The Team House - Where Does This End? The Downside to Deterrence | EYES ON | Ep. 3

Episode Date: February 7, 2024

Today the guys talk about the continued instability and conflict in the Middle East. They discuss deterrence and whether it's an achievable goal or not.Check out Andy Milburn here:https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8https://amilburn.substack.com/Support the show here:https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse#deterrence #geopoliticsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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Welcome to another episode of Aizan, a reasonably well-informed discussion of geo-eastern, of geopolitical events and about the time it takes you to PT, drive to work, or whatever else it takes you to do in 30 minutes or so. I'm Andy Milburn, former Marine Infantry and Special Operations Officer, now toiling for the team house. Dee, over to you. Thanks, Andy. Yeah, really excited about this one. It's kind of a continuation from our last episodes, which I'd love for everyone to check out if they haven't about our hit. on, you know, the IRGC and their proxies in Syria and Iraq. And we're going to touch on, like, the continued strikes on the Houthis in Yemen.

And I think talk a little bit more about a broader sense of, like, you know, deterrence. And because I've had this, I've been reading it, like, almost every day there are some folks on Twitter and Instagram who talk about deterrence. And I don't even know exactly what it means in terms of, like, deterring what, going on because it doesn't seem you know we got the strongest military in the world by a lot and it doesn't seem we don't seem to be deterring much no that's a that's a great point and a and a great question without making it a war college class i'll dive into and and i'll give you a a you know kind of a five-minute answer on that and and hopefully make it entertaining um but backtrack yes so the department of defense just released the BDA that's a battle damage assessment on on Twitter for the

attacks in let me see it was in Iraq actually it was all together attacks Iraq Syria and in Yemen okay so they report 80 oh this must be just Iraq and Syria sorry about this because they're talking about 85 targets 80 80 80 of 85 targets have suffered serious damage or totally destroyed with casualties and militia members expected to be around 50 to 60. Okay, we've got to ask ourselves, right? How come those 50 to 60 dudes did not get the word after a week of publicly teleghing that we were coming? Less surprising, no members of the IRGC or Iranian nationals were killed. Okay, that was official DOD release. Certainly not. on the strikes interestingly enough though um not uh not widely reported but a one of the a senior um iran backed figure uh within the militias uh naji al khabi was uh was assassinated by unknown gunmen in mason iraq okay coincidence i don't know totally don't i'm not right but it's kind of interesting that yeah we didn't kill any guys in the strikes but this one dude did uh did disappear you know

but that's that's kind of a distraction i i think andy can i cut in what is irgl mean sorry this for me because i'm a dumb no i i r gc right oh he was an actual irgc guy okay no no no he was um actually no good good point he was not he was he was he was a rocky he was a okay um but he was a senior pmc member notice in the strikes no senior pmc members were killed yeah um you know so i think It was mostly kind of, remember when we bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and killed, you know, I mean, killed essentially the cleaning staff. Yeah. I'm not saying that.

That's what happened here. But certainly, you know, you wonder about these guys. Maybe they were provided, you know, maybe that was their resume line, BDA. That's what, that's your role. Anyway, I digress. My point is, it's a distraction because. We didn't kill any senior members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. All right.

I'm not saying, you know, you know me, I mean, I'm not saying, never, never extolling killing for the sake of killing. But it's hard to know how we can detract from capability without removing the guys who are certainly involved in the transfer of knowledge and, you know, technical know-how. So, yeah, and yeah, when you look at the list of stuff destroyed, there was that dramatic footage of the stuff cooking off in Al-Qaim, you know, I mean, that whole area, though, as is Yemen, is just one giant ordinance dump, and it's quite easy to have left some some older ammo in a warehouse to give some dramatic effect. So anyway, yeah, I mean, I don't, and I'm getting somewhere on this, I'm not just diminishing the strikes by any means.

Sure. I am, but I'm saying. That's my job. I'll do it. Yeah, maybe there's a wider picture. But, you know, it's a tremendously difficult task. I mean, we're trying to reduce capability. in an area where there is just a massive amount of ordinance.

So they're only reliant on the Iranians for certain key components, all right, for the missiles to come through. And these are relatively small components and quite easy to smuggle. So it's not, yes, we are destroying things, you know, and it looks great on video, but as far as removing capability or even, disabling the Iranian's ability or rather these proxies' ability to act for even for a period of time is not, you know, I don't think we, I don't think we're achieving it.

Okay, so anyway, to your point, so it doesn't look like we're achieving deterrence. I'm going to come back to that specific question, but an answer to yours. I can't remember the War College definition and I have an appearance of people who do read things out from doctrine. But deterrence is very simply, you know, it's a practice of discouraging or restraining someone in world politics that's usually a nation state from taking unwanted actions. Okay. And it involves an effort to stop or prevent an action as opposed to making someone or trying to make a state do something which is compelance, all right, which is something different. Okay, this is more than, this is slightly more than semantics, okay? And because there's really, when we talk about deterrence, you may say, in fact,

they should have primed you to say this. Hey, Andy, how are we deterring after the fact? Okay. And a lot of people get confused by this. You know, something happens. We're really responding. And you'll see the military comes up with terms like flexible deterrent option and flexible deterrent response.

But they essentially, they come down to the same thing. far as objective because if you are responding and the way that we are, our intent is to threaten escalation, right? We're not simply punishing. The implication is, hey, we will do this and worse if you continue. Right. So response deterrence all wrapped into one. It's meaningless to distinguish between the two. And these packages that the military puts together involve various options for the president to decide between. You know, it's just like a sushi menu, all right? What's interesting, now, like, deterrence by punishment, the other deterrence, by the way, is deterrence by denial. That's when you put a force, you know, you prevent, you make the enemy's

objective less attainable, all right? And it might be, you know, sticking U.S. troops in Poland or all the Baltic states, you know, and so they would be in the path of a Russian invading force. which makes it less likely that the Russians are going to want to invade, blah, blah, blah. Deterrence by punishment historically is less effective. And then when I say historically the last three decades, okay? But we, United States, use the term deterrence all the time. And it is deeply embedded in our national security strategy. You know, in Europe, it's the basis of our containment of Russian adventurism.

as well as actions in the gray zone, you know, of course, in Korea. It's, you know, it's a policy to deter North Korea, not just from invading, but just further provocations. And then throughout Asia, of course, we're trying to deter Chinese belligerents and gray zone encroachments on areas subject to territorial disputes. So, you know, deterrence is it when it comes to us. I would argue, I'll tell you what, you know, when deterrence, fails, it's because one of the key components is missing. This is not from doctrine. But, you know, one of the, one of the things that I think we United States miss and is perhaps the most important

aspect of deterrence is this critical fact. And it is the perception of the potential aggressor. In other words, it is how that guy views the world that matters. Not the actual prospects of success. I'm sorry, not actual prospects of victory of his success or any other objective measurement. So we've got to be careful not mirror imaging. Wow, this would really hurt us. I imagine it's really hurting the Iranian regime. And we've seen deterrents go awry with Putin too

because we tend to mirror image and we haven't tried to really understand our adversary. So, you know, any strategy. to prevent aggression, you've got to understand your enemy, you know, his interest, motives, his imperatives. Because when an aggressor acts, it's not, it's usually not war opportunism. He's answering some other need. It may be domestic, but it's an immediate need. We need to understand that need and maybe find some other way of delivering it to him, you know, in the last part. So, so yes, you've got to, you know, you've got to step back from your ego and you've got to look at things from the enemy's perspective.

And you've got to take a combined arms approach, okay? Or, you know, a lot of our military guys will understand what I mean about by this. What I mean is that when you engage the enemy with a weapon, you don't want to just engage him with one weapon. You want to engage him with a weapon that forces him to do something that makes him vulnerable to another weapon. Classic cases, you know, direct fire weapons. and indirect fire weapons. Same thing applies to economic sanctions. By imposing one sanction, making them hurt there,

you drive them in another area where you can hurt him even more, which means that you can't compartmentalize Dime or Pomeisi. Dime is diplomatic information, military, economic. It's a way that we separate all the elements of national power. I'm saying, when we approach deterrence, we've got to act as all of this has to be fully integrated. And that is actually why you hear the term integrated deterrence as a buzzword. I would argue, yes, we're very good at using that term. We're less effective than actually doing it. You know, I'll give you a...

That's a fair. That's a fair assessment. Yeah. Okay. So the other thing we do, you know what I mean, I guess another principle, I'm just making this stuff up, but you can't forget the carrot, right? You know, when you talk about Karen's stick, you can't just totally forget about that, preventing aggression. It's not all about making threats. It's also about offering assurances, right?

Can you believe that's a Marine saying that? But it is. Yeah, right? You know, you've got to leave him an open door. You've got to leave him a face-saving exit that's going to make him look good to his domestic audience. And if you can get it, enable him to achieve his objectives otherwise within the way that doesn't hurt your interest,

then by all means, go ahead and do so. This is what I mean about not standing on ego. But again, it involves very intensive strategic communication. That's another aspect where we often fall short with deterrence. Okay. It's everything is about OIE. Ask me what OIEE stands for. What's OIE? Do you already know? Do you probably already know from the team has okay what is oh what does it mean yeah um operations in the information environment very careful about acronyms so i now never try and spell out acronyms more than three letters after my uh dreadful debacle with uh aob but yeah so operations in the information environment okay um we got to think about kinetic actions um relationship to information as supporting and supported

Okay, which means, you know, typically we say, yeah, information operations support kinetic actions. But no, I mean, we have to think of military actions supporting operations in the information environment. Right. Okay. So, you know, moving a U.S. brigade to Estonia, a brigade's not going to do anything against Russian advance, but it's a significant, you know, military, although militarily negligible, it is a, significant strategic uh right because like why would the russians wipe out a brigade yeah yeah and start a global yeah it's a it's a it's a trip why i mean it's uh yeah uh early morning whatever you want to call it but the point is it's it's an escalatory you're pushing you you're pushing um uh russia can't can't threaten the baltic states for instance without going to war with the

united states it's a right yes everyone may know that conceptually but but but by putting your blood on the line you are really you know you're literally putting skin in the game and demonstrating that okay um which is sorry go ahead no yeah no worries in terms of like what's going on now with ira i ran and their proxies and cuds force basically running amok in the region and um i would argue asserting uh a lot of dominance what do we do specifically there to deterred heard them from like or trying to get them to reel their proxies in uh yeah so persuade who d because we're getting at the crux of the problem here i mean i guess it's iran it's persuade iran okay which i know people don't want to talk about like you know people are like you know even when you

when you hear everyone speaking okay these it's it's always iran back to this it's like a it's like a buzzword that people well let me have been told to say let me let me let me write you Let me wrap up very quickly, your excellent question about deterrence, okay? So because it leads into an answer to your next question. So successful deterrence typically involves a combination of taking, you know, these combined arms actions, taking the aggressors' motivations seriously, understanding them, being clear about your intent, what you want the, you know, the aggressor to do. So all of those things.

And it's only, you know, think about the times it has worked. we've done all those things and it's really, you know, worked most famously in the longest period of time in Korea since 1953 and during the Cold War. All right, but it's not working here. Okay. Why isn't it working here? One one answer may be, and this is not me, you know, this is US intelligence officials. I thought I'd never use that term, but so, so, you know, it's semi-official. They assess that Iran does not exercise full control over the proxy. in part of militia groups that are attacking U.S. personnel. So by that, by that it, you know, neither the Houthis nor all the constellation of Iranian-backed militia

groups in Iraq are taking their orders directly from the head of Kuzfors, and there's probably a combination of factors, okay? The kind of the cult of personality of Soleimani was able to exert all these leaders is gone. Ghani's a different type of individual. And, you know, the kids have grown up. They're ready to leave home. They have been armed to a level of sophistication that was, you know, it just couldn't be imagined five years ago.

And, I mean, look at the Houthis. The Houthis, for God's sake. I mean, are disabling oil refineries and bringing and, you know, taking action that have global reverberation. far beyond the Ba'Balmandat. And Iran cannot control it anymore. That's pretty scary, right? You know, and so the attacks continue.

I mean, twice into Syria at bases, mission support site, Euphrates. The picture of militia attacks on U.S. bases is in the chat. I always find it helpful to see a map, but you'll see there that the attacks have been mostly focused on the middle Euphrates Valley certainly in this last week to include an attack on the Al-Amar oil fields well on a I'm sorry on a combat outpost in the al-Mar oil fields which killed seven members of the Syrian Democratic forces, the SDF, who are our partners in fighting the Islamic State. No U.S. casualties in that.

So it does appear, bottom line, as though the Iranians have lost control of their proxies. But, you know, there's a lot of bluster going on, too. They're not going to admit that, and they're issuing, you know, they issued a warning yesterday, right? Warning United States against attacking. their two surveillance ships, the Pashad and the Sevis. So, you know, they, what makes it worse is they're on the posturing platform too and are not going to admit that they can't, you know, they can't lose. The train has left the station. Yeah, they can't lose face at home, right? They still have to deal with their own internal politics and stuff like that. It's still about regime security at the end of the day for them. Yeah, 100, 100%.

And while everything continues, you know, we haven't we haven't talked about Gaza. And I'm not going to, you know, get in that topic today. But as you know, I've been quite, I've got a contract to write a book about it. And in fact, we're going to be doing a couple of episodes from there towards the end of this month. And so we, you know, and I'll at least be able to, address the military campaign and more detailed there. But elsewhere, you know, in the Middle East. So while all this is going on, our adversaries are certainly exploiting our absence or our

weaknesses. I can't remember if I really talked to you about this, D, but it is about we're talking with the audience now, but the chairman, all right, of the popular, the Iraqi Popular Mobilization committee, the PMC, a network position. Remember I spoke about him on, I spoke about him last week. Yeah, he, he's, he's

involved allegedly in the US, on the attack on the US embassy in 2019. Well, he met this week with the Russian ambassador to Iraq, Khrushchev and met this week in Baghdad and they talked about exchanging experience. it says mutual and even mutual training.

Okay, so who knows? Yeah. You know how the Russians love having these PMC, literally PMCs? Now they've got, I know. I mean, potential right there, influence in Iraq. That's, well, that was fairly notable. In the same time, the Chinese visited Uzbekistan this week. You know, we've, we, U.S. have been courting Uzbekistan.

well since I mean obviously since 9-11 but but recently among the stands you know Uzbekistan has been the one that we've been working with most closely so we can launch out of right well in a number of reasons I mean it's politically yes it's a

I mean it's a very it's a really viable position they became increasingly important after we pulled around Afghanistan and you know we provide I've been there a few times actually it's a beautiful country and we provide soft support training that their self-military which has become a little dodgy at times ahead of their special

operations guys a guy we trained left to join the Islamic State so yeah these things are always tough to manage and here we are now the Chinese have signed or signed an agreement a strategic agreement and all whether comprehensive strategic partnerships or I was looking for exactly what it was all weather all weather yeah so the only other country in the region who's part of this all weather agreement uh is Pakistan okay so I mean it's a separate bilateral agreement but it's the only other country that China has has called an all-weather ally um so is that was Pakistan all-weather ally to china fair weathered front of the United States.

Yeah. So is that, that Pakistan, they chose to do that, right? China aligning with Pakistan is to like, kind of give it to India a bit. I mean, this is a little bit out of like what we're talking about, but that's my assumption, you know. Say that again, D.

So the reasoning why China is done that all-weather strategic partnership with Pakistan is to deter or for lack of a better. or were it, India's, like, power in the region? Yeah, I mean, China and Pakistan have always had, close relationship is not quite the term, but it's a, it's kind of a mutually supportive relationship. Yes, they've had, you know, they've gone at it. I mean, they've had arguments over various things over the years,

but, you know, is you aware China, India have literally come to blows. Yeah. And have caused, you know, I mean, have killed each other's soldiers several times in the last year. Yeah. Often in these extraordinary unarmed brawls, which, which both sides seem to agree, doesn't cross any red lines.

Yeah. But yeah, I mean, certainly, I mean, Pakistan's within China's, closer within China's sphere of influence. And, yeah, they, yeah. both have a lot of mutual interest in Afghanistan and those interests of course are not necessarily ours sure of course hey like hey dude last thing though the um yeah like this from uh oddly enough from a dude in uh Tel Aviv who who you know commented about um the fact that that most uh that most american even u.s military officials privately saying that the capabilities of who these have not

being significantly degraded by the campaign. And this, this researcher in Tel Aviv military researcher says, yeah, taking on the Houthis is like fighting fog. You know, interesting. I mean, the, I've heard descriptions, the same thing about Hamas in Gaza. So no new lessons here. So, Andy, what's, what, what will make progress? Like, is it more of a covert?

thing is it more i don't know drones or you know i don't know what i strikes strikes can be immensely effective but they they have to be you know if you want them to have military effect and by that it mean take away capability obviously you can't telegraph them okay absolutely um and uh and and and they you know although um thank god we got away from um a traditional warfare and adding up number of people killed, but you do, you do have to take off the board the guys with the expertise who cannot be replaced, right? Not the 50 or 60 guys who are too dumb to have got the word that the US were coming. Right.

And it's got to be combined with other things to include working with partners on the ground. You know, you can't, you can't do all this remotely. You've got to build relationships on the ground too. And there's got to be a carrot. Remember that. You know, I mentioned that. We've got to start thinking, how do we offer the Houthis a carrot? How do we provide them an incentive?

Because we can't deter them. Yeah. I mean, what's going to deter them? They're not scared of particularly scared of death. They've been fighting all their lives. I mean, they're going to keep shooting stuff until they stop having stuff to shoot. So let me ask you something. Like, in terms for, like, the talking heads are like the opinion makers on Twitter,

and you know less of that we that's what we are the thought leaders right absolutely but like the thought leaders i mean it i don't think that's going to brief so well like offering the hoothies a deal of some kind well that's the thing well that's the thing you know but uh posturing and ego just don't belong in into politics right and yes of course we play to a domestic audience but at the same time, ultimately, our criteria for success are that shipping is allowed to proceed unimpeded, you know, and that stability is restored. And if the Houthis get something in that process that they wanted, yes, people can say, oh, we gave in or it can just, you know, it's just a sensible approach. Otherwise, we're going to be 10, 15, 20 years from now. Think about the

cost in terms of U.S. defense budget. Sure. Merchant ships cannot defend themselves against these missiles. There is no way you cannot, you cannot design a system that is going to be economically viable. The cost of the ships having to choose now between taking war insurance or going the long way round the Cape is driving global costs up, right? And it doesn't matter if your supply chain isn't directly affected by the Red Sea.

Other supply chains that are interrelated probably ours. It affects every country in the world. It's tremendous. So, you know, do we want to salvage our sense of being America that's strong and just, you know, keep dropping bombs until literally we have flattened Yemen? Or do we take a little more intelligent approach? Yeah, you would think, you know, taking the, you know, taking the, intelligent approaches. You know, listen, I'm all about killing the enemy. You know that. And I'm saying you've got to throw in, you've got to put an incentive in there too.

By all means, scare the crap out of it. But do it by going after his capabilities, hurting him. Not what we're doing right now, which is kind of pinging. Yeah, absolutely. Thinking. Well, that's probably, I lose track of time here, but I think you're keeping us under the. I have a question. I have one question about that. Okay. Well, since you've asked the question in terms of the red sea all be enjoying talking to me so that's a good sign no i am yeah this is the best um so in terms of like the issues in the red sea with the huthies and stuff like that does it make sense to bring in a more broader coalition not just the uk because if i mean it seems to affect the europe right away in the short medium term and then the rest of the world in the long term um yeah where's france where's italy

where the other NATO countries? Where's Egypt too? Why is in Egypt doing anything? Yeah. Well, there are a number of coalition countries involved. In fact, there's a coalition task force, and I can't tell you all the countries that are involved in it. But I want to say that it either falls under the direction of

NASA direction, but at least is coordinated with NASDAQ. What's NAFSA? I'm sorry, it's Naval Command Central. So all naval forces in Middle East. But yes, there is a coalition task force. It has largely, and again, you know, I know I'll be torn up if I'm wrong on this, but it's largely two-day being focused on the Somali piracy problem.

But there's crossover membership. um and an interest obviously in the red sea so yes coalition efforts are there are coalition coalition coalition efforts underway okay but you know escorting ships is um it's a it's an incredibly time intensive and expensive proposition you know escorting ships it's not like the secmo ball where you're traveling along and convoy right you're covering them with your um air defense assets right um um which don't come cheap. Yeah.

I mean, look at, you know, the, so the U.S. Karnay shot down 14 drones, all right? Right. An SM2 missile, okay, is, you know, I want to say $2 million. I know it's in the millions, all right? So, you know, supposedly say it just fired 14 missiles. I mean, we're talking $28 million. Yeah, it's not exactly cost effective, right? And it's not a long-term solution.

probably ain't you know don't even add up to a million dollars yeah so it's it's just not the way we're doing things right now is is neither it's just not cost effective and it's not militarily effective I look I'm not pretending to be smart here look I was part of the problem I'm just saying it's a hard it's hard to find a solution so please I think I'm sitting here criticizing the guys who are just like me right who are trying to figure out a way to to curb the threat and do all these things without bringing the United States into war. It's a tremendously hard problem. Yeah, it's an impossible needle to thread.

You know, it's tough. Well, not impossible, but it's very difficult. Okay. But, you know, that's again, it's about this big. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, no, absolutely. And I just want to mention, I know, like, you know,

you've served, you know, Jack and Dave have served everybody who's on the show served and, like, a lot of the folks that watch. watches shore veterans having said that i mean and it's not their fault at all um the uh escapade in iraq is mainly to blame for iran filling that power vacuum in the region yeah d i mean i i can't imagine that there's anyone out there who still thinks that invading iraq was a good idea um from the point view of unite US interests. I mean, if there is, we welcome, of course, because we welcome alternate views. But yeah, I, you know, I would tend to agree. Hey, you know, before we sign off them, when we talk about the effect that, because sadly, because of our intervention, we've seen,

you know, we've left the bad taste as we leave for obvious reasons in Afghanistan. And now in in Iraq for reasons that are partly not our fault, but partly are, to be fair. You know, we've kind of said, we kind of allowed those conditions to come to fruition, extremist. Yeah. Or politicians in power in Iraq who do not like us, no, I'm not talking about influencing elections. I'm just saying, we turned a blind eye for a long time to kind of the way the Shia power base

was continuing to gather. hour there and ignoring our advice. Hey, so anyway, on the last thing, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a, on a bright note, um, that picture and in chat, you can throw it up. That's, uh, we, as we talk about, uh, our, our adversaries and, um, non-aligned countries all kind of, uh, making plans for a world in which the United States doesn't dominate quite the way, the same way it has to date. And that photograph is of an Iranian military delegation to re-ad yes indeed ladies and gentlemen and a an Iranian military delegation to re-ad unprecedented certainly in our lifetimes i believe and um went very nicely apparently so that's probably not i mean that's not something that the saudi's may do although they did put that picture

out on twitter but you see what i'm saying you know there's no one there's no one very few countries aside from our traditional friends and European friends are saying, oh, yeah, you know, good point. We do, we should side with the United States because you still do represent democracy and and liberal Western values, et cetera, et cetera. That is, uh, um, so. But Andy, so even said, yeah, sorry, even Saudi Arabia, um, buddying up with Iran, let's say we did pull out of the Red Sea in the Middle East and the Houthis keep going

eventually that peace deal or that ceasefire with the Saudi Arabia was going to end let's say we stop selling weapons like what happens when there's no free maritime travel in the Red Sea because we're not there no I I mean I get it though D because but everyone knows we're not going to do that

because right ultimately global trade is an orange I mean, the free flow of commerce and global trade is definitely rock solid within our interests. In fact, we're the one country that has so far not disappeared into even a moderate recession. I mean, we're still an economic powerhouse. We dominate the world in that sense, very much so. And so we more than anyone stand to gain or lose by what happens to global trade.

And I think some people, the isolationists forget that. Yeah, no, for sure. It's just interesting. Like, yeah, you know, the Saudi Arabia flirting with Iran or Iraq flirting with the Russian delegation. It's like, at the end of the day, it's like, oh, pay attention to us. It's like, you know, they just, it's like a cry for attention from them. I don't know. I think this is, I think it's, these are deliberate long-term decisions based on an assessment of the, of America's role in the world.

You know, I don't, I'm not hopefully sounding like a, you know, just banging extremist here. But yes, that is, I think that is clearly evident. Yeah. I mean, there's many other factors in play too. Sure. You know, so even though we may think of the world as being as fitting into certain patterns, post-coble, you know, post-coble, right, with, you know, kind of the access of, whatever you want to call it, the axis of resistance or the access of evil or of just, you know,

the angry men, you know, North Korea, Russia, China, Iran. Um, but they, yeah, I mean, absolutely the threat that, dude, it's not that any of them can supplant the United States, but they can certainly undermine the US's ability to defend its own interest. And that's what's happening. Yeah. I think we need to look at it like a market share of like any kind of market. Like if as long as we have the dominating share of it, like we're okay.

For a reductive view. Oh, yeah. Okay. That's the way to look at it. That's a great, that's a great comment. Hey, Dean, before we, um, yeah, we, I mean, we've got, yes, absolutely. Hey, we've got, uh, we've got to get, um, we've got to get our email or something. I mean, I'm sorry, uh, thing for questions put up. Because I had someone sent me some really cool comments from last. Yeah, and the, in the shows to come, I'll aggregate some of the questions and we'll answer them at the tail end of the,

Hey, I got this. All right. I thought it's by a drone, drone dude in Ukraine. I know him. In fact, he worked for me. All right. So I know this sounds like a team audience, but we don't have a, you know,

we have to use my contact info until we get one. Anyway, he said if we assume similar employment in Ukraine, as in Ukraine, all right, when we were out there, it seems the shah head is designed such that if even with GPS, even with the jammer, it can still revert to inertia of navigation, which makes it jam resistant. So unless the operator, this is my friend writing, so unless the operator mission planner had access to U.S. flight plans

and knew where, when to program the Shah heads so it would follow the US drone. It seems unlikely or there was a crazy coincidence and timing. Or they employed a different type of drone with a pilot fully in control during a flight, and they had been observing U.S. drone flights from the base. And then, you know, on my comment about Stinger, yeah, correct. It hasn't shot down a drone. Neither has the Avenger, neither has the C-RAM. But this guy, Audi, his first name, his first name is a, he's a Stinger officer by background.

So, of course, he's almost lost his friendship over that comment. But he does say Stinger and theory should actually be very effective against Shahid-type drones, although not cost-effective for the reason they just said. But it would require a Stinger team ready for standby receiving queuing from the sensor or at least doing their own visual searching and scanning. You know, those of you who are air defense bubs and ball people at cocktail parties, queuing as of, you know, that being able to cue to shoot or so do with man pads, setting that, setting that up at their tactical level is always a challenge.

Sure. So these things are difficult. Anyway, about time to sign out. Yeah, let's do it. A lot going on the world. Okay. All right. Everyone, thanks again for listening to this episode of Eyes On.

you can email or text your questions and comments to D. We will provide something in the chat and we will answer them or depending on how many we get, we'll answer a selection of them. So we're releasing a new episode now on Wednesday and Sunday, right, D? Yep, that's right. Yeah, and it's these conversations focused on whatever happens to be front and center in the news at the time. If you think we're talking too much about one particular topic

or not enough about another, please send in your comments and they will be Julie noted and perhaps or ignored or yeah and yeah please feel free to send me messages by

Twitter or follow me on Twitter Dee's going to post my address there okay see over to you yeah I'll throw it up on the thanks Andy

yeah I'll throw all of Andy's info into the show notes in the descriptions of each show, whether it's video or audio. Whether you listen to us on video or audio, don't forget to like, subscribe, or rate and review us five stars. It helps the channel big time. You can check out the Patreon, help support the show. You can get ad-free episodes of this show by going to the Patreon, so it's a little

bit more streamlined. And yeah, check out the Team House. Yeah, we read all your comments, too, to include you. Absolutely. Yeah, and to include the YouTube comments. and someone went on a drunken rant and you see that Yeah

Who gets so drunk They can't even spell But there's quite a few people there Yeah Most of our listeners Anyway All right everyone See you

See you in a few days Take care