'd move to a country that didn't block me whenever they disagreed with my, the decisions that I made. You see what I mean? Yeah, they can block us. But then why, why are we considering that a major hub for U.S. rejection of power if they block us because their populations against it? Our population is against it. I think, though, that when a country, you know, hosts in the United States base,

they do have a say on what we do with that base. And then I'd go to another country that didn't block us when we're in the middle of a war. It's looking at it from our perspective. They can do it. Like, both countries get a choice. They can stop us,

and we can move. If you supported this war, or not you specifically, but if you were a supporter of this war, I think you would agree. I think you'd say, look, if they're going to block us from using our base

when we need it, we're at war, whether we agree with them or not, then we need to be in another location. So when you do that, and then you bribe because the United States moved to a more friendly country. I don't know where that country would be. There's other countries, I think, in Europe that are love to host a major hub for the United States. Yeah, I think, I mean, whichever way you look at it, Iran, Iran more exposed, right, something that not even Ukraine had, and that's that the U.S. and Europe, they no longer assume they're fighting the same fights, right? So, I mean, from the U.S. government's perspective, Europeans wouldn't escort tankers through Homoos. From their perspective, it's because it was for a war they weren't consulted on. And from U.S. government's perspective, perspective, Trump's perspective, he won't guarantee troops for a continent Europe that he thinks is a

free rider. So, I mean, you know, if you're in Magaland or whether you're on the side of the Europeans, the arguments seem internally rational. And I guess that goes to the notion we should have sold this better. There should have been better consultation with allies. And that's the way. And because you can't make a case for this. And because the European prime ministers and presidents will have to do so to their publics. But when it's just, you know, just thrown upon them, then they, you know, that's when there's the, there's the backlash. So I certainly get that.

I mean, but you look at, I mean, there's all these, you know, there's stories came out over the last week or two about the Saudis and how the Saudis did not want any part of renewed strikes against Iran again. And you do see, and I think, Andy, you did raise it. There is a huge backlash in the Gulf. And you're going to see a lot of Gulf countries, maybe not the UAE, but even maybe them but but but but but others cutting side deals with the iranians now and so you know there so we talk about u.s bases our u.s. bases in the middle east are certainly exposed right now um in terms of

first they're you know the the degree in which we can protect um them but also in terms of countries not wanting any further strikes i mean the saudi said no is that right yeah jonathan maybe you want to comment on that sorry sorry mick sorry no i was I was just going to agree with you on the, on the, we should have done a way better jump selling the war, not only to Europe, but to the United States population. And we should probably stop beating up on our longest standing allies. If you look at the national defense strategy, for some reason, it goes after Europe. Right. You know, in a way that it never has and then leaves countries like Russia off the criticism list. So I get, there's a lot of things that we should do better, but that's a, somebody who's been in the Pentagon. It's also our ability to project power once we're given an order, right?

We don't need to agree with the, that's my point. So we have to have platforms that we can use. They can't just be at the whim of, well, we don't like the war, so we can't use it. Because then from a military perspective, you've just taken out that capability. Because your job is to carry out of orders. It's not to do it. debate the advocacy of the policy. We need access basing and overflight. That's the key, like from the Pentagon perspective, that's what we need. That's the security cooperation is supposed to provide us those

things, especially in the Gulf. That's why we have AFSENT, Air Force Central Command in Qatar, when we have Fifth Fleet in Bahrain. This is access, basing and overflight. And if we want to do strikes in Iran, we have to be able to fly over those partner nations countries with their permission. Sure, we could do it without their permission, but that would be destructive to that relationship. So we need to have those deep ties there. And like you were mentioning Mark with Saudi Arabia, before the war started, Saudi Arabia was inching closer toward a warming of relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia. They had sent their highest level delegation in years. If you remember back a few years ago, Nimmer Nimmer was executed, which is a Shia leader in Saudi Arabia, was beheaded along with a bunch of other folks that caused Iran to cut relations with Saudi Arabia.

So like this was getting repaired very slowly. and was getting back toward what the Saudi government wanted, which was a more pragmatic approach to Gulf relations with Iran. And of course, they're also secretly negotiating with Israel as well for a future recognition of Israel. So Saudi Arabia is trying to grow up in the region with MBS in particular at the helm. And this kind of muddied that delicate negotiation going on behind the scenes between Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel. And now Saudi Arabia has to wait for that to settle before they can get back there again. Because they're trying to modernize. they're trying to change the state from what it was, you know, in the previous monarchy.

And now that's that's on hold, which their government does not want. And the same thing with the Emirates. The Emirates are trying to do things as well to change, not just be an oil or, you know, an oil and gas dependent country for their economy. And that has also been destroyed. If you look at what's going on with Dubai's tourism industry, it's wrecked. And it's about risk. And do people want to go there and spend their money there?

Some will, but not the ones, not everybody that was before. It's going to take a very long time to build that trust again. And as you mentioned, if we could sell this war in a better way from the very beginning, we wouldn't have this discussion now because those countries would have participated. Just like 1991, when the U.S. went to the Middle East and asked Saudi Arabia and even Syria to join forces with the United States against Saddam Hussein. And the Syrians sent forces to fight against Saddam Hussein to kick him out of Kuwait. That was because we sold the war. We actually had a belts then in policymaking. Right.

But we sold it to them because you couldn't just show up to Damascus and be like, hey, come with us. Instead, you had to have made a case that it's in your interest, even though we're not great friends. It's in your interest to come to this conflict with us. And in that case, Iraq invaded a sovereign country. But, Mick, in your previous position, your previous position, you know, conceivably, you would have been involved in the policymaking process saying, okay, there's a run-up to the war in Iran. We have to do X, Y, and Z to get our allies on board. I'm going to take a trip.

It's the Das D. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do multiple stops in the region. We're going to sit down. We're going to prep them for this. They're going to be fully involved in this instead of just kind of, you know, kind of how we were winging it. Yeah, I agree. And I don't necessarily hold it against the politician who has to respond to their public.

I'm not even criticizing the decision from their point. But from our point, from the Pentagon's point, then we have to adjust because it is access, basing and overflight. And if we can't actually carry out an order that we're given because we put all our assets in a country that won't let them use us, then that's that's unacceptable. It doesn't, you can just take off whether you agree with the war or not, but from the U.S. military's ability to carry out orders, they have to. So, yeah, we should have definitely sold it much better. And that would have been a policy process.

There would have been NSC meetings, and then, you know, the action items coming from this would be the, you know, the civilians, the side of the Pentagon and the State Department would start prepping our allies months in advance for this. Oh, yeah. And, you know, there's a way to do this. Working with the embassy, everything. Yep.

I don't think actually selling this war would have worked, to be frank. I don't think the United States would be, or the people of the United States, be interested in that. Maybe they could have just broadcast BB's PowerPoint in the situation room a month before we struck Iran. Maybe that would have helped. I think there's always a way, because we invaded Iraq in 2003 on a completely false pretense that we sold very well. And we were able to get people to join us. So, I mean, it's possible. So, hey, if we do it, maybe they'll come.

I think the information environment is completely different now. I think it's a different world. That was in the fevered atmosphere of post-9-11. I mean, yes, it was 18 months, but it was a different country, right? And everyone was still, 9-11 focused everyone suddenly on foreign policy. That focus has gone. That interest has gone. Mick, Mick, do you remember we were watching the team house up in northern Iraq, Colin Powell's speech?

and we're all like we're all like what the hell is he talking about we must not be read into this line of you know it was all coming out of uh the two places we were at it's wild like what is he talking about yeah you guys are in northern iraq and he's shaking the anthrax file thing yeah we're watching team leader used to get called by the white house all the time but it was a quick deviation because we did actually i don't know if we had i think the other the other guys did um we could get turkish porn oh yeah on this satellite dish so we had to just a little diversion from turkish porn to watch Colin Palis' speech. I don't even,

that's an image I just can't shake loose. We didn't watch it. Turkish and porn are two words that don't belong together. An Amstale Beer, the good old days. We had a lot of Amstale Beer. Yeah. But yeah, I remember when our team leader, I don't know if you name them,

but used to get called by the White House on these topics. Yeah. And he used to stand there at attention. Which you should. I mean, I, but. But there was definitely a lot of what the hell is he talking about. Is there another CIA? Yeah, someone's got some good shit going on, not us.

That's fucking crazy, guys. FYI. Well, when it fell, they took us to a lot of places where they said the chemical weapons were. And there was signs all over the place and there was nothing there. So I think, you know, not to relitigate this, but, you know, from our perspective, we were collecting information from people who should know. who were telling us, no, it's right there. Yeah.

You know, and it wasn't. So it's more complicated than the U.S. you know, was deceptive. It truly is more complicated. I don't, I didn't get it wrong, right? Yeah, we got it wrong, but it wasn't. The Bush administration knew that Iraq didn't have WMD. It wasn't a lie.

We just got the intelligence thing completely wrong. Yes, that's what I'm getting. But there was, there is no manipulating, you know, I mean, it was just wrong. Now, some of the reporting streams were bullshit, and we should have been done better on that. The analysts, maybe I'm putting too much on them. But, yeah, this wasn't like Wolfowitz and Bush were like, let's deceive the American people. They actually thought very much that Iraq had done.

We did too. When were there? We just didn't. Yeah, people were telling us that should know. Guys, are we living in the same fucking world right now? Like, they pushed it from the minute, almost the minute 9-11 happened that we were going into Iraq. and they basically molded the CIA to tell them what they wanted to hear. You had analysts that were, you know, fighting up against the, what were the tubes,

the circular tubes thing, what do you call it? Doesn't matter. The stuff that actually enriches uranium, like, yeah. The centrifuges. I don't know how, yeah, thank you, John. I don't know how you can really say with a straight face that the Bush administration didn't deceive the American people. I think you can. Every Iraqi senior regime official I talked to thought they had WMD. That's what I'm saying. That's where we collect information from. We didn't we didn't have Saddam on the books.

I mean, I did the debrief some really high-level folks and they thought they had it. It's an incredible deception campaign by Saddam himself. But anyway, this is a separate issue. Yeah. And the CIA fails in this. Like, analytically, we failed. You know, there were certain streams that you put too much weight on. And there's, I mean, but it's a, it's a little more complicated story. And frankly, I don't want to give enough, I don't want to give that much guff to the CIA because you guys are doing your job and you're supposed to get the information or try to. I guess I'm giving more guff to the administration because they cherry-picked fucking evidence and Intel that wasn't confirmed and put it in a state union speech about yellow cake in Niger. Like what, you know, they deceive the fucking American people. Let's let's just make sure that's that's, I'm putting that on record at least.

Noted. Thank you, Rick. it's an interesting topic though I mean the because there's a parallel now right I mean

if you have the most anodyne approach to this it's if you have a political stance and political stance was you know Saddam's a bad guy he's disrupted to the region and he needs to go all right not

not necessarily in the various subjective right and then you have that and then there's a dual bias, right? You are asking the questions that confirm that bias from your intelligence agency and intelligence community. And they're finding that information because it is there, but they're focusing the collection assets on that. So there's that.

And then the feedback loop is such that as the information comes forward, it's also given that political filter because it fits, you know, it fits their agenda. without there being conscious deception in that process, and it's kind of the same thing that led to 7 October, right? You see a lot of conspiracy theories now. Oh, hey, Netanyahu sacrificed the border communities. They knew it was coming. They wanted it to happen. I don't for a moment believe that's true.

But that same bias was taking place. Hey, we want Hamas to remain in place because the alternative is the Palestinian Authority, If it's Palestinian Authority, then now we've got to start talking about a two-state solution. Hamas is a psycho. But on the other hand, they're contained, right? They're firmly contained, they're contained both militarily and they're contained because we're giving them economic incentives, right? That was the political stance.

And the military, as the Shunbad, is the, we're either told to stand down on collection or the collection they produced, was filtered to confirm that by. without anyone saying, hey, this attack's going to happen, but let's just shut the fuck up and let it happen. You know, I don't believe for a moment anyone said that. But the information coming up, if it had been filtered correctly, was clearly indicating exactly what was going to happen, right, for an 18 months prior to the attack. That's the same with any intelligence failure, even the 9-11 situation. I mean, when I was training to be a counterintelligence agent, that was one of the cases we studied was like the 1993. bombing of World Trade Center. And then from that leading up to 9-11 and just the volume of intelligence that did exist that did indicate like this was being planned. It was the resources

of being accumulated. People were being positioned. That all existed. But it was just the way that we collected it in that moment didn't work in the way that it should have worked. And it led to an intelligence failure. And I think a lot of intelligence failures are like that where we look back and we're like, oh, there was the, that's the data point right there. But in the moment, you just, you can't see it like that because you don't, you can't predict every possible outcome and direction that the intelligence is going to lead you. Yeah, that's a different, that's, I mean, absolutely correct. That's a different course, though, and that's one of the big challenges, right, is that

indications, trying to, trying to, and you guys know far better than noise and purpose, but interpreting indications, right, that afterwards seem unambiguous, but at the time where anything but unambiguous, how's that for a double negative? It's true when you get these walk-in sources to the embassy, for example, you're going to get a thousand of these guys saying wild things. One of them might be telling you something totally true, but it sounds also wild, just like the other 999 wild reports. And it's very difficult to figure out, like, which of these was actually credible. Especially from a walk-in, that you have no previous vetting, no previous knowledge of this person. What are they there for?

Are they a double? Are they a dangle? And it's so hard to figure that out, especially if it's like a short term, like, hey, this is going to happen in 48 hours kind of thing. it's very, very difficult to actually figure out the credibility of that individual in the moment. You guys want to touch on the NATO summit that's coming up a little bit? Like what to expect? I know we spoke about it a little bit, but what do you guys expect to be coming out of this? Well, there's going to be a lot of talk about what we just talked about.

Is the U.S. going to redeploy forces from certain countries, either back home or to other countries that they're more favorable to, at least at the time? If anything, the U.S. should be plus enough our capacity in Europe to send a strong message to Putin, but also because the world's an unstable place. Part of what we call us, but, and I don't mean that necessarily a negative thing, but we're at war in Iran. And right now, I mean, we haven't touched on Iran too much on this one, but there's a lot of people who believe this MOU is simply a means to replenish the global energy supply, to get past the midterm elections, and then it's taken back all. And I know a lot of friends who hope that's actually the case,

because they really don't like the MOU, and I think they have good reason to believe, to not like it. So this isn't over, is my point, right? I wish it was in the sense that Iran would agree with a new nuclear agreement, and then that's that. But it doesn't look like they're coming anywhere close to that, and it doesn't look like they're coming anywhere close to relinquishing control of the straight of Hormuz.

I think we're at about lower than 60 ships a day. It's normally around 110, 120. And Iran is making a lot of money selling its energy. So I'm attaching the two because we need to, if you look at our conversation, we need to send a clear message to Russia. And we can do that by presence in Europe and NATO. we need to be prepared for this thing to kick back off in Iran. Obviously, we hope it doesn't. But I don't see an indication that this is headed toward a resolution that's acceptable

to the United States. One thing that I heard, and Jonathan and Andy, I'm curious if you could agree with this, is that there's more than likely for the rest. There is a possibility for the rest of the Trump administration that this is the status quo right now. And it's just, you know, plus 60, plus 60, plus 60, whatever, just kick. on the can down the road. And so there's the argument that, okay, after the midterms, the Republicans take a shalacking. Trump won't give a shit anymore, and so he'll go at it again.

I'm not sure that's actually true. It could also be that it's just going to stay this way, which is enormously unstable. And in some ways, that is, because I think Trump has lost interest in this, totally. One other quick point on the NATO summit, I think, D, that ultimately Europe is holding its breath. And if, you know, it's just, it's just, you know, how bad can this be? Is Trump going to make, you know, is going to be so disruptive? Let's just, you know, it's a, it's holding your breath to get, get this, get past this. You know, he, there was not even an expectation that he would attend, but of course, Erdogan, he's doing it for his fellow autocratic buddy. But it's just, it's holding your breath and, you know, good God, what's

going to happen? How can it be? Is there anything embarrassing coming out of this? Because at the end of the day, I do think that, you know, when I was just in Sweden, I saw the head of the Swedish military. I mean, there's a notion that, again, it's the idea, I hope America helps, can't count on them, you know, we're going at it as a, as Europe only. So, you know, we'll kind of see where that goes. I mean, even as an American, as a patriot, like these, when Trump travels overseas, you have no idea what's going to happen. You just, you just pray that it's not going to be embarrassing to us, at least that's my view. And if something good happens, that's just, unusual, but that's what you hope for.

And also the enemy gets a vote, and that's the thing with Iran right now and with Russia, that we could sit here and say, you know, in the next six to 18 months, we can do all these things to prevent or do something to either of these actors. But in the time that we're waiting and planning, they're also waiting and planning. And in particular, Iran, if they get financial infusions during this period of time that we're kicking the can down the road, that money is not going to some static account and just collecting interest for them. It's going to be spent on things to rebuild what was damaged. And it's like Andy, you've mentioned on a previous episode that, you know, and also you too Mick, if we're giving them

$300 billion to reconstruct, well, the things that were destroyed were not civilian infrastructure. They were military infrastructure or dual-use infrastructure that has a military purpose. So that money is going to be going back for them to reconstruct the things that we destroyed, which are military structures, facilities, equipment, resources. They're going to reposition those resources. Those resources are not for purely defensive purposes. They're offensive weapons and structures and facilities and so on. So they're going to be reconstituting the entire time. They're also resilient in learning. They're learning from the mistakes that they just suffered through in the last two months of a meat grinder teaching them new things. They're going to do them differently. They're going to

rely more on drones and so on and so forth, you know, as far as strategy is concerned and less on people the next time this happens because to them, there will be a part to. They're waiting for it. They're preparing for it every day. And doesn't the Pentagon know this? So this time period now, I would think that U.S. and Israeli military planners should be concerned that Iran is reconstituting. So if it's the theory that, okay, we're going to kick it off again post elections, well, actually Iran has had time to recover. That's actually a bad thing. Yeah. That's why Hezbollah's number one on the list of stuff to be negotiated to be hands off because they're seeing like, well, we need to reinforce the surrogate forces around us because that's going to be a major component of part two.

And you can see with the Houthis just yesterday, 15 government forces in Yemen were killed by this massive Houthi attack that was actually pretty interesting if you want to read about tactics of it. That was very successful. It opened up with sniper fire all over the place, kind of like a mini Dienb Ban Pu from Vietnam era, where they surrounded them ahead of time and got stuff in there very smartly, which means they're probably practicing that technique to use on larger scale later, which I wouldn't be surprised to see. And the Houthis don't have their own economy. They rely on Iran to pay for them to a large degree. So if Iran gets more of that money, they're going to go support the Houthis, they're going to support Hezbollah, and they're going to support forces in

Syria and Iraq for part two. That's in their mind. They're like, hey, we are still surviving. That's what's happening right now. And money is fungible. So even if we release the $3 billion from Qatar and we get that's, you know, food, then they don't have to spend that much money on food, right? So it's there's, it's better that they're buying American goods, I suppose, but it's not, it doesn't protect the money. It's still, they still can use the money that they're getting, for example, selling their oil to rebuild their ballistic missile capability, their suicide drone capability, and every other thing that they've found to be most effective during Operation Epic Fury. This is Wickhoff and Cushner's, like this is insane. Like the idea, like the idea of selling it

because they're buying U.S. goods. It's just mind-bogglingly stupid. And it's this because you have two real estate guys who just think in these ways and that's why we're going down this ride. I mean, I find this to be, it's an argument which is so easily kind of, you know, dissected because of exactly what you said. Any kind of relief for the Iranians means they can reconstitute their military, period. End of story. There's no U.S. stipulations. There's nothing we can do. It just, but this is, I mean, you see the president.

You see Kushner and Wikoff keep talking about this. This is great. American farmers are going to benefit from the Iran deal. Like my head wants to explode when I hear that. It's hilarious because they don't even eat corn. I mean, this is just not part of their cuisine. It's like, we're going to send American corn cob barrels over there. Like, what are we talking about?

Yeah, I think we can all agree that the ceasefire, the negotiation, Godot, it's just become a soup sandwich. But, I mean, deep, you know, back to your question about the summit, which I think is a great topic. I mean, we started off with it. It was Mark's idea, and it hadn't occurred to me, but now I think about it. It's really important. I think, you know, who knows what U.S. goals are, but for Mark, and I'm pretty mispronounce his name, Rutter, right? The Dutch guy, the, Trump's my daddy guy. Yeah. So, I mean, he's going to want to emphasize the building on the 5% of GDP pledge from the, you know, from the Hague.

but he's going to also want to tell the U.S. say, look, Europe's already embarking on this goal, European nations, but he's going to want to secure an agreement from the U.S. clarity on what exactly is being, well, a commitment to keep a number of these enablers in theater, right? You know, the troops, as I said, are taken care of to a certain extent by U.S. law. but things like ISR, long-range strike, ballistic missile defense, Edo Air refueling, all those things, strategic lift, command and control. All of those things are key enablers that the U.S. provides to NATO that, you know, troops are easy to count, so there's a lot of focus on that.

But there aren't, but again, those are the really significant capabilities that the United States is providing, most likely to be used. in NATO short of actual out and out-and-out war, and certainly in the out-and-now war. But, I mean, the troops are just there almost as a token presence. Let's be honest. So the 5% is going to be wanting to get an agreement, a firm agreement from the US on those enablers. And he's going to want to, I mean, Zelensky is attending, right? So he's going to want to, Rutter's going to want to be able to say, hey, here's our commitment,

his NATO's commitment, whether it's continuation of pill and then agreements outside that to keep bolstering Ukraine against Russia. I mean, I imagine that. Those are his goals. Turkey's going to be pushing for the F-35s. By the way, I thought they weren't allowed F-35s because they have the S-400. I thought that one. It's a small issue.

But Trump said not, we can do it. But that's law. There's a Russian legislation that says it can't happen. It doesn't matter. Andy, you keep talking about U.S. law like this administration gives a fuck about that. But that's going to cause problems, A, for the Israelis. Well, I mean, I know we care about that a lot, D does. But, no, I meant the Israelis are going to be pissed off about that.

But not just the Israelis, UAE and Saudi Arabia, who have run into issues on the F-35 for, you know, for similar reasons. And the Greeks. There's something to be said for goals. And so, again, the whole bunch of folks here have been involved in policymaking before, whether the tip of the spear or whether back or both are back in Washington. But ordinarily, you go into meetings like this with a set of hopes, expectations, objectives. Trump changes, if you, you know, I've been reading regime change.

This is the book by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman. It's fascinating because Trump literally just goes on a whim. He changes course, changes directions. and it throws everyone into, you know, completely for a loop. And that is what can happen here. That's why everyone is nervous on these things. We don't know. And there might be something, you know, on the plane, they're going to fly over cutterrey.

Actually, they won't take the cuttery force one, which flew over my house the other day, by the way, twice. Really? The new cuttery plane. I was sitting on my deck and I saw this giant 747 flying over me. But, you know, we just don't know what Trump's going to do. That's just, and that to me is incredible. I mean, Mick, you were sat in a policy. Can you imagine me at the Pentagon right now in a policy position? And you don't know what true social posts or what's going to be from a little oval office session on a napkin.

And you're going to get shit rolling downhill to you and you have to now implement, which can be 180 degrees different what you were doing literally two hours ago. Yeah, I mean, it's a challenge. We've talked about the need for the NSC policy process, coordination process to restart. It's never too late, right? Let's do it now and get some of the career professionals back there, but I just don't see. That's not going to happen. I think Secretary Rubio would want it to happen. I mean, he's technically the National Security Advisor.

If only he had balls, though, Mick, because he doesn't. I think General Keene would be great if they're looking for a national security advisor. I don't know him, so something like I'm plugging him, but. We've got to clear up the year of the... What's that, what it? They're going to clear up the reflecting pool first. Did you see, did you guys send it to me? Someone else sent me.

So there's people who made, was it in our chat, the jello shot? Yeah, the jellos shot. That was Mick, that was here. That was amazing. Green jellos shot. A friend of mine sent that to me. Who's a Trump supporter, by the way? It's just funny.

It's funny. Yeah. All right, boys, anything else? We did it. We did a lot. I never feel good after these conversations, but we did do a lot. I went to, I was on DC yesterday. I went to the Nats game, started 11 a.m.

It was about 115 by the time we left it, too. It was hot. It was hot. It was 75 degrees out here in Montana. I'm jealous. It's been really hot in New York, too. It's been 100 degrees and disgusting. I was looking at like Copenhagen and places like that where it's like 65 degrees.

I'm like, fuck. Why can it be like this year? So why can we play again, by the way? Does anybody know? U.S. in Belgium. Tomorrow night, 8 p.m. Come on.

Yeah. All right. Yeah. So I want everyone to go and check out Mick's. You guys talked about stoicism. He's got a stoicism podcast called the Pub and the Porch, applied stoicism. Those links are in the description.

Andy Milvern's got a great book that's coming out soon. I'm very excited. He sent me the cover and the back cover, like a, you know, a summary. It's going to be a really good one. You've worked very, very, very diligently on it, I would say, Andy, and I'm extremely excited for it.

Can we say what it's called or no? Yeah, yeah. I almost. I don't want us to overstep. What's it called? The war in Gaza, Gaza, 7 October, and it's aftermath and it count from both sides. What do you think?

I just spaced out just now, Mark? You put a Trump. You got a little brides. No, I got my phone. Yeah, first installments on first chapter one is on substack now. It's about the leader. up to the attacks. It's very good.

That first chapter is really good. Incredible, because you see what's going on on the ground and the confusion and, like, you know, people that want to bring it up to higher, but the mid-levels are like, no, you know, it's an interesting look at it. I'm very excited about it. I'm sure it'll get a lot of people upset, Andy, which is fine.

They'll get over it. I made a huge effort to make it a very, I already calling. Already calling. Crazy. Yeah. Is that BB calling to ask about it? Yeah.

When is it going to be out? It's not going to be out until the end of the year or early next year. That's the problem with using, hey, Mick, by the way, I'm going to get back to you on self-publish, the different, you know, the after action from Gaza because the Gaza book, separate, the one I've written, I'm committed to a publisher. I'm going to say good things about the publisher. They've been great. But the problem is that when you submit a manuscript, there's a delay.

And for the editing process, it's not just the editing process, but it's lining up to get a slot. I guess unless you're a really big name, and I'm not a really big name, obviously. So, yeah, at least it's going to be about a six-month wait. All right. So keep an eye out for that. Of course, your autobiography, when the tempest gathers, great book. Check that out. All the links for Andy Substack and the book down in the description.

Jonathan Hackett. He's got two great books as well. Iran's Shadow Weapons and the theory of a regular warfare. Very good books. Jonathan, of course, is our resident smart guy. And Mark P., you have a book, Clarity in Crisis. That came out a while ago, though. Five years.

When are you doing another one? Not. Nice. Okay. So if you want to watch, check out Mark's links. He's there in the description as well. He's also on MS Now. You know, MSNow doesn't he fucking plugs from us?

They should plug us. I'm on tomorrow morning talking about the straight. I just got a note. And if you want to support the show, Patreon.com slash the Teamhouse. And of course, the White Fish Security Summit. I'm going to check it out. That link is in the description as well.

Guys, a pleasure as always. Hey, guys, I want to take a moment to tell you about the Teamhouse podcast newsletter. If you go and subscribe, it's totally free and what it will do is aggregate all of our data, all of our content that we put out, the things that are on the team house, on our geopolitics podcast, Eyes On, Things that I write journalistically with Sean Naylor on the high side, anything else that we have going on, books we recommend, upcoming guests that we have coming on the show, and also filtering in some fun stuff in there as well.

If you go and check it out, we send it out just once a week. We don't want to spam you guys. It's just a kind of roll up of all of our content on a weekly basis. You can find our newsletter at teamhousepodcast.kitt.com slash join. Again, the website for that is teamhousepodcast. Dot kit.com slash join. So we hope to see you there. The link will be down in the description.