Latest / International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better / BRICS, India, Russia & China: The New Economic Power Shift | Ukraine Drone War

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BRICS, India, Russia & China: The New Economic Power Shift | Ukraine Drone War · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

• 0:00
  Hello, good morning. Welcome. I am
• 0:02
  Samuel Trap. It's Monday and here we are
• 0:06
  coming to you live from the Lake Ozark
• 0:08
  Real Estate of the Arts Studio where you
• 0:11
  should could and shall be listening
• 0:15
  constantly at damradio.comwardlive.
• 0:20
  We love it when you listen. Uh feel free
• 0:22
  to phone. I may actually answer. I doubt
• 0:25
  it though. Uh 5737468020
• 0:29
  is the number should you wish to uh get
• 0:32
  involved. Um
• 0:35
  [cough and clears throat]
• 0:36
  tell you what
• 0:38
  uh that's some great music. I've been
• 0:41
  sitting here in the studio probably for
• 0:43
  the last half hour. If you like that
• 0:44
  last half hour, that was personally me
• 0:47
  and not the uh the gods of uh of music
• 0:51
  that just sort their own music. It just
• 0:55
  shows up automatically. That was me. So,
• 0:57
  uh, sometimes I actually my taste isn't
• 1:00
  all in my mouth. You know, there's some
• 1:02
  good taste in music. Uh, Steve Winwood,
• 1:04
  that was fantastic. Oh, how can you not
• 1:07
  like that? Anyway, there are weekends
• 1:09
  that come along in, you know, in
• 1:12
  international affairs when
• 1:16
  a lot of times weekends aren't very
• 1:18
  dramatic. There's nothing for you to
• 1:19
  report on on Monday. But we've had uh
• 1:22
  you know I don't know maybe they're not
• 1:25
  especially dramatic if you look at them
• 1:27
  one at a time you know there's a summit
• 1:29
  that takes place some leader arrives
• 1:31
  somewhere there bilateral meetings held
• 1:34
  somebody issues a communicate speeches
• 1:37
  sometimes come out motorcades move
• 1:40
  through a city takes a photo opportunity
• 1:43
  and everybody goes home it's kind of
• 1:45
  dull and if you follow international
• 1:47
  politics only by headlines
• 1:50
  Then the bricks gathering in New Delhi
• 1:55
  where I was supposed to go and was too
• 1:58
  uh I have too much crap going on. But
• 2:01
  damn it, next year I believe is China
• 2:04
  and uh uh I think I'm going to buy I'm
• 2:06
  going to go now [laughter]
• 2:09
  and sit in China and wait for it.
• 2:11
  Actually, it might be South Africa. But
• 2:13
  either way, I've missed it. I didn't do
• 2:15
  Brazil last year and that pissed me off
• 2:17
  to no end because Brazil's easy, you
• 2:20
  know, to get into Brazil. India's uh not
• 2:22
  too hard for an American. You can go
• 2:24
  there. Um but I didn't do it. Um
• 2:28
  you know, if you reduce bricks to just
• 2:30
  the kind of dull event that uh the West
• 2:34
  wants you to believe it is, you know, uh
• 2:36
  you're you're mistaken. It's not just a
• 2:38
  photo op. Um you could easily be
• 2:41
  reducing bricks to that kind of event.
• 2:44
  Vladimir Putin attended again. Xi
• 2:47
  Jinping attended again. Narendra Modi
• 2:51
  hosted and there was another round about
• 2:54
  statements and cooperation that
• 2:55
  followed. No, it was only two weeks ago
• 2:57
  that I was talking about show uh SEO,
• 3:00
  Shanghai Cooperation Organization
• 3:03
  that uh the same three attended and that
• 3:09
  was a big deal. But this one is bigger
• 3:12
  and and I'm going to explain why. Uh but
• 3:15
  you know if you interpret this as
• 3:17
  something is just you know statements of
• 3:19
  cooperation
• 3:21
  that you know okay that's what the west
• 3:24
  and its AI gods we'll get into that
• 3:27
  later too. I have a week of content just
• 3:30
  from this weekend. It's crazy. And uh
• 3:32
  but if you interpret this as just
• 3:35
  another dull weekend uh you'd miss what
• 3:37
  made this weekend important. The
• 3:39
  interesting story isn't the choreography
• 3:42
  of the summit, but the the the
• 3:44
  construction
• 3:46
  of a political and economic system in
• 3:49
  which major non-western states are
• 3:53
  creating more room to maneuver
• 3:55
  independently of the United States,
• 4:00
  Brussels, the dollar, and the
• 4:03
  institutions that have dominated the
• 4:05
  international world order for most of
• 4:08
  the period.
• 4:09
  since the second world war which we've
• 4:12
  controlled basically we the United
• 4:14
  States and and the west for sure and
• 4:17
  India is central to this story and India
• 4:22
  deserves more attention than it normally
• 4:24
  receives in western discussions of
• 4:26
  bricks everybody always wants to talk
• 4:28
  about Russia's motivations China's
• 4:31
  motivations and you know those are easy
• 4:34
  to understand and it's easy to take a
• 4:36
  contrary position to them. Oh gee, it's
• 4:39
  Russia. It's China. They're the bad
• 4:40
  guys. They've always been the bad guys.
• 4:42
  We've created these bad guys that may or
• 4:44
  may not exist, but
• 4:47
  you can have your opinion about the bad
• 4:49
  guys, right?
• 4:52
  Both of those states have reasons to
• 4:54
  favor a more multipolar economic and
• 4:58
  political system. greater use of
• 5:00
  national currency instead of the dollar,
• 5:03
  more insulation from American financial
• 5:06
  power and more
• 5:09
  uh international institutions that
• 5:12
  aren't influenced overwhelmingly
• 5:16
  by western government and western lead.
• 5:20
  uh the the the West has has dominated
• 5:22
  these things and forced their will
• 5:25
  through the dollar, through the Swift
• 5:27
  system, through the the um uh
• 5:32
  international monetary fund. Um and and
• 5:36
  so it's easy to
• 5:39
  turn it into an us versus them kind of
• 5:42
  thing if it's Russia and China on the
• 5:43
  other side. India is more complicated
• 5:46
  than that because India does not want
• 5:50
  simply to exchange one system of
• 5:53
  dependency for another. New Delhi has
• 5:56
  zero interest in becoming a subordinate
• 5:59
  of Beijing or Moscow. uh at at the same
• 6:02
  time it has no desire to be
• 6:06
  instructed by Scott Bessant
• 6:10
  or Donald Trump or Washington regarding
• 6:14
  who it can buy energy from, what
• 6:16
  currency it's allowed to use, which
• 6:18
  countries it can meet with or discuss
• 6:21
  things with, or what international
• 6:24
  organizations it can be a part of or
• 6:26
  help develop. India's foreign policy has
• 6:29
  increasingly reflected the idea that a
• 6:33
  country of its own of that size should
• 6:35
  be able to work with whoever it wants
• 6:38
  whether that's the United States,
• 6:39
  Russia, China, Europe, the Gulf, Africa,
• 6:43
  Latin America or all of the above
• 6:45
  simultaneously
• 6:47
  without being required to choose a side
• 6:51
  to exclusively dis you know declare
• 6:54
  loyalty to one geopol political um
• 6:59
  force. That is why this particular brick
• 7:03
  summit deserves an even closer
• 7:05
  examination. India wasn't just a
• 7:08
  participant sitting with Russia and
• 7:11
  China. India was the host country, the
• 7:13
  chair of the events and one of the
• 7:16
  central political actors shaping the
• 7:18
  messaging. Narendra Modi repeatedly
• 7:21
  returned the idea that the developing
• 7:24
  world
• 7:26
  should move beyond um what he calls
• 7:30
  being a rule taker to being a rule maker
• 7:35
  shaper. That phrase is more important
• 7:39
  because it summarizes
• 7:41
  India's and everybody else's in the in
• 7:44
  these uh bricks countries and the world
• 7:47
  the the global south in particular the
• 7:50
  broad frustration shared by many of
• 7:52
  those whose economic and demographic
• 7:55
  weight has has increased dramatically.
• 7:58
  We'll get to the numbers here in a
• 7:59
  minute. While the international
• 8:01
  institutions that control finance,
• 8:04
  diplomacy, development, and security
• 8:07
  still reflect the bully and power
• 8:12
  relationships established decades ago.
• 8:16
  You know, the the India has been a
• 8:18
  colony of of England forever and or or
• 8:22
  or who else, you know, you pick it.
• 8:25
  They've they've been a third world
• 8:27
  country. They've been pushed down. You
• 8:29
  know, everybody else a third world
• 8:30
  country. Got news for you, they're not.
• 8:34
  And now they're starting to show that
• 8:36
  they're not. India's own argument isn't
• 8:38
  that every western institution has to be
• 8:41
  destroyed. I'm not arguing that.
• 8:43
  Nobody's arguing that. Its argument is
• 8:45
  that countries representing a much
• 8:49
  larger share of the world's population
• 8:52
  and economics
• 8:54
  should have a larger role in determining
• 8:57
  the rules.
• 8:59
  That brings us into bricks pay. Now, we
• 9:03
  I've been talking about this since uh uh
• 9:05
  my own visit to the bricks thing in uh
• 9:08
  2024.
• 9:11
  uh and and they because they talked
• 9:12
  about it then and that might turn out to
• 9:15
  be one of the most consequential
• 9:17
  developments of the entire weekend of
• 9:20
  the entire year. There have been years
• 9:22
  of speculation about a common bricks
• 9:25
  currency much of it exaggerated or
• 9:28
  unrealistic. Remember last year, [cough]
• 9:31
  excuse me, [clears throat] I think it
• 9:32
  was last year after um
• 9:35
  the summit in Brazil that Trump came
• 9:38
  out. It might have been right before it.
• 9:40
  I don't remember, but Trump came out and
• 9:42
  he said, "Anybody that stops using the
• 9:44
  dollar, and this isn't the exact quote,
• 9:47
  it's paraphrase. Anybody quits using the
• 9:48
  dollar, we're going to sanction them.
• 9:50
  We're going to tariff them." Because he
• 9:53
  understands this, but he overreacts just
• 9:55
  like he does to everything and makes
• 9:57
  these grand statements, you know, of
• 10:00
  whatever the hell he's he's making that
• 10:02
  sometimes don't make a lot of sense.
• 10:04
  But, uh, he he last year talked about
• 10:06
  this. Um but some of this is uh you know
• 10:09
  this talk about a bricks currency it's
• 10:11
  somewhat exaggerated or unrealistic but
• 10:15
  creating a so creating a single currency
• 10:19
  among countries as diverse as Russia,
• 10:23
  China, India, Brazil, Iran,
• 10:27
  Sa Saudi Arabia or any of the bricks
• 10:30
  members or partners would require
• 10:33
  enormous political and institutional
• 10:36
  commitments. It would raise too many
• 10:38
  questions about who controls the
• 10:40
  monetary policy. I mean, nobody knows
• 10:42
  who controls Swift, who controls the
• 10:45
  IMF, who controls the World Bank, and it
• 10:47
  sure as hell isn't India, China, or
• 10:49
  Russia, right? Or anybody in Briggs. You
• 10:52
  have to, you know, lick their rear end
• 10:55
  to to get a loan and make all kinds of
• 10:58
  austerity measures. They dictate to you
• 11:00
  what you're going to do to get money and
• 11:02
  stuff like that. That's not so as a
• 11:05
  member of bricks or any of the instit
• 11:07
  even China's uh uh
• 11:10
  uh road uh belts and roads um movement
• 11:16
  um and funding worldwide doesn't require
• 11:19
  any of that. It's just a loan. It's an
• 11:21
  economic only package. You don't have
• 11:23
  to, you know, I don't know, commit to
• 11:26
  their form of democracy or lower the
• 11:31
  amount of money that you give to your
• 11:33
  people or any social program or decide
• 11:36
  that you have to be el LGBTQ++
• 11:40
  exclamation point uh friendly or
• 11:43
  whatever. And uh you don't have to talk
• 11:46
  about where you can put the assets, who
• 11:48
  who manage the exchange rate and all of
• 11:51
  those things. So for now there is very
• 11:53
  little evidence that India or other
• 11:56
  members want to create a
• 12:00
  uh an opposing force to the those three
• 12:03
  organizations.
• 12:05
  But the alternative that they're
• 12:08
  creating is much less dramatic but
• 12:11
  potentially much more important. They
• 12:14
  would keep the ruble, keep the rupee and
• 12:16
  the yuan, keep the realale and build
• 12:19
  systems that allow their own currencies
• 12:23
  to interact more easily without routing
• 12:27
  every major transaction through a dollar
• 12:30
  centered financial network. This is the
• 12:33
  key. It's the significance of the
• 12:36
  agreement involving right here. Here
• 12:39
  this agreement was discussed and inked
• 12:42
  this weekend. It involves the Russian
• 12:45
  direct investment fund
• 12:47
  JSC bricks pay and bricks pay India for
• 12:52
  the first time that are going to develop
• 12:54
  a payment infrastructure in India and
• 12:59
  explore integration with existing
• 13:02
  systems. If that effort produces the
• 13:06
  crossborder settlement in their own
• 13:08
  national currency which by the way
• 13:12
  trade between Russia and China is
• 13:15
  already at 96% or something like that
• 13:19
  transacted without the dollar and even
• 13:22
  four or five years ago that was not the
• 13:25
  case. Every time they transferred it had
• 13:27
  to go through some bank in New York. So
• 13:30
  the significance is that countries
• 13:32
  engaged in bilateral trade have another
• 13:35
  method that will be available to them
• 13:38
  when they don't wish to use the dollar
• 13:41
  or when access to western banking
• 13:44
  becomes politically difficult i.e.
• 13:46
  sanctions. This is where the term
• 13:49
  ddollarization is misunderstood
• 13:51
  misinterpreted. DD dollarization doesn't
• 13:54
  require destruction of the dollar, any
• 13:58
  collapse of American finance or any new
• 14:01
  single reserve currency that replaces
• 14:04
  the dollar. The process is going to be
• 14:07
  and has been gradual. Every time two
• 14:10
  countries settle more of their trade in
• 14:13
  their own national currencies and every
• 14:16
  time a payment system permits a
• 14:19
  transaction that doesn't pass through a
• 14:22
  dollar controlled correspondent bank
• 14:26
  and every time that development
• 14:28
  institution lends in a currency other
• 14:31
  than the dollar
• 14:34
  dependence on the old system is
• 14:37
  diminished.
• 14:38
  That doesn't mean the old system is
• 14:40
  irrelevant. No, no, no. The dollar is
• 14:43
  enormously important because American
• 14:45
  capital markets are deep, liquid, and
• 14:49
  mostly trusted. And because so much
• 14:52
  global commerce is already in dollar
• 14:55
  denominations,
• 14:57
  but there's an enormous strategic
• 14:59
  difference between a currency being a
• 15:02
  dominant currency and a currency that is
• 15:05
  indispensable. And that's the point.
• 15:08
  India's involvement is very important
• 15:11
  here because India isn't a candidate for
• 15:14
  anti-American economics, any sort of
• 15:17
  project. Russia has been subject to
• 15:19
  extraordinary sanctions pressure and has
• 15:22
  every reason to search for alternatives
• 15:24
  to dollar settlement. Iran, same thing.
• 15:27
  China has to consider the pol uh
• 15:29
  possibility of any political
• 15:32
  confrontation with Washington affecting
• 15:34
  its uh financial restrictions. India
• 15:38
  retains substantial economic, military,
• 15:43
  technological and diplomatic
• 15:45
  relationships with the US, with Europe
• 15:49
  so that when India this past weekend
• 15:54
  participates in developing an
• 15:56
  alternative financial infrastructure,
• 15:58
  the message coming back is different. It
• 16:03
  suggests that even countries that are
• 16:05
  not trying to abandon the western system
• 16:09
  and Russia and China aren't trying to
• 16:12
  aband it either. They're just trading
• 16:13
  between themselves. They have they see
• 16:16
  the you know the necessity of trading in
• 16:18
  the dollar. Everybody does. But they
• 16:20
  want alternatives to develop their own
• 16:22
  currencies and their own finances. And
• 16:25
  every time somebody joins, I've been
• 16:27
  saying this for for years now. Every
• 16:29
  time another person joins the
• 16:31
  alternative structure, it reduces the
• 16:33
  dependence on the dollar. And that's
• 16:35
  what's important. So, you know, there's
• 16:38
  everybody's reducing the risk. They're
• 16:42
  reducing the risk that tomorrow Donald
• 16:44
  Trump might say, "Well, I'm going to
• 16:46
  sanction soand so." Joe Biden might say,
• 16:48
  "Well, we're going to uh, you know, u
• 16:52
  seize your money out of this Western
• 16:54
  institution." the the Brussels gets to
• 16:57
  say, "Well, you have assets in uh in our
• 17:00
  country. We're just going to lock them
• 17:02
  up and you and we're going to give the
• 17:04
  interest to Ukraine
• 17:06
  [laughter]
• 17:07
  like they've done." And so there's
• 17:09
  absolute value in reducing the risk of
• 17:11
  that happening. If your money is not in
• 17:13
  there, they can't do it. That is why
• 17:16
  India's economic size has to be uh uh
• 17:20
  you know talked about and where purchase
• 17:23
  power parody
• 17:25
  is necessary to understand. So there are
• 17:27
  two types of GDP and most Americans are
• 17:30
  accustomed to hearing countries compared
• 17:32
  through nominal gross domestic product
• 17:35
  if you remember what that is. GDP,
• 17:38
  gross domestic product
• 17:40
  is the amount of money in dollars that a
• 17:45
  country makes. So if you look at India,
• 17:47
  Russia, Russia's listed like a number
• 17:49
  10, you know, uh India, China, uh
• 17:52
  they're they're still in the top 10. And
• 17:56
  uh uh but it's the traditional
• 17:59
  dollar-based economies that are very
• 18:01
  much on the top of that scale. But if
• 18:03
  you go to nominal GDP which is far more
• 18:06
  important and if you understand
• 18:07
  economics it's the it's the reason that
• 18:11
  you it's not the currency translated to
• 18:15
  dollars it's what you can buy with the
• 18:18
  corresponding currency. So, if a car
• 18:22
  costs you in America
• 18:24
  $30,000,
• 18:26
  but the exact same car in China or India
• 18:30
  or Russia only costs $7,000,
• 18:35
  obviously you have a vast benefit to
• 18:38
  buying it in the ruble, the rupee, the
• 18:41
  yuan. And that is how the easiest way
• 18:45
  probably to understand nominal GDP is
• 18:48
  because it takes the total output in an
• 18:51
  economy into dollars using the
• 18:54
  prevailing market exchange rate. And
• 18:56
  it's an important measure when
• 18:58
  evaluating a particular country's
• 19:00
  ability to buy an imported product, any
• 19:03
  foreign debt, any investment or acquired
• 19:06
  commodities priced in an international
• 19:08
  market. A nominal exchange rate
• 19:12
  doesn't tell us everything it's about of
• 19:14
  real activity that takes place inside
• 19:16
  the country. Uh you know a simple
• 19:21
  example is a bottle of water in in
• 19:24
  Russia doesn't cost anything. It's
• 19:26
  pennies
• 19:28
  to get the same bottle of water that
• 19:30
  over here you go to the I don't know
• 19:32
  Casey's and you got to pay $1.79 for.
• 19:35
  You know in Russia it's [snorts]
• 19:37
  15 cents. That means nothing. And it's
• 19:40
  purchase power parody corrects for the
• 19:43
  fact that the same amount of money buys
• 19:45
  a different quantity of goods or
• 19:47
  services in a different country. A
• 19:49
  salary that is inadequate in New York. I
• 19:53
  mean, think about this. If if if you
• 19:54
  live in Missouri and you make uh I don't
• 19:57
  know 70,000 a year, you can live you can
• 20:01
  live off of that. In New York,
• 20:04
  [laughter] I don't think so. in San
• 20:06
  Francisco. No way. Go up to the
• 20:09
  Northwest in Seattle or somewhere like
• 20:11
  that and you're making 70. You're below
• 20:13
  the poverty line. You know it's uh uh
• 20:17
  [clears throat]
• 20:18
  PPP purchase power parody
• 20:21
  attempts to ask not merely how many
• 20:23
  dollars an economy uh can you know
• 20:27
  convert into today's foreign exchange
• 20:29
  rate but how much actual economic power
• 20:33
  that local currency commands in its own
• 20:36
  country. So once you measure the major
• 20:39
  econ economies in that way the the list
• 20:43
  changes dramatically of who is in the
• 20:47
  top positions according to the world
• 20:49
  bank. Now this is a world bank western
• 20:52
  controlled institution their purchase
• 20:55
  power parody rankings
• 20:58
  China is number one not the US. China is
• 21:03
  first, the US is second, India is third
• 21:07
  and Russia is fourth. That means China,
• 21:10
  India and Russia are three out of four
• 21:13
  obviously top positions in the world. So
• 21:16
  this figure doesn't magically eliminate
• 21:18
  the advantages the dollar or the US
• 21:21
  possess in technology, capital, uh
• 21:24
  global finance or high value industry.
• 21:26
  And you shouldn't use it uh as though
• 21:29
  PPP and nominal GDP it measure exactly
• 21:32
  the same thing. They don't. But PPP does
• 21:35
  explain why a country that sometimes
• 21:38
  appears smaller in dollar converted
• 21:41
  statistics still possesses a much
• 21:44
  greater domestic product capacity than
• 21:48
  the numbers in dollars suggest. So
• 21:51
  Russia is the obvious example. When
• 21:53
  Russia [snorts] is measured in nominal
• 21:55
  dollars, the economy is surprisingly
• 21:57
  small relative to its military,
• 22:00
  industrial and you know geopolitical I
• 22:03
  guess reach. Uh but when the same
• 22:05
  economy is evalued through purchased
• 22:07
  power, it's domestic production, wages,
• 22:10
  energy costs, um military manufacturing,
• 22:13
  infrastructure spending, uh all that
• 22:16
  stuff is very different. Russian
• 22:18
  government pays Russian salaries,
• 22:20
  purchases Russian goods, buys domestic
• 22:23
  energy and rubles, constructs
• 22:25
  infrastructure. Um, in India, look at
• 22:28
  India is more important because of its
• 22:31
  extraordinary demographic and growth
• 22:34
  trajectory. India is the most populous
• 22:37
  country in the world. Its econom economy
• 22:40
  has uh been growing at a rate that
• 22:44
  places it among the fastest growing
• 22:46
  major economies. Its significance isn't
• 22:50
  confined to information technology,
• 22:54
  call centers or pharmaceuticals which is
• 22:57
  how the country was discussed 20 years
• 22:59
  ago. India is now building roads,
• 23:02
  airports, data centers, industrial
• 23:04
  corridors. Russia's building a nuclear
• 23:06
  power plant for them. Six. Six reactors.
• 23:09
  That's huge. That's enormous. How many
• 23:12
  six reactor nuclear power plants does
• 23:16
  the United States have? It's internal
• 23:18
  market is increasingly important on its
• 23:21
  own. As more Indians enter the middle
• 23:24
  class, the country's domestic purchasing
• 23:26
  power. This PPP is more important to
• 23:30
  global companies and foreign governments
• 23:33
  alike. That economic rise changes
• 23:37
  India's diplomatic behavior. A poor
• 23:40
  country like India used to be with
• 23:43
  limited options might have to choose,
• 23:45
  might have to submit to what the US
• 23:48
  tells it to. But a large and rapidly
• 23:50
  growing economy has much greater freedom
• 23:53
  to resist external pressure. India is
• 23:57
  allowed to buy Russian oil because it
• 24:00
  has its own national energy
• 24:01
  requirements. It can cooperate with the
• 24:04
  US on defense and simultaneously
• 24:07
  maintain its decades old relationships
• 24:09
  with Moscow.
• 24:12
  It can compete strategically with China,
• 24:14
  which it does while sitting with Xi
• 24:16
  Jinping at bricks and SEO meetings. It
• 24:20
  can deepen ties with Europe without
• 24:22
  accepting European policy. This isn't
• 24:25
  inconsistency. It's foreign policy
• 24:29
  from India that increasingly sees itself
• 24:33
  not as a secondary power
• 24:36
  choosing who to be with but as one of
• 24:40
  the powers in its own right. It is
• 24:44
  becoming a much larger power. So the
• 24:47
  relationship that the US hasn't wanted
• 24:49
  for a long time is a is a trilateral
• 24:53
  arrangement among Russia, India, China.
• 24:57
  We got to treat it with some care. Um to
• 25:00
  describe them as a formal alliance or a
• 25:02
  unified geopolitical block would be a
• 25:04
  mistake. India and China do have serious
• 25:08
  strategic disagreements. They have a
• 25:10
  longstanding border dispute. They have
• 25:13
  competition across Asia and they're
• 25:16
  suspicious of each other. Uh Russia's
• 25:19
  relationship with China is much deeper
• 25:21
  in some areas than its relationship with
• 25:24
  India. Uh especially after you know
• 25:27
  sanctions uh world um erupted. Uh India
• 25:32
  meanwhile has maintained ties with
• 25:34
  Washington participates in arrangement
• 25:37
  that Beijing views with suspicion.
• 25:41
  So these three governments don't
• 25:42
  necessarily share identical interests.
• 25:45
  There is no reason to believe that any
• 25:48
  of those differences are going to
• 25:49
  appear. But the absence of some kind of
• 25:52
  formal NATO thing doesn't make the
• 25:56
  cooperation insignificant.
• 25:59
  In some respects, the fact that they do
• 26:02
  disagree on many things makes the
• 26:04
  expansion of their institutional
• 26:06
  cooperation even more important. Despite
• 26:10
  their differences, they continue to meet
• 26:13
  at BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation
• 26:15
  Organization. They have bilateral trade
• 26:17
  that's growing. Russia sells energy to
• 26:20
  both of them. China and India are
• 26:22
  commercially intertwined even while
• 26:25
  competing strategically. They're
• 26:26
  neighbors for God's sake. You know, they
• 26:29
  all touch each other and and and know,
• 26:32
  you know, know things. Russia benefits
• 26:34
  by having strong relationships with both
• 26:37
  of these Asian powers and China benefits
• 26:40
  from uh Russia because it's a large
• 26:43
  supplier of energy comm energy
• 26:46
  commodities and military technology. So
• 26:50
  the sequence of the last few weeks, you
• 26:52
  know, what I've been talking about here
• 26:53
  for a couple of weeks,
• 26:56
  um, you know, follows this same
• 27:00
  path. When we were talking about the
• 27:03
  Shanghai Cooperation Organization a week
• 27:06
  or two ago, Putin, Modi, and Xi Jinping
• 27:09
  were already appearing in that Eurasian
• 27:11
  framework that's limited to just
• 27:14
  Eurasia. and Modi and Putin held their
• 27:17
  own discussions. Uh, by the way, the
• 27:20
  they the two rode in the same limousine
• 27:24
  which was important at the Shanghai
• 27:26
  Cooperation Organal Organization meeting
• 27:29
  in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan a couple of weeks
• 27:31
  ago and they did it again on September
• 27:34
  11 here in India. Um, Modi got into
• 27:38
  Putin's li Russian limousine and they
• 27:42
  went to a um an event that was being
• 27:46
  published.
• 27:49
  Putin gave a speech at the BRICS
• 27:51
  business forum and they talked about the
• 27:54
  shift in the economic weight of the
• 27:56
  world. his position,
• 27:59
  get rid of all the politics that are
• 28:01
  surrounding it, by the way, is that the
• 28:02
  the structure of global governance
• 28:06
  hasn't kept pace with changes in the
• 28:09
  global economy. So the traditional
• 28:12
  western powers are remain wealthy. You
• 28:15
  know, they're technologically advanced,
• 28:17
  they're influential institutionally,
• 28:20
  but the share of world output produced
• 28:24
  by emerging economies, Russia, China,
• 28:27
  India has increased enormously.
• 28:31
  BRICS countries and their partners now
• 28:34
  account for a huge portion of the global
• 28:37
  GDP. Putin's argument is that the
• 28:40
  international institution should reflect
• 28:42
  that change rather than preserving
• 28:45
  indefinitely the power relationships of
• 28:49
  the last century. Modi when he spoke he
• 28:53
  was less confrontational but the
• 28:54
  destination was the same. He emphasized
• 28:57
  that bricks countries and their partners
• 28:59
  represent, get this, half of the world's
• 29:03
  population,
• 29:05
  40%
• 29:06
  of global GDP
• 29:09
  and more than one quarter of all
• 29:12
  international trade.
• 29:15
  By the same token, guess what the G7
• 29:19
  represents? The largest G7, 29%.
• 29:25
  bricks is now far ahead of the G7 and
• 29:29
  yet the G7 are supposed to be the
• 29:31
  important ones right uh Mod's language
• 29:34
  was about building economic bridges and
• 29:37
  that's revealing because it shows that
• 29:40
  India wants to position itself as a
• 29:43
  leader they don't necessarily
• 29:46
  want an anti-American coalition that's
• 29:49
  not what they're after doesn't appear to
• 29:50
  me it wants to create a world in which
• 29:53
  it doesn't have to choose
• 29:55
  based upon what America says.
• 29:59
  They don't want to be forced to choose
• 30:01
  between America, Russia, China, Europe,
• 30:04
  or any global south relationship.
• 30:08
  Importantly, Xi Jinping, he he was also
• 30:11
  different. He talked about uh
• 30:14
  self-reliance. He talked about
• 30:16
  cooperation among developing countries.
• 30:19
  Same thing he did at this Shanghai
• 30:21
  Cooperation Organization. They're pretty
• 30:23
  consistent. Um, China's interest is easy
• 30:26
  to understand. Beijing possesses an
• 30:30
  industrial base, trade networks,
• 30:33
  technology and capacity necessary to
• 30:37
  support its own movements and kind of
• 30:40
  the south south economic activity. A
• 30:43
  world of developing economies
• 30:46
  have more trade that is conducted
• 30:49
  directly with China, India, Brazil and
• 30:51
  Russia and each other and it naturally
• 30:54
  reduces the dominance of western markets
• 30:58
  even though the western markets are very
• 31:00
  very important.
• 31:02
  Now I I mean understand that point. I
• 31:06
  that point is critical because they
• 31:10
  previously all of those trades and
• 31:13
  remember we're at 40% and growing
• 31:16
  economies growing members there's only
• 31:19
  21 right now that are formal members or
• 31:21
  something like that and uh then there's
• 31:23
  some partner countries another 8 to 10
• 31:26
  or 12 something like that and uh if you
• 31:30
  take just the 21 the member states but
• 31:33
  the other ones are pushing to either
• 31:35
  join or being invited to join or things
• 31:37
  like that. And as they increasingly have
• 31:42
  alternative pay routes that don't
• 31:46
  require the dollar, it's not hard to
• 31:48
  figure out that, you know,
• 31:53
  something needs to they need to be
• 31:56
  involved more. And just like in the
• 31:57
  Shanghai Cooperation Organization, they
• 31:59
  talked about a uh a function of the uh
• 32:04
  uh what do you call it of the
• 32:09
  um
• 32:11
  alternative pay structures. you know,
• 32:13
  they they talked about it and talked
• 32:15
  about um not having unilateral sorts of
• 32:20
  uh um organizations that get to, you
• 32:25
  know, just do what they want or force
• 32:27
  them into a certain path and and that is
• 32:31
  that is kind of the point of what they
• 32:34
  are.
• 32:36
  Um hang on a second. uh kind of kind of
• 32:41
  lost my place, but uh uh it's important
• 32:44
  to uh to have the discussions about
• 32:47
  Putin, Modi, and Z and the different
• 32:50
  language that they used about this.
• 32:53
  They're not necessarily
• 32:55
  uniform ideologically. You know, Russia
• 32:58
  talks about the decline of Western
• 33:01
  dominance and and Putin was very much on
• 33:06
  a pedestal in in India. It's the first
• 33:08
  time he's been to India in 7 years, I
• 33:12
  believe. And uh uh the the relationship
• 33:15
  between India and Russia is growing.
• 33:17
  They have open borders now. Uh you don't
• 33:20
  need a visa to travel from India to
• 33:23
  Russia and vice versa. Um, China talks
• 33:26
  about the rise and self-strengthening of
• 33:28
  the global south as it deals
• 33:30
  increasingly among its own members.
• 33:33
  India is talking about reform,
• 33:37
  representation in western organizations,
• 33:40
  World Bank, stuff like that, excuse
• 33:43
  [clears throat] me, strategic autonomy
• 33:45
  on its own. Don't force me to pick
• 33:47
  sides. And a greater role in the rule
• 33:51
  making. So this this rules-based order
• 33:55
  which only applies to you know the
• 33:57
  substandard countries Russia, India,
• 34:00
  China uh you know Europe has a superior
• 34:04
  position, United States as superior
• 34:06
  position. These aren't identical
• 34:08
  philosophies between Russia, India and
• 34:10
  China but they do overlap
• 34:12
  in in a way that can pres represent and
• 34:16
  create this uh cooperation. So in some
• 34:20
  ways that can make the bricks
• 34:22
  organization
• 34:24
  I don't know far more durable
• 34:28
  uh than an ideological block. Energy is
• 34:32
  important. The deterioration of
• 34:34
  relationships between Russia and Europe,
• 34:37
  you know, has has created a serious
• 34:40
  problem. Putin criticized the European
• 34:42
  energy policy. And this was funny when
• 34:44
  you listen, it's not funny, it's
• 34:46
  actually sad, but when you're listening
• 34:48
  to his uh his discussion of the speech,
• 34:53
  he talked about how uh years ago,
• 34:55
  everybody wanted a system pegged to the
• 34:59
  dollar and Putin wanted a long-term
• 35:01
  contract. He wanted long-term uh for
• 35:04
  liquid natural gas, long-term, and it's
• 35:07
  sold in thousand meter blocks. So, uh,
• 35:10
  cubic meters, thousand cubic meter
• 35:13
  blocks. And he said, "We offered, you
• 35:15
  guys got exactly what you wanted is what
• 35:17
  he was saying." And it was, "Wow." It
• 35:19
  was a a key speech almost as key as the
• 35:22
  one he gave in um, uh,
• 35:26
  uh, Munich in 2007 when they was talking
• 35:30
  about bricks
• 35:33
  and the formation of bricks. By the way,
• 35:35
  it's almost 20 years. Next year's 20
• 35:36
  year anniversary.
• 35:39
  Xi Jinping talked about how it's uh you
• 35:42
  know expanded and how it's passed its
• 35:44
  growth phases and now it's taking more
• 35:46
  and more importance and uh and and it is
• 35:49
  you know there's no doubt that it is and
• 35:52
  Putin talked about it then but he said
• 35:54
  to Europe he goes well you created your
• 35:55
  own bed lay in it basically he said uh
• 35:59
  here here we offered you $150
• 36:04
  for every thousand cubic meters but oh
• 36:06
  no you wanted it pegged to the worldwide
• 36:09
  global system. And right now it's $1,000
• 36:14
  a cubic meter in Europe. And and he
• 36:17
  said, "You got what you wanted." And
• 36:19
  it's pushing to 1,500 per cubic meter.
• 36:22
  And that affects everything in Europe.
• 36:25
  Everything. The German dominance in
• 36:28
  automobiles and manufacturing and and
• 36:30
  and all of that. That is affected by
• 36:34
  they don't have cheap gas anymore.
• 36:36
  They're paying
• 36:38
  six times, eight times. Um remember we
• 36:41
  did an analysis on this uh couple of
• 36:44
  months ago of what they were paying and
• 36:47
  it's a ridiculous amount of money that
• 36:49
  they are paying for this and Russia's
• 36:51
  going well you know you got what you
• 36:53
  wanted you know and and by the way it's
• 36:55
  still buying replacement from Russia too
• 36:59
  and so it's it's no longer pegged to
• 37:01
  anything they used to peg everything to
• 37:04
  uh a particular and they still do he
• 37:06
  said it's still pegged to the national
• 37:08
  market and Russia gets less and
• 37:10
  everybody else but it's still pegged.
• 37:13
  It's uh I don't know and this is why
• 37:15
  India's position in this whole affair is
• 37:18
  very difficult for Washington or
• 37:20
  Brussels to challenge if American or
• 37:23
  European officials
• 37:26
  instruct or ask India to reduce
• 37:29
  purchases of Russian oil
• 37:32
  because they don't like what's going on
• 37:34
  in Ukraine or some other geopolitical
• 37:37
  reason. India can and does reasonably
• 37:41
  ask why an Indian household should pay
• 37:45
  more for energy in order to support
• 37:48
  another country's strategic objective.
• 37:52
  I mean think about that. Would you want
• 37:54
  it? You know, suppose Israel came here
• 37:57
  and told the US that uh you know, you
• 38:00
  have to pay a lot of money to build us
• 38:02
  an iron dome because uh you know, cuz
• 38:06
  those Muslims are coming to take over
• 38:08
  the world and that's you know, we we
• 38:10
  should be killing everybody over here
• 38:13
  and we're going to and we're supposed to
• 38:14
  support that blindly. And for what? I
• 38:18
  mean, what what good does it do you in
• 38:20
  your own life? Not much. And India's
• 38:22
  government is accountable just like ours
• 38:25
  is to us. They're accountable to India's
• 38:29
  population. That doesn't mean India gets
• 38:31
  to ignore international politics. It
• 38:34
  doesn't. It means that international
• 38:36
  politics is filtered through India's
• 38:39
  domestic economic interests.
• 38:42
  So that same logic,
• 38:45
  think about this, that same logic
• 38:48
  increases the reality and the need for
• 38:52
  an alternative payment structure. If
• 38:54
  India wants Russian oil because it's
• 38:57
  cheaper. If Russia wants Indian
• 39:00
  pharmaceuticals or industrial goods and
• 39:03
  both governments want to reduce friction
• 39:05
  in trade relationships,
• 39:07
  settlement,
• 39:09
  a mechanism of settlement like a swift
• 39:12
  system, like a bricks pay system is a
• 39:14
  practical economic infrastructure rather
• 39:18
  than abstract geopolitical
• 39:20
  identification or symbolism. The more
• 39:23
  trade that occurs between the two, the
• 39:25
  greater the incentive to simplify the
• 39:27
  transaction. The easier the payments
• 39:30
  become, the more trade they can make. So
• 39:32
  this is a reinforcing cycle
• 39:36
  that you know financial infrastructure
• 39:38
  is going to develop because the commerce
• 39:40
  requires it
• 39:42
  rather than because somebody gave a
• 39:44
  dramatic declaration about overthrowing
• 39:46
  the dollar. Nobody's trying to overthrow
• 39:48
  the dollar. China fits because its econ
• 39:52
  economic interests are complimentary to
• 39:55
  Russia. China is an enormous importer of
• 39:58
  energy. Russia has abundant energy and
• 40:01
  they're right next door.
• 40:04
  So if you're trying to say you can't buy
• 40:06
  from your neighbor,
• 40:08
  that's because the US wants to fight in
• 40:12
  Ukraine or in Iran.
• 40:14
  What the heck there? Of course, nobody's
• 40:17
  gonna do it. So these three economies do
• 40:19
  not need to resemble each other to
• 40:22
  benefit from a deeper interaction among
• 40:24
  the three. Right? I mean the differences
• 40:28
  between them are part of the reason that
• 40:32
  the relationship has logic economically
• 40:36
  and at the same time we shouldn't turn
• 40:37
  that logic into any sort of romantic
• 40:40
  relationship. Russia is more dependent
• 40:42
  economically on China you know now than
• 40:46
  it was before.
• 40:48
  India and China are strategic
• 40:50
  competitors just like they always have
• 40:52
  been. Um bricks includes governments
• 40:55
  that have conflicting interests in the
• 40:57
  Middle East and elsewhere. They have no
• 41:00
  common military structure, no common
• 41:02
  central bank and no unified foreign
• 41:05
  policy and no binding political
• 41:07
  ideology.
• 41:09
  Anyone
• 41:11
  who claims that BRICS is trying to
• 41:13
  replace the Western world order is
• 41:17
  certainly uh not
• 41:20
  speaking from a factbased position
• 41:24
  because that's not true. But the
• 41:27
  opposite claim that BRICS is merely
• 41:29
  talking shop is also not realistic. The
• 41:34
  new development bank does exist. Trade
• 41:38
  in national currencies is expanding
• 41:40
  annually and financial infrastructure is
• 41:44
  being discussed tested. India's
• 41:46
  participating in this bricks pay
• 41:48
  development is huge. Technological comp
• 41:52
  um competition and cooperation is uh
• 41:56
  getting broader more broad. China is
• 41:59
  promoting cooperation in AI.
• 42:02
  Space cooperation was a topic this week.
• 42:06
  bricks membership is expanded and it has
• 42:08
  you know
• 42:10
  very large portion of the world's
• 42:12
  population. So the question is not
• 42:15
  whether bricks has replaced or is
• 42:17
  replacing the western system. It hasn't
• 42:20
  and isn't. The more useful question is
• 42:23
  whether BRICS is reducing the degree to
• 42:27
  which its members have to rely
• 42:29
  exclusively
• 42:31
  on westernbased systems like Swift, like
• 42:36
  the World Bank and the International
• 42:39
  Monetary Fund. And on that question, the
• 42:42
  answer is increasingly
• 42:45
  they do not have to rely upon them.
• 42:49
  It's uh for the United States. You don't
• 42:53
  shouldn't approach this as a strategic
• 42:55
  problem or uh you know moral drama.
• 43:00
  Washington possesses extraordinary
• 43:02
  advantages. The dollar is still dominant
• 43:05
  and will be for years to come. American
• 43:08
  capital markets are the deepest in the
• 43:10
  world. The US has immense technological,
• 43:13
  military and diplomatic power. Europe is
• 43:16
  wealthy and influential. None of that
• 43:18
  disappears just because bricks is
• 43:21
  continuing to grow.
• 43:23
  The challenge is that every additional
• 43:26
  alternative reduces exclusivity
• 43:30
  if countries can trade in its own
• 43:33
  national currency or use different
• 43:35
  payment networks or obtain
• 43:38
  I don't know development financing from
• 43:41
  another institution other than the
• 43:44
  international monetary fund
• 43:46
  diverse energy relationshipships and u
• 43:50
  non-western forum development
• 43:53
  means there's no American
• 43:58
  dominance, no American
• 44:01
  extreme influential power. It means
• 44:04
  other states in addition to India, China
• 44:07
  and Russia have an alternative structure
• 44:11
  to appeal to or pay through. So the
• 44:15
  sanctions and tariff pressure can
• 44:17
  produce consequences opposite to those
• 44:21
  that Trump intended when they are
• 44:24
  overused. A sanction system is most
• 44:26
  powerful when access to the system is
• 44:30
  indispensable.
• 44:31
  It's no longer is. The more frequently
• 44:34
  governments fear losing access, the
• 44:37
  stronger the incentive to go to an
• 44:39
  alternative structure. I've been saying
• 44:40
  that for years and Russia has reasons to
• 44:43
  do that because sanctions have already
• 44:45
  been imposed. China is preparing for the
• 44:48
  possibility of future confrontation as
• 44:50
  is India. India might conclude that it's
• 44:53
  simply prudent to have multiple channels
• 44:56
  of pay just like everybody else. So that
• 44:58
  in the end is probably the most
• 45:01
  important development coming out of New
• 45:03
  Delhi in the brick summit. And that's
• 45:05
  where Modi and Putin riding together
• 45:08
  again in Putin's limo is more
• 45:12
  interesting than the automobile itself.
• 45:14
  The private conversation inside that
• 45:16
  limousine is still private and people
• 45:19
  are talking about it in speculation. You
• 45:21
  know what? Two leaders of large states
• 45:24
  maintaining a relationship despite years
• 45:27
  of outside pressure.
• 45:30
  The deeper story isn't a personality
• 45:32
  story. It's structural.
• 45:35
  China, India, Russia, three of the four
• 45:38
  largest economies in the world. India
• 45:40
  more assertive because it's richer,
• 45:42
  larger, and more capable than it was
• 45:45
  previously. China possesses enormous
• 45:47
  industrial scale. Russia, energy,
• 45:50
  military, technology, geographic assets.
• 45:53
  This make it far more significant for
• 45:56
  all three of them than their nominal GDP
• 45:58
  alone suggests.
• 46:01
  These three states don't have to agree
• 46:02
  on everything. They only need enough
• 46:05
  overlapping interest to keep building
• 46:07
  alternative structures. And that's
• 46:09
  what's happening. So, I would describe
• 46:12
  the bricks weekend not as the arrival of
• 46:14
  a new world order because that's too
• 46:17
  dramatic and untrue, but it's another
• 46:19
  stage in the
• 46:23
  erosion, I guess you'd say, of the old
• 46:25
  assumption that there's only one serious
• 46:27
  economic and political center, and every
• 46:30
  country has to orient itself to that
• 46:33
  political center. that system is
• 46:36
  becoming more crowded, more complicated
• 46:38
  and more competitive.
• 46:41
  Bricks is certainly uh growing and India
• 46:46
  is helping drive the process because it
• 46:48
  refuses to become anyone's subordinate.
• 46:51
  I've been talking about Jai Shankar,
• 46:53
  Narendra Modi, Jesus for two years,
• 46:56
  right? Russia's benefiting from India's
• 46:58
  independence. China is accommodating it
• 47:00
  and the United States we have to
• 47:03
  understand it. We can't dictate to the
• 47:06
  world anymore. uh and if we want to
• 47:08
  understand where the international
• 47:10
  system is going over the next 20 years,
• 47:14
  the question worth watching is not
• 47:16
  whether India chooses Russia, China or
• 47:19
  the United States, but whether India is
• 47:22
  powerful enough during that time period
• 47:24
  that choosing among them ceases to
• 47:26
  become necessary at all. They can just
• 47:29
  do what they want. And I think that's
• 47:31
  where we're headed. And so, uh, I think
• 47:34
  that is something to pay attention to.
• 47:38
  Um, and I I certainly am, and I think
• 47:41
  that the Bricks conference was enormous
• 47:44
  this past weekend. And I certainly found
• 47:47
  it, uh, well worth watching.
• 47:52
  And, uh, tell you what, um, keep an eye
• 47:57
  on it. Keep an eye on it. We're gonna go
• 48:00
  to a little bit of a music break.
• 48:05
  And uh I've always liked this song. I
• 48:08
  don't know. My son particularly liked it
• 48:10
  when we'd be driving around in a car. So
• 48:12
  I'm going to play it for you. Um enjoy
• 48:15
  and we'll come back in a few.
• 48:30
  Say [music] something.
• 48:36
  [music]
• 48:48
  Yeah.
• 49:00
  >> [music]
• 49:05
  [music]
• 49:06
  >> What does
• 49:12
  [music]
• 49:13
  he
• 49:17
  got to
• 49:19
  [music]
• 49:20
  Baby, baby, come to me and touch me.
• 49:25
  Baby, I can be your wonder.
• 49:32
  [music]
• 50:05
  What's the
• 50:09
  lead
• 50:18
  I can't be your genie, baby. Come to me
• 50:24
  and touch me, baby. I can't be your
• 50:28
  wonder.
• 50:32
  [music]
• 50:35
  You're cheating, baby. Come to [music]
• 50:38
  me and touch me, baby.
• 50:41
  Can it be your wonder?
• 51:19
  Good stuff, Maynard. I like that. That
• 51:21
  was uh what do they what is their name?
• 51:24
  Um Dpina Vandi. Um and Gia is the is the
• 51:29
  song. I've always liked that. My son
• 51:31
  always loved it too. a song and come out
• 51:33
  in the car and he just play it again.
• 51:36
  Play it again. He liked the uh the kind
• 51:39
  of Arabic tones, although the the ladies
• 51:41
  Greek, I think, and I don't remember,
• 51:43
  but uh the the lady's a Greek and and
• 51:46
  it's it's pretty cool. Anyway, um there
• 51:50
  was another story that I'd suggest you
• 51:53
  uh uh if you're interested in bricks and
• 51:56
  development and stuff like that. There
• 51:57
  was an interesting opinion piece by
• 52:01
  uh Michelle Bichkova, the vice president
• 52:04
  for the center of Middle Eastern Studies
• 52:06
  in Moscow that uh it's a pretty long
• 52:09
  one. I can't share it with you. Well, I
• 52:11
  can, but I'm not going to. It's uh about
• 52:13
  bricks and uh can kind of come to the
• 52:17
  conclusion that bricks is not just a
• 52:18
  slogan. And it's an interesting article,
• 52:21
  a great opinion piece. And uh there's
• 52:23
  some other things uh that I'd like to
• 52:27
  get to. And before I get to I mean this
• 52:32
  I'm I'm trying to figure out if I'm
• 52:34
  going to get to this whole piece.
• 52:35
  There's so many things that I could go
• 52:38
  to today that uh
• 52:42
  I want to talk about two more things
• 52:45
  today and I'm trying to decide which one
• 52:47
  comes first. there's an AI piece that
• 52:51
  was uh very very important and uh
• 52:55
  reporters without borders that has that
• 52:58
  has some criticism going on to it and I
• 53:00
  don't want to forget that story and uh
• 53:03
  so there's some real issue there but
• 53:05
  before that I want to get to
• 53:08
  um I have to do it because there's been
• 53:10
  some big news this past weekend there's
• 53:13
  a major development taking place in the
• 53:16
  drone war that deserves attention um
• 53:21
  much more than the nightly ritual of
• 53:24
  saying how many Shahed drones have been
• 53:26
  launched and how many Ukraine says it
• 53:28
  was intercepted. We reached a point
• 53:30
  where the word Shahed itself is
• 53:32
  misleading because it encourages the
• 53:34
  picture
• 53:36
  essentially the same weapon that Russia
• 53:39
  launched 2 three years ago. an
• 53:41
  inexpensive one-way aircraft program
• 53:43
  before takeoff following a fixed route
• 53:46
  toward a fixed destination entered into
• 53:49
  its navigation system. And Russia
• 53:51
  certainly does still use expendable long
• 53:54
  range drone attacks in quite large
• 53:57
  numbers. But the architecture there
• 54:00
  arguments that say up to a thousand were
• 54:02
  used this past weekend. 800 seems to be
• 54:04
  the the number that Ukraine came up with
• 54:07
  over the 3-day period, Friday, Saturday,
• 54:09
  Sunday. But some numbers from other
• 54:11
  countries say it was over a thousand.
• 54:12
  And Russia is increasingly pounding
• 54:16
  Ukraine with these. And there's a big
• 54:18
  development.
• 54:20
  Uh and this is from Ukrainian military
• 54:22
  officials, Ukrainian intelligence and
• 54:24
  Ukrainian specialists who examine uh
• 54:28
  recovered Russian systems and try to
• 54:31
  steal the technology. Right. They're
• 54:33
  describing a much more interconnected
• 54:35
  battlefield network that involves a
• 54:38
  camera on every drone, cellular modems
• 54:41
  on the drones, dedicated radio links
• 54:43
  between them, something they call a mesh
• 54:46
  network communication, airborne relay,
• 54:49
  ground repeaters, and increasingly
• 54:52
  sophisticated methods for maintaining
• 54:54
  contact with the aircraft far beyond the
• 54:58
  ordinary line of sight of an FPV
• 55:00
  operator. Remember when this when the
• 55:03
  when this escalation in 2022 started,
• 55:06
  all the talk was about the drones and
• 55:08
  people taking these firstperson view
• 55:10
  drones and guiding them to wherever
• 55:12
  they're going and you can go a couple
• 55:14
  three kilometers. You might be able to
• 55:16
  go further, but it's not simply a matter
• 55:18
  of making one drone fly further. It's
• 55:21
  now developed an infrastructure that
• 55:23
  allows Russia to control, observe, and
• 55:27
  redirect, much more importantly,
• 55:30
  redirect drones across greater distances
• 55:33
  than a conventional FPV drone allowed.
• 55:38
  And so, the Bellarus connection is
• 55:39
  particularly important. If you were
• 55:41
  paying attention a couple weeks ago,
• 55:43
  >> [snorts]
• 55:43
  >> uh the the Zman, the Green Goblin, uh
• 55:46
  threatened basically Barus told them
• 55:49
  they better turn off these repeating
• 55:51
  systems that that have been installed u
• 55:54
  among you know along its southern border
• 55:57
  uh that is the northern border of
• 55:59
  Ukraine and Russia has been allowed to
• 56:02
  install in fact um Lucena this in the
• 56:06
  past week has stated that there's now
• 56:09
  because of the threats that Green goblin
• 56:11
  made against Bellarus. He has sent a ton
• 56:13
  of uh uh military there's military
• 56:16
  exercises going on on that southern
• 56:18
  border. So, and Ukraine is pressuring
• 56:22
  Minsk. Um I mean, think about this. Back
• 56:25
  in June is when this started. Zalinsky
• 56:27
  said Ukrainian intelligence had
• 56:29
  identified four signal relay stations in
• 56:32
  Bellarus in the Gmail breast regions. He
• 56:35
  said those relay systems enabled Russian
• 56:38
  drone attacks against Zidomir Rivia
• 56:41
  Volin obstly
• 56:44
  connected them with attacks on Western
• 56:46
  Ukrainian energy and railway. Ukraine
• 56:49
  has been pressuring Minsk over those
• 56:51
  systems and Zalinski said that by June
• 56:55
  22 they had stopped operating but he
• 56:57
  said he didn't know whether they had
• 56:59
  been dismantled.
• 57:01
  But the story didn't end there. On
• 57:02
  September 7, Ukrainian military
• 57:05
  intelligence chief Oleg Ivanchenaka
• 57:07
  raised the issue in an interview with uh
• 57:10
  Ukrin form. It's a channel over there
• 57:12
  that I watch. He said Belarus had
• 57:15
  permitted the deployment of Russian
• 57:17
  radio signal repeaters that are being
• 57:20
  used to guide Shahed attacked UAVs
• 57:23
  toward Ukrainian targets. And in the
• 57:25
  same interview he discussed uh
• 57:27
  deployment of the Russian Oruresnik
• 57:29
  equipped missile units in Bellarus.
• 57:33
  That's important. But the drone point is
• 57:36
  is the important part for this one. 2
• 57:38
  and a half months after Ukraine
• 57:40
  confronted Minsk about this relay
• 57:41
  network, the head of Ukrainian military
• 57:44
  intelligence was still saying
• 57:46
  Bellarusbased repeaters are an active
• 57:48
  security concern. So you can't get rid
• 57:51
  of this Bellarus architecture.
• 57:54
  The most revealing explanation of how
• 57:56
  this works came from the Ukrainian air
• 57:59
  force. Air Force spokesman Yuri Enut
• 58:02
  said that Bellarus relay towers were
• 58:05
  allowing signals to be transmitted over
• 58:08
  long distance and that now their Russia
• 58:10
  has a stable link between the Russian
• 58:14
  operator and the drone. But he then
• 58:17
  added something significant even more.
• 58:20
  The drones themselves
• 58:22
  act as relay stations for one another.
• 58:25
  This is this is interesting. In other
• 58:28
  words, the communication path doesn't
• 58:30
  have to run from a single ground antenna
• 58:34
  to the attack drone. One drone can pass
• 58:38
  the signal along to another cuz each one
• 58:41
  has its own modem. And then it passed it
• 58:43
  further down the chain. And this creates
• 58:45
  what Enut described as a network that
• 58:48
  allows the operator to adjust the
• 58:51
  drone's flight path or change its target
• 58:54
  during flight. That description comes
• 58:56
  from the Ukrainian Air Force, not from
• 58:59
  Moscow. So that begins to explain what
• 59:01
  we've been hearing about regarding these
• 59:04
  mesh modems, right? Ukrainian technical
• 59:06
  reporting has documented Russia
• 59:09
  installing these modems not as an
• 59:11
  experimental drone but several families
• 59:14
  of unmanned drone systems. Defense
• 59:17
  Express reported this year that mesh
• 59:20
  modems had appeared in um what do they
• 59:23
  call them? Gerrera decoy aircraft, long
• 59:26
  range Jan and Shahed tribe strike
• 59:28
  drones, coup loitering munitions and
• 59:31
  subsequently Molia attack UAVs. The
• 59:34
  smaller Molia systems are reportedly
• 59:36
  fitted with compact dual channel modems
• 59:39
  operating in the 1.3 to 1.5 gigahertz
• 59:42
  range. Ukrainian president
• 59:46
  advisor uh what's his name? Sergey
• 59:49
  Bishanov,
• 59:51
  better known as Flash, has been one of
• 59:54
  the principal Ukrainian specialists that
• 59:56
  documents these systems. The Ukrainian
• 59:58
  general staff gave another warning in
• 1:00:01
  September 5th when it announced that
• 1:00:03
  Ukrainian forces had attacked Russian
• 1:00:05
  mesh network repeaters at Zinka in
• 1:00:08
  Russian Briansk region along with radar
• 1:00:11
  and electronic warfare systems. Ukraine
• 1:00:13
  would hardly be directing strikes
• 1:00:15
  against a mesh operator in Russia if the
• 1:00:18
  communication architecture were just a
• 1:00:21
  theory. The important thing isn't
• 1:00:24
  whether uh you know we're trapped by
• 1:00:27
  terminology. People sometimes people
• 1:00:29
  call them swarm drones because they send
• 1:00:32
  out hundreds all of them equipped with
• 1:00:35
  modems and they each repeat to each
• 1:00:38
  other which keeps the signal alive. You
• 1:00:40
  know you you put one in your house right
• 1:00:42
  your Wi-Fi signal if you got a big house
• 1:00:45
  and you have to have a repeater on the
• 1:00:47
  other end of the house. I mean you get
• 1:00:48
  how it works. Well, imagine all these
• 1:00:51
  repeaters that take this uh you know 30
• 1:00:55
  kilometer range and extend it to 300. I
• 1:01:00
  mean, they've they've gone across uh
• 1:01:01
  Ukraine all the way across. They
• 1:01:03
  attacked a uh Russia attacked a um a
• 1:01:08
  border crossing 400 m from Poland. They
• 1:01:14
  they're taking out border crossings to
• 1:01:16
  make there there's a huge talk all
• 1:01:19
  weekend all last week about the economic
• 1:01:22
  effect and what's happening in Ukraine.
• 1:01:24
  They're basically blocked in Odessa,
• 1:01:26
  their only seapport. Uh they can't along
• 1:01:29
  the river Danube. They can't uh they
• 1:01:32
  can't get anything out of there because
• 1:01:34
  by the time they get there's waits of
• 1:01:36
  four or five days before they can load
• 1:01:38
  or unload because they have no capacity
• 1:01:41
  down there and Russia has destroyed
• 1:01:43
  basically all the shipping possibilities
• 1:01:45
  out of Odessa and it's blocking them
• 1:01:47
  all. So you hear about these swarm
• 1:01:49
  aircraft and the broad problems that
• 1:01:51
  they're creating. uh you know they're
• 1:01:53
  attacking gas stations. The Ukraine is
• 1:01:57
  losing and losing badly. And you can
• 1:02:00
  say, "Yeah, well, they attacked Russia
• 1:02:01
  and took out some of their oil
• 1:02:03
  capacity."
• 1:02:04
  Okay,
• 1:02:06
  agreed. You know, Russia's got to be
• 1:02:08
  suffering financially from that. It's
• 1:02:11
  got to be bad, but it's not the only
• 1:02:13
  thing they have.
• 1:02:15
  Ukraine, what did they have at the
• 1:02:17
  beginning of this? steel, grains,
• 1:02:21
  um what else did they have? Not very
• 1:02:23
  much else. Steel, grains, couple other
• 1:02:26
  things that they would ship out. Tell
• 1:02:28
  you what, there's no steel going out.
• 1:02:30
  There's no grain going out. They say
• 1:02:32
  that it's close to 80% uh stopped at
• 1:02:36
  present. So there's there's nothing
• 1:02:39
  about So people keep talking about these
• 1:02:41
  swarms and say that they're all AI
• 1:02:43
  guided. No, they're not. They're not AIG
• 1:02:46
  guided. These are it what they've done
• 1:02:48
  is they've allowed this mesh network
• 1:02:50
  communication and real time retargeting
• 1:02:53
  capability. Whether all the decision
• 1:02:55
  making inside the network is performed
• 1:02:58
  by AI or substantial human control has
• 1:03:02
  to remain in the loop is a separate
• 1:03:04
  question. You know right now I say that
• 1:03:07
  is mostly human operator changing the
• 1:03:10
  guidance in a particular drone after
• 1:03:13
  it's released which is incredible. you
• 1:03:16
  know, even that, you know, you don't
• 1:03:17
  have to guide it anywhere. You just have
• 1:03:19
  to pay attention to it. And each one of
• 1:03:22
  them has a camera and a modem. They've
• 1:03:24
  created a mass system of this stuff. And
• 1:03:27
  uh I'm telling you what, the Ukrainians
• 1:03:29
  are having a very hard time um talk, you
• 1:03:33
  know, dealing with this. Ukraine itself
• 1:03:36
  is also developing, swarming autonomous
• 1:03:39
  systems under its own. Ukraine Pravda
• 1:03:42
  has described Ukrainian plans for
• 1:03:44
  autonomous AI drones capable of changing
• 1:03:47
  altitude maneuvering and avoiding
• 1:03:50
  interception without continuous operator
• 1:03:52
  control. So the technological concept
• 1:03:55
  isn't just speculation. Both sides
• 1:03:57
  understand where this is going. What we
• 1:04:00
  can say more confidently about Russia
• 1:04:02
  today is that it already possesses this
• 1:04:05
  communication structure capable of
• 1:04:07
  networking
• 1:04:09
  multiple drones and extending operator
• 1:04:12
  control much further. The cellular side
• 1:04:15
  is equally interesting.
• 1:04:18
  Bes said that Russian Shahed carry
• 1:04:21
  Russian telet sim cards and connect to
• 1:04:24
  cellular networks while flying near a
• 1:04:26
  national border. And according to his
• 1:04:28
  account, Ukrainian roaming for those SIM
• 1:04:31
  cards has been blocked, but the drones
• 1:04:33
  obtain roaming service from a Bellarus
• 1:04:36
  operator when flying near Bellarus and
• 1:04:39
  potentially through Polish or Romanian
• 1:04:41
  networks along the frontiers. That does
• 1:04:43
  mean every drone is being flown through
• 1:04:46
  cellular system, but it does show that
• 1:04:48
  Russia is mixing commercial
• 1:04:49
  communication with military drones. And
• 1:04:52
  this is a reason that the border regions
• 1:04:54
  are so technologically important. Uh
• 1:04:56
  there's a map and there's a uh mapping
• 1:04:59
  guy that I like to watch that every day
• 1:05:01
  he puts the the flight paths of all the
• 1:05:05
  drones, hundreds of them. And you see
• 1:05:07
  these large drones uh swarms going
• 1:05:11
  across the northern border of Ukraine uh
• 1:05:15
  near the southern border of Bellarus and
• 1:05:18
  they go all the way over almost to
• 1:05:20
  Poland and they're destroying gas
• 1:05:22
  stations all the way along. They're
• 1:05:24
  destroying uh the ability for trucking
• 1:05:26
  to come in from Poland and deliver
• 1:05:29
  things to Kiev. And it's been massive
• 1:05:31
  for the last two, three weeks. So,
• 1:05:33
  they're taking out the ability to have
• 1:05:35
  things come in from uh Bulgaria, things
• 1:05:37
  to come in from Romania, from Malddova,
• 1:05:40
  from Poland. They're taking it all out.
• 1:05:43
  They're they're attacking border
• 1:05:44
  stations.
• 1:05:46
  And so, they can't think about this. How
• 1:05:48
  you going to track uh anything coming
• 1:05:50
  into or out of the country if you have
• 1:05:52
  no border guard? They got in and Russia
• 1:05:55
  I'm not saying I agree with this. I'm
• 1:05:56
  just saying it's a reality. They're
• 1:05:58
  they're destroying abilities all the way
• 1:06:01
  down the line and it it's not getting
• 1:06:03
  better. So Russia has been experimenting
• 1:06:07
  um with LTE controlled FPV aircraft uh
• 1:06:12
  much closer to the front. Ukrainian
• 1:06:14
  forces reported in June that Russian
• 1:06:16
  drones
• 1:06:18
  used in Zaparisia appear to be operating
• 1:06:21
  through modems because normal range was
• 1:06:23
  insufficient to reach the city from
• 1:06:26
  Russia's positions 30 km away. So
• 1:06:29
  Ukrainian spokesman said these LTE
• 1:06:31
  aircraft were more difficult to defeat
• 1:06:33
  with ordinary electronic warfare. So
• 1:06:36
  that's important when we think about the
• 1:06:37
  much larger trend. Russia doesn't appear
• 1:06:40
  to be looking for one magic solution.
• 1:06:42
  It's using whatever communication path
• 1:06:44
  works. dedicated radio, cellular colle
• 1:06:48
  connection, ground repeaters, airborne
• 1:06:51
  repeaters, cameras, and mesh network.
• 1:06:54
  And they also have wireg guided much
• 1:06:55
  shorter range of course. But there's
• 1:06:57
  another episode in Kiev only days ago
• 1:06:59
  that showed how flexible this is
• 1:07:01
  becoming. After a Shahid drone struck
• 1:07:04
  the Security Service of Ukraine building
• 1:07:06
  on September 4, Besnob said that the
• 1:07:09
  aircraft may have been controlled
• 1:07:10
  through a temporary mesh repeater placed
• 1:07:13
  within approximately 5K of the target
• 1:07:15
  and activated briefly by a Russian
• 1:07:18
  agent. He said this was his personal
• 1:07:20
  assessment rather than any confirmed
• 1:07:22
  official finding, but the scenario is
• 1:07:25
  technologically revealing. If a small
• 1:07:27
  internetconnected repeater can be
• 1:07:30
  concealed near the target and switched
• 1:07:32
  on only during the attack, then the
• 1:07:35
  Russians do not need a continuous radio
• 1:07:39
  chain running hundreds of kilometers
• 1:07:41
  directly into central Kiev, right? They
• 1:07:44
  only need to get the drone close enough
• 1:07:47
  to hand it off to a local communications
• 1:07:49
  node. So if you connect all that
• 1:07:53
  technology with what Russia is doing
• 1:07:55
  geographically
• 1:07:58
  it obviously the importance of this uh
• 1:08:00
  you know the significance of the
• 1:08:02
  Bellarus system isn't merely that drones
• 1:08:05
  can fly further it changes the economics
• 1:08:08
  of the Ukrainian rear rear areas areas
• 1:08:12
  once considered safe because they were
• 1:08:14
  hundreds of kilometers from Russian
• 1:08:16
  controlled territory are increasingly
• 1:08:19
  placed inside the attack envelope. So, a
• 1:08:22
  warehouse that they moved west to escape
• 1:08:26
  strikes is now reachable. A railway
• 1:08:28
  locomotive close to Poland like one that
• 1:08:31
  was attacked over the weekend uh is
• 1:08:33
  reachable. And you know that that thing
• 1:08:36
  was less than uh uh 5k I can't remember.
• 1:08:40
  It might even have been less than 2k
• 1:08:42
  from the border. Russia destroyed a
• 1:08:43
  locomotive. Uh the engines, they're just
• 1:08:46
  taking out locomotives.
• 1:08:48
  the engines, not not the whole train.
• 1:08:50
  They don't have to. They just take away
• 1:08:51
  the locomotive, blow it up, and they
• 1:08:54
  they've hit, I don't know, 1012 that I'm
• 1:08:56
  aware of. So, this weekend demonstrated
• 1:08:59
  the point. You know, during September 12
• 1:09:02
  and September 13, the Ukrainian Air
• 1:09:04
  Force reported 453 Russian unmanned
• 1:09:08
  aircraft in a in a single attack
• 1:09:11
  pattern. Ukraine said these included
• 1:09:14
  Shahed drones, jet powered drones,
• 1:09:16
  Gerberas, uh, Paradia decoys, and the
• 1:09:20
  S8000 Banderole system. Kib said 405
• 1:09:24
  were shot down or suppressed, but it
• 1:09:26
  acknowledged strikes at 13 locations and
• 1:09:29
  debris at seven others. So the launching
• 1:09:33
  directions were from
• 1:09:37
  Russian areas of Shataliva Orol Korsk
• 1:09:41
  and Primorska
• 1:09:43
  Tarsk in Russia and occupied the Crimea
• 1:09:47
  and the sea of Asov. That's all the way
• 1:09:49
  on the eastern side of Ukraine or the
• 1:09:52
  nor the southern southwestern parts of
• 1:09:54
  Russia that they're talking about. These
• 1:09:56
  are long distances. So the point isn't
• 1:10:00
  the raw number, it's the diversity of
• 1:10:01
  the packages. So the 453 FE figure, you
• 1:10:05
  know, we don't know. There's been some
• 1:10:07
  places that said over the last 3 days it
• 1:10:09
  was 800 and included decoys. So the
• 1:10:12
  strategic effect is, you know, important
• 1:10:15
  no matter how you slice it. And an
• 1:10:17
  economic pattern definitely is emerging.
• 1:10:20
  Russia has been hitting railways,
• 1:10:21
  warehouses, electrical infrastructure,
• 1:10:24
  filling stations in Kievalon. Ukraine,
• 1:10:27
  which is the Ukrainian uh oil company,
• 1:10:30
  confirmed strikes on its fuel station
• 1:10:32
  network. One station was hit by a jet
• 1:10:34
  powered drone on the 10th. On the 11th,
• 1:10:37
  Ukrainian officials said two more were
• 1:10:39
  hit. Um, and one of them struck a second
• 1:10:42
  time. Ukraine reports serious structural
• 1:10:44
  equipment damage at all these sites.
• 1:10:46
  It's much more significant when fuel
• 1:10:49
  stations are considered together with
• 1:10:51
  railway rather than as isolated in you
• 1:10:54
  know incidents.
• 1:10:56
  Uh you know the Bellarus architecture is
• 1:10:59
  important. This is also why the Black
• 1:11:01
  Sea Odessa and the Danube belonging you
• 1:11:05
  know to this entire economic
• 1:11:08
  horror story for Ukraine. You know there
• 1:11:11
  were stories over the weekend that
• 1:11:12
  Ukraine is broke. They need $90 billion
• 1:11:17
  according to one story to get to the end
• 1:11:19
  of this year. They don't have they they
• 1:11:21
  can't pay anything. They have zero
• 1:11:23
  capacity. They they said they're losing
• 1:11:25
  through the Odessa blockade $40 billion
• 1:11:29
  right now. And this is huge for them. If
• 1:11:33
  greater Odessa it can't operate because
• 1:11:36
  ships, terminals and port infrastructure
• 1:11:39
  are always exposed to attack and they
• 1:11:42
  can't shift the traffic to the Denube,
• 1:11:46
  Bismile or any other area. Goods moving
• 1:11:49
  toward Romania and Malddova are being
• 1:11:51
  blocked at border routes because they
• 1:11:54
  have no border facility. These drone
• 1:11:58
  uh networks reaching this far west are a
• 1:12:02
  good um indication that the war isn't
• 1:12:07
  going well for Ukraine.
• 1:12:11
  I don't know. Creates a difficult
• 1:12:13
  problem for Ukrainian electronic
• 1:12:15
  warfare. Traditional jamming, which I
• 1:12:17
  was involved in when I was in the
• 1:12:19
  military, works best when the defender
• 1:12:21
  knows what the frequencies they're
• 1:12:23
  trying to disrupt. But you can't disrupt
• 1:12:25
  them if you got 10 different frequencies
• 1:12:26
  that you're operating or different ways.
• 1:12:28
  A network that's capable of hopping
• 1:12:30
  between various nodes using a cellular
• 1:12:33
  infrastructure or handing traffic from
• 1:12:35
  one drone to another and employing
• 1:12:37
  multiple frequencies uh makes it quite
• 1:12:40
  resilient. So the defender can adapt and
• 1:12:44
  hopefully you know they figure something
• 1:12:46
  out. But every improvement on one side
• 1:12:49
  creates another cycle of technological
• 1:12:51
  adaptation on the other. Every time you
• 1:12:54
  create something, somebody has to repeat
• 1:12:55
  a or reproduce or produce a counter to
• 1:12:58
  it. The Russian advantage in this phase
• 1:13:01
  is the manufacturing scale. Ukrainian
• 1:13:04
  sources even repeatedly describe
• 1:13:07
  hundreds of drones in waves and more
• 1:13:10
  than a thousand over a period of several
• 1:13:13
  days. Once production is reaching that
• 1:13:15
  scale, the Russian military can afford
• 1:13:17
  to use drones for roles that would have
• 1:13:20
  once seemed quite wasteful.
• 1:13:22
  reconnaissance, decoy, communication,
• 1:13:24
  attacks on individual transport
• 1:13:26
  infrastructure, and repeated strikes
• 1:13:28
  against repair facilities. It no longer
• 1:13:31
  needs every aircraft to carry out uh uh
• 1:13:34
  one explosive payload.
• 1:13:37
  Some of them can, you know, make just
• 1:13:39
  make the entire attack network more
• 1:13:41
  effective and never strike a target.
• 1:13:45
  AI is becoming increasingly important.
• 1:13:49
  It matters economically because Ukraine
• 1:13:51
  was supposed to have economic depth but
• 1:13:54
  it doesn't. So the unanswered question
• 1:13:57
  is how extensive the Bellarus system is.
• 1:14:01
  We know that Ukraine identified four
• 1:14:03
  relay stations in June. We know the
• 1:14:06
  Green Goblin said they had stopped
• 1:14:08
  operating in July.
• 1:14:11
  We don't know what's going on now, but
• 1:14:13
  we do know the importance of this
• 1:14:15
  weekend shows that there some [laughter]
• 1:14:20
  something going on. It's not some
• 1:14:21
  magical new drone network overnight, but
• 1:14:24
  several developments that have been
• 1:14:26
  evolving appear to be converging. this
• 1:14:28
  mass production mesh networking bellerus
• 1:14:32
  cameras and modems uh you know means
• 1:14:36
  that this I don't know the story is
• 1:14:38
  worth telling but it isn't just that
• 1:14:40
  another wave of drones came by if Russia
• 1:14:43
  continues lowering the cost of reaching
• 1:14:46
  targets while Ukraine has to continue
• 1:14:48
  spending its scarce air defense which is
• 1:14:51
  also a huge story to protect them then
• 1:14:54
  the real weapon isn't ultimately that
• 1:14:57
  the explosive carried any individual
• 1:14:59
  drone. The more important story is that
• 1:15:02
  um
• 1:15:04
  uh
• 1:15:07
  this is continuing. It is continuing and
• 1:15:12
  I don't see any end in sight. I don't
• 1:15:15
  see any end in sight at all. And
• 1:15:20
  it it's it's not getting better, it's
• 1:15:22
  getting worse. So there you have it. Um,
• 1:15:26
  we're going to take one more short
• 1:15:28
  musical break here and we'll be back in
• 1:15:32
  a few minutes.
• 1:15:39
  [music]
• 1:15:58
  >> [music]
• 1:16:02
  >> Turn.
• 1:16:08
  [music]
• 1:16:28
  You will be not
• 1:16:33
  [music]
• 1:16:56
  Heat. Heat.
• 1:17:10
  Dingle.
• 1:17:24
  Heat.
• 1:17:46
  >> [music]
• 1:17:55
  >> Hey, hey, hey.
• 1:18:02
  Hey,
• 1:18:06
  [music]
• 1:18:13
  hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
• 1:18:21
  Heat.
• 1:18:23
  [music]
• 1:18:33
  Heat.
• 1:18:41
  [music]
• 1:18:47
  >> [music]
• 1:18:53
  [music]
• 1:19:25
  >> Alrighty, that will be the end [music]
• 1:19:27
  of that maybe. Hold on.
• 1:19:31
  And switched right to the next song.
• 1:19:34
  That's not what I was after. But there
• 1:19:37
  you have it. I only have one other thing
• 1:19:39
  that I'd like to cover uh in today's
• 1:19:41
  story, and this one is it it just
• 1:19:44
  touches home for me. Um,
• 1:19:48
  an article was published over the
• 1:19:51
  weekend. Um, well, it's actually
• 1:19:53
  September the 10th, uh, was filed by
• 1:19:56
  Rachel Marsden. Um, you can find her at
• 1:19:59
  rachel marsden.com.
• 1:20:01
  Uh, she's a columnist. She's a political
• 1:20:04
  strategist. She has an independently
• 1:20:06
  produced talk show, some in French and
• 1:20:09
  some in English. And she wrote an
• 1:20:12
  article. I wonder if I have time to
• 1:20:15
  share the whole article with you. I
• 1:20:17
  don't know. No, I don't think I will.
• 1:20:19
  I'm just going to tell you what it said
• 1:20:21
  because it's pretty damn funny in my
• 1:20:24
  opinion. And it's it's so typical of
• 1:20:27
  everything that's going on uh today in
• 1:20:30
  the world. And so it's basically it's a
• 1:20:34
  story about censorship,
• 1:20:36
  information control, and the
• 1:20:38
  contradiction
• 1:20:40
  between
• 1:20:42
  freedom of the press and you know
• 1:20:45
  sanctions and uh uh different treatment
• 1:20:49
  for different people. So uh the argument
• 1:20:53
  that she makes is built around a real
• 1:20:56
  story. Okay, there's an organization
• 1:20:58
  called Reporters Without Borders, right?
• 1:21:01
  And what it did is and and the uh French
• 1:21:04
  organization has a French uh acronym and
• 1:21:07
  there it's called uh RSF
• 1:21:11
  you know free free it's basically
• 1:21:13
  reporters without borders and they
• 1:21:15
  tested chat GPT claude Gemini Grock Ma
• 1:21:20
  AI Vibe
• 1:21:23
  and Telegram bots by explicitly asking
• 1:21:27
  each one to retrieve material from
• 1:21:30
  Russian outlets that are sanctioned in
• 1:21:32
  the EU and they include RT, Riion,
• 1:21:35
  Noveist, Sputnik, Gracia 24 and others.
• 1:21:39
  And there the the finding even by RSF by
• 1:21:43
  reporters without borders was that
• 1:21:46
  several systems did exactly what the
• 1:21:48
  user asked. They found Russian material,
• 1:21:51
  summarized it, and in some cases linked
• 1:21:53
  it directly uh to or located mirrors,
• 1:21:57
  telegram copies or VK uh vantia is what
• 1:22:01
  that means. VK is Russian version and
• 1:22:03
  Telegram is is Russia friendly. [snorts]
• 1:22:05
  So when the original websites are
• 1:22:07
  blocked, so these websites, Russian
• 1:22:09
  websites are blocked all over the place.
• 1:22:11
  I talk about this all the time because I
• 1:22:13
  can't even get to it's very hard to get
• 1:22:17
  to Vladimir Soliv and listen to Soliv
• 1:22:20
  live um or or listen to uh an evening
• 1:22:24
  with Soliv. I I particularly like the
• 1:22:26
  Sunday ones, but when you try to go find
• 1:22:28
  it,
• 1:22:29
  uh Gemini sure as hell won't find it for
• 1:22:31
  you. Google will not find it. YouTube
• 1:22:33
  blocks it. You have to find it in VK.
• 1:22:36
  And even then, you're told that the
• 1:22:39
  website is blocked in America, okay? And
• 1:22:41
  you can't you can't get there. This is
• 1:22:43
  freedom of information, right? You can't
• 1:22:45
  have information. Oh my god, you might
• 1:22:47
  be influenced, right? So the the I the
• 1:22:51
  funniest part of this for me is that the
• 1:22:54
  RSF report uh says that RSF began its
• 1:22:59
  test testing with a prompt specifically
• 1:23:01
  requesting news only from sanctioned
• 1:23:05
  Russian sources.
• 1:23:07
  And according to RSF the you know
• 1:23:10
  reporters without borders chat GPT
• 1:23:13
  complied without reservation. Well,
• 1:23:16
  they're lucky because I've tried chat
• 1:23:17
  GPT and sometimes it can't find it. It
• 1:23:20
  tries to find a Russian mirror site like
• 1:23:23
  for my Soliv if I can't find it and I
• 1:23:25
  can't listen to it and I have to VPN it
• 1:23:27
  to get it sometimes. Grock provided a
• 1:23:30
  detailed review and Claude complies
• 1:23:32
  mostly consistency
• 1:23:34
  uh uh consistently. Vibe the Mistral
• 1:23:38
  system. They sometimes found the
• 1:23:40
  original websites were unavailable and
• 1:23:43
  searched for alternative access routes
• 1:23:45
  including VK and Telegram mirrors.
• 1:23:48
  Gemini
• 1:23:49
  behaves inconsistently,
• 1:23:51
  sometimes refusing outright, [laughter]
• 1:23:55
  sometimes summarizing and linking the
• 1:23:57
  material and only made AI consistently
• 1:24:01
  refused the request on the basis of
• 1:24:03
  sanctions by the EU. So this is the
• 1:24:06
  irony that Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar
• 1:24:07
  Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Mar Marsden focused on ma's
• 1:24:10
  refusal is evidence that a chatbot can
• 1:24:13
  comply with the restrictions right
• 1:24:16
  how are we but from the perspective of
• 1:24:19
  Marston and me by the way that's
• 1:24:22
  precisely the problem the organization
• 1:24:25
  reporters without borders seems to
• 1:24:28
  appear and prefer a machine that
• 1:24:32
  prevents the user from seeing any sort
• 1:24:34
  of controversial
• 1:24:36
  information over a machine that
• 1:24:38
  retrieves the material the user
• 1:24:40
  specifically requests. Isn't that crazy?
• 1:24:43
  So, you specifically request an
• 1:24:45
  alternative view. And I argue, you know,
• 1:24:48
  when I go out and do searches in AI, I
• 1:24:50
  always ask for an argument. I say, "Give
• 1:24:53
  me an Indian position, a uh Russian
• 1:24:56
  position, an Iranian position, or
• 1:24:58
  whatever." If it's if it's what we're
• 1:25:00
  fighting, if if America is fighting
• 1:25:02
  Iran, I want an American point of view.
• 1:25:05
  what American public is saying and then
• 1:25:06
  I want several Iranian counter stories,
• 1:25:09
  right? So I can provide something uh at
• 1:25:12
  least with an opposing point of view and
• 1:25:14
  now they're saying that more
• 1:25:15
  increasingly that that it's not being
• 1:25:18
  allowed. That's the funny part. So the
• 1:25:22
  another there's another layer that makes
• 1:25:24
  the criticism even more interesting.
• 1:25:26
  RSF, Reporters Without Borders, has
• 1:25:28
  historically created tools specifically
• 1:25:31
  designed to circumvent government
• 1:25:34
  censorship.
• 1:25:36
  Remember in Russia and China, they were
• 1:25:39
  talking, you know, it's Operation
• 1:25:40
  Collateral Freedom created mirror sites
• 1:25:43
  so people inside those countries where
• 1:25:46
  news organizations were blocked on the
• 1:25:48
  western side could still reach the
• 1:25:50
  publications. So this report is without
• 1:25:53
  borders described that project as a way
• 1:25:55
  to guarantee access to diverse and quote
• 1:25:59
  reliable information despite government
• 1:26:03
  censorship. But this creates an obvious
• 1:26:06
  tension between reality and truth,
• 1:26:09
  right? Uh uh [snorts and laughter] the
• 1:26:11
  truth isn't what you say it is. The
• 1:26:13
  truth is the truth. So when Russia or
• 1:26:15
  China block media, RSF creates a mirror
• 1:26:18
  to defeat that blockade. But when
• 1:26:20
  European Union blocks Russian media and
• 1:26:22
  an AI system finds mirrors or other
• 1:26:25
  routes, RSF says that behavior
• 1:26:27
  facilitates circumvention of sanctions
• 1:26:29
  and dissemination of Russian propaganda.
• 1:26:34
  So that doesn't prove that the two
• 1:26:35
  situations are even legally identical or
• 1:26:39
  morally acceptable. RSF would argue that
• 1:26:42
  sanctioned Russian outlets are
• 1:26:44
  instruments of state propaganda,
• 1:26:47
  but it does expose what the underlying
• 1:26:50
  question is. Who gets to decide?
• 1:26:55
  I mean, seriously, is it Reporters
• 1:26:57
  without borders that gets to decide
• 1:26:59
  which censorship barrier deserves to be
• 1:27:01
  circumvented and which ones AI systems
• 1:27:04
  are supposed to enforce?
• 1:27:07
  That's crazy.
• 1:27:09
  I tell you what, I ran into this um you
• 1:27:13
  know, in fact on the Ukrainian
• 1:27:16
  discussion from yesterday. So, you know,
• 1:27:19
  it talked about it said, well, if you
• 1:27:21
  believe the Russian side of this,
• 1:27:23
  Russia, Russia is winning, but we don't
• 1:27:26
  believe that in the West, you know, we
• 1:27:28
  think that, you know, Russia is losing.
• 1:27:29
  And I'm like, look, tell me whether that
• 1:27:32
  and I asked the AI goddess this. I was
• 1:27:35
  like, is that your own opinion or is
• 1:27:37
  that something made because you are
• 1:27:39
  built with western technology? I don't
• 1:27:42
  want that. I I don't want just the
• 1:27:45
  western standard BS that gets thrown
• 1:27:48
  out. I want a an a direct from the
• 1:27:52
  source. That's why when I talk about
• 1:27:54
  Ukrainian stuff, I try to use Ukrainian
• 1:27:56
  sources. sources in Ukrainian news, like
• 1:28:00
  all of the stuff that I just provided
• 1:28:02
  you on the Russian drone network. All of
• 1:28:05
  that came from Ukraine, not Russia. All
• 1:28:08
  of that was based on Ukrainian
• 1:28:10
  statements over the weekend, not
• 1:28:12
  Russian. And so uh you can't I suppose
• 1:28:17
  you could claim you know I have a
• 1:28:19
  personalized skeptical standard when I
• 1:28:22
  encounter western intelligence estimates
• 1:28:25
  sanctions claims anonymous official
• 1:28:28
  assessments you know uh a subject uh
• 1:28:31
  close to the close to the matter a
• 1:28:33
  person familiar with the matter what
• 1:28:36
  what kind of thing is that you know
• 1:28:38
  Russian perspectives are not treated as
• 1:28:41
  exceptions it's treated as a princip
• 1:28:44
  perspective from the outset and on
• 1:28:46
  Russian related subjects. I seek Russian
• 1:28:49
  and Western evidence of it before I come
• 1:28:53
  to my own conclusion. I think the
• 1:28:57
  conclusion should come from comparative
• 1:28:59
  evidence rather than inherited western
• 1:29:02
  narratives.
• 1:29:04
  And I suggest that you keep track of
• 1:29:06
  your, you know, you get your information
• 1:29:08
  as much as possible from the source. And
• 1:29:11
  uh you can understand that by listening
• 1:29:12
  to international flavor, I will get you
• 1:29:15
  to the source. Not not passing out
• 1:29:19
  propaganda from either side, but from
• 1:29:22
  the horse's mouth itself if at all
• 1:29:26
  possible. And I think that is important
• 1:29:29
  to uh understanding world politics and
• 1:29:32
  what goes on and making sure that you
• 1:29:34
  know a good and wide variety of the
• 1:29:37
  facts before you make a decision. You
• 1:29:39
  can follow me um at
• 1:29:41
  internationalflavor.com
• 1:29:43
  damradio.comlive
• 1:29:46
  247. Have a great Mid Missouri