Latest / UK Column Radio / Military Matters: Episode Four | Military Matters

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Military Matters: Episode Four | Military Matters · UK Column Radio

0:17
Speaker 1: Charles, we're here again. We are in very special times.
0:22
Speaker 1: Because I don't know about you, but I didn't expect
0:25
Speaker 1: to wake up on Saturday morning with the news that
0:29
Speaker 1: there had been an attack on Iran. And as I
0:34
Speaker 1: said in the news yesterday, I sighed because I thought,
0:38
Speaker 1: I'm going to see we are with another round of
0:42
Speaker 1: conflict in violence unleashed on the world stage. And I
0:49
Speaker 1: was having a cup of teas I had to look
0:51
Speaker 1: at some of this online. But surely afterwards I was
0:53
Speaker 1: out on the street and I met some of my
0:56
Speaker 1: neighbors and without prompting, two of them sort of said,
1:00
Speaker 1: all the news is terrible, isn't it, And it had
1:02
Speaker 1: clearly had an effect on them. So, yeah, we live
1:06
Speaker 1: in serious times.
1:08
Speaker 2: We really do. I mean, I suppose we have to
1:10
Speaker 2: sort of prefix the conversation by saying that, no matter
1:13
Speaker 2: how quickly we edit and publish this, it will be
1:15
Speaker 2: out of date by the time it goes out. You know,
1:17
Speaker 2: we're talking a few days after an event which exactly
1:23
Speaker 2: what you describe has shocked me. And in a way
1:27
Speaker 2: I sort of asked myself why, because this has happened
1:31
Speaker 2: with such a degree of regularity over every decade of
1:36
Speaker 2: my life certainly that in some senses I feel that
1:40
Speaker 2: we shouldn't really be shocked by it. And yet I'm
1:43
Speaker 2: pleased on a human level to consider not only that
1:47
Speaker 2: I am personally shocked by it, but like you described,
1:49
Speaker 2: that other people are, because at the heart of really
1:53
Speaker 2: all of this is the humanity of it, and that
1:56
Speaker 2: never gets questioned. The idea on the very fundamental level
2:01
Speaker 2: that on the sort of media line I mean, and
2:04
Speaker 2: coming from the man himself, that because Donald Trump became
2:08
Speaker 2: somewhat impatient, he decided that it was appropriate to kill
2:13
Speaker 2: a lot of people in Iran and trigger a chain
2:16
Speaker 2: of events that may yet result in the deaths of
2:19
Speaker 2: tens of thousands, if not more people. And I think
2:24
Speaker 2: we we have to start with that because it is a,
2:31
Speaker 2: you know, an extraordinarily serious business. And you know, I've
2:35
Speaker 2: just been listening to some of what the Prime Minister
2:37
Speaker 2: was saying in the House of Commons yesterday, and I
2:39
Speaker 2: guess we should today is recording is Tuesday, the third
2:43
Speaker 2: of March, and I think we do have to sort
2:45
Speaker 2: of state that because obviously things are going to move,
2:48
Speaker 2: presumably very quickly. But there we have kirst Armor having
2:53
Speaker 2: very obviously perhaps not actively, but absolutely through the infrastructure
3:00
Speaker 2: that the United Kingdom has at its disposal, we have
3:04
Speaker 2: undoubtedly facilitated what has gone on. And yet there he
3:08
Speaker 2: is making medium mouthed excuses about not taking part in this, that,
3:12
Speaker 2: and the other, in a way trying to distance himself
3:15
Speaker 2: from something that I think he even he must acknowledge,
3:20
Speaker 2: is absolutely going to stick in the core of the
3:23
Speaker 2: vast majority of people.
3:24
Speaker 1: Well, I think that's why he used that. He made
3:28
Speaker 1: that bizarre statement talking about defensive action exactly with that
3:33
Speaker 1: was respect to Acriterian Cyprus, I think, but we were
3:37
Speaker 1: involved in defensive action. It's incredible. I have a laptop here,
3:44
Speaker 1: which I felt the need because this morning I just
3:46
Speaker 1: found an article. It's from Politico and the headline is
3:51
Speaker 1: Stalmer signals clear break with Trump on it rang And
3:56
Speaker 1: then it's talking about Stormer, who initially resisted involvement in
4:02
Speaker 1: this past weekends us IS rarely strikes, but later granted
4:06
Speaker 1: Washington limited access to British air bases, said he didn't
4:10
Speaker 1: believe in regime change. From the Skies. He insisted he
4:15
Speaker 1: won't get involved in offensive strikes in the Middle East,
4:19
Speaker 1: saying the two thousand and three Iraq conflict had taught
4:23
Speaker 1: the UK not to engage in unlawful wars without viable plans. Well,
4:30
Speaker 1: if that Politico quote is accurate, there is the Prime
4:35
Speaker 1: Minister admitting that the two thousand and three war in
4:40
Speaker 1: Iraq was unlawful. And then I say, find, mister Starmer,
4:45
Speaker 1: when are you convening the whatever's necessary the public inquiry
4:50
Speaker 1: to bring the people who committed the crime to book.
4:53
Speaker 1: And the other thing is that he then says unlawful.
4:58
Speaker 1: It won't get involved in unlawful for walls without a
5:01
Speaker 1: valid plan. So now we've got another labor of level
5:05
Speaker 1: of madness because he's suggesting that even though it's unlawful,
5:10
Speaker 1: if you have the right plan, you can still get involved.
5:14
Speaker 1: Is the off his head?
5:15
Speaker 2: Or well, I'm very like the rest of them he is,
5:21
Speaker 2: I think, And it's going to be very hard to
5:23
Speaker 2: know what to make of anything that anyone says, I
5:27
Speaker 2: think in these sort of early days, I mean probably
5:30
Speaker 2: at any stage really, But that is I mean, I
5:35
Speaker 2: think those are two very very significant points worth not
5:39
Speaker 2: just making now, but worth inquiring after. You know, how
5:44
Speaker 2: are these to be qualified? Yeah? And who is going
5:47
Speaker 2: to do that? And the thing is that already. I mean,
5:51
Speaker 2: as I say, having looked at a little bit of
5:52
Speaker 2: what he said in the Houst Commons on Monday the second,
5:55
Speaker 2: he is already invoking and exploiting the supposed vulnerability of
6:03
Speaker 2: our armed forces because there was a strike on a criteria. Now,
6:08
Speaker 2: you know, I think it might be worth asking are
6:11
Speaker 2: we absolutely certain that whatever it was that did hit
6:13
Speaker 2: a criteria came from Iran? Because of course, there is
6:19
Speaker 2: no more effective way to bring the United Kingdom into
6:23
Speaker 2: line than by presenting a threat of that kind, which
6:27
Speaker 2: enables enables Starmer to to sort of cover his backside
6:32
Speaker 2: by talking about, you know, the necessary defense of our
6:35
Speaker 2: personnel and all the rest of it. But no, I
6:37
Speaker 2: mean the the enormous sort of spectrum of language that's used,
6:42
Speaker 2: and euphemistic language being used, you know, talking about, like
6:47
Speaker 2: you say, the bit that I picked up on, you know,
6:50
Speaker 2: saying that they're wanting to distance themselves from regime change
6:55
Speaker 2: in favor of a negotiated settlement and that kind of thing,
6:59
Speaker 2: and then talking about Iran, accusing Iran now of destabilizing
7:04
Speaker 2: activity around the I mean, you know, all these sorts
7:06
Speaker 2: of things that that completely put to one side the
7:14
Speaker 2: initial action, and to hear Starmer again talking about Iran
7:22
Speaker 2: lashing out at countries in the region that did not
7:25
Speaker 2: attack them in the same way, of course, that Israel
7:29
Speaker 2: and the United States attacked Iran without having been attacked themselves.
7:33
Speaker 2: And yet somehow there's there's always this implicit truth that
7:41
Speaker 2: for the United States or for Israel to strike first
7:46
Speaker 2: is absolutely fine. I mean, where does that come from?
7:49
Speaker 2: And why is that not political suicide to speak out
7:54
Speaker 2: on that note. It's it's absolutely insane that we can
7:58
Speaker 2: have been conditioned to the point where we really do
8:01
Speaker 2: think that that's okay when it's.
8:04
Speaker 1: Well happily we don't know people do. But I think
8:11
Speaker 1: that Starmer's language, he's having such difficulty when he's actually
8:16
Speaker 1: talking to camera about this issue because he does not
8:20
Speaker 1: have any clear thoughts in his head. He is not
8:24
Speaker 1: driving reaction or driving policy. He's constantly acting. I believe
8:32
Speaker 1: that Starmer is just a controlled puppet. I think this
8:36
Speaker 1: is becoming ever clear, and so it's difficult for him
8:39
Speaker 1: to talk because he's not thinking what's in his head X,
8:44
Speaker 1: Y and Z. He's thinking, if I say, this is
8:48
Speaker 1: the right thing for my masters and the audience, and
8:50
Speaker 1: that's a very tricky and this is why he makes
8:52
Speaker 1: such crazy statements.
8:55
Speaker 2: And I think that was very clear with I mean,
8:57
Speaker 2: John Heally was in exactly the same position. It's a
8:59
Speaker 2: bit like there's like actors having been called to audition
9:02
Speaker 2: to rehearse one particular scene and then and then suddenly
9:05
Speaker 2: at the last minute having another thing chucked in front
9:07
Speaker 2: of them, and they have absolutely no idea how to
9:09
Speaker 2: respond because they do not know the answer. So the
9:12
Speaker 2: sort of the floundering around in front of Laura Kuensburg
9:15
Speaker 2: is completely genuine because he doesn't actually know what he's
9:17
Speaker 2: supposed to say, isn't hasn't been briefed on that. They
9:20
Speaker 2: don't They don't have a they don't have a line
9:22
Speaker 2: for that, And that's what it is. It's it's a line.
9:25
Speaker 2: And one thinks of what Dominic Cummings. You know, you've
9:27
Speaker 2: played the clip of Dominic Cummings on the news talking
9:29
Speaker 2: about the theater of cabinet meetings and how actually, you know,
9:34
Speaker 2: all the outcomes are decided before the meeting. The meetings
9:36
Speaker 2: really just for show, and the you know, strings of
9:39
Speaker 2: power are absolutely not held there and all the rest
9:41
Speaker 2: of it. I mean a lot more of this I
9:42
Speaker 2: think is coming into the public consciousness in a mainstream sense,
9:46
Speaker 2: which I think is really important. But it but it
9:49
Speaker 2: still does beg the question, you know, for the majority
9:52
Speaker 2: of the population. I mean, who therefore, who is controlling this,
9:55
Speaker 2: that and the other? And I mean, what sort of
9:58
Speaker 2: faith are we supposed to have in whoever it is
10:01
Speaker 2: making decisions that make any sort of sense, Because I
10:04
Speaker 2: think the other you know that the other point to
10:08
Speaker 2: this if we consider and I mean in many ways,
10:11
Speaker 2: I hope that I would be wrong in imagining this,
10:14
Speaker 2: but given what has happened, the way in which it's
10:16
Speaker 2: been framed, it is very hard to see that this
10:19
Speaker 2: is not going to lead to more and more entanglement
10:24
Speaker 2: of the United Kingdom, particularly of our armed forces, you know,
10:29
Speaker 2: getting sort of in mired in this conflict. And as
10:35
Speaker 2: that process unfolds, we then have to look back at
10:38
Speaker 2: the last four years of handing all of our kit
10:42
Speaker 2: and most of our training resources to Ukraine. So I'm
10:47
Speaker 2: not at all suggesting that we need to be able
10:49
Speaker 2: to respond to, you know, the so called Iranian threat.
10:55
Speaker 2: We should absolutely be having nothing to do with it.
10:57
Speaker 2: But what I'm what I'm saying is that you know,
10:59
Speaker 2: if we're going to talk about the vulnerability of service personnel. Well, yeah, absolutely,
11:03
Speaker 2: there's going to be vulnerability because if we are then
11:05
Speaker 2: committed in the way that seems likely to a conflict,
11:09
Speaker 2: well what chance have we because properly equipped exactly, And
11:15
Speaker 2: I think this is you know, this is a point
11:17
Speaker 2: being very well made by a podcast I was listening
11:19
Speaker 2: to with Douglas McGregor speaking, who obviously you know, has
11:23
Speaker 2: made a lot of sense and a lot of issues
11:24
Speaker 2: over the years, and this is this is exactly his point.
11:28
Speaker 1: So just at the sorry in Charlsen, you were specifically
11:34
Speaker 1: talking about UK there, but to emphasize the point, there
11:37
Speaker 1: are a number of respected commentators at the moment saying
11:42
Speaker 1: one of the problems that the Americans have already got
11:45
Speaker 1: in two days into this problem in Iran is there
11:51
Speaker 1: are concerns about ammunition supply, and in particular, what are
11:55
Speaker 1: they talking about. They're talking about air defense missiles. And
11:59
Speaker 1: so it's been pointed out that Trump has spoken about
12:04
Speaker 1: this by saying, well, you know, across the globe, we've
12:09
Speaker 1: got sufficient weapons, and what he's what he's actually saying
12:12
Speaker 1: is well, the weapons are out there, but they're all
12:14
Speaker 1: dispersed the Japanese have got some, we've sent some to Ukraine.
12:19
Speaker 1: But now we've got an American fleet which is going
12:22
Speaker 1: to try and defeat multiple attacks of very cheap weapons
12:27
Speaker 1: using very expensive missiles. So in the background it appears
12:33
Speaker 1: that even the Americans are a little bit concerned about
12:36
Speaker 1: their weapons stocks.
12:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
12:38
Speaker 1: Absolutely, this shows you what actually the conflict in Ukraine
12:42
Speaker 1: has done to, you know, to the Western military preparedness,
12:49
Speaker 1: but also demonstrates a complete failure of our hesitated to
12:54
Speaker 1: say this because I know many people say we don't
12:56
Speaker 1: want a military industrial complex, but we're talking about the military,
13:02
Speaker 1: and if you can't produce the weapons, you can't fight.
13:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it Yeah.
13:06
Speaker 1: It's madness the situation we've got to on the back
13:10
Speaker 1: of Ukraine. And I see that in the last a
13:14
Speaker 1: few weeks there's been another announcement of five hundred million
13:20
Speaker 1: I think it was two hundred thousand rounds of artillery shells,
13:24
Speaker 1: but also here defense missile systems in order to help
13:29
Speaker 1: Ukraine defend against drones. And we are saying, oh, well,
13:32
Speaker 1: in Aquitiri, we haven't got any defense systems.
13:36
Speaker 2: For example, we can't hope to shoot everything down.
13:39
Speaker 1: Well, particularly I've got the weapon.
13:41
Speaker 2: It'll dot no no. But then I think, you know,
13:44
Speaker 2: for anyone who who might be tuning into either this
13:47
Speaker 2: or sort of looking at uk column for the first time,
13:49
Speaker 2: and I think that's a really important point to make,
13:51
Speaker 2: is that we are in absolutely no way advocating for
13:54
Speaker 2: any sort of escalation or any involvement of British Forces
13:58
Speaker 2: or frankly any other in this And that's not the
14:00
Speaker 2: point of this discussion. But the point that exactly, like
14:04
Speaker 2: you know, you quite rightly make is that here we
14:06
Speaker 2: have Western nations, western states coming out in effect saying
14:13
Speaker 2: that they're prepared for conflict and actively seeking it. And yes,
14:19
Speaker 2: it's exactly the same time they have more or less
14:22
Speaker 2: completely prevented themselves from doing so effectively by what they
14:27
Speaker 2: have done in Ukraine specifically, but not exclusively. I mean,
14:31
Speaker 2: I think that I think the two sides of the
14:34
Speaker 2: Atlantic are certainly in different states. But you know, as
14:37
Speaker 2: we've talked about in previous episodes of Military Matters, you
14:40
Speaker 2: know that the the British Armed Forces base as it were,
14:46
Speaker 2: is a shell of you know, I mean, what what
14:50
Speaker 2: on earth what sort of effect can we expect to deliver,
14:55
Speaker 2: especially at the same time as we're you know, obviously
14:57
Speaker 2: the focus of today's conversation really is going to be
15:00
Speaker 2: Iran and what may happen there, But we have to
15:03
Speaker 2: look at it in the bigger context of what has
15:06
Speaker 2: happened with regard to Ukraine at the same time as
15:08
Speaker 2: we're talking about committing men to that region. You know,
15:13
Speaker 2: how seriously, how would that work. We've gone from a
15:16
Speaker 2: period of being able to run to medium sized theaters
15:21
Speaker 2: of operations concurrently, albeit in a very stretched manner. But
15:27
Speaker 2: I mean times have changed since then quite quite drastically.
15:30
Speaker 2: We have not nearly as many bodies, not nearly as
15:34
Speaker 2: much kit. We've outsourced or at least as I say,
15:38
Speaker 2: provided you know, through op intoflex. I mean, our focus
15:42
Speaker 2: for training has been on training Ukrainian troops, not not
15:45
Speaker 2: our own. We are I would say, you know, if
15:51
Speaker 2: you're if you're taking up face value the situation as
15:54
Speaker 2: it's presented as in this is being controlled by government,
15:59
Speaker 2: by the Ministry Defense to a certain extent, which obviously
16:01
Speaker 2: we're not necessarily saying is the case. But nonetheless, if
16:04
Speaker 2: that's what they're presenting, what of a hill on? None
16:09
Speaker 2: of it makes sense at all? Why on earth would
16:12
Speaker 2: you be thinking about committing anything to a conflict in
16:16
Speaker 2: the Middle least. But you know, that's one side, and
16:19
Speaker 2: I think the other side is just the which we
16:21
Speaker 2: should deal with. We've talked about euphemism, but that just
16:24
Speaker 2: the bare face lies. Really talking about having had no
16:28
Speaker 2: part in the operations, Well, if somebody can explain to
16:33
Speaker 2: me whether or not they would have been able to
16:35
Speaker 2: do what they did without the use of lake and
16:38
Speaker 2: heath for example, where where you know aircraft that were
16:42
Speaker 2: involved in these strikes have been. So it is a
16:46
Speaker 2: disgrace really that these people can stand up there and
16:51
Speaker 2: use language that is absolutely devoid of the truth at
16:56
Speaker 2: the same time as expecting people to in time, perhaps
17:01
Speaker 2: you know, respond to a call to arms.
17:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, well it's fraudulent in one sense. And you've got
17:09
Speaker 1: to say that since this is directly impacting on the
17:14
Speaker 1: safety the defense of the nation, it's treasonous, yes, because
17:20
Speaker 1: if our defensive ability has been hollowed out, which it
17:24
Speaker 1: has to such an extent that we cannot we cannot
17:27
Speaker 1: defend the nation, and people are doing that on the
17:29
Speaker 1: basis of lies or weasel words. These are serious offenses.
17:35
Speaker 1: If we're going to war and we know it's an
17:37
Speaker 1: unlawful war, but we're not doing anything. These are very
17:42
Speaker 1: serious things and nobody apart from new media UK Common
17:50
Speaker 1: is really holding them to book for this and saying
17:53
Speaker 1: why is this happening On the subject of the cave
18:00
Speaker 1: ability of the military. I followed through on some X
18:05
Speaker 1: chains this morning and this one popped up. I'm going
18:08
Speaker 1: to take it at face value. So it's from Plumber's mate,
18:11
Speaker 1: whoever that is. He will know, she will know. It
18:17
Speaker 1: says comes to something when we're reliant on the Greeks
18:21
Speaker 1: to defend us embarrassing, and I think that's a reference
18:24
Speaker 1: to the Greeks have since the f sixteen to Cyprus.
18:27
Speaker 1: I think there's a sort of show of solidarity. But
18:31
Speaker 1: once in the X is a list of ships with warships,
18:36
Speaker 1: British warships, and it's talking about basically days out of service.
18:44
Speaker 1: So if I just count through one, two, three, or five, six, seven, eight, eleven, twelve, thirteen,
18:51
Speaker 1: forty fifteen ships and then the rest of submarines. So
18:55
Speaker 1: now some of them are in refit, in which case
18:57
Speaker 1: you get a lot of days out of surface. A
19:02
Speaker 1: full refit takes through three years for some big ships,
19:05
Speaker 1: but so we got four hundred and fifty eight days
19:08
Speaker 1: out of surface, but the ship is in refit. But
19:11
Speaker 1: then the next one, which happens to be the Prince
19:13
Speaker 1: Wales with ninety two days in maintenance, that was back
19:16
Speaker 1: in November. We've then got HMS Daring, so this is
19:21
Speaker 1: one of the type forty fives, three thousand, one hundred
19:24
Speaker 1: and ninety six days out of action, so that that
19:27
Speaker 1: ship has since it appeared it was brand new, has
19:30
Speaker 1: never really functioned. The next one in red is six
19:35
Speaker 1: hundred and four days, nine hundred and sixty days. So
19:39
Speaker 1: we go through the fleet, and when we get into
19:41
Speaker 1: the submarines, it's even even worse because we've got deep maintenance,
19:46
Speaker 1: which is a normal cycle, but if you haven't got
19:48
Speaker 1: enough vessels, then you can't cover the gaps when you're
19:53
Speaker 1: maintaining something, and one of them is laid up, so
20:00
Speaker 1: we haven't got the units in numbers, and also the
20:05
Speaker 1: maintenance period seemed to be extending, and we've got the
20:09
Speaker 1: example of a brand new ship which is effectively never
20:12
Speaker 1: proper gone to sea. And yet this has never been
20:15
Speaker 1: a major subject in the press. You've seen odd bits
20:19
Speaker 1: about it, but it's breakdown the system is in my view,
20:25
Speaker 1: particularly for the Navy, is close to the breakdown. The
20:28
Speaker 1: ships were at sea, but are they really functioning. I'm
20:32
Speaker 1: not convinced.
20:34
Speaker 2: Well, I wonder, I mean, actually interesting nating. I didn't
20:37
Speaker 2: realize that that there was that tally Beth for the
20:39
Speaker 2: Prince Wales because of course Prince Wales having only recently
20:44
Speaker 2: returned from the Inday Pacific Trade tool.
20:48
Speaker 1: Well that was the big thing appointment yea.
20:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and now to be sent up to the
20:53
Speaker 2: to the high North, you know, the Arctic. So of
20:56
Speaker 2: course that the amount of sort of gymnastic messaging that
21:02
Speaker 2: has to go on to make all of these things
21:04
Speaker 2: make sense. At the same time, it is going to
21:07
Speaker 2: be something to behold because it is it really the
21:11
Speaker 2: case that the Britz Whales being as reported on the news,
21:15
Speaker 2: be not a carrier strike group, but the carrier strike group.
21:21
Speaker 2: Are they actually going to go up there or or not? Now?
21:24
Speaker 2: You know, are they going to have to divert to
21:27
Speaker 2: somewhere rather warmer? And I mean it's Charles, that's a
21:32
Speaker 2: really interesting one because this was in my head because
21:35
Speaker 2: initially I'm thinking, okay, so the actions out with Iran
21:41
Speaker 2: and we're going to send them up to the frozen North.
21:44
Speaker 2: That's that's okay, it's cold, but that's a nice safe
21:47
Speaker 2: place for them to go. And so what is going
21:50
Speaker 2: on here is this Actually I don't want to say
21:55
Speaker 2: propaganda in the first instance, but this is to do
21:57
Speaker 2: with image.
21:59
Speaker 1: Yes, we're making a big thing that the British carrier
22:03
Speaker 1: group with NATO units is going to go up north.
22:06
Speaker 1: This is image. When you would have thought if Iran
22:10
Speaker 1: was so dangerous, which is what they keep telling us,
22:13
Speaker 1: there would be the need to put our carrier out
22:17
Speaker 1: with the Americans. Why do I think they're not putting
22:20
Speaker 1: the carrier out with the Americans because they know it's dangerous.
22:24
Speaker 1: And by that I'm talking about have these ships really
22:28
Speaker 1: got the weapons systems to fight? The missile systems they're
22:32
Speaker 1: going to be up against the Americans are shaky because
22:36
Speaker 1: the moment moment something's hypersonic, there isn't a defense against it.
22:41
Speaker 1: Whether that hypersonic capability is there against against warships, we
22:48
Speaker 1: don't know, but if it is, there isn't a defense.
22:51
Speaker 1: And numbers in this game count. Now the Americans can
22:57
Speaker 1: perform because they've got the number of shit to the
23:00
Speaker 1: number of missile launchers, the number of guns, and they've
23:04
Speaker 1: got everything they need in order to build the air picture.
23:07
Speaker 1: We do not have that. So I think there's even
23:11
Speaker 1: a possibility the Americans are happier being on their own
23:15
Speaker 1: and we've just I'm digressing a little bit.
23:18
Speaker 2: But because I thinks.
23:23
Speaker 1: I think admitted to having shot the two F fifteen's
23:27
Speaker 1: down and a lot little three down there. So I
23:31
Speaker 1: can imagine a lot of people say, well, how did
23:33
Speaker 1: this happen? Well, it's happened because that's a really complex
23:40
Speaker 1: air environment, and yeah, warfare environment, surveillance over a huge area,
23:47
Speaker 1: a whole lot of different countries involved, who will want
23:51
Speaker 1: their say, and they're input in how things are doing,
23:54
Speaker 1: how things are to be done, and ultimately a huge
23:59
Speaker 1: number of aircraft airborne and on various missions and a
24:04
Speaker 1: lot of people trigger happy because they're frightened. So the
24:09
Speaker 1: first thing I was thinking yesterday when I originally heard
24:14
Speaker 1: about the three F fifteens, was well, that would have
24:18
Speaker 1: put a dent in the morale of the US pilots
24:21
Speaker 1: because it's one thing flying into a dangerous zone where
24:25
Speaker 1: you're briefed on the weapons systems against you. But to
24:29
Speaker 1: then think, well, actually I'm flying over friendly territory, but
24:34
Speaker 1: people are trigger happy. That's a whole different and I
24:37
Speaker 1: can imagine that some of those pilots are really thinking,
24:40
Speaker 1: what have we got ourselves into here? Thought, so, yeah,
24:46
Speaker 1: does the carrier, does the British carrier go to go
24:48
Speaker 1: out to Iran? Well?
24:50
Speaker 2: This is it? Yeah, but you know, and you're right,
24:54
Speaker 2: I think propaganda perhaps not quite the right word, is it,
24:57
Speaker 2: But this idea, it's all been about posturing. Posturing, Yeah, yeah,
25:03
Speaker 2: And we've seen this now for years, of course, I
25:08
Speaker 2: mean it's not it's certainly not a not a new thing.
25:10
Speaker 2: But I think certainly since this time four years ago,
25:16
Speaker 2: you know, as soon as the Russia Ukraine conflict started,
25:21
Speaker 2: there has been a massive uplift in this notion of posturing,
25:27
Speaker 2: of trying to make it look like we are sort
25:32
Speaker 2: of dominant, agile, powerful force. And in large part that
25:41
Speaker 2: that has been with regard to Russia and Ukraine, it's
25:46
Speaker 2: always sounded very hollow, but nonetheless they've sort of stuck
25:53
Speaker 2: with it. And this does seem to have been the
25:55
Speaker 2: latest part of it that, you know, the Arctic in
25:59
Speaker 2: a way, it's hard to separate that from what has
26:04
Speaker 2: been happening, at least on the rhetoric side of it
26:07
Speaker 2: from within the United States, particularly the push for Greenland,
26:11
Speaker 2: all the tariff stuff Canada even coming under pressure Venezuela
26:15
Speaker 2: and going back to the sort of technicque idea of
26:17
Speaker 2: the nineteen thirties and that map overlaying almost exactly on
26:21
Speaker 2: all the territories that the Trump administration has been talking about.
26:26
Speaker 2: So it does sort of suit the British establishment to
26:33
Speaker 2: join in with some of that and to make out
26:36
Speaker 2: that not only that there is a threat from Russia,
26:39
Speaker 2: but that we have the wherewithal to do something about it,
26:42
Speaker 2: and we are going to do something about it. You know,
26:44
Speaker 2: we're going to we're really standing up and being tough
26:46
Speaker 2: on this and the other I suppose the other thing.
26:51
Speaker 2: I mean, this is obviously peer speculation. But again in
26:56
Speaker 2: terms of sort of selling the story in a way,
27:00
Speaker 2: I'm thinking of the Falklands here, but but but the
27:03
Speaker 2: idea that you'd send the carrier up north only to
27:07
Speaker 2: then make a big sensationalist thing about turning round and saying, right, actually,
27:11
Speaker 2: we've got a job on, you know, down in the
27:13
Speaker 2: in the Gulf that that because there will come a
27:18
Speaker 2: time if is what we've talked about before, is where
27:20
Speaker 2: are all these where are the people coming from? It's
27:22
Speaker 2: one thing not having kit and serviceable ships and whatnot,
27:27
Speaker 2: but we need people as well. And so when the
27:31
Speaker 2: when the recruiting call goes out or conscription which is
27:35
Speaker 2: what we're absolutely speculating, will happen in some form or other.
27:38
Speaker 2: You know, you need a narrative to go along with that.
27:41
Speaker 2: And I think that the sort of you know, the
27:44
Speaker 2: aircraft carrier, all the strike group turning round because we've
27:48
Speaker 2: got an emergency and this, that and the other. I mean,
27:50
Speaker 2: it's easy to see well.
27:51
Speaker 1: Putting it as far away the.
27:53
Speaker 2: Conflicts exactly, so it's yes, exactly, but this is the
27:58
Speaker 2: sort of the theory of it because because exactly as
28:01
Speaker 2: you say, do they really want to be do they
28:03
Speaker 2: actually want to be involved in that?
28:05
Speaker 1: You couldn't put it in a more out of the
28:07
Speaker 1: way place. And they're going to go north, going to
28:10
Speaker 1: go north, young man, Yeah, and play in the frozen north.
28:15
Speaker 1: How was it going to take you to get out to.
28:17
Speaker 2: The gulf in a long time, long time, by which
28:19
Speaker 2: time perhaps the aspiration is that there would have you know,
28:23
Speaker 2: whatever is going to go on there would have would
28:24
Speaker 2: have petered out. But I mean, yeah, it's it's very
28:28
Speaker 2: hard to see how how this will go, you know.
28:33
Speaker 2: And as I say, by the time this goes out,
28:35
Speaker 2: we will be will be out of date. We'll be
28:37
Speaker 2: out of date. By the end of today, something something
28:39
Speaker 2: will have happened.
28:40
Speaker 1: Although although my comment on today is that you know,
28:45
Speaker 1: only this morning when I went to have a check
28:48
Speaker 1: at what was being reported, straight away I went to
28:51
Speaker 1: look at what was happening with Ron, very little being said,
28:55
Speaker 1: and I thought that's very interesting. After after yesterday. Now,
29:00
Speaker 1: on one hand, the Americans might have decided that they
29:04
Speaker 1: need to go operationally quiet. But if you're, as Trump says,
29:09
Speaker 1: going to beat the out of Iran, and we've got
29:12
Speaker 1: all of our best assets there, why why are we
29:15
Speaker 1: now going why are we now going silent on the
29:18
Speaker 1: media front?
29:19
Speaker 2: Yes?
29:20
Speaker 1: And so yeah, is it going as well as they think?
29:23
Speaker 2: Well?
29:25
Speaker 1: Maybe suspecting it isn't.
29:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I think that would be, that would be
29:30
Speaker 2: a sort of a logical thing to think. Yeah, And
29:33
Speaker 2: I really do wonder. I mean, I think the other
29:35
Speaker 2: thing again, you know, looking further down the track, what
29:40
Speaker 2: really what is the intent in so far as Iran
29:44
Speaker 2: is concerned because I think the the significant part of
29:49
Speaker 2: the equation will come to be China, or could come
29:53
Speaker 2: to be China. China and Iran have a you know,
29:58
Speaker 2: have a have a meaningful and formal relationship, and China
30:05
Speaker 2: is Iran's top export destination. I mean, you know that
30:09
Speaker 2: they're the economic significance of the relationship between two countries
30:14
Speaker 2: is is right there. At what point is China going
30:18
Speaker 2: to consider that that some sort of intervention is appropriate?
30:25
Speaker 2: You know, will will that will that happen? I'm not
30:27
Speaker 2: suggesting militarily that that would that would seem that seems
30:32
Speaker 2: incredibly improbable at the minute. But but nonetheless, it's it's
30:38
Speaker 2: you know, it's there. It's it's hard to see that
30:40
Speaker 2: they would ignore it or have ignored it completely. I mean,
30:44
Speaker 2: goodness knows what's gone on behind closed doors. But but
30:47
Speaker 2: again I don't see I don't really see anyone making
30:51
Speaker 2: any any mention of that, particularly And.
30:54
Speaker 1: Then we've we've we've had the Americans talk about taking
30:59
Speaker 1: out the Iranian navy. That's been a statement made from them.
31:02
Speaker 1: And then who was it heg said talking You know,
31:07
Speaker 1: it didn't say much, but well, it could be boots
31:10
Speaker 1: on the ground, And I'm thinking, Iran is a big country,
31:14
Speaker 1: and it's got a lot of people in it, and
31:17
Speaker 1: a lot of those people are well organized. How many
31:20
Speaker 1: troops are you thinking you're going to put on the ground?
31:23
Speaker 1: And I then found myself thinking they actually don't know
31:28
Speaker 1: because they hadn't thought this through. Colonel McGregor also picks
31:34
Speaker 1: up on this, or has picked up on this with
31:36
Speaker 1: the situation in Ukraine, saying they never planned for what
31:41
Speaker 1: winning looks like they didn't know what they were actually
31:44
Speaker 1: aiming for. And I get the impression that this is
31:48
Speaker 1: the situation with Iran. It was all the gung ho, let's.
31:52
Speaker 2: Get in there.
31:53
Speaker 1: And I think one of the faults with the Americans
31:57
Speaker 1: is that they believe their own rhetoric about the web
32:00
Speaker 1: and systems and yeah.
32:04
Speaker 2: I think so, yeah, I absolutely agree. And then and
32:07
Speaker 2: then they and then they they put themselves in a
32:09
Speaker 2: position of having to live up to it. I think
32:11
Speaker 2: this is a really interesting point. In a recent Silk
32:15
Speaker 2: and Steel podcast, Carlzar had Warwick peahell on the Australian
32:20
Speaker 2: and he said he's on regularly, but he was making it,
32:24
Speaker 2: I feel really interesting point. It was wider. It wasn't
32:28
Speaker 2: wasn't connected necessarily to the to the military, but but
32:31
Speaker 2: the the sort of sense of swagger that the United
32:35
Speaker 2: States creates around frankly everything it does means that they're
32:39
Speaker 2: making a rod for their back, because then they've got
32:41
Speaker 2: to live up to that, whereas now with reference to Iran,
32:45
Speaker 2: Iran effectively has nothing to prove. It's the Americans that
32:48
Speaker 2: do so. The moment there is an apparent vulnerability in
32:51
Speaker 2: the munition's side of it or something else, then then
32:56
Speaker 2: they they take the hit, both metaphorically and literally. And
33:00
Speaker 2: I think this is not really considered and again on
33:03
Speaker 2: the sort of the way the administration characterizes itself and behaves.
33:09
Speaker 2: You know, some people, particularly sort of supporters of Trump,
33:14
Speaker 2: might think that the way in which policy expresses itself
33:19
Speaker 2: as in it is unpredictable and therefore, you know, it's
33:22
Speaker 2: a sort of it's a winning formula, and it's all
33:24
Speaker 2: the art of the deal and all this stuff. But
33:25
Speaker 2: actually all it means is that other countries look at
33:29
Speaker 2: you as a liability because you are unpredictable, and you
33:33
Speaker 2: are not the sort of the biggest kid on the
33:37
Speaker 2: block in a world sense really anymore at all. And
33:44
Speaker 2: do other countries really want to be aligned with an
33:50
Speaker 2: unpredictable and therefore vulnerable nation state.
33:56
Speaker 1: Probably not, I'm guessing, but I think even Starmer's run
34:02
Speaker 1: into this trap. Yes, yes, And that's another reason why
34:07
Speaker 1: he's going down such a wobbly path, because because the
34:11
Speaker 1: Americans are unstable, he doesn't know what they're actually going
34:16
Speaker 1: to do for me. I think the significance of these
34:22
Speaker 1: events in Iran, however they pan out. But America's world
34:27
Speaker 1: power for so many years has been if we leave
34:31
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons out of it, their power has been based
34:35
Speaker 1: on air power from the aircraft carriers, and America has
34:39
Speaker 1: been able over a great many years to deploy huge
34:44
Speaker 1: numbers of aircraft into a theater of operations. In many
34:48
Speaker 1: cases that one certainly two carriers would be delivering more
34:53
Speaker 1: aircraft than many air forces owned as a total thing.
34:58
Speaker 1: So they could bring those aircraft into theater, and they
35:02
Speaker 1: had the ability to dominate the air environment with surveillance
35:08
Speaker 1: and putting up the fighters and carrying out the attacks.
35:13
Speaker 1: This time, it's different for all of the bravado that
35:17
Speaker 1: it's a huge hundred thousand the latest aircraft carrier out there,
35:24
Speaker 1: Abraham Lincoln. The reality is that it's facing weapons systems
35:29
Speaker 1: which can destroy it. Now, whether the Iranians have got
35:33
Speaker 1: those systems, and in particular, I'm saying hypersonic missiles or
35:40
Speaker 1: very fast missiles which are capable of engaging a target
35:43
Speaker 1: at sea. Have the Iranians got those? We don't know.
35:47
Speaker 1: We may be about to find out. But if they have,
35:51
Speaker 1: one hit ends the American dream. There's no ifsall butts
35:57
Speaker 1: about it, because it says the era of the carrier
36:00
Speaker 1: is over. And I'm watching what's happening here and I'm thinking,
36:04
Speaker 1: are we about to see a conflict where the whole
36:08
Speaker 1: nature of sea power has changed? Because the carriers demonstrated that,
36:13
Speaker 1: like the battleship, they've passed their prime.
36:16
Speaker 2: Y Yeah, yeah, exactly.
36:19
Speaker 1: And maybe we could say to the audience, I mean
36:22
Speaker 1: it's serious stuff to go and look. But if you
36:25
Speaker 1: don't understand what I'm talking about, going to have a
36:27
Speaker 1: look at some very good YouTube documentaries on the Forestal Fire.
36:34
Speaker 1: And that was one of the American aircraft carriers that
36:36
Speaker 1: was fully armed up, so it had aircraft on deck,
36:41
Speaker 1: fueled and armed, ready for raids on Vietnam. A missile
36:46
Speaker 1: cooked off, hit another aircraft fire started, bomb explosions and
36:53
Speaker 1: they were very lucky they didn't lose the ship. A
36:55
Speaker 1: lot of bravery, so we put a positive human element
36:59
Speaker 1: into it. The forest or fire was successfully fought and
37:04
Speaker 1: they they save the ship, but a lot of people died.
37:10
Speaker 1: But the point I'm making is that aircraft carriers of
37:13
Speaker 1: their operating aircraft, are not only a huge target, they
37:19
Speaker 1: are full of ammunition and aviation fuel, which is a
37:23
Speaker 1: really unfortunate combination. So we're going to see, We're going
37:28
Speaker 1: to see what's going to happen on this. But if
37:32
Speaker 1: the you know, one of our carriers does go out there,
37:38
Speaker 1: nobody should be under any illusion they will be regarded
37:41
Speaker 1: as a second rate player by the Americans. They will
37:46
Speaker 1: be given a role. But the thing which I think
37:51
Speaker 1: is increasingly obvious is that there is now disrespect from
37:55
Speaker 1: the Americans for not only UK's political performance but also
38:00
Speaker 1: military performance. And I think the carrier would be given
38:04
Speaker 1: a specific role over there. Yes, obviously there's got to
38:09
Speaker 1: be some form of command and control, integration and building
38:13
Speaker 1: the air picture, but essentially the Brits won't be seen
38:17
Speaker 1: as the savior in that theater. I think the Americans
38:21
Speaker 1: could regard them as another nuisance they'd rather not deal with.
38:25
Speaker 2: Yea, yeah, well, I mean going back to what we
38:29
Speaker 2: sort of started talking about, really, which is considering the
38:33
Speaker 2: British administration's point of view, I mean, really, what are
38:37
Speaker 2: they thinking, How are they expecting to come out of
38:40
Speaker 2: this with anything intact, really, whether that be political reputation
38:47
Speaker 2: or military integrity, because we are we're extremely vunerable militarily,
38:55
Speaker 2: and therefore to become involved in this would most likely
38:59
Speaker 2: lead to seriously bad outcomes. And therefore, you know what,
39:04
Speaker 2: where's the benefit at all in doing that unless you
39:09
Speaker 2: really are going to going to use that to do it,
39:14
Speaker 2: as we've talked about before, which is to enter into
39:18
Speaker 2: a much bigger conflict of some sort that requires conscription,
39:22
Speaker 2: that requires this whole of society approach that of course,
39:25
Speaker 2: all the you know, all the various papers that came
39:28
Speaker 2: out last year have been pointing towards and that this
39:31
Speaker 2: is really going to be the point from which the
39:34
Speaker 2: economy is destroyed once and for all, and that we
39:38
Speaker 2: begin the whole process of rebuilding via some ghastly digital
39:43
Speaker 2: infrastructure and living off some sort of you know, universal benefit.
39:47
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, is this really the beginning of
39:49
Speaker 2: that well, I don't know. But if it isn't, then
39:55
Speaker 2: for Starmer and his entourage there are some massive questions
40:00
Speaker 2: to ask as to how far they want to go
40:03
Speaker 2: with making it look like either they are or they
40:06
Speaker 2: aren't involved in it, because I think the potential fallout
40:10
Speaker 2: from this, both in a political, economical and military context
40:16
Speaker 2: is potentially horrific. So, you know, one really does wonder
40:22
Speaker 2: and you know, okay, as discussed, I'm not suggesting that
40:29
Speaker 2: they really do hold the the power that they are
40:35
Speaker 2: ultimately making the decisions, but nonetheless they are the people
40:40
Speaker 2: sort of with their sticker on the tin, and therefore
40:45
Speaker 2: they've got to say and do something. So what are
40:49
Speaker 2: they going to say and do? And how? You know,
40:53
Speaker 2: how is this going to work for the so called
40:56
Speaker 2: defense or the war industry that there? I mean, I think,
41:01
Speaker 2: you know, there are a lot of things to come
41:03
Speaker 2: and also that the sort of oil you know, the
41:06
Speaker 2: oil shock and whatnot, how how how will that actually
41:10
Speaker 2: take effect not just in this country but but across
41:13
Speaker 2: the across the non oil producing countries, And what I mean,
41:17
Speaker 2: there's you know, many many things I think that that
41:19
Speaker 2: may well fall out of this or not, you know,
41:23
Speaker 2: or is this does it in any way present a
41:26
Speaker 2: moment where where a different a different outcome can be pursued.
41:31
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't. I can't think of any reason why.
41:34
Speaker 2: You know, history does not suggest that we are going
41:37
Speaker 2: to do the sensible thing.
41:39
Speaker 1: I don't know, we'll see that. The bit I was
41:43
Speaker 1: thinking about is that, as I mean, these are serious events,
41:47
Speaker 1: and they're on a very big scale, but a lot
41:50
Speaker 1: of it is theater. Yes, in what's happening on the globe.
41:55
Speaker 1: It's very cruel theater because the people excuse me, people
42:00
Speaker 1: conducting the play or directing the play, they don't care
42:07
Speaker 1: about the casualties. But whatever, these massive events, and we
42:14
Speaker 1: could go back to COVID, you know, COVID happening all
42:17
Speaker 1: the Ukraine War. Now we've got Iran. The global policies continue,
42:25
Speaker 1: and I think if Ben was with us now, he
42:28
Speaker 1: would be saying, this is one of the interesting things
42:31
Speaker 1: that whatever the turbulence on the face of the earth,
42:35
Speaker 1: the wars, the rumors of wars, we've got a policy
42:39
Speaker 1: which is driving through, which is doing a number of
42:44
Speaker 1: things which never change. It's dragging nation states of the
42:49
Speaker 1: world into the sustainable development goals agender. It's absolutely locking
42:57
Speaker 1: them into everything to do with climate. We want to
43:01
Speaker 1: believe that. And then it's also clearly breaking down societies
43:10
Speaker 1: in a traditional sense and introducing what we could call
43:14
Speaker 1: a new liberal form which is actually hostile to the
43:23
Speaker 1: to the history and the what's the word national identity
43:29
Speaker 1: of many countries. So the wars Ukraine is there with
43:34
Speaker 1: all the turbulence in the breakup, and now we've got
43:36
Speaker 1: it run. But this is not stopping the flood of
43:39
Speaker 1: these policies which said, well, actually you're not going to
43:42
Speaker 1: exist as a nation state anymore. You're going to be
43:46
Speaker 1: You're going to be part of could be an international
43:49
Speaker 1: trade or it could be part of the European Union.
43:53
Speaker 1: And every time I'm looking at that picture, I come
43:59
Speaker 1: back to the Trial Lateral Commission agenda, which is that
44:04
Speaker 1: the nation states of the world are to be divided
44:08
Speaker 1: into three power blocks, so the Americas, Europe, which includes Africa,
44:15
Speaker 1: and then Asia the Asian States, and so Ukraine to
44:21
Speaker 1: me is an obvious part of this because what is
44:24
Speaker 1: it What were they were they actually trying to do.
44:27
Speaker 1: They were trying to draw Ukraine into Europe, which gives
44:33
Speaker 1: it the whole of the key European land mass and
44:36
Speaker 1: then we can the conundrum, which is that Asia. Asia
44:42
Speaker 1: is deemed to start to the east of the Ural Mountains.
44:48
Speaker 1: So the implication was Europe will take Russia to the
44:51
Speaker 1: Ural Mountains and the rest of it is Asia, and
44:55
Speaker 1: that forms the Asian Block, which is everything China, China, India,
45:01
Speaker 1: Japan all put into that Asian block. So we've got
45:06
Speaker 1: the Americas, we've got Europe and Africa, and then we've
45:11
Speaker 1: got Asia. And to me, it just seems more and
45:14
Speaker 1: more obvious that this is where the politics is going.
45:17
Speaker 1: So when Trump gaily said, well, I need to take
45:20
Speaker 1: over Canada and I'm going to get stuck into Venezuela,
45:23
Speaker 1: and if there's any other countries down south, we're going
45:26
Speaker 1: to deal with them, that to me fits that trilateral agenda.
45:32
Speaker 2: It does, I mean absolutely, it does. I suppose. The
45:37
Speaker 2: you know, the thing that's very hard to get to
45:40
Speaker 2: is at what point the psychopathy and greed of various
45:45
Speaker 2: people involved in making these decisions actually becomes an obstacle
45:49
Speaker 2: to their own progress. You know, how many how many
45:54
Speaker 2: people are actually going to find when it comes to it,
45:56
Speaker 2: that they are really united in supporting those genders. Yes, exactly, Yeah,
46:01
Speaker 2: because the I don't know. I mean, the way I
46:06
Speaker 2: look at it is that actually greed and psychopathy are
46:10
Speaker 2: what enable people to have these sorts of ideas in
46:13
Speaker 2: the first place, but then actually ultimately they they will
46:17
Speaker 2: become competitors amongst one another. I mean, I can't necessarily
46:23
Speaker 2: substantiate that, but but yes, I mean it will be
46:28
Speaker 2: very interesting to see. And again I think I would say,
46:31
Speaker 2: with specific regard to Africa, which is always the sort
46:35
Speaker 2: of silent partner, that's that's the wrong But so little
46:40
Speaker 2: is ever really said of Africa. It's it's still now somewhere.
46:44
Speaker 2: That is, that is, in relative terms, you know, little
46:47
Speaker 2: understood and little discussed, and but but also again in
46:53
Speaker 2: relative terms sort of little interfered with. I mean, it's
46:56
Speaker 2: that that is a that is a very rapidly changing picture,
46:59
Speaker 2: because all the countries that we have been talking about
47:01
Speaker 2: absolutely have interests in Africa, but I think not to
47:06
Speaker 2: quite the same degree, or at least the ability to
47:10
Speaker 2: exert control over over Africa is still not quite what
47:15
Speaker 2: it aspired, what they would sort of aspire for it
47:18
Speaker 2: to be. So it will be very interesting. I mean, yes,
47:25
Speaker 2: I mean, even in the context of what we're discussing
47:28
Speaker 2: now with the with the situation in Iran, what will
47:32
Speaker 2: be what will be the African response to this? I
47:36
Speaker 2: mean you geographically, certainly in North African countries, and the
47:40
Speaker 2: Horn of Africa is not not at all, not just
47:42
Speaker 2: not far, but actually certainly militarily And that's you know,
47:51
Speaker 2: that is a very interesting one. I mean in fact,
47:53
Speaker 2: because of course the the Red Sea part of that,
47:58
Speaker 2: the United States, Russia and China all very much involved
48:02
Speaker 2: in that, that sort of around the Horn, you know,
48:06
Speaker 2: Djibouty and Eritrea, and that that bit of north is
48:12
Speaker 2: the Somali land coast as well, very very very topical
48:17
Speaker 2: and and and in a way very much related to this.
48:20
Speaker 2: So there will be I think, you know, we would
48:24
Speaker 2: be well advised to watch that area too, for a
48:29
Speaker 2: whole host of reasons. But no, I mean that that's
48:32
Speaker 2: a very interesting point about the the Trianatural Commission, and
48:35
Speaker 2: as you say, the fact that these things can occur,
48:37
Speaker 2: but but at no point does any of the sort
48:40
Speaker 2: of bigger agenda get appear to be derailed, you know,
48:44
Speaker 2: in some senses, sort of as absurd as it sounds,
48:48
Speaker 2: you know, net zero is important as important today as
48:51
Speaker 2: it was last week.
48:53
Speaker 1: You know why, why, Because it's gender. I have complained
49:02
Speaker 1: over many years about, I'm going to say, the performance
49:06
Speaker 1: of senior military officers when you try and engage them
49:11
Speaker 1: with some of the things going on, and you try
49:14
Speaker 1: and warn them about something's happening, because it's it became
49:19
Speaker 1: clear to me pretty quickly that many of them clearly
49:23
Speaker 1: didn't know much in sort of areas. But then when
49:27
Speaker 1: I tried to engage with them, there was an inherent arrogance,
49:31
Speaker 1: which meant they didn't want to engage, and so eventually
49:36
Speaker 1: I gave up that line. If you look across military people,
49:43
Speaker 1: as we'll call it a big club, it's obvious that
49:46
Speaker 1: and you can see this over social media that certainly
49:50
Speaker 1: amongst veterans, there are a lot of vets who are
49:53
Speaker 1: now really changing their view of the world and how
49:57
Speaker 1: they see it, And I personally think that's very encouraging.
50:01
Speaker 1: My question to you, because you're that much younger than
50:04
Speaker 1: I am, so your connectivity with the military is much
50:09
Speaker 1: more recent than I am. But do you see any
50:14
Speaker 1: signs that people in the military are beginning to think
50:17
Speaker 1: to themselves, something's not right, what's going on? What are
50:22
Speaker 1: we involved in? Is that there somewhere or.
50:25
Speaker 2: No, I think so. Yeah, I think it really is.
50:28
Speaker 2: I wonder again, it's very hard to be objective about this.
50:33
Speaker 2: I mean that will have existed to a certain point always,
50:36
Speaker 2: but I think the degree to which it is considered
50:40
Speaker 2: now or even expressed, I think is on the increase.
50:44
Speaker 2: And okay again, well on the sort of documented evidence
50:51
Speaker 2: of that. I think there have been more report in
50:55
Speaker 2: as much as one can ever really give them credence, because,
50:58
Speaker 2: as you and I well know, anything that ever goes
51:01
Speaker 2: into the mainstream press about any kind of military activity
51:05
Speaker 2: or operation whatever is I would say ninety five percent
51:08
Speaker 2: absolutely rubbish, so we take it with loriry loads of salt.
51:13
Speaker 2: But nonetheless there are I would say, consistently, there are
51:18
Speaker 2: more and more reports about sorts of behaviors and outcomes
51:23
Speaker 2: that I think wouldn't have happened thirty forty years ago,
51:27
Speaker 2: particularly concerning sort of discipline issues and that kind of thing.
51:32
Speaker 2: And when I say discipline people being sort of naughty bodies,
51:35
Speaker 2: I mean people doing stuff that is actually subversive or
51:40
Speaker 2: in the face of what they're being directed to do.
51:42
Speaker 2: So I think that's quite significant. Anecdotally, Yes, I mean
51:47
Speaker 2: those people that I am still in touch with who
51:50
Speaker 2: are either still serving or have been recently. I get
51:53
Speaker 2: a very strong sense that people are very cognizant of
51:58
Speaker 2: a lot of what we've been talking about. Certainly on
52:01
Speaker 2: the internal side, I think it's very obvious. I think
52:06
Speaker 2: from within that your ability to do your job properly
52:11
Speaker 2: as a soldier, say, or is being frustrated all the time,
52:17
Speaker 2: that the government Ministry of Defense they are not on
52:20
Speaker 2: your side, that the way in which the conditions are
52:24
Speaker 2: set for you to try and operate are just deteriorating,
52:28
Speaker 2: and that that looks deliberate. And actually, as an example
52:31
Speaker 2: of that, I was having a conversation with somebody they're
52:34
Speaker 2: day involved in procuring a new helicopter, and I will
52:40
Speaker 2: respect his sort of confidence and therefore not say very
52:46
Speaker 2: much about it, except to say that it is highly
52:50
Speaker 2: likely that that a procurement project for a new helicopter
52:55
Speaker 2: will go the wrong way insofar as something that is
52:59
Speaker 2: substandard will be bought because there has been political pressure
53:02
Speaker 2: applied and the view of those that actually know has
53:07
Speaker 2: been pushed to one side. I mean that is absolutely shocking, because,
53:10
Speaker 2: of course, as I said to him, well so how
53:13
Speaker 2: does that work? Because further down the track, you know,
53:15
Speaker 2: you've got the audit trail that says, well, we recommended this,
53:18
Speaker 2: that and the other, and we were ignored. And then
53:21
Speaker 2: someone gets shot down or it blows up or whatever happens,
53:25
Speaker 2: and we'll write, so who made that decision? And yet
53:28
Speaker 2: those things are that those things are actually happening.
53:31
Speaker 1: And obviously when people speak to you at that level,
53:37
Speaker 1: you have to respect confidences. So I'm just having a
53:41
Speaker 1: guess here. But of course, the moment we started to
53:45
Speaker 1: get away from our own nation based production and we
53:50
Speaker 1: started particularly to mix it with the European Union and
53:53
Speaker 1: the Pan European product projects, we ended up in this
53:59
Speaker 1: terrible mess because it is more difficult to produce a
54:05
Speaker 1: project jointly with another nation or group of nations. There's
54:09
Speaker 1: all sorts of little niggling things that come to the surface.
54:13
Speaker 1: And each nation they may be fully committed to NATO,
54:20
Speaker 1: and you would think they would therefore see the same
54:23
Speaker 1: threats and require the same specifications, but each national characteristic
54:30
Speaker 1: affects those requirements in what they want, and then you
54:34
Speaker 1: end up with this compromise. Tornadoes was definitely one of
54:41
Speaker 1: those aircraft. If we go back a few years and
54:45
Speaker 1: we've also seen it in the production of helicopters. So
54:49
Speaker 1: my guess is that this will be the European politics.
54:54
Speaker 1: Could be America trying to sell us something, but the
54:59
Speaker 1: drive seems to be to build in house in Europe
55:03
Speaker 1: at the moment, So I would guess it's European politics.
55:06
Speaker 2: Yes, Well, I think the other the other dimension to that.
55:09
Speaker 2: I mean there's two elements. One and I think this
55:12
Speaker 2: is the This is a thing. You know, it's a
55:14
Speaker 2: theme through so much, not just military kit, but but
55:18
Speaker 2: because because so much, I mean virtually everything now is
55:22
Speaker 2: is digitized and has sort of remote control capabilities or
55:28
Speaker 2: autonomous capabilities and whatnot. In actual fact, you you design,
55:33
Speaker 2: procure by whatever, you get hold of the kit, but
55:35
Speaker 2: actually you don't really ever have full control of it.
55:39
Speaker 2: And that is a picture that is complicated exactly like
55:41
Speaker 2: you say, by a multinational sort of build. But also
55:46
Speaker 2: the fact that there are not just other companies holding
55:50
Speaker 2: the proprietary technology and still able to sort of deal
55:54
Speaker 2: with something remotely and examine the data or whatever. You know,
55:58
Speaker 2: there are a huge number of vulnerabilities there in so
56:00
Speaker 2: far as the data but also the control is concerned.
56:04
Speaker 2: But it's also well who you know, where are those
56:08
Speaker 2: companies based. And the obvious one and this goes back
56:12
Speaker 2: to again the sort of anecdotal discussions I've had with
56:16
Speaker 2: either serving or sort of recently serving personnel is the
56:22
Speaker 2: is the specter of Israel. And because so much of
56:25
Speaker 2: this technical technological you know, background sort of platforms come
56:33
Speaker 2: from Israel, and and a lot of our kit now
56:36
Speaker 2: is made to be functional by Israeli bits kit. Now,
56:40
Speaker 2: that's that is a problem. And certainly, again from having
56:45
Speaker 2: talked to people, there is absolutely an acknowledgment at what
56:49
Speaker 2: that state has been allowed to do now with the
56:53
Speaker 2: absolutely active support of the United States is utterly wrong. So,
57:00
Speaker 2: you know, bearing in mind what is looking likely to
57:04
Speaker 2: happen now with regard to Iran, it is it is
57:09
Speaker 2: very significant that there are a lot of people serving
57:11
Speaker 2: in the armed forces now who are who consider that
57:14
Speaker 2: the actions of Israel in particular over the last two
57:19
Speaker 2: and a half years have been unacceptable, absolutely, you know,
57:24
Speaker 2: and more and so if we're looking like we're going
57:27
Speaker 2: to be drawn into something that is in effect to
57:30
Speaker 2: preserve the existence of the state of Israel, well that
57:33
Speaker 2: is going to get people thinking and talking, and so
57:37
Speaker 2: I think you know that this is going to be
57:42
Speaker 2: a big thing for the for the Starmer administration to
57:45
Speaker 2: think about, because.
57:47
Speaker 1: I personally thinks he's fully involved in relations Israeli state.
57:55
Speaker 1: I'd say this straight straight away because we're getting onto
58:00
Speaker 1: territory was really important. But it's very emotional to lots
58:02
Speaker 1: of people. But if I go back, certainly, well, let's
58:07
Speaker 1: make it the twenty years before I got involved with
58:09
Speaker 1: the UK column. So I'd been through my military career,
58:12
Speaker 1: I'd been through a short career in civilian life, and
58:18
Speaker 1: I was aware the Jewish community were in this country,
58:21
Speaker 1: but that was where it ended. And I can't even
58:26
Speaker 1: say that I remember meeting anybody, and I didn't on
58:31
Speaker 1: occasions meet people who are then discovered with Jewish but
58:35
Speaker 1: that didn't come to the fore as a key issue.
58:37
Speaker 1: You met them and as an individual. But it was
58:41
Speaker 1: only later as I started to learn and see things
58:46
Speaker 1: which previously I didn't see, that I started to pay
58:50
Speaker 1: attention to this business about Israel not over there as
58:54
Speaker 1: an independent nations. I've got to put nations state, and
58:58
Speaker 1: of course we're going to get people.
59:00
Speaker 2: But.
59:02
Speaker 1: Israel over there as a country, and you try that
59:06
Speaker 1: one to describe it. I was then looking at the
59:12
Speaker 1: power base of Israel inside this country, but still not
59:17
Speaker 1: really paying attention to it. And one of the first
59:21
Speaker 1: occasions where I really started to think was in a
59:24
Speaker 1: conversation with Alex Thompson, and I know this is on record,
59:31
Speaker 1: where he said that when he was at GHQ, he
59:34
Speaker 1: was surprised that so much material was shared with Israel, right,
59:42
Speaker 1: and so you know, within the top level caveats used
59:48
Speaker 1: obviously national security, nobody else sees it apart from the
59:51
Speaker 1: Nation State. But after that us UK material absolute top
59:58
Speaker 1: of the tree, and then as the numbers come in
1:00:01
Speaker 1: Canada or Australia, the grade and the material invariably reducing.
1:00:07
Speaker 1: But then it emerged that we're just sharing stuff with
1:00:10
Speaker 1: Israel on what basis. And this is before this is
1:00:14
Speaker 1: before we'd got Francis Moore denouncing in whatever it was
1:00:19
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen that we were going to be integrating intelligence
1:00:24
Speaker 1: services and universities with Israel and their security agency Unit
1:00:32
Speaker 1: eight two hundred. But once I'd started to follow along
1:00:37
Speaker 1: this path, you begin to really say, well, who's actually
1:00:40
Speaker 1: calling the shots?
1:00:42
Speaker 2: Yes, no, I know, and yeah, I mean I would
1:00:46
Speaker 2: totally agree. It's not something that I well, I mean
1:00:51
Speaker 2: knew there was absolutely nothing sort of above the surface.
1:00:53
Speaker 2: Really there was no sense that Israel had a sort
1:00:57
Speaker 2: of significant finger in the pie. But it is now
1:01:01
Speaker 2: coming to the search more absolutely it is, and you
1:01:05
Speaker 2: know that is that is absolutely a dovetailed operation. And
1:01:08
Speaker 2: I think we've seen, you know, the popular response to
1:01:12
Speaker 2: what happened on October seventh, twenty twenty three, shows how
1:01:15
Speaker 2: incredibly effective the ownership, the perceived ownership of Judaism and
1:01:23
Speaker 2: Jewish people worldwide has been conducted by the State of Israel,
1:01:29
Speaker 2: whereas previously I don't think and again everybody will have
1:01:34
Speaker 2: to speak for themselves, but certainly I never spoke to
1:01:38
Speaker 2: anyone Jewish who gave me the slightest impression that the
1:01:43
Speaker 2: State of Israel had any influence or impact on their life,
1:01:47
Speaker 2: or their faith or their viewers the world exactly, unless
1:01:53
Speaker 2: of course, they happen to have some direct link with
1:01:54
Speaker 2: that country, like anywhere else. I mean, you know, as
1:01:57
Speaker 2: a if you're a Roman Catholic. Okay, I'm not. I
1:02:01
Speaker 2: won't go down that really because there isn't really an overlap.
1:02:04
Speaker 2: But but the point is that just because there are
1:02:09
Speaker 2: three quarters roughly Jews in the state of Israel. Why
1:02:14
Speaker 2: does that mean that that country claims ownership of Jewish
1:02:18
Speaker 2: people worldwide? I mean in it. But the way in
1:02:23
Speaker 2: which that sort of media campaign was conducted, I think
1:02:27
Speaker 2: below the surface obviously been terrifically effective because look at
1:02:32
Speaker 2: how people not everybody, but look at how so many
1:02:36
Speaker 2: people have responded. And just going back to the you know,
1:02:38
Speaker 2: I mean, I was flying through Aberdeen on Sunday. I
1:02:42
Speaker 2: picked up a copy of the Scottish Sun on Sunday
1:02:45
Speaker 2: just to read about, you know, what they were going
1:02:47
Speaker 2: to say about what had just happened in Iran. First
1:02:50
Speaker 2: few pages, you know, the way that the Sun would
1:02:55
Speaker 2: would write stuff up. It wasn't long afore we were
1:02:57
Speaker 2: into sort of which celebrity had got stranded in Dubai.
1:02:59
Speaker 2: But the important point was that what they wrote was
1:03:03
Speaker 2: that you're, you know, you're sort of you're on the
1:03:06
Speaker 2: wrong side of history if you're not supporting this and
1:03:08
Speaker 2: if you're not supporting Israel's I mean, I can't remember
1:03:12
Speaker 2: if they use the word self defense again, but that
1:03:15
Speaker 2: was the line from from the tabloid tabloid pass. I mean,
1:03:20
Speaker 2: you know, it was quite staggering, and I can't think
1:03:23
Speaker 2: that that would have been in a newspaper twenty years ago. Well,
1:03:29
Speaker 2: I certainly don't think. Yeah, so it is a really
1:03:32
Speaker 2: significant change. And again in light of what we were
1:03:35
Speaker 2: just talking about, which is the ownership of the technology
1:03:39
Speaker 2: that enabled so many of these sophisticated weapon systems that
1:03:42
Speaker 2: we are either making use of, or going to make
1:03:46
Speaker 2: use of, or purchasing. And I think all those things
1:03:49
Speaker 2: they are connected, and that is significant and relevant.
1:03:54
Speaker 1: And we've got the other factor which is coming in.
1:03:58
Speaker 1: It's coming in across a lot of products in the
1:04:00
Speaker 1: civilian world, but for the military it's significant, and that
1:04:04
Speaker 1: is that equipment's being provided which the military is not
1:04:08
Speaker 1: going to own. It's going to be on leadrightly production company.
1:04:13
Speaker 1: And so you then say, well, the ultimate control over
1:04:17
Speaker 1: that aircraft or that missile system is going to be
1:04:21
Speaker 1: with the with the with the production company, the company
1:04:24
Speaker 1: that's produced it.
1:04:25
Speaker 2: I know, and this is this is exactly it. And
1:04:27
Speaker 2: I think what I would like to talk about in
1:04:29
Speaker 2: a future discussion is space, because this is this is
1:04:32
Speaker 2: exactly sort of where we're going with space. You know,
1:04:35
Speaker 2: I'm writing about it at the minute, I must must
1:04:37
Speaker 2: get it finished. But the NASA project, you know, there's
1:04:41
Speaker 2: all this sort of stuff about the moon. Now that
1:04:44
Speaker 2: the current Artemis project has two seven hundred companies joined
1:04:50
Speaker 2: joined up delivering this project, I mean, you know, how
1:04:54
Speaker 2: does that work?
1:04:56
Speaker 1: It is what work is probably going to produced k
1:05:01
Speaker 1: or still extent. But on the other hand, all of
1:05:04
Speaker 1: these companies are drawn into a line. We could call
1:05:08
Speaker 1: it a political line or a policy line, and I
1:05:13
Speaker 1: think that is that's part of the picture. But we
1:05:15
Speaker 1: shouldn't worry, should we Because King Charles under his Carter
1:05:22
Speaker 1: astro Astra Astra Carter got it. It's got it all
1:05:26
Speaker 1: under control. And of course we now have a space
1:05:33
Speaker 1: specialist space section for the r e F to we do,
1:05:38
Speaker 1: so they've got space under control. Child.
1:05:41
Speaker 2: Well, so it seems big business anyway to be to
1:05:43
Speaker 2: be discussed in future. But yes, well anyway, I mean,
1:05:50
Speaker 2: I think I think we've brought out some you know,
1:05:53
Speaker 2: in as much as we can this this sort of
1:05:56
Speaker 2: soon into it, but I think we've brought out some
1:05:58
Speaker 2: some interesting points of consideration.
1:06:01
Speaker 1: Hopefully we've touched on some things and people are thinking
1:06:05
Speaker 1: what did they say? What are they talking about? That's
1:06:10
Speaker 1: a good thing because people need to be delving into.
1:06:14
Speaker 2: This absolutely especially where you started with the lawfulness of war.
1:06:19
Speaker 2: I mean, that's that is one big, big topic.
1:06:21
Speaker 1: Well, absolutely, and all right, we'll say we'll save the
1:06:26
Speaker 1: rest of it for the next time. But I hope
1:06:29
Speaker 1: that Iran, okay, they've had the attacks. I hope there's
1:06:34
Speaker 1: some winding back on this.
1:06:37
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
1:06:37
Speaker 1: I think there's a possibility that that's that's going to happen.
1:06:42
Speaker 1: But it's dreadful.
1:06:43
Speaker 2: It is dreadful. Yeah, obviously, that's what we hope for.
1:06:47
Speaker 2: That's really what this is all about, the escalation.
1:06:52
Speaker 1: And keeping some sanity exact. Great, well, thank you very much.