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Peace In Ukraine: A Call To Prime Minister Modi · UK Column Radio

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: I sent a little resume of myself. I regard it
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: as a big honor to have both of you with
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: me in this recorded event. But just to say that
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: my military career was in the Navy, the Oral Navy,
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: and I specialized as a anti submarine warfare officer during
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the Cold predominantly during the Cold War period, so most
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: of my military career was tracking, locating, and tracking Russian
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: nuclear submarines as they came out of their Northern Fleet
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: bases and down through the Greenland Iceland UK Gap and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: into the Atlantic, and some of the missions that we
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: did were specifically with the US, so I spent time
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: off the US Eastern Seaboard with American assets in the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: Bermuda Sect to again looking for the Russian bombers off
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: the east coast of the States, and ultimately I ended
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: up working for the Admiral Flag Officer C training inspect
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: well training and inspecting Raw Navy ships in the subject
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: area of anti submarine operations. I spent some time in
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  Speaker 1: the Netherlands teaching in the Rawal Navy thro the Rural
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Netherlands Navy Operational School in Denhelder, and eventually I had
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: command one of the offshore protection vessels. But about that
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: time I started to see that the military that I
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  Speaker 1: was part of was not heading in a direction that
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  Speaker 1: I felt comfortable in. So my career came to an
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: end in nineteen ninety three. And when I then started
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  Speaker 1: to speak out about what was happening in my own country,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: that led to me forming a media organization called the
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: UK Column. I'm in the UK Column offices at the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: moment and we are talking about a variety of subject
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  Speaker 1: matter inside the UK but also worldwide, and we do
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: comment on the Ukraine War. But essentially I'm warning that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: the Western nation states are being attacked. So that's a
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  Speaker 1: little bit of a potted history from me.
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  Speaker 2: When I'm Major General G. D. Bakshi.
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  Speaker 3: I was commissioned in seventy one, just in time to
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: join the Bangladesh War and thereafter I saw action counter
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  Speaker 3: terrorist operations in the Punjab. Thereafter I led my battalion
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: on the line of control, major skirmissions Kargil. Then I
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  Speaker 3: led counter terrorist operations as a one star in Kishtwar.
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  Speaker 2: For about almost three years.
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  Speaker 3: Pacified that area, got my Sena Medal and my wish
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  Speaker 3: ish Seva Medal. Thosec couterments that you get and finally
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  Speaker 3: I was the General Officer commanding Romeo Force in Rajori
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  Speaker 3: and Punch again in counter terrorist operations major counter terrorist operations.
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  Speaker 3: I've done two tenures in the Directorate General of Military Operations.
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  Speaker 2: I've taught at the.
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  Speaker 3: Indian Military Academy der Dun, I've taught at the Defense
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  Speaker 3: Services Staff College, Wellington, and my final assignment was as
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  Speaker 3: an instructor senior directing staff at the National Defense College.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: I did my PhD from there, and post retirement, I'm
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: onto you know, the lecture circuit, seven hour circuit and
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  Speaker 3: of course TV thank you.
• 3:57
  Speaker 4: Like military experiences. Nearly is the anguished as yours. I
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: H junior officer in the United States Marine Corps Intelligence officer.
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  Speaker 4: Was spent the first part of my career with the
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  Speaker 4: Rapid Deployment Force UH, training for you know, eventualities UH
• 4:18
  Speaker 4: scenarios in the Middle East and the Central UH Central
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  Speaker 4: Command area of operations. I then transitioned into Arms Controls.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: Was the part of the first group of inspectors to
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: go into the Soviet Union to implement the Intermediate Nuclear
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: Forces Treaty with the on Site Inspection Agency. I I
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: take pride in that because I can say that I
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: literally helped write the book on arm on site Inspections
• 4:45
  Speaker 4: for Arms Control Verification. UH. After that, I got caught
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  Speaker 4: up in the Gulf War. I was on General Schwartzkus
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  Speaker 4: staff and played a role in what we call the
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: counter Scud operation, trying to hunt down Iraqi god missiles
• 5:01
  Speaker 4: before they can be fired against Israel. And at that
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: point I left active duty and was brought into the
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  Speaker 4: United Nations with the Special Commission charged with disarming Iraq.
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  Speaker 4: I helped create an intelligence unit and then an operations unit,
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  Speaker 4: and I led inspections in Iraq for seven years, accounting
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  Speaker 4: for their weapons of mass destruction. I left that job
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  Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety eight. I actually resigned in protest, and
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  Speaker 4: I think my reputation since that time has been somebody
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  Speaker 4: who has been critical of American policy, not because I'm
• 5:38
  Speaker 4: anti American, because I'm pro American and I believe America
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  Speaker 4: should be doing the right thing, not the wrong thing.
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  Speaker 4: I'm not I'm a very patriotic person, but you know,
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  Speaker 4: my country is on the wrong path, and so I've
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  Speaker 4: taken up the task of trying to educate people by writing,
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  Speaker 4: by speaking, by doing, and it's an honor to be
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  Speaker 4: here with you.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you very much for that, Scott and for our audience.
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  Speaker 1: As I say, I'm here to facilitated discussion. It's centered
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  Speaker 1: around this horrific or taking place in Ukraine. But of
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  Speaker 1: course in recent days we've we've we've reached a new line,
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  Speaker 1: and that is that there is a clear call, a
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  Speaker 1: clear clamor, that Western long range weapons should be given
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  Speaker 1: to Ukraine for attacks within sovereign Russian territory. And of
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  Speaker 1: course these attacks would would place targets reasonably close to Moscow,
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  Speaker 1: in fact under the under the range of the missile.
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  Speaker 1: So from a Russian point of view, this would be
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  Speaker 1: weapons systems being unleashed on Russian soil close to the
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  Speaker 1: capital city. We've also had votes taking place in the
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  Speaker 1: United Nations supporting this, and we are therefore at a
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  Speaker 1: point where we seem to be rapidly heading towards a
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  Speaker 1: major escalation of the war in Ukraine and possibly towards
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: a full blown world war. Now, this to most people
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  Speaker 1: is incredible, but I think one thing that requires discussion
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  Speaker 1: is the fact that we have Western politicians, be it
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  Speaker 1: in the United States or the UK or the European Union,
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  Speaker 1: who are clamoring for this major and I would say
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  Speaker 1: very very dangerous escalation into the use of long range weapons.
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  Speaker 1: So I wondered whether it would be a good place
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  Speaker 1: to start if we just set out for our audience,
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  Speaker 1: wherever you are in the world, how this panel all
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  Speaker 1: call ourselves a panel, how we see the war in
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  Speaker 1: the UK at the moment? And can I start with you, Scott.
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  Speaker 1: We've got Western reports now, I think it was the
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  Speaker 1: New York Times talking about a million casualties in Ukraine.
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  Speaker 1: We've had the BBC analysts talking about seventy thousand Russian dead.
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  Speaker 1: If the Russian dead figure is correct and the ratio
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: of Ukrainian deaths is on a three to one basis
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: two or three to one basis, then that million overall
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  Speaker 1: casualty figure, in my head, seems to stack up. Scott,
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: what's your opinion on the real truth about casualties in
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: this war.
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  Speaker 4: I think it's important to point out that General Kovoli,
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: Christopher Kovoli, who's the commander of US ground forces in
• 8:55
  Speaker 4: Europe and the commander of NATO Ground forces speaking, I believe,
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: in early twenty twenty three to a Swedish defense forum,
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: said that the scope and scale of violence on the
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  Speaker 4: battlefield in Ukraine was beyond the imagination of NATO. As
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  Speaker 4: I said, you know, I spent the early parts of
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  Speaker 4: my career training to go to war against the Soviet
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  Speaker 4: Union and large scale ground combat. We were prepared for
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  Speaker 4: horrific casualties back then. You know, division sized units needed
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  Speaker 4: to be prepared to lose entire battalions and minutes and
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  Speaker 4: continue their operations. Battalions had to learn how to deal
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  Speaker 4: with absorbing forty fifty casualties instantly and continue with the mission.
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  Speaker 4: But I think with the global War on Terror the
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  Speaker 4: de emphasis of large scale ground combat, militaries no longer
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  Speaker 4: train to or casualties of this nature. They don't train
• 10:03
  Speaker 4: to expend munitions and logistics on the scope and scale
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  Speaker 4: that modern high intensity combat requires. So I think the
• 10:13
  Speaker 4: war in Ukraine has taken everybody by shock. When I
• 10:17
  Speaker 4: say everybody, all those who are not participating in the conflict.
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  Speaker 4: I think the BBC numbers, to be honest about Russian
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  Speaker 4: casualties are low because I think they are counting a
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  Speaker 4: particular category of of of of Russian servicemen, those who
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  Speaker 4: are contracted with or conscripted by the Russian Defense Ministry,
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  Speaker 4: and it doesn't take into account, for instance, the volunteer
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  Speaker 4: units some of you know, for instance, the uh the
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: private military contractors who played an important critical role in
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  Speaker 4: the first year of the of the war, the volunteer
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  Speaker 4: US and in units of this nature, the Lugansk and
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: Donetska units that are still in the process of being
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  Speaker 4: fully incorporated. I believe, to be honest that the numbers
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  Speaker 4: of Russian dead might exceed one hundred thousand, and depending
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  Speaker 4: on you know where you are in the conflict, the
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  Speaker 4: ratio of casualties is fluctuated between five to one to
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  Speaker 4: ten to one. So I picked the media in seven
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  Speaker 4: and I'm comfortable with a Ukraine. When I say I'm comfortable,
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  Speaker 4: it's shocking, but I can accept a Ukrainian death figure
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  Speaker 4: of over seven hundred thousand. And then we haven't even
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  Speaker 4: talked about the wounded. The General knows this as well
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  Speaker 4: as anybody that you know. For every dead soldier, there's
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  Speaker 4: several wounded soldiers. Some of these soldiers can be returned
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  Speaker 4: to combat. Many these soldiers cannot be. So if we
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  Speaker 4: say a three to one wounded to dead ratio and
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  Speaker 4: figure in a you know, half of those wounded cannot
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  Speaker 4: be brought back into combat. We're now looking at, for instance,
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  Speaker 4: for the Russian side, a quarter of a million men
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  Speaker 4: being removed from as being removed as combatants, and on
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  Speaker 4: the Ukrainian side the numbers top nearly a million and
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  Speaker 4: a half. These are huge numbers. These are and again
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  Speaker 4: it reflects the scope and scale of the violence that's
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  Speaker 4: taking place today. And the violence is different than that
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  Speaker 4: which people like myself and I would even say the
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  Speaker 4: general have experienced. The war has changed the level of technology,
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  Speaker 4: the lethality of the weapons systems, the integration, for instance,
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  Speaker 4: of drone warfare and how drones have impacted this battlefield
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  Speaker 4: is something that I can say I couldn't have imagined
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  Speaker 4: when when I was in the military, and very few
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  Speaker 4: people can because it's a new phenomena that's still being
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  Speaker 4: developed on the battlefield. This war is very difficult for
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  Speaker 4: non specialists to comprehend. And the important thing about it
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  Speaker 4: when right now, most people, especially people who don't understand combat,
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  Speaker 4: no war from a book. They know war in a
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  Speaker 4: theoretical way, and so they're used to looking at maps,
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  Speaker 4: and they're used to seeing arrows drawn on a map,
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  Speaker 4: and they're used to envisioning war in terms of the
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  Speaker 4: movement of a colored arrow across a piece of paper.
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  Speaker 4: And then they look at the Second World War, for instance,
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  Speaker 4: and they look at the movements that took place both
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  Speaker 4: on the Eastern Front and in Western Europe, in North Africa,
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  Speaker 4: in Italy. But what they failed to do is attach
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  Speaker 4: numbers to those arrows. For those arrows to move, hundreds
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  Speaker 4: of thousands, sometimes millions of men had to die to
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  Speaker 4: achieve the movement of those arrows. It wasn't as easy
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  Speaker 4: as just drawing an arrow across the map. The military
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  Speaker 4: preparation that had to go in we tend to have
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  Speaker 4: forgotten about that. We've lost that lesson. You take Korea,
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  Speaker 4: and that became a war not of moving arrows, but
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  Speaker 4: a war of attrition. You look at the final stages
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  Speaker 4: of the Korean War, the battles for the hills, for
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  Speaker 4: positioning the final demarcation line, and it was about grinding
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  Speaker 4: the enemy down, making them suffer more casualties than you.
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  Speaker 4: The war in Ukraine is a mixture of the two,
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  Speaker 4: with a less of an emphasis at this stage on
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  Speaker 4: moving arrows and more of an emphasis on literally grinding
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  Speaker 4: down your opponent. And that's the phase that the Russians
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  Speaker 4: are in right now. They have made a decision given
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  Speaker 4: the lethality of combat. And again I just want to
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  Speaker 4: point out Vladimir Putin just signed a new act or
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  Speaker 4: order increasing the size of the Russian military to one
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  Speaker 4: point five million approximately active duty forces. That's an increase
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  Speaker 4: of around six hundred thousand since the war began. The
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  Speaker 4: size of the Soviet army at the end of the
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  Speaker 4: Second World War, I believe was closer to twelve million.
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  Speaker 4: That's how they achieved those big arrows twelve million. There's
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  Speaker 4: hundreds of thousands of troops deployed in Ukraine today. These
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  Speaker 4: are the numbers of troops here are not sufficient to
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  Speaker 4: sustain the kind of offensive maneuver warfare, especially given to
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: the lethality of modern weapons that we saw in World
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  Speaker 4: War Two. So the nature of the conflict itself dictates
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  Speaker 4: where we're at this war of attrition in the West.
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  Speaker 4: I think people look at the lack of movement on
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  Speaker 4: the battlefield and they say that's indicative of a successful
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  Speaker 4: defense on the part of the Ukrainians, that the Russians
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  Speaker 4: have stalled, that the Russians aren't achieving meaningful results. But
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: the battlefield losses prove otherwise that the Russians, in maintaining
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  Speaker 4: offensive pressure along the entire line of contact, are killing
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  Speaker 4: Ukrainians at a rate that is unprecedented in history. Because normally,
• 16:38
  Speaker 4: again the general can correct me if I'm wrong on this,
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  Speaker 4: but when you're planning offensive operations, you want a three
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  Speaker 4: to one advantage or greater, given the inherent advantages defense
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  Speaker 4: has been taking on an attacking force. Here we have
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: the Russians actually in many cases attacking it a one
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  Speaker 4: to three redisadvantage and yet achieving a five to one
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  Speaker 4: sixty one, seven to one casualty ratio in their favor.
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  Speaker 4: This is not the mathematics that is linked to an
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  Speaker 4: army that's losing. This is the math attached to a
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  Speaker 4: winning formula, which is designed to have the enemy expend
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  Speaker 4: more troops and more equipment than it can replace, so
• 17:30
  Speaker 4: the enemy gets weaker over time, whereas the Russians, in
• 17:33
  Speaker 4: maintaining this pressure are able to replace their losses both
• 17:38
  Speaker 4: manpower and material and get stronger. And the correlation of
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: forces in an attrition style warfare inevitably leads to the
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  Speaker 4: collapse of the defender, and I think that's the situation
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  Speaker 4: that we are approaching on the battlefield right now, where
• 17:53
  Speaker 4: Ukraine is unable to sustain cohesive combat operations along the
• 17:59
  Speaker 4: entire line of contact, and the Russians, by being able
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  Speaker 4: to sustain meaningful offensive military pressure, are creating opportunities where
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  Speaker 4: you're starting to see not big arrows, but smaller arrows.
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  Speaker 4: The Russians are starting to move the battlefield back, and
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  Speaker 4: this puts the Ukrainians in an additional disadvantage because now
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  Speaker 4: they're leaving defensive positions that they have prepared since twenty
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: fourteen twenty sixteen, and they're moving into positions that aren't
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  Speaker 4: fully prepared, and they're doing so with troops that are
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: insufficient to the task, both in terms of quality and quantity,
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: troops that lack the training unnecessary to gain. The General,
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  Speaker 4: I hope would back me up on this. A poorly
• 18:45
  Speaker 4: trained soldier is a threat to everybody around him. Numbers
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  Speaker 4: in that case don't matter.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Scotland, I think that's a good point at which to
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: ask General Backsha if he will come in and give
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: us his analysis. You've taken us through. This is a
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: vicious war. The casualties are huge. Of course, in the West.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: We are simply not being told to the Ukrainian casualties.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a war commentary before that simply doesn't
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: talk about casualties on one side. But we know they're huge.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: This is a horrible war and at the moment there's
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: no question that Russia appears to be moving forward on
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: the battlefield. General, what's your assessment to the war?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you so much.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: You know, as we see it here in India, we
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: see a transition from low intensity conflict era in the
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: last century two high intensity, long duration conflict. You see
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: advanced age. In the last century. We were being told
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: all wars would have to be short duration, but now
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: the wars are increasingly you know, the more things change,
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: the more they remain the same.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: We are going back to the last two years of.
• 20:09
  Speaker 3: The Second World War in terms of the the quantum
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: of forces employed, firepower employed, attrition, scales of attrition, and
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: even at the closing stages of the Second World War,
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: I mean, the early Britzkrieg were already history.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: It was artillery that was proving to be the god
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: of war, as Stalin had so well put it, and
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: you had these, you know, massive battles of grinding attrition,
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: but relentless pushes towards Berlin, all the way from Moscow
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: and beyond, etc. So we see that the era of
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: asymmetric wars, you know, like United States fighting in Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: All the lessons that we learned from those set of
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: asymmetric inflicts I think are now out of the window.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: We are back to the era of symmetric wars between
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: evenly matched opponents, and that is leading to colossal, heavy
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: level of casualties. As I think Scott's so so rightly highlighted,
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: you know, and so graphically highlighted. The fact of the
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: matter is that in terms of offense and defense, we
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: find that defense has once again overtaken offense as the
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: more what shall I say, is a successful form of war.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: The Russians use that. Last year they build the Surovakin line.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: The Ukrainian launched there two very well heralded, very well
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: advertised offensives which came to not they just paid the
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: horrific kind of price in casualties that Scott just highlighted.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I agree one hundred percent with him.
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: There.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: The point.
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  Speaker 3: The other point that we see, because we have a
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: lot of Russian equipment, and we've been exposed to a
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: lot of Russian.
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: Military doctrine in doctrinal terms.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: As Scott said, in World War Two, from almost a
• 22:10
  Speaker 3: similar population base, they had mobilized twelve million. Now they
• 22:16
  Speaker 3: have been getting even to one point five million by
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: painful stages. And we were wondering, why, I mean, why
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: did they, the Russians, at the very outset not use
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: the World War to Marshal Zokoff doctrines of mass and scale,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: you know, first national on second national, on third national,
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: on operational maneuver group, you know, to overwhelm the enemy,
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: and you know, like we were all thinking it would
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: all be over in ten days. But what we've found
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: was a curious force restriction, you know, a curious set
• 22:50
  Speaker 3: of restraint, self imposed constraints. And we were wondering, what
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: exactly is the is the I mean, why is this happening?
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: Then we speculated that there is the garassium of doctrine
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: of hybrid warfare, which is at odds with the original
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: Russian doctrine of mass and scale. Ogarkov and as Scott
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: would be witness to, we've been studying that all his life.
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: But definitely the Russians started this war with just about
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty thousand and on. Out of them,
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: I think about ninety thousand, you know, actual soldiers really
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: saw combat, apart from the Wagner and the volunteers right,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: and they.
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: Achieved their initial objectives.
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: But then they came to a stasis where they had
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: to hold almost a thousand kilometer line and they were
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: painfully shot. They had to mobilize three hundred thousand reservists
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: and now some more two hundred and fifty thousand more,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: and as Scott is saying, they might have to go
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: up to one point five million. So I think this
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: has lengthened out the war for them. They have destroyed
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: the Ukrainian arm for three times over. They've destroyed the
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Ukrainian economy three times over. But because of the NATO backing,
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: because of the American backing, primarily financial and military, they
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: are just rebuilding armed forces that are being destroyed sequentially.
• 24:18
  Speaker 3: So where do we go from here? You know, November
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: is coming presidential elections in the United States, and both
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: the US and NATO are very keen not to be
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: seen on the losing side. They started this war, they
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: provoked Russia they provoked Russia, They poked Russia in the
• 24:37
  Speaker 3: eye till it was forced to invade. And now they
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: can't be seen as losing this conflict. So we find
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: a level of desperation which is now frankly getting dangerous,
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: now getting dangerous. You know, Ukraine was incited to launch
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: the offensive in the so called incursion into Curse. And
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: from the military, you know, analyst point of view, I
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: must say they did achieve surprise at the strategic, operational,
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: tactical levels. But then to what end, to what end
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: that offensive has been contained. It was not able to
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: divert Russian forces which are homing in onto Petrovsk in
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: the don Bars, and it was not able to hit
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: that course nuclear power plant and create some kind of
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: a Chernobyl reducts. So now they are being handed from
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: all sides. The Russians, without touching their reserves in the
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: don Bars, have brought in their akhmat Chichen forces, They've
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: brought in their marines, they've brought in some other special forces,
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: and they have well contained this. They're on the well
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: on the path now to cutting them off and to
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: destroying this the you know, this fire pocket from where
• 25:54
  Speaker 3: their fab bombs their FPV drones. Their artillery is taking
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: a toll of all the people.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: That are now boxed in into the Cusk.
• 26:04
  Speaker 3: Selling They're offensive in the east, relentless, methodical, but steadily
• 26:10
  Speaker 3: pushing forward. They've been using tree lines, They've been using
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: small infantry. Scots dismounted the era of large tank assaults,
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: big red arrows.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: As Scot so rightly said, is pass it right.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: But the fact is now with the authorization to use
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: the cruise missiles, the storm shadows, et cetera at all
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: in Russia, proper Heartland, Russia, proper Moscow and close to it.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: This the Putin has clearly stated that to the guidance
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: for these comes from American satellites, and in fact, if
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: these weapons are used, the United States and NATO are
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: at war with Russia, and there will be costs, there
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: will be consequences. I don't think they will be nuclear
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: costs and consequences to begin with, because from the point
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: of view of the Russian armed fossils, if they can
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: achieve it with conventional means, which they appear to be
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: confident of, they may not.
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: Escalate to the tactical nuclear threshold.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: But when you escalate at this pace, then I'm afraid
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: you are creating situations of accidental escalation, unwanted escalation, but
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: which could spiral out of control. And we all know
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: that Russia has over five eight hundred nuclear warrants, and
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: I think that is an extremely sobering thought. But I'm
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: sorry we don't see that kind of sobriety in the
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: Western capitals. We don't see that kind of sobriety. And
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: may as I as a nation from the south, you know,
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: the global South, tell you that World War One happened
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: in Europe, World War two happened in Europe and had
• 28:00
  Speaker 3: the rate at which Western statesmen are going, I won't
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: be too surprised if World War three also happens in Europe.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: And with you apologies and a tongue in cheek, if
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: I may say, we get lots of sermons on reason
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: and rationality, et cetera.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: From the West.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: You know it is the Orientals who are supposed to
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: be motive and loss of faith.
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: Et cetera.
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: But I'm very sorry to state we find this happening
• 28:27
  Speaker 3: far more in the West now, and it is reaching
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: levels that threatened the rest of the world. It threatened
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: the rest of the planet. It's time that you know, somebody,
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: somebody called a halt to this, you know, this slide
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: towards armageddon.
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: It's dangerous for the planet.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Thank you, General, but actually, thank you, thank you very
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: much for that. Can I just ask you mentioned the
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: fact that Ukraine is really into only number three that's correct.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: So in India, is the information about the true casualties
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: of this war? Do you get that information about the
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: actual number of casualties on the Ukrainian side? Is this
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: just censorship in the West that stops us ever hearing
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: about the death and the injuries on the Ukrainian side?
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: Do you get that information?
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: We tune in very much to the YouTube and we
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: listen to Scott Ritter, We listen to Colonel Megre God,
• 29:35
  Speaker 3: we listen to a whole lot of very honest US analysts,
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: and we have.
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: A lot of respect for people who can speak the
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: truth to power. Right.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: It may have its consequences, but unless we have that,
• 29:48
  Speaker 3: we are not democracies, really and truly. So a lot
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: of our information comes from the West itself. The official
• 29:56
  Speaker 3: media is of course, I mean it's more for TikTok
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: if I may support it. The media wars have been
• 30:04
  Speaker 3: won by the West one hundred times over, but on
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: the ground they do not reflect that reality.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: We are grateful to.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: You know, American analysts like Professor mier Scheima, you know,
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: and a number of others whom I cannot all name
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: in this, but they are active on the on the
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: social media, and that is a saving grace that the
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: truth does speak out, does have a tendency to come out.
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: We have Russian Russian television also, of course you have
• 30:36
  Speaker 3: to glean through a lot of propaganda material to come
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: to that. But then there are Russian telegram channels which
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: are also very very informative, and there are Russian military
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: TV telegram bloggers who.
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: Can weigh a lot of information.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: We look at both the sides because it is it
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: is vital for us as military professionals to keep a
• 30:59
  Speaker 3: track of the conflict, especially because ninety percent of our
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: heavy equipment is Russian. We have T nineties, we have
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: T seventy two's, we have the Guards, we have the Smirch,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: we have the MAG twenty nine through thirties, et cetera.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: So it is vital that we follow this conflict and
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: we get to the truth. We're not interested in propaganda.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: We're not interested in information warfare. Narratives will do the
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: war of narratives. We would like to get what is
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: the God honors truth, because the truth concerns us one general.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Thank you, gentlemen. I put some points together which my
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: thoughts might be might help us in the analysis of
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: what's what's happening in Ukraine and how in particular the
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: West is operating. I'll just run through these and then
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: then i'd like to get you to comments and am
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: I hitting the right sort of spots. But one of
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: the things that's fascinated me in general, you've just mentioned
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Western politicians, but we now in the West appear to
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: have what I describe as rogue politicians. We have people
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: that have been very active in Eastern Europe seemingly to
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: ferment the war in Ukraine. Victorian Newland must be one
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: name that comes to the four on this. But we've
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: also seen former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson being active,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: not in calling for peace to prevail, but seemingly persuading
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: the Ukrainians to reject bona fide peace proposals put to
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: them by the Russians. We've got Anthony Vincoln Blincoln who
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: seems to be a sole warrior to keep this war going.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: So one of the things that I notice within my
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: own country, but I think this is also happening in
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: the United States and inside Europe is we have a
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: very small number of politicians who seem to be running
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: an agenda, a pro war agenda on Ukraine, even outside
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: their own political party structures. These seem to be people
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: fomenting war who have no checks and balances. Do you
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: agree with what I'm trying to point out to the
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: audience or do you see it in a different way?
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: How do you regard these politicians? God, I'll throw that
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: back to you if I.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: Me well, I mean, I agree with your assessment. You know. Again,
• 33:45
  Speaker 4: being a former Cold Warrior with a who spent a
• 33:48
  Speaker 4: lot of time focused on the Soviet Union, I can
• 33:52
  Speaker 4: tell you that in the nineteen eighties in early nineteen nineties,
• 33:57
  Speaker 4: the level of expertise that exists did within the Department
• 34:01
  Speaker 4: of Defense, the State Department, throughout the United States about
• 34:05
  Speaker 4: the Soviet Union, about Russia was unprecedented. And this was
• 34:11
  Speaker 4: during the Cold War, where I can attest as a
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: former Cold warrior, we viewed the Soviets as our existential enemy.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: When Ronald Reagan characterized them as the evil Empire, you
• 34:26
  Speaker 4: didn't see too many people objecting. But we objected from
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: a foundation of knowledge and information that was real and realistic,
• 34:37
  Speaker 4: meaning that we had a very accurate appraisal of who
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: the Russians were. We may not have liked their government,
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: but we had no choice but to respect their history
• 34:50
  Speaker 4: and culture because we studied it, and if you study
• 34:53
  Speaker 4: it with any integrity, it's a history and culture that
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: must be appreciated. Respected the Russians because you understood who
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: they were. And the dynamic here is that you had
• 35:11
  Speaker 4: this broad foundation of expertise that moved down to the
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: lowest possible level, meaning in order to even enter into
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: the realm of so called Soviet affairs specialist Soviet analyst,
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: you had to pass a threshold of qualifications, meaning people
• 35:32
  Speaker 4: wouldn't listen to you unless you knew what you were
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: talking about, unless you could cite the history, you know,
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: speak intelligently about these issues, and then and only then
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: were you invited in behind the door, and then you
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: worked your way up. This meant that the people at
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: the tip of the pyramid were held to account by
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: the intellectual capacity of those they led that you could
• 35:59
  Speaker 4: not get away way with saying things that were grossly
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: irresponsible from a standpoint of historical fact and qualitative analysis.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: We were so well served by our Soviet experts, our
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: Russian analysts at that time. You can have a problem
• 36:21
  Speaker 4: with the policies they were made, because policies are made
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: not necessarily based upon the accuracy of historical fact, but
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: upon domestic imperative, meaning that politicians would always do what
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: politicians are going to do, regardless of what the history is.
• 36:37
  Speaker 4: But the people who were advising were of extremely high quality.
• 36:44
  Speaker 4: Then the Cold War came and we literally wiped out
• 36:47
  Speaker 4: that class of people. I was interviewed by the CIA
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: in nineteen ninety three. This is three years after the
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: director of the CIA had a war worded me two
• 37:00
  Speaker 4: classified commendations for my expertise on Soviet strategic nuclear forces
• 37:07
  Speaker 4: and arms control. So I would imagine that I was
• 37:10
  Speaker 4: fairly well positioned as a so called Russian expert to
• 37:15
  Speaker 4: be of value to the CIA in there in an
• 37:18
  Speaker 4: analytical capacity. But the head of the of the they
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: called it the Office of Russian and East European Affairs
• 37:27
  Speaker 4: or something of that nature. After interviewing me said we
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: we aren't interest and I just said, well, could you
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: please tell me why. I mean, I'm interested in self improvement.
• 37:37
  Speaker 4: If there's if there's deficiency, I would like to know.
• 37:40
  Speaker 4: He said, no, it's you're tainted by your past. You see,
• 37:46
  Speaker 4: you view Russia with a Soviet bias. We don't want that.
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: We want people who view Russia as the way we
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: want Russia to be viewed. Today, we're reimagining, right. Do
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: you see what's happening here. They're no longer dealing with
• 38:02
  Speaker 4: historical fact. They're dealing with a reimagination based upon a
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: reality that they are seeking to impose on Russia. And
• 38:11
  Speaker 4: that was the decade of the nineteen nineties. This is
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: where fact based history no longer matters. Reality no longer matters.
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: It's what's imagined. And in order to get this, the
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: system imposes standards on academia that produces the experts that
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: are fed into the system. In the past, the system
• 38:33
  Speaker 4: demanded people with knowledge, fact based knowledge, sound analytical capabilities.
• 38:40
  Speaker 4: The system no longer was demanding that. The system demanded
• 38:43
  Speaker 4: people who could fit into this reimagination. In fact, the
• 38:47
  Speaker 4: more you knew about Russia, the more you knew about
• 38:50
  Speaker 4: the Soviet Union, the less attractive you were to the system,
• 38:53
  Speaker 4: because the system didn't want the truth. The system wanted
• 38:56
  Speaker 4: you to comply with the dictate of policy, which was
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: to view Russia from the standpoint of what America desired.
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: We desired a weakened Russia. We desired a subservient Russia.
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: We desired a Russia that would bend to our needs,
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: who would feed our economic greed, who would accept the
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: fact that they had no ability to be independently politically,
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: you know, to be politically independent. And so the system
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: creates people. And if you look at the people that
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: are advising the leaders today, they all come from an
• 39:28
  Speaker 4: academic group background that I call the Putin whisperers. Almost
• 39:33
  Speaker 4: without exception, they've written books and PhD thesis on the
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, on the evil of the Putin regime.
• 39:41
  Speaker 4: They diminish Russia by putting all this emphasis on a
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: man who they've inaccurately described. So what happens is we
• 39:50
  Speaker 4: get the Victoria Newlans, we get the Michael mcfalls, we
• 39:53
  Speaker 4: get these various experts now that are advising our politicians,
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: and they're giving horrible advice, and there's nobody beneath them
• 40:02
  Speaker 4: to hold them to account because the system that produces
• 40:05
  Speaker 4: the experts is itself corrupt. And this leads us to
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: where we are today with an inability to accurately assess
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: the reality of Russia. So when we see things happening
• 40:18
  Speaker 4: in Russia, we don't see them based upon a Russian
• 40:21
  Speaker 4: reality from a Russian perspective. We see them based upon
• 40:24
  Speaker 4: our prejudices and the conditions that we've imposed on this.
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: We've overlaid Russia must be forever weak. Therefore, we can't
• 40:35
  Speaker 4: accept a Russia that asserts itself militarily, so and we
• 40:39
  Speaker 4: can't acknowledge that Russia has done something that changes the paradigm.
• 40:44
  Speaker 4: So we have to interpret Russia's actions as actually a
• 40:48
  Speaker 4: manifestation of weakness. And you see that as Russia is
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: prevailing on the battlefield, the Western analytical perspective is Russia
• 40:56
  Speaker 4: is failing. As Russia strengthens itself, not only politically from
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: a domestic standpoint, but internationally. I mean, just take a
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: look at what's happening with bricks. We interpret this as weakness,
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: not strength. It's as if you Orwell's double speak has
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: taken over the Western analytical perspectives, and this is an
• 41:18
  Speaker 4: extremely dangerous situation because unless you have a realistic, accurate
• 41:25
  Speaker 4: assessment of your adversary, and right now, for better or worse,
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: Russia is the adversary of the West. If you don't
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: assess your adversary correctly, then anything you are preparing to
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: do in response to that adversary, whether it be reactive
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: or proactive in nature, is doomed to fail because you're
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: not basing it upon reality. You're basing it upon fantasy.
• 41:47
  Speaker 4: And that's where we are. And later on I hope
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: we talk about how this impacts the slide to armageddon,
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: because the one thing I will say is everybody keeps
• 41:55
  Speaker 4: viewing this potential nuclear paradigm from the perspective of Russia
• 42:01
  Speaker 4: using nuclear weapons. First. Russia will never use nuclear weapons. First.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: The biggest danger here is the United States and the
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: way we've shaped our nuclear doctrine. And I fear that
• 42:17
  Speaker 4: World War three will start with an American nuclear preemptive
• 42:21
  Speaker 4: attack because that's how we're organized and geared to do,
• 42:24
  Speaker 4: because we have totally misread the Russians and we're giving
• 42:27
  Speaker 4: bad advice to our policymakers.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Scott, I'd just like to throw this one in and
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: then I'm going to come across the general again. But
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: a few months ago I was able to interview a
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: gentleman called Jay Michael Waller, former CIA operative. He's written
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: a book called Big In tell how the CIA and
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: the FBI went from Cold War heroes to deep state villains.
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: And in that book he was absolutely describing the breakdown
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: in the West in the quality of the West's analysts
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: and their ability to look at other nation states and
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: assess them properly. And he was also saying this causes
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: us huge problems in the world because the agencies that
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: should be doing their utmost for the truth and accurate
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: assessment so that we stay as safe as possible are
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: themselves now compromised, and our tasks with just producing a
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: picture which suits the currents in power political system. So
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: he talked about a breakdown inside American intelligence, and he
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: talked about it being steered to give answers that the
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: state wanted in the first place. So to come back
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: to you, General Bakshu, something that I picked up on
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: was when you were talking to us, you said how
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: surprising it was that the Russians had taken a lot
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: of time to actually ramp up their military forces in
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: order to deal with with Ukraine, and this in the
• 44:11
  Speaker 1: West was taken as a sign of weakness and incompetence.
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: But I think that the truth was that the delay
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: was because the Russians were actually trying to make the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: discussion and the debate work before there was combat. So
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: from my point of view, I'd like to say to you,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: it's becoming very clear to us in the West that
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: we are being so heavily censored in all the information
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: we receive about not only Ukraine, but what's happening in
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: Africa for example, that we have to be very careful.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: So I'll just throw that back to you.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: Thax what I'd like to stay.
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: They're a very interesting paper in the military writings of
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: Mao Zedong where he talks of the need for you know,
• 45:06
  Speaker 3: subjectivity and objectivity. You have to curb subjectivity on the
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: battlefield and be very objective and realistic about your estimates
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: of your adversary, your enemy, etc. With the era of
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: information war, with the era of trying to impose your
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: fictive narrative onto the other side, you can win the
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: war on television. The downside is that if you are
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: taken away, carried away by your own narratives, that you
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: lose touch with objective reality.
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry. That is dangerous, you know, in trying.
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: To sell a narrative to your own domestic audience, to
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: the international, regional, global audience, when you get consumed by
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: that narrative, and when that narrative becomes so dominant in
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: your own thinking, but it doesn't become dominant on the ground.
• 46:01
  Speaker 3: The ground, objective reality, the military reality is what I
• 46:05
  Speaker 3: think all of us as military professionals, if we lose
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: sight of that, we're asking for trouble.
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: We're asking for trouble.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: And I think that is precisely what has happened Apropos.
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: The other very pertinent.
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: Issue that you raised, you know, Russia, I find from
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: the very outset has been very keen to negotiate. Of
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: all the Russian leaders, I don't think there was a
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: more West friendly leader than you had in Putin. Frankly,
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: he's been trying to reach out to you. And you
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: know he almost at once said a stage, said make
• 46:37
  Speaker 3: us a member of the NATO. You know, I mean
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: what used the Warsaw Pact is gone, so he'd gone
• 46:43
  Speaker 3: to that extent. He served for a long time in Germany,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: so I think he understands the Western Psyche. And he,
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: for one, I think, is one Russian leader very very
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: keen to have a death m with the West. He
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: would like nothing more than that. That is why he
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: was taken in by the in Skechords, which, as Angela
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: Merkel told us later, was just designed to gain time
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: to arm the Ukrainian armed forces. Then you know, just
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: before the invasion of Ukraine, there were a lot of talks,
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: back channel talks Macron coming to Moscow, et cetera. But
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: these were all again we find the smoke screen. They
• 47:24
  Speaker 3: mostly peace talks have been used as deception measures in
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: the West. Frankly, and then you know, we all know
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: April twenty twenty two, when Russia had achieved its minimal objectives,
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: had taken sixty percent of Donteesk, ninety percent of Luhansk,
• 47:43
  Speaker 3: it had taken a corridor to Crimea, land bridge to Crimea,
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: and it had taken the whole Ukrainian course less the
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: port of Odessa. They had fulfilled their primary basic objectives
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: of freeing the Russian speaking areas right at that time
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: they were talks mediated by Belarus, they were talks mediated
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: by Turkey, and an agreement had been signed and truce agreement,
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: peace agreement had been signed, which if Zelensky had accepted,
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: he would have come out of winner.
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: It almost Tosco.
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, it talked, I mean, though the terms haven't
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: been made public, but the guess is that it talked
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: of making Luhansk and Donteesk independent. At one stage he
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: had even agreed to withdraw from everywhere as a goodwill gesture.
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: He had withdrawn from Kive from the gate, so Cave
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: had withdrawn Russian forces. That was immediately played in the
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: Western media as a Russian route, how incompetent the Russians.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: Were, et cetera.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: We were told ad infinitum, you know, and then Boris
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Johnson flies into Cave and he reads out the roy
• 48:52
  Speaker 3: attack to Zelensky, you will not sign this peace deal.
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: You will fight on And once.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: Again, just before the course Co offensive, we found a
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: series of peace talks, you know, back channel talks, and
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: what would be the modalities of achieving peace ceasfire and
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: the rest of it. Even our country has now been
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: roped in, you know, with the Prime Minister going to
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: Moscow and to Cave to try and see if something
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: can be done to stop this madness. But the simple
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: fact of the matter is, I don't think the West
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: is keen to let any peace talks happen. They're still
• 49:32
  Speaker 3: talking in that Zelenski's delusion in terms of.
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: Victory in Ukraine. So I mean, you can't be that
• 49:41
  Speaker 2: divorce from reality. If you are, then I think that
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: is psychotic. That's a bit psychotic.
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: I mean, bluntly speaking, if you don't give credence to
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: the ground reality, your fictive reality will not always be.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: Able to impose.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: There is a kernel of truth, you know, which in
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: Indian philosophy it's a is paramount. You can't impose fictive
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: realities onto that, you know, And if you do, it
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: works for a time. Like Lincoln said, you can fool
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: some of the people all the time, all the people
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: some of the time, but not all the people all
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: the time.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: And you have a global audience.
• 50:16
  Speaker 3: Where a lot of the censorship is not applicable, thank God,
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: So people can see things for.
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: What they are.
• 50:23
  Speaker 3: And I would think that the real chance for peace
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: will come only after the November elections in the United States,
• 50:34
  Speaker 3: and that too depends upon the outcome as to who wins.
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: And there has.
• 50:40
  Speaker 3: To be a level of exhaustion on both sides for
• 50:42
  Speaker 3: peace talks to commence. But the problem is when Ukraine
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: has been brought to the point of exhaustion and Finito
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: two three times. But then if you rebuild the Ukrainian army,
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: rebuild the Ukrainian economy from a scratch upwards, it could
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: go on forever. The feeling here in the East is
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: that they are using Ukraine as a battering ramp. They
• 51:07
  Speaker 3: are going to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian I
• 51:10
  Speaker 3: don't know what the next step is. One speculation is
• 51:14
  Speaker 3: that when they feel they have exhausted Russia, then they'll
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: seek a direct conflict with Russia. You're welcome to your
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: cuckoo land. A direct conflict with a nuclear armed power.
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: You think they'll tamely go in under and not use
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: a single nuke. I mean, that's Alice in Wonderland.
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: General. It's an amazing statement one that I agree. You're
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: using the word psychotic when you are talking about Western politics.
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: It seems to me that we've got to this stage
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: and Scott before, oh, you give us your take on it.
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: The other thing that's in my head, of course, is
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: many documents pointing to what the West intended to do.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: We've have the Rand document, I think it was from
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, where it was talking about over extending Russia,
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: putting pressure on Russia, and over extending Russia to help
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: bring about essentially a regime change in Russia. We've also
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: had recently the Institute for the Study of War calmly
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: saying well, we actually need the fighting because NATO's lost
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: the ability to fight, and therefore the Ukrainian conflict represents
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: an opportunity for NATO to learn how to fight. And
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: it goes on in that particular report to talk about
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: it being absolutely encouraged that the Ukrainians should experiment in
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: what they do on the battlefield and in their attacks
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: on Russia in order that NATO can learn. These are
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: amazingly callous positions for the West to adopt.
• 53:01
  Speaker 4: I'll just point out real quick the fallacy of that.
• 53:04
  Speaker 4: In general, you are a combat veteran, so maybe you
• 53:07
  Speaker 4: can either agree with me or contradict me on this one.
• 53:12
  Speaker 4: The transition from peacetime to wartime military isn't so much
• 53:17
  Speaker 4: about the muscle memory of the basic tasks. You know.
• 53:21
  Speaker 4: We know how to drive tanks, we know how to
• 53:23
  Speaker 4: fire artillery, we know how to shoot guns. But the
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: biggest transition is learning to kill. The peacetime military doesn't
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: know how to kill. There's a hesitancy when it comes
• 53:39
  Speaker 4: time to actually taking a human life. NATO right now
• 53:43
  Speaker 4: does not know how to kill. You can watch the
• 53:46
  Speaker 4: Ukrainians kill and be killed, but that doesn't train your
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: basic soldier in the not just the art of killing,
• 53:55
  Speaker 4: but the science of killing, the psychology of killing. The
• 53:58
  Speaker 4: psychology of killing is the most important thing. The Russians
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: right now know how to kill. They kill without hesitation.
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: In the initial stages of this conflict, the Russian soldier
• 54:10
  Speaker 4: hesitated and oftentimes paid a heavy price. There is no
• 54:13
  Speaker 4: hesitation right now. When the Russians close in on the Ukrainians,
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: and the Ukrainians closing on the Russians, they kill instantly
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: with lethality. That's unimaginable. If NATO thinks that they're going
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: to learn anything, I will tell you the ultimate outcome
• 54:28
  Speaker 4: of the initial engagement of NATO troops against Russian troops.
• 54:31
  Speaker 4: NATO will be slaughtered, because there will be a hesitancy.
• 54:34
  Speaker 4: They don't know how to kill, they don't know how
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: to react to being killed. It's like trying to go
• 54:38
  Speaker 4: into a boxing ring against Mike Tyson at his prime,
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: having only hit a heavy bag. You think you're good.
• 54:47
  Speaker 4: You can hit a heavy bag. Wow. But when the
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: bag punches back, and it punches back with the skill
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: and the lethality of a Mike Tyson punch, you get
• 54:58
  Speaker 4: knocked out. And if NATO goes up against Russia today,
• 55:01
  Speaker 4: it will be a knockout almost immediately because NATO doesn't
• 55:05
  Speaker 4: know how to kill. They're not programmed to kill. Their
• 55:08
  Speaker 4: programmed for the theory of killing. But the difference between
• 55:11
  Speaker 4: theory of killing and the reality of killing is like
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: night and day. And so I think it's again part
• 55:18
  Speaker 4: of this psychosis that the General has accurately said that
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: that has infected the West. The notion that we can
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: sit back and vicariously watch the Ukrainians engage the Russians
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: and pretend that we now can do what the Ukrainians
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: are doing is absurd.
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to I want to just bring in
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: a little bit more on the facts that we are
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: so heavily censored in the West as to what we
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: can read and understand about this conflict and the origins
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: of the conflict. And I've got to turn to two things.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: One is certainly the BBC. I think I think the
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: UK is unique in having such a single powerful media
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: base that the BBC represents. I'm not sure what the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: budget is now, about eight billion or more, and of
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: course with a worldwide reach to in fact billions of
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: people when it's going. But the BBC is producing biased
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: reporting on the conflict in Ukraine. And one of the reasons,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: one of the ways it's able to do this is
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: by the fact that the BBC has made it its
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: business to train young journalists worldwide, to essentially be offering
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: them scholarships to teach them how media should work. And
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: many of these young people are immediately sucked in to
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: this relationship with the BBC, and of course they adopt
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: the BBC's views and values from the very beginning of
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: their media training. So, for example, I can see reports
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: that are given to the UK public from the BBC,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: but when you look at the journalists who produced them,
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: they're young people who are living in Ukraine or they're
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: now outside Ukraine, and they're not giving you a Ukrainian viewpoint.
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: They're giving you perhaps a Ukrainian viewpoint with the BBC's
• 57:24
  Speaker 1: agenda smeared over the top of it. And in addition,
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: we've I've come to the UK column speaking for the
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: UK column. In our reports, we've also highlighted the people
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: that the BBC has operated a charity called BBC Media Action,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: where that charity has not only been building the media
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: these media relationships with young people inside all sorts of countries,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: not only in Eastern Europe but in the Middle East,
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: but they've also boasted about the fact that they they
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: the BBC people have been working with dissenters inside countries
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: in order to help promote unrest. And one of the
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: key statements was from a lady called Julia Harkin from
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: BBC Media Action who boasted in public material that the
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: BBC had been working with people inside Syria who were
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: standing up against the government in order to assist what
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: they were doing. I was stunned when I first discovered this,
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: but this then shows that we've got the BBC, which
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: is which is clearly a worldwide media system skewing the
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: reporting about dissent and trouble and unrest in countries, but
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: also with Ukraine in the fermenting of a war. And
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: as somebody who lives in Ukraine, I'm sorry, somebody who
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: lives in the UK, and as somebody who's British, I
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: find this so dangerous that so many people in the
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: world listen to the BBC thinking they're getting unbiased news,
• 59:16
  Speaker 1: but what they're actually getting is highly skewed, highly biased
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: news in order to keep the government's agenda going. Scott,
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: I'll throw that back to you. You've got a different
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: situation in the States because although you might have bias
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: in the media, at least you've got different media organizations
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: and sometimes the cracks show where they're not telling the truth.
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: But for us in UK the BBC is all pervasive
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: in telling the people what they must believe.
• 59:52
  Speaker 4: Well, in the United States, even though we don't have
• 59:56
  Speaker 4: it's I think a false perception of diversity when you
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: look at the different media groups. We have a situation
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: where American journalism, in the first of all, has been
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 4: co opted by corporate interests. So when you, for instance,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 4: when you say NBC, I think it's General Electrics that
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: owns it. You say ABC, it's Disney, and these corporations
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 4: exist to entertain and make money. They don't exist to inform.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: We have to start off with that. The second thing
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 4: is the confluence of corporate interests and government interests now
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 4: are one and the same, especially when we speak of
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 4: military industry, to the extent that we can almost speak
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 4: of a level of fascism that exists in the United States,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 4: especially when it comes to information. And this has manifested
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 4: itself in several dangerous ways. You know, John F. Kennedy
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 4: gave a great speech back in April of nineteen sixty
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: one to the American Publishers, a newspaper publishers association, and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 4: there he gives just a staunch defense of the necessity
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 4: of free speech and a free press, implying that the republic,
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 4: the constitutional Republic, cannot survive without a critical press. But
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 4: today we don't want we, being the United States government
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 4: doesn't want a critical press. It wants a compliant press,
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: and it's doing things to ensure compliance by bringing to
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 4: bear the power of the nation, both in terms of
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 4: law enforcement and a judiciary and the legislative branch. There
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 4: have been a couple interesting legal cases in the last
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: couple yours that that underscore what I'm saying. One, look
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 4: at the case of the Who Are Three It's It's
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 4: it's the or three is a black nationalist group. Most
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: Americans wouldn't identify them, would know who they were, and
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 4: that's why the government went at them. To establish certain
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 4: legal precedences and the prosecution of the Who Are Three,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 4: the government sought to criminalize what we call disinformation. Now,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 4: I think the average person when hearing disinformation would say, well,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: that's something that's not true. That disinformation is information designed
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: to be different than the truth, to create its own facts. No,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 4: the government has acknowledged that you can be guilty of
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 4: disinformation by telling the truth if your truth is different
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: than the narrative approved by the government. This is in
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 4: the United States of America, where we embrace free speech
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 4: in a free press. The government has sought to make
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 4: it part of the legal precedent that disinformation cannot be
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 4: judged based upon truth or accuracy, but on conformity to
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: the government narrative. This is extremely disturbing because again, when
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 4: we speak of how you shape public opinion, most Americans
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 4: hear disinformation and they think that means that you're not
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: being accurate. But the reality is from the government perspective.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: As pursued in the courts of the United States. Disinformation
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 4: is information that deviates from the official narrative. There's a
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 4: second case involving RFK Junior, where he has successfully got
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 4: an injunction against the bid Deministration in their attempts to
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: limit his free speech. There's a new term now. It's
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: not misinformation or disinform. The new term that the US
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 4: government has put out there, which has been absorbed by
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 4: the courts, is mal information. Malinformation is information that the
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 4: government acknowledges to be truthful, but the truth is inconvenient
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 4: to the government and therefore deserves to be suppressed. Again,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 4: I'm talking about the United States of America today. I'm
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 4: not talking about McCarthyism in the past. I'm not talking
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 4: about Nixonian you know, assault on free speech. I'm talking
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 4: about the United States today as it exists. The truth
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 4: is the enemy, and corporate media has bought into that notion,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: meaning that you will not get airtime or print space,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 4: you know, column inches in mainstream media. If you base
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: what you're doing on truth on accuracy, you will only
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: gain action, says to the mainstream media. If you conform
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: to the narrative approved by the US government. The United
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: States government is the greatest practitioner of misinforming the American
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 4: people of deceptive work. This has been proven over and
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: over again. Recently, we had a situation early on, I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 4: believe in April of twenty twenty two, early on in
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: this conflict between Russian and Ukraine or the US government,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: in order to get ahead of the Russian narrative, would
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: declassify intelligence information that it new was not accurate, meaning
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 4: they know this information isn't true, but they would declassify
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 4: it and give it to the media, and the media
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: would run with it to get ahead of the Russian narrative. Now,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 4: I have no problem with getting ahead of the narrative
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 4: of my opponent as long as my narrative is fact
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: based in sound. But when you, in order to get
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: ahead of the narrative of your opponent, have to promulgate lies,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 4: in misinformation and deceptive information that implies that your opponent
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 4: is actually on the right side of history. And that's
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 4: where we stand today. The Russians are, in fact, while
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 4: not perfect, they are more on the side of history
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: in terms of fact based analysis and historical relevance than
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 4: we are. And it's because of the media and those
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 4: who dare speak out, and I have to count myself
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: amongst them are intimidated. The US government has sought to
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 4: intimidate me and hundreds of others, thousands of others who
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 4: speak out on Ukraine in a couple of ways. One,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 4: the State Department colludes with a Ukrainian governmental entity, the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 4: Center for Countering Disinformation that works underneath the Office of
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: the Presidency. The State Department funds, it advises, it helps
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 4: it create its and one of the first products produced
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 4: was a blacklist in which prominent American critics of Ukrainian
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 4: policy were listed on this blacklist that would never be
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 4: allowed to happen in the United States, but American money
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 4: and American advice has created a blacklist in Ukraine, which
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 4: is then used against us. For instance, the Department of
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 4: Justice authorized the FBI to raid my house on August seventh,
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 4: based upon probable cause that was derived from some unknown source. Well,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 4: the probable cause comes from the US government itself, by
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 4: either the State Department or Department of Justice. But what
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 4: is the original sourcing of this. It's the Ukrainian government
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 4: feeding to the State Department objections of my reporting. Ukrainian
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: Intelligence feeding to the Department of Justice objections of my reporting,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 4: and then the Department of Justices. There's probable cause that
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: I'm what disseminating Russian disinformation. But I just told you
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: that Russian disinformation, if you use the analytical framework I
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 4: put up with, is the most accurate, fact based information
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: out there. And for somebody who believes that it is
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 4: incumbent upon all journalists, especially American journalists, to give the
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: American public the most accurate information, fact based information with
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 4: the best analytical framework, then I plead guilty to the
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: charges of the government. But they seek to intimidate me,
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: to silence me. We speak of the need to understand
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: the Russian perspective. I went on two very lengthy trips
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: to Russia in the last year, where I was able
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: to observe every aspect of Russian society, from the political
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: to the economic, the social, and the military, including a
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 4: trip to the Dombas, Lugansk, Zapparija, Herason, Donets, and Crimea.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: My observations were helped inform me and whomever I send
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 4: my information to about the reality of Russia. The US
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 4: government has taken umbrage against this. Again, what I said
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 4: earlier about my days as a Cold warrior, what I
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 4: did in Russia would have been embraced wildly. Back then.
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 4: People would have sat me down. I would be speaking
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 4: to the CIA, I would be speaking to the Defense
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 4: Intelligence Agency. I'd be speaking to the State Department. I'd
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 4: be invited to speak at Harvard, at Yale, in Stanford,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 4: at Georgetown, because people would be desperate for the insights
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 4: that would be derived from such close and intimate contact
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 4: with Russians at every level. Instead, they silenced me. They
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: prohibited me going back for a third trip this summer
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 4: by seizing my passport, and now they're seeking to intimidate
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: me from talking about Russia. This this is not how
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 4: we inform a public. This is not how we empower
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 4: a democracy. This is how we facilitate autocracy, dictatorship, plutocracy, fascism,
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 4: and sadly, that's the direction I believe my country is
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 4: headed on.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: General Bakshi, your response on this this is a particularly
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: pertinent point because what Scott's describing we're seeing happening here
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine. In uk you dare to speak out and
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: to challenge the government's policy on anything, but particularly war
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: in Ukraine, and you are to be watched, you are
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: to be spied upon, You're to be stopped at airports.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Is this reality of life in the West. Is this
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: fully understood in India?
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 5: No, very certainly, because we very closely study the literature
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 5: that come out from the United States, from Pentagon especially,
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 5: you know, since Duan Andrews and.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 2: You know, net assessment.
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: Methodology started and then we had this whole wave of
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: information warfare, narrative warfare, you know, psychological operations.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: All that.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: We say, I don't think it's very new, except that
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: the sophistication, levels of sophistication and the forms have changed.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: World War Two we had the you know BBC and
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 3: Berlin and Tokyo Rose, you know, hammering you with propaganda.
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: And the advantage they had was that there was no
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: social media.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: Today, fortunately we have a social media all kind of
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: a media on which people like Scott Writter, like COLINL.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: Megregor can you know, still sway opinions towards the factual basis.
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 3: We have Professor Milscheimer talking, let's not forget we had
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 3: Henry Kissinger himself saying it should be standard maximum for
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: American foreign policy never to take on more than one
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: major Asian power at a time, and they've taken on both.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: I mean they are pushing on both the fronts, you know,
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 3: with the Russians as well as almost enticing the Chinese
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: to act in against Taiwan or against South East Asia,
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: South China Sea, et cetera. So the fact of the
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: matter is we will have to create a constituency that
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 3: for the truth, because, like I said, the truth concerns
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: us all is more than a truism. Let me state
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: a few simple facts the Indian perspective on the Ukrainian conflict.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 3: We need the truth. We do not need narratives either
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: of this or that side, because there are hard dollar
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 3: decisions to be based on that. How do we retrofit
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 3: r T seventy two's do we need to retrofit the
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 3: T nineties? What do we do with our Russian era equipment?
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 3: We need the truth to come to decisions which are viable.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: Right and for that truth constituency I find fortunately it
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: has gone to.
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 2: The social media.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: Though even in the social media there is such a
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: heavy level of influence operations ongoing that when you have
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: to discern the truth, I think we have to fall
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: back on basic military knowledge. Does this narrative, you know,
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: conform to basics of the military knowledge that I have
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 3: learned that I have practiced for thirty seven years. And
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: then you find that you get a feeling of being
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: able to smell the truth right to able to sense
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: or intuit the truth. And I think that is a
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 3: constituency we will have to preserve if sanity is to
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: be maintained in the global order, because in trying to
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: impose fictive realities, like I said, you can do it
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 3: for some time to all the people, for some of
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: the people, you can do it all the time, but
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: not all.
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 2: The people all the time.
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 3: There is something basically spiritual about the truth. I don't
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: want to get into a philosophical discussion, but the fact
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: is it is essential, it is needed, and we have
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 3: to see where we can create democracies can create that
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: free space where a citizen can speak the truth to power,
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: to his fellow citizens, and thereby, you know, he can
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 3: stop disasters from happening. Self correction is a very major
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: thing in a governmental organization, in any military organization, the
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: ability to correct yourself. I find that Russians have it,
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: and very great measure. They have it in very great measure.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: And I agree with Scott. The only narrative that we
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: are finding which is fairly close to the truth now
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 3: is the Russian narrative, whereas there are fictive narratives that
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: are now getting so blatant that even the normal people
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: are seeing through this, and that is what creates a
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: space for the constituency of truth with a small minority
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: like this, like Scott Ritter, like me Gregor, like Meerscheimer.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: You know, and I can quote quite a few other
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 3: American analysts and people where around this man is speaking
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: the truth. It is patently obvious, you see, and there
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: is something intuitive about it with the basis of your
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: experiential with the basis of pattern modeling, you know, there
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: are patterns that tend to persist, and then once you
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: start identifying the pattern, it is easier to read the truth,
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: you know, And you can start right away get with
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 3: that pattern analysis, get to the fact that what Scott
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: Ritter is saying is far closer to objective reality than
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: the subjective narratives that we are being fed with.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 2: That's all that.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: I'd like to say, because it is a very live problem.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: It's not just confined to the United States or the
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: United Kingdom or Europe. It's global. It's global, right because
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 3: the Chinese they have their own set of reality. They
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: have just created their own social media. They've barricaded and
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: stone firewalled their people from anything from outside.
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: So the problem there is far more acute.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: I find democracies, in trying to fight atocracies start resembling them.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: You start resembling your enemy very soon. This is what
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: happened in the Cold War, and then we had Maccarthism
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: and everything. I think it was worse than anything that
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: the Soviet Union could have produced.
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 2: On the other side.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: And so I think in trying to fight an enemy,
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: one should not become entirely like him. I think that
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: is something that the democracies of the world have to
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: watch out for. In your contest between democracy and hutocracy today,
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: there is very little to differentiate. I'm sorry to state
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: that very very basic truth. There is very little to
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: differentiate both sides. Mind control, control of the narrative, control
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: of emotions, control of attitudes, emotions. That is the psy
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 3: warfare paphlet I had to read when I became the
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 3: Brigadier General Staff Information warfare and psy ops in jae K.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: So that's a lot of American good stuff that we read.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: Then we also called him the Russian and we got
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 3: to know about mass Karovica. It's a universal phenomenon, but
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 3: somewhere the decent mass of humanity will have to see
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: that we retain the objective of as close to reality
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: as part.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 2: I think that's what Scott Ritter is doing. He's doing
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: a great job.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: My compliments to him as a military professional to do
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: another Keep up the good work, Scott.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: You're doing a great job in.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: Keeping people the world over informed and keeping them close
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: to the truth and not to fake narratives.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you, general, Thank you very much for that. And
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: I just echoed back to you. I've found it interesting
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: over particularly over recent months, that I am looking and
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: watching Indian generated news reports because I can always learn
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: something from them, and interestingly, in cases where perhaps the
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: information is still restricted in its availability, I'm not suggesting
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: it's being censored by the Indian channel. It's simply restricted
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: in what information is available. But what I've found refreshing
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: is that many times the host of the news program
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: and the guests are asking the right questions, questions which
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: we aren't even allowed to ask, or certainly we're not
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: allowed to ask on the media channels in the United
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: States or the UK or Western media. So I personally
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 1: have been encouraged to see greater accuracy in news reports
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: coming out of India, and that has been a very
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: interesting phenomena for me. I'm watching the time carefully because
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: I believe that we were supposed to aim for about
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: an hour. But if you, gentlemen, are able to manage
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 1: another ten minutes, I have a couple of other points
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: to raise before we look at some form of positive
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: closure for our audience. Are you able to continue for
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: a few more minutes? Okay, thank you very much.
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: The issue is on money, and of course, conflicts cannot
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: operate without a suitable stream of money to finance the
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: weapons and material that's necessary for particularly protracted conflicts. And
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: I've found it particularly unpleasant to watch what is clearly
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: an orchestrated international banking kebal first of all, decide that
• 1:20:27
  Speaker 1: they can gang up on Russia to impose sanctions, to
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: make unilateral decisions, that they can hijack Russian money and
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: ultimately put that money to whatever use they feel, such
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: as further weapons for Ukraine and then fairly recently, and
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: I've forgotten the senator's name, but there was a video,
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 1: a small video clip of an American senator with Zelenski,
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: and the senator says to to the camera without any
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 1: sign of embarrassment. Well, one of the reasons we need
• 1:21:04
  Speaker 1: to continue to support Zelenski is because of the trillions
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: of dollars of mineral wealth which Ukraine is sitting upon.
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: And I just found this utterly obscene, coupled with organizations
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: such as Black Rock talking about what land, what assets
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: they've already taken control of in Ukraine. I also see
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 1: this aspect that the Ukrainians themselves are being deceived by
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: the real nature of the support that the Western society
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: is giving them. So I'll throw that to you, Scott.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: This is a personal opinion, so I'm very happy to
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: be told i'm wrong here, But there is something about
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: the power of the international banking system which I'm deeply
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: uncomfortable with.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 4: Well, you're you have every right to be uncomfortable with it.
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 4: First of all, the international banking system. And again I
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 4: have to be careful here and acknowledge what I know
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 4: and what I don't know. I'm not an economist. I'm
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 4: not a banker, and I don't I don't want to
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 4: pretend that I am one, but I am somebody familiar with,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 4: you know, geopolitics. And when you look at if you
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 4: if you look at the national the national security strategy
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 4: of the United States promulgated by the Biden administration early on,
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 4: one of the things they say straight up is that
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 4: the number one priority of the United States is to
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 4: preserve the rules based international order. That is what we
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 4: put out there is, you know, the the highest aspiration
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 4: apparently the world can aspire to is to be part
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 4: of the rules based international order. But the rules based
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 4: international order is simply a system imposed on the world
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 4: by a victorious the United States at the end of
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 4: the Second World War and then continued after the collapse
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 4: of the Soviet Union at the end of the Cold War.
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: It's designed to preserve American control, American hegemony. And one
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: of the things that we use in this world based
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 4: this this rules based international order, is the international banking system.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 4: It's an American controlled banking system. I mean, there's conspiracy theorists.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 4: You can talk about the Rothschilds and they can talk
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 4: about the Swiss and they can talk about that. But
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 4: from a policy direction standpoint, it is responsive to American directives,
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 4: the World Bank, and in the institutions of this nature,
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 4: even private banking institutions, they work in concert with policy
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 4: directions derived from the United States through the rules based
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 4: international order. And so it's inherently corrupt because first of all,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 4: it's only serving one nation. And this is I sometimes
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 4: catch myself because what I'm about to say as an
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 4: American is deeply insulting. But America has no friends. America
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 4: only has pieces on a board that we move around
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 4: to best serve our interests. We will sacrifice any pawn
• 1:24:26
  Speaker 4: on the board to serve our interests. Look at Ukraine.
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 4: We're not the friend of Ukraine. We claim to be
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 4: the friend of Ukraine, but we're sacrificing Ukraine. The senator
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 4: in question was Lindsey Graham. And what's interesting is that
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 4: I had earlier made a similar statement that a lot
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 4: of what drives the United States is, in terms of
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 4: what it does around the world is competition for resources.
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 4: Resource mapping you find where the resources are, and then
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 4: you build the policies designed to bring those resources to you.
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 4: The fact is much of our Russian policy today is
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 4: based upon breaking down the cohesion of the Russian Federation
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 4: so that it can be broken up into smaller component
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 4: parts that we can more readily impose our will on
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 4: to gain access to the resources. We find it strategically
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 4: inconvenient that the Russian Federation possesses so many resources that
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 4: it becomes truly self sufficient. And if Russia is self
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 4: sufficient in resources, it cannot be manipulated by American control
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 4: of global resources. But Ukraine is that. I said that,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 4: and I was immediately attacked by the Ukrainian government the
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 4: Center for Countering Disinformation for being a Russian propagandist. Well,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 4: what is Lindsey Graham? Because he came out and literally
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 4: said it gave voice to that which I had exposed.
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 4: You know, we're at that stage in this conflict where
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 4: I think all pretense is being stripped away and people
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 4: are being much more blunt about what they want, both
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 4: in terms of resources and in terms of objective. Again,
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 4: what are the strategic objectives of the United States and
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 4: Europe when it comes to the Ukraine conflict? It is
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 4: the strategic defeat of Russia that is their goal. They've stated.
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 4: Lloyd Austin said it, and everybody has backed it up.
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 4: They want to incurse so much damage on Russia that
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 4: Russia a will never again consider engaging in this kind
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 4: of military adventurism. That's a gross misinterpretation of what Russia
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 4: actually did. But that's the Western perspective b to bring
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 4: about so much economic harm on Russia that it creates
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 4: domestic political pushback from within Russia that can bring down
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 4: the government of Vladimir Putin, allowing him to be replaced
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 4: with in effect yelts In two point zh boris Yeltzen
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 4: clone compliant to to the West, compliance subservient to the
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 4: United States. And then see with that leader achieved the
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 4: breakup of the Russian Federation into components that can be
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 4: more effectively exploited by the West. This is the strategic
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 4: objective of the West. As stated. Now, if you're a
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 4: Russian and you hear this, and you know this, and
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 4: the Russians do know this, I can tell you that
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 4: this is existential in nature, meaning that if Russia allows
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 4: the West to prevail in Ukraine, Russia is signing its
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 4: own death warrant. And now we come back to what
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 4: General Bakshi said earlier. You can't defeat a nuclear armed nation.
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 4: When that nuclear armed nation is willing to use nuclear
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 4: weapons to prevent its defeat, that this creates this appari
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 4: this it creates an inevitability of armageddon. So now we
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 4: come back to money. Money drives everything. That's just the
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 4: reality of it. If you can't do grand schemes without funding,
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 4: and since the United States can try roles, the international
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 4: banking community controls international funding within the Western circles. Western
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 4: banks money is serving American policy, and then it comes
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 4: down to an issue of profitability. How do you make
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 4: money off of war? And from the American perspective, you know,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 4: we were warned by Dwight E. Eisenhower about the the
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 4: growth of the military industrial complex and the harm it
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 4: would do to American democracy if it started to collude
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 4: with Congress. So that American taxpayer money got fed into
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 4: a system of enriching defense contractors. But in order to
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 4: keep the defense contractors viable, you need conflicts, and so
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 4: the American way of interfacing with the world becomes a
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 4: nation in search of conflicts that will feed the military
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 4: industrial complex. And this is what Ukraine had become. In
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 4: addition to being a testing ground of militaries. Ukraine has
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 4: become a way for the West to revitalize their defense industry,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 4: which has grown stagnant because of the Cold War, et cetera,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 4: to try and re energize it using this conflict as justification.
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 4: And then the potential conflict with Russia has continued justification.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 4: And the only way that you can stop this now,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 4: because this is that very engine that Dwighting now Eisenhower
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 4: was talking about, this corruption of money and war that
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 4: creates a you know, a reason for living that is
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 4: to the detriment of the world and the people it
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 4: ostensibly serves, the American people. You can only you can
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 4: only defeat this by bankruptcy, meaning removing the money, or
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 4: by defeat of the physical feet of the hedgemon that's
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 4: using this system. Neither one of these are good for
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 4: the world, because to defeat America is as dangerous as
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 4: America defeating Russia. We don't want a defeated America. And
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 4: yet right now we have a policy direction where America
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 4: is defeating itself. This is the most dangerous thing. This
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 4: is the point I wanted to make. It's not going
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 4: to be Russia using nuclear weapons. The United States has
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 4: created a nuclear doctrine and a nuclear employment plan that
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 4: places a heavy emphasis on preemption. One of the reasons
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 4: is the restrictions and limitations on our nuclear arsenal imposed
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 4: by the last remaining arms control treaty New Start. We
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 4: have to do more with less, so we have to
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: make our missiles more accurate, so that we can take
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 4: out Russian missile silos and Chinese missile silos with one shot,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 4: one kill, freeing up warheads to be used and other circumstances.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 4: You can't have a one shot, one kill nuclear employment
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: plan based upon reaction, meaning that the standard nuclear deterrence
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 4: model doesn't work, because what you're saying is you're going
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 4: to wait for them to attack us, which means they're
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 4: going to be taking out our silos or you know,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: before we can run. And so we now are in
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 4: a situation in order for us to dominate the world,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: we have to impose over this a nuclear doctrine that
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 4: allows us, not just in terms of doctrine, but also
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 4: in terms of actual military employment, to preemptively strike in
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 4: a non nuclear environment. And so as we push to
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 4: defeat Russia, and the blowback from the failure to defeat
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 4: Russia results in the defeat of the United States and
• 1:31:51
  Speaker 4: its European allies. What will happen is that the United
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 4: States will say that the only way we can continue
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 4: to survive is to pre empt a Russian victory, and
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 4: that preemption will come in the form of nuclear weapons,
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 4: a nuclear first strike. This is the path we're headed on.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: Everybody's looking at the wrong thing. They're saying the Russians,
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 4: the Russians, the Russians. The Russians will not use nuclear weapons. First,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 4: It's the United States because Russia is not losing. Russia
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: will use nuclear weapons if it faces existential defeat. But
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 4: it is the United States and the Western Europeans because
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 4: of the failure of their policies or are being confronted
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 4: with not just the possibility but the probability of their
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 4: existential defeat, and if that happens, they will use nuclear
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 4: weapons to preserve And that to me is where the
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 4: danger comes from. We can't allow ourselves to lose in Ukraine.
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 4: The psychology of the West, the psychosis of the West,
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 4: as such that we can't accept defeat, which is why
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: we have this desperate effort to inject new weapons systems
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 4: into Ukraine to change the paradigm of the con but
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 4: the Russians won't permit that. They will respond with their
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 4: own conventional capabilities that will hasten the defeat of the West,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 4: and eventually we could find the United States speaking of
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 4: the absolute necessity of using what we call low yield
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 4: nuclear warheads usable nukes in the perverse terminology of American
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 4: nuclear warfighting usable nukes against the Russians, not respecting the
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 4: fact that once you use a nuclear weapon against the Russians,
• 1:33:28
  Speaker 4: they will unleash the totality of their nuclear arsenal in
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 4: a world ending arm Again, this to me is the danger.
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 4: So it's not just about the money, but it's about
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 4: the consequences of the failure of this money to do
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 4: what the world wants it to do, because the rules
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 4: based international order cannot exist without the banking institutions, which
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 4: are rapidly bankrupting themselves in this conflict.
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: General Bankshet, would you like to respond to.
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 3: That, Yes, certainly, But I'd also like to, you know,
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 3: stop with the cave hit that Scott used. That neither
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 3: am I a banker or an economist, but the area.
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 2: Of focuses geopolitics.
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 3: But that having been said, as we analyze it. In hindsight,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 3: the primary aim of this entire Ukraine uh In broglio,
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 3: you know, was to provoke Russia into an invasion, poke
• 1:34:25
  Speaker 3: the Russian bear in the eye till it had no
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 3: other option but to invade you personally, by pushing NATO
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: to its doors. Then he had outlined two red lines,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 3: Georgia and Ukraine. You violated them both and he was
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 3: left with no option but to act. Even at that stage.
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 3: In hindsight, it appears that the grand strategy in the
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 3: West was to you know, make him attack, you know,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: and then unleash a barrage of sanctions, economic sanctions, to
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 3: torpedo the Russian economy, to do to Russia what had
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: been done to the Soviet Union in nineteen ninety, bring
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 3: about its economic collapse. That economic collapse was you know,
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 3: facilitated by Saudi Arabia, you know, going on a reduction
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 3: of the oil prices. They put oil prices in free
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 3: fall in nineteen eighty six, right, and that freefall led
• 1:35:29
  Speaker 3: to the price of oil going down from thirty dollars
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 3: thirty two dollars a barrel then to ten dollars a barrel,
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 3: and that is what collapsed the Soviet economy, not Afghanistan.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 3: I mean, we are.
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 2: Very clear of that particular score.
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 3: You collapse the Soviet economy by a very well thought
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 3: out plan. Andy Marshall and the others must be given
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 3: credit for their net assessment of Russia, its economic weakness,
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 3: et cetera, which was worked upon very well to bring
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: upout a collapse of the Soviet economy. I'm afraid that
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 3: hasn't worked with Russia. Do that seem to be the
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 3: grand strategic aim? A collapse of the Russian economy leading
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 3: to regime change putin in full flight, you know, Madon
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 3: coup in Moscow, etcetera, etcetera.
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 2: All that hasn't worked.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 3: All that hasn't worked because Russia, I think since what
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 3: was coming, and they have taken very sensible precautions. The
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 3: only people who am in economically ruined are the Europeans.
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 3: Germany has taken a hit, France has taken a hit,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 3: Rest of Europe, United Kingdom, They've all taken a big
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 3: hits simple reasons that they were tied to the Russian
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 3: gas pipelines right, and you can't approve them in one
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: particular go. The economic hit has come to Europe and
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 3: not so much to Russia, and I would like to
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 3: get Scott's opinion on this view. Also on this also,
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 3: I think one of the reasons for Putins being so
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 3: conservative in the use of military force, in not trying
• 1:37:04
  Speaker 3: to escalate, is that he was trying to keeping a
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 3: very careful eye on his economic parameters that if they
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 3: went down, he was down, and that is what he
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 3: wanted to avoid. But I think Russia has survived because
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 3: it is actually a private sector economy. Now, it's not
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 3: a command economy. You know, they if McDonald's went out,
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 3: they encouraged their own people to come up and fill
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 3: the breach, and they encouraged China to come and fill
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 3: the breach.
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 2: In terms of the other.
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 3: It is because it is a privatized economy that they
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: have survived. I think one of the reasons they have
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 3: survived now about the world banking system. You know, Russia
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 3: had put it's three hundred billion dollars with American and
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 3: European banks and in one felt stroke they are told Ferrito,
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: they're gone, We've taken them over.
• 1:37:58
  Speaker 2: So what signal do you send to Russsia? I mean,
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: forget Russia, what signal.
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: Do you send to China, to India, to Brazil and
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 3: to a whole lot of other third world countries. Don't
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: part your money in the United States or in any
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: European bank. Take them out the fastest means you can
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 3: d risk d dollarize. I mean you have imposed it
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: upon us. American supremacy. Economic supremacy lies because the dollar
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 3: is the global reserve currency. And if you undermine the
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 3: faith in the dollar this way that whatever you put
• 1:38:33
  Speaker 3: in your bank is ours rule based order.
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's that world? You know?
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 3: So where is the rule based order? If you're going
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 3: to take away just three hundred billion dollars and gone,
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 3: the reaction you will find is that India is taking
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 3: its gold reserves out of u kid the first sensible
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 3: precaution that we could do. China has de risked its
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 3: economy from you know, this posure to American stocks and
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: the others. They're also increasing their stock piles of gold.
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 3: The whole of bricks.
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 2: Is now working and thinking in terms of de dollarization.
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 3: Roopye, ruble trade and roopee you are trade and you
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 3: are ruble trade, et cetera.
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 2: All that is coming in.
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 3: You've knocked the bottom out of the trust that is
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 3: the basis of all banking and I'm afraid you have
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 3: yourself to blame for that kind of a thing. Restoring
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: the trust would take I think aunteen number of years.
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 3: I don't see that happening very soon. And like I said,
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: you have your basic strategic objective of the West, you
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 3: as in the West means I mean, I'm not talking individually,
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 3: but the basic Grant strategic objective was to torpedo the
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 3: Russian economy in that they have failed, and that is
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 3: half the angst and problem. Now when you face military
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 3: failure also as a result of the impending collapse military
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 3: collapse of Ukraine, it's lack on man park, its inability
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 3: to match military mobilization of military technical industrial resources. Then
• 1:40:18
  Speaker 3: you see the panic mode in which some bizarre scenarios
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 3: are being what shall I say, banded about, and if
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 3: some of them actually then the rest of the world
• 1:40:32
  Speaker 3: we all have a genuine problem.
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 1: Thank you, okay, General, thank you very much for that.
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: I have a lot more questions, but I think we
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: also have to be fair with the time and the
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: about the time the audience has been with us. Can
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: I bring you both back onto the key issue is
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: really the thing that's prompted our discussion today, which is
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: that we have now got the US, certainly the UK
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: and other Western countries pushing for long range weapons, whether
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: they're storm shadow or tourist missiles, to be given to
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: the Ukrainians to enable them to attack Russian soil. What
• 1:41:22
  Speaker 1: should we be saying to the wider audience about this?
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: Seems a bad idea to me. Let's qualify it this way.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: It seems just a particularly stupid and outrageous thing to do.
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: We ought to be talking about how we stop the conflict,
• 1:41:40
  Speaker 1: how we get proper negotiation and discussions going. But no,
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: the US, the UK, and the West are pushing for
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: these long range weapons to be unbleashed on Russia. What
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: should we be saying to the audience that they should
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: be thinking about, saying and doing in order to bring
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: some common sense to the situation. I don't know whether
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: you'd like to go first, Scott or the General.
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 4: Perhaps I'm moren't happy to listen to the General. I'm
• 1:42:10
  Speaker 4: learning so much.
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: I have you?
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 4: Okay, Well I'll start. First of all, we need to
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 4: acknowledge that this is insane what people are talking about.
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 4: The double standard is no nation would allow a similar
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 4: circumstance to exist where they were impacted. You know a
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 4: scenario that is ridiculous because it's almost impossible to imagine it,
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 4: But you know, Russia empowering Mexico to fire Russian made
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 4: weapons directed by Russians to targets selected by Russians inside
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 4: the United States and declaim that somehow they're not party
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 4: to the conflict. I can guarantee that the United States
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 4: would hold Russia to account if any such scenario manifested itself.
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 4: I have to believe that India would do the same thing.
• 1:43:09
  Speaker 4: If Pakistan were to provide another nation with weapons, Pakistani
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 4: weapons that could only be fired with Pakistani approval at
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 4: targets selected by the Pakistanis, the Indians would say, then
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 4: you are a party to this conflict and we will
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 4: hold you to account. Pakistan would do the same against India.
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 4: It is just common sense. But we have learned to
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 4: hate Russia and to disregard Russian perspectives so much that
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 4: we are blinded by the hypocrisy of this stance. The
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 4: other thing people need to understand is a lot of
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 4: the Russian strategic posture in terms of bases, infrastructure, ammunition storage.
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 4: Early warning command and control dates back to the Soviet
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 4: Union times when Ukraine was part of it, so the
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 4: Russian the Soviet frontier was extended out to where the
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 4: Ukrainian border is today. The Russians have always said that
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 4: Ukraine must remain neutral because to grant NATO access to
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 4: the Ukrainian body of land is to bring NATO straight
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 4: into the very heart of Russia, so that weapons of
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 4: relatively short range compared to international intercontinental ballistic missiles like
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 4: the storm Shadow and the Scalp suddenly take on strategic imperative.
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 4: They become a strategic weapon. So now, in addition, it's
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 4: not just that the United States is giving Ukraine the
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 4: ability to use American or British weapons to strike targets
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 4: selected by the American and British, but these targets themselves
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 4: have the potential of having a strategic impact on Russia,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 4: meaning to have a detrimental impact on r Ussia's ability
• 1:45:00
  Speaker 4: to defend itself, not from Ukraine but from the collective West.
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 4: And the Russians view this as part of and I
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 4: come back to what I talked about earlier, the preliminary
• 1:45:12
  Speaker 4: aspect of what would be a NATO American preemptive strike
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 4: against Russia, a decapitation strike against Russia, which creates an
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 4: unacceptable threat to Russia. And so this is why I
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 4: think people have a hard time comprehending when I say
• 1:45:31
  Speaker 4: that if you use the storm Shadow, it puts us
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 4: on a fast track to global thermonuclear war, because it's
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 4: not just the storm Shadow striking a target in Russia,
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 4: it's the storm Shadow being interpreted by Russia as being
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 4: a potential to be part of what is doctrinally accepted
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 4: by the United States as a preemptive strike against Russia
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 4: to achieve the strategic defeat of Russia, all of which
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 4: consistent with the direction of the United States and the West.
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 4: So we are literally headed on a one way track
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 4: to global termination if we allow this to happen. It's
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 4: not This is literally one of those red lines that
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 4: I don't believe Russia can tolerate. Russia will have to respond,
• 1:46:19
  Speaker 4: triggering cause and effect relationships that could very well end
• 1:46:24
  Speaker 4: up in a general nuclear war. So people need to
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 4: stop viewing this as just you know, another war fighting
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 4: capability that the West is empowering Ukraine with. This has
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 4: strategic consequences to the Russians, not just from a political standpoint,
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 4: but from an existential standpoint that can't be ignored by
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 4: the Russians.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: General bankshet, what should we be telling people about this
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: appalling situation? What should we be telling them with a
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: view to stopping the madness of this attack?
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: I tend to agree with what Scott has said.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 3: The simple fact is that we've had so many silver
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 3: bullets bandied about in Ukraine. Right the first silver bullet
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 3: was the toe designs the manpads, that they would stop
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 3: the Russians cold in their tracks, et cetera, et cetera.
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 3: The simple fact was that you were thinking in terms
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 3: of Afghanistan, that the Russians would take it over and
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 3: these would be used for guerrilla warfare. But then when
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 3: the Russians, as part of that peace treaty with the Ukrainians,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 3: we drew their troops from the gates of Kaiv. I mean,
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: the the media was full of what a Russian route
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 3: and how absolutely im be sillic incompetent the Russian generals are,
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 3: they can't get.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: The logistics right, et cetera.
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 3: And later it turned out that it was part of
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 3: the peace agreement that the Russians had been drawn. Then
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 3: of course we had the High Mars come in, then
• 1:48:05
  Speaker 3: we had the Attacams. They would win the war for Ukraine.
• 1:48:10
  Speaker 3: I'm afraid in modern war as we know it, there
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: is no one single silver bullet. There is no single
• 1:48:16
  Speaker 3: silver bullet that can give you a victory, not one
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: weapon system, because even if you introduce it within days
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 3: and weeks and months, you will have the counters. You know,
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 3: you had the ECM to jam, the High Mars, to
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 3: jam the Attacams, et cetera. The F sixteens were banded
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 3: about as a game changer. I've seen no earth shaking
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 3: changes in the military landscape in Ukraine with the nine
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 3: F sixteens. One unfortunately or otherwise has already gone down,
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 3: whether it is friendly fire or what anyway, that's a
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 3: minor issue. But this tendency to look for silver bullets
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 3: which will change the whole scenario. So the storm shadow
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 3: actually have already been used in Crimea, you know, they've
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 3: already been used in that peninsula. Now extending them to
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 3: the Russian mainland proper, now you are you know, now
• 1:49:14
  Speaker 3: you are hurting Russian what the French would call him
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 3: out the proper, Now you are wounding Russian sensibilities Russia.
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 3: Too many red lines of Russia have been crossed in
• 1:49:26
  Speaker 3: the last few months for Russia to take this one
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 3: lying down. It is now oriental loss of face. It
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 3: is now oriental loss of face, and that gets us
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 3: into an emotive you know, cycle of uh logic. You
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 3: know when when your rational cold rationality takes a back seat.
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 3: So far, the Russians have been extremely cautious, very prudent,
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 3: and I would lay it all on Puthins.
• 1:49:55
  Speaker 2: You know, he's been very prudent, very cautious.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 3: But how long is supposed to be prudent and cautious
• 1:50:02
  Speaker 3: when others keep pushing the escalation envelope that is now
• 1:50:06
  Speaker 3: becoming a problematic. I think too many red lines have
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 3: been crossed for this one to be crossed in Russia
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 3: without any much ado. I don't think that will happen,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 3: and that is the dangerous territory. The people must be aware,
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 3: The public in general must be aware that they risk
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 3: being NW. Some Russian commentators were talking of putting a torpedo,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 3: a nuclear torpedo, in the sea next to Great Britain
• 1:50:35
  Speaker 3: and creating a tsunami. Would you want that? I mean,
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 3: would you like things to be pushed to. That push
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 3: comes to show push to that level that the other
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 3: side said, okay, you ask for it here it is right,
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 3: So that that concerns us all. I do have relations
• 1:50:55
  Speaker 3: in the United Kingdom. It concerns us all. And that
• 1:51:00
  Speaker 3: is where the public discourse must. Now, you know, add
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 3: into this, just take your mind back to Cuba, the
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 3: way the whole global media built up that tension. Look,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 3: we've got to de escalate. We've got to de escalate.
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 3: This is armageddon, this is the edge, this is the apocalypse,
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 3: this is the nuclear rubicon being crossed. It was all
• 1:51:24
  Speaker 3: over every household that had a television at that time
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 3: or at a radio station. I knew what the stakes were.
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 3: Do the people know? Now, I'm not so sure at all.
• 1:51:36
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure at all. Do they understand the level
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 3: to which this is being pushed in the quest for
• 1:51:43
  Speaker 3: Even if you're saying we will escalate to de escalate,
• 1:51:48
  Speaker 3: you might end up escalating to escalate further. So there
• 1:51:53
  Speaker 3: is a limit beyond which this logic does not work.
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 3: We did hear quite a few threats, you know, like
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 3: President Macron saying that he'd put the French Foreign Legion
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 3: into boots on the ground in Ukraine. It was a
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 3: parent that that was a bit of a bluff, a
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 3: dangerous bluff though, but it was a bit of a bluff.
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 2: But then some.
• 1:52:16
  Speaker 3: NATO officers have paid with their lives because the Russians
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 3: targeted those those you know, training academies and those facilities
• 1:52:25
  Speaker 3: where they were where the Swedes were training the Ukrainians
• 1:52:30
  Speaker 3: on using the AW aircraft to go along with the
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 3: F sixteens.
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 2: I think about two hundred of them have been kidded.
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 3: And that sets in cycle and other ascal literary spiral logic.
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 3: So I think it's about time that in this urge
• 1:52:48
  Speaker 3: to escalate to de escalate, we may have accidental escalation.
• 1:52:54
  Speaker 3: That term was defined was precisely such scenario. And if
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 3: accidental escalator in terms of nuclear weapon usage is to
• 1:53:03
  Speaker 3: be talked off, then the public has a right to know.
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 2: Thank you, gentlemen.
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: I'm going to say a huge thank you to you
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 1: both for speaking with me this afternoon. I certainly feel
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: from the huge amount of information and analysis that you've
• 1:53:23
  Speaker 1: both given on the Ukraine situation that a really good
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: start for people is to if they're watching this, is
• 1:53:31
  Speaker 1: to share this information with as many other people as possible,
• 1:53:35
  Speaker 1: so that a much wider public can understand the sheer
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: madness of the proposed action in Ukraine. And to me
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: it seems very obvious that it's only by getting the
• 1:53:47
  Speaker 1: real truth out and the facts about what is and
• 1:53:51
  Speaker 1: what is not happening on the ground. It's only by
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: understanding the truth that people can make a sensible and
• 1:53:58
  Speaker 1: a coherent decision and on what should take place in Ukraine,
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: how the crisis should be brought to a close. And
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: I think the other thing that goes with it, and
• 1:54:09
  Speaker 1: maybe we've got a quite a nice example by being
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 1: here together, is that we need nation states across the
• 1:54:17
  Speaker 1: world to work together to call for peace in Ukraine.
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 1: And this is now becoming so dangerous that we don't
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: get any protection from being of one particular nationality or
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: nation state or another. We've got to work together across
• 1:54:34
  Speaker 1: national boundaries to demand an end to this conflict and.
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 4: A brain and that could I interject, yes, I would
• 1:54:43
  Speaker 4: be remiss to not say this. This is a unique
• 1:54:47
  Speaker 4: opportunity to speak to the Major General, but to speak
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 4: to an Indian officer of his influence, you know, we
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 4: you speak of the role other nations can play Back
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 4: in the nineteen eighties, the United States and the Soviet
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 4: Union were not talking to each other when it came
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 4: to arms control. There was a critical period of time
• 1:55:11
  Speaker 4: in the early nineteen eighties and mid nineteen eighties when
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 4: politics made it impossible to talk. We have a similar
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 4: situation today in arms control. We have the last remaining
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 4: strategic arms control treaty New Start expiring in February of
• 1:55:26
  Speaker 4: twenty twenty six, and when that expires, the arms races off.
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 4: The United States has said that they're going to begin
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 4: building new nuclear weapons without limitations. That'll create the Russian
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 4: narrative to do the same. The one thing that avoided
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 4: that disaster in the nineteen eighties was the nation of Sweden.
• 1:55:47
  Speaker 4: They were neutral at the time, and Sweden played this
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 4: role of being not a moderator but a facilitator of
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 4: dialogue because the Russians and the United States were prohibited
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 4: from talking to one another. Sweds would have conversations with
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 4: the Russians, and then the Swedes would have conversations with
• 1:56:04
  Speaker 4: the Americans, and then they'd have conversation with the Russians,
• 1:56:08
  Speaker 4: and they then they'd meet with the Americans. Said, well,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 4: the Russians are saying this, and they'd meet with the
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 4: Russians said, well, the Americans are saying this, and the
• 1:56:14
  Speaker 4: next thing you knew, we were talking again. We being
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 4: the United States and India is in a very unique
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 4: position today. Indian Prime Minister Modi was just in the
• 1:56:28
  Speaker 4: United States meeting with the President. I know he was
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 4: there as part of the quad form. But the point
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 4: is America trusts India. They want good relations with Idea.
• 1:56:40
  Speaker 4: Mody was in Moscow embracing Vladimir Putin. We have a
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 4: leader of a nation that is welcomed in both capitals,
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 4: capitals that today aren't talking to one another. It's absolutely imperative.
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 4: I believe that India take advantage of this to try
• 1:57:00
  Speaker 4: and recreate the role that Sweden played in the nineteen
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 4: eighties to facilitate dialogue between the United States and Russia
• 1:57:09
  Speaker 4: on strategic arms control. And this is why in the
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 4: nineteen sixties and seventies, both the United States and the
• 1:57:16
  Speaker 4: Soviet Union developed war fighting, nuclear warfighting scenarios, employment plans
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 4: that were not without limits, and the result was thirty
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 4: thousand nuclear warheads on each side in the world on
• 1:57:29
  Speaker 4: the cusp of just killing each other instantly with one mistake.
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 4: Then arms control came in and as a result, we
• 1:57:38
  Speaker 4: reduced the growth, and then we began to reduce the
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 4: size to bring it down. But more importantly, arms control
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 4: created the confidence amongst both the Soviets and the Americans
• 1:57:49
  Speaker 4: that we weren't looking to go to war with one another,
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 4: and important things happened. Our view of nuclear weapons, our
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 4: employment plans changed, We detargeted missiles, we stopped automatically targeting,
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 4: we had greater confidence in one another, and the threat
• 1:58:05
  Speaker 4: of nuclear war came down to almost the near zero point.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 4: And then, because of the follow of the Soviet Union,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 4: the change of attitude arms control was deemed to be inconvenient.
• 1:58:18
  Speaker 4: So America started pulling out of arm control agreements and
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 4: the result was that our nuclear employment plan now changed.
• 1:58:26
  Speaker 4: Instead of having a zero chance of nuclear weapons, today
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 4: we speak of using nuclear weapons preemptively in a non
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 4: nuclear environment. Why because arms control is no longer in
• 1:58:36
  Speaker 4: the dialogue between our nations, we need to inject arms
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 4: control and it needs to happen now. General, if there's
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 4: anything you could do to advise your government to assume
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 4: this role of facilitator of dialogue until which time Russia
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 4: and the United States learned to be able to talk
• 1:58:58
  Speaker 4: to one another, because the Russians don't us to America
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 4: in America doesn't want to talk to the Russians, so
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 4: there is no dialogue, and without dialogue, there will be
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 4: no arms control. Without arms control, the world ends. I
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 4: think India. I was just watching, you know, Prime Minister
• 1:59:15
  Speaker 4: Modi in Washington, DC, and I said, that guy can
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 4: speak to both Putin and Biden. That is a unique thing.
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 4: He has the confidence of both men. Could we not
• 1:59:25
  Speaker 4: make India the new facilitator of strategic arms control dialogue
• 1:59:31
  Speaker 4: between Russian and the United States, so we can prevent
• 1:59:35
  Speaker 4: this slide towards nuclear armor dead That would be my
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 4: appeal if there was a way that India could find
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 4: a way to become to take on this role.
• 1:59:45
  Speaker 3: Scott, I like to thank you for that, but I
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 3: do think that is the way we are going. The
• 1:59:51
  Speaker 3: very resort of the Prime Minister Modi going to going
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 3: to Moscow having detailed interactions with within then he went
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 3: to immediately six weeks after that to Crave. He had
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 3: detailed interactions with the Zelenski and now he's coming to
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 3: the United States. Is precisely I think the beginning of
• 2:00:14
  Speaker 3: such a role. The Swede, as you put it, reducts
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 3: in terms of which we would be able to convey
• 2:00:22
  Speaker 3: if the two sides are not talking directly, we'd be
• 2:00:24
  Speaker 3: able to, uh, you know, convey each other's views to
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 3: the next party. And there why try and develop off
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 3: ramps very specifically, I think after the November elections, these
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 3: off ramps would be needed not just by the countries.
• 2:00:41
  Speaker 2: Involved, but by the world.
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 3: You know, it's it is like the we have in
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 3: India is a very profound statement.
• 2:00:50
  Speaker 2: So they have a kotombakam treat the world as a family.
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 3: And I don't think we will go very wrong because
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 3: at the end of the day, I find the differences
• 2:00:59
  Speaker 3: between us are far less substantial than what is common,
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 3: and I can make that out in this dialogue TiAl
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 3: up today. You know, there's so much that is in
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 3: common between us as citizens of planet Earth. Thank you,
• 2:01:13
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Scott. It was a pleasure talking
• 2:01:16
  Speaker 3: to you in person, and also to my friend Reil.
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 3: It's been wonderful interaction. I look forward to more such dialogues.
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 4: Thanks Brian for doing a fantastic job of moderating.
• 2:01:30
  Speaker 1: This moderating thank you right, General Boats, she's got Richter,
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: thank you very much. It's been absolutely fascinating for me,
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 1: and I'd like to say thank you to the people
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes that helped make this particular interaction happen,
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: so big thank you there and so the audience. A
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: lot to be learned from this discussion, but at the
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: end of the day, we all ought to be on
• 2:01:56
  Speaker 1: the path to peace because that's what the world is.
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to thank both of you, thank our
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 1: audience for joining us, and we'll say bye bye today.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 2: Thank you bye, Thank you.