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Scott Horton (2026) - The Empire and the Neoconservative Agenda · The Joe Rogan Recap

0:00
Welcome to the Joe Rogan Recap and before we get going please
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follow us right here on Spotify to make sure you get sight of
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our latest episodes in your feed.
0:08
O imagine for a second you are looking U at this towering 100
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story skyscraper. OK, I'm picturing it.
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Usually we just have this comforting assumption that the
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architectural blueprint was drawn up by, you know, entirely
0:22
rational engineers. Like we assume they calculated
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the load bearing walls, they tested the soil, and they
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designed the whole thing to basically stand the test of time
0:31
and keep the people inside safe. Yeah, I mean, it is a completely
0:34
natural assumption. You want to believe the
0:36
foundation is built on actual physics and reality, rather than
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just, you know, wishful thinking.
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Exactly. But what if you somehow got your
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hands on the blueprint for the entire globe, like the
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overarching foreign policy architecture of the last 30
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years? Oh wow.
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And you look at it and you realize the architects were
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treating the world less like a delicate, interconnected
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structure and way more like a disposable game board.
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Yeah, that is a terrifying thought.
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It really is, and today we are unpacking a massive, just
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staggering amount of source material.
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We're doing a deep dive into Scott Horton's recent appearance
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on Episode 2500 of The Joe Rogan Experience.
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And Horton is no joke. I mean he's a veteran of over
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6200 interviews. 6200 It's wild. So our mission today is to trace
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his very controversial claims about American foreign policy.
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We are following this continuous thread, basically starting from
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the post Cold War doctrines of the 1990s and pulling it
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directly into the devastating current conflict with Iran.
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And before we dive into the deep end here, it is crucial to
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establish something right up front.
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Yeah, please do. The sources we are looking at
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today contain highly politically charged material and it covers
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all sides of the political spectrum.
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So our goal today is absolutely not to endorse or take sides on
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any of these. Viewpoints.
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We're just looking at the documents.
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Exactly. We are here strictly to act as
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your guides, impartially unpacking the assertions made in
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the source material so that you, the listener, can understand the
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historical arguments being presented.
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Well said. So as we go through this
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timeline together, what stands out to you as the most
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surprising historical blind spot?
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OK, let's unpack this. To understand the conflicts
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dominating our feeds right now, Horton argues, we have to travel
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back to the immediate aftermath of the Cold War.
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Right, the early 90s. Yeah, the Soviet Union collapses
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and Washington is suddenly the only superpower left standing on
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the board. And there was this phrase flying
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around back then, the New World Order.
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Oh yeah, you hear that everywhere.
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And honestly I always assumed that meant some kind of UN
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driven global utopian government where everyone just holds hands
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and sings. You're not alone in that.
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That is a very common misconception, and it's often
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tied up in, you know, Internet conspiracy theories, right?
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But if you look at the actual source material, specifically
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referencing the 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine.
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And this was drafted by Paul Wolfowitz.
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Yes, Wolfowitz and his colleagues at the Pentagon.
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The New World Order was never about empowering the United
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Nations or like global democratic cooperation.
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What was it actually about then? It was about establishing
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permanent, unchallengeable military and economic dominance
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for Washington, DC across every single continent.
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Every continent. Yes, the stated written goal was
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to be so dominant that no other nation, or even an alliance of
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nations would even consider trying to balance against US
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power. So it's essentially a doctrine
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of global monopoly. They wanted to permanently
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freeze the power dynamics of 1992 forever.
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Exactly. And according to Horton, that
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specific brand of hubris laid the direct groundwork for the
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2003 Iraq war. It did.
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Because I think a lot of people, myself included, assume the
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invasion of Iraq was purely A chaotic reaction to 911, just
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sort of a lash out. But the sources point out the
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blueprint was actually drawn up years earlier in 1996.
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Right in a document called the Clean Break Doctrine.
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Yeah, the clean break doctrine. And this document is fascinating
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because of its sheer audacity. It was authored by David Warmser
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and Richard Pearl, and they wrote it for Benjamin Netanyahu,
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and it advised completely abandoning traditional
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diplomatic peace processes in the Middle East.
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Instead, it advocated for peace through total regime change and
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dominance. So diplomacy is out,
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overthrowing governments is in. Basically, and Saddam Hussein in
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Iraq was viewed as the primary roadblock.
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The architects of this doctrine assumed that if the US military
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went in and overthrew Saddam, a very specific, almost magical
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chain reaction would occur. I.
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Remember reading this part in the deep dive and just shaking
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my head. What was the reaction they
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expected? Well, they theorized that Jordan
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and Turkey would step in to manage Iraq.
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Just like that. Just like that.
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Furthermore, they believed this new compliant Iraq would somehow
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force Hezbollah in Lebanon and their financial backers in Iran
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to simply surrender their leverage and make peace with
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Israel. I really need to pause on that
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because it sounds like playing a global game of Risk, but the
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players are convinced if they knock over one specific piece,
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the rest of the board will magically rearrange itself
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exactly how they want it. That's a perfect way to put it.
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I mean, they genuinely thought the Shiite majority in Iraq, who
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had deep historical and religious ties to Iran would
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just gladly take marching orders from Sunni hush might royalty in
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Jordan. It demonstrates A profound
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disconnect from the demographic and historical reality on the
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ground. Yeah, total delusion.
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And as the source is heavily emphasized, this theoretical
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chain reaction failed completely.
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This 5-10 trillion dollar War on Terror just blew up in the
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planners faces. Because it turns out taking out
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Saddam had the exact opposite effect.
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Exactly. By removing Saddam Hussein, the
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US didn't Jordan in Turkey, Saddam was actually the primary
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regional counterweight to Iran, so by taking him out and
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establishing a democratic process in Iraq, they
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inadvertently handed control the country over to the Shiite
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majority, and that majority was heavily aligned with Tehran.
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So they effectively made Iran the uncontested dominant power
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in the region. Which is the exact opposite of
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what the clean break doctrine promised.
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And the scariest part of this deep dive is realizing that Iraq
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wasn't a one off mistake. It wasn't an isolated incident.
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I was completely floored by the revelation Horton brings up from
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former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Wesley Clark.
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Yeah, the Wesley Clark interview is, well, it's chilling.
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Can you break that down? Sure.
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So Wesley Clark went on the record, recounting a meeting at
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the Pentagon shortly after 911. He described being shown a
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classified memo that outlined a plan to take out seven different
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countries in five years. Wait, seven countries in five
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years? Yes.
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The list started with Iraq, and then it moved through Syria,
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Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and ultimately Iran.
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How did the plan jump from stabilizing Iraq to just
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checking off a laundry list of sovereign governments?
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That is insane. It goes back to that 1992
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monopoly mindset. They saw a window of unipolar
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power, and they decided to use the banner fighting terrorism as
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a convenient sweeping justification to clear out any
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regime that wasn't completely aligned with Washington's
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interests. This belief that Washington
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could just treat foreign nations like disposable chess pieces
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wasn't just an anomaly in the Middle East because that exact
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same operating system was copy pasted onto Eastern Europe.
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Yes, it was Which? Brings us directly to the
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origins of the crisis in Ukraine.
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Let's talk about 1989. The sources detail a very
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specific historical assurance given to Soviet leader Mikhail
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Gorbachev. Right during the negotiations
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surrounding the fall of the Berlin Wall, George HW Bush and
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his Secretary of State, James Baker, made a verbal commitment
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to Gorbachev and. What was the deal?
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The deal was essentially this If the Soviets allowed the Warsaw
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Pact, which was their massive military alliance in Eastern
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Europe, to dissolve and allowed Germany to reunify, NATO would
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not expand its military footprint one inch further E
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toward Russia. A promise that was obviously
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broken again and again. Repeatedly.
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But what I want to know is why? Like if honoring that promise
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meant keeping a nuclear armed Russia calm, why did Washington
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push NATO eastward anyway? The reasoning provided in the
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sources is incredibly cynical. Well, Bill Clinton's advisor
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Strobe Talbot actually originally opposed expanding
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NATO for exactly the reason you just mentioned.
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He thought it was unnecessarily provocative.
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Makes sense. But years later, Talbot admitted
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that the push for expansion wasn't driven by some higher,
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wiser conception of America's long term national interest.
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What was it driven by? It was largely driven by
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domestic political incentive. Politicians wanted to secure
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votes from Eastern European diaspora communities in crucial
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swing states. You have got to be kidding me,
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votes. Votes.
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And critically, it was also about securing massive defense
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contracts. Oh, of course, follow the money.
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Exactly. When a new country joins NATO,
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they have to upgrade all their military hardware to meet NATO
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standards, which means billions of dollars flowing to US defense
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contractors like Lockheed. So the grand strategy for global
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peace was compromised just to win a local election cycle and
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sell fighter jets. That is so grim.
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It really is. And the provocation didn't stop
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in the 90s. Yeah.
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If we Fast forward to 2014, the sources highlight Victoria
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Nuland. She's a very prominent figure in
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the State Department. Yes, she was.
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And she was openly bragging about the depth of U.S.
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Financial and political infiltration into the Ukrainian
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government right before their revolution.
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Yeah, they were openly discussing sinking 10s of
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millions of dollars into shaping the political landscape directly
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on Russia's border. And if you want to understand
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the mechanics of this strategy, you have to look at a 2019
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document produced by the Rand Corporation.
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The Rand Corporation being a major, highly influential
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Pentagon sponsored think tank. And this document is literally
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titled Extending Russia. I read the excerpts from this in
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the deep dive and it literally reads like a menu for how to
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poke a bear with a stick. It really does.
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It's just increasing arms to Ukraine, sanctioning Russian
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energy pipelines, and meddling in neighboring states like
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Belarus and Kazakhstan. But I'm still trying to wrap my
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head around how that actually works.
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What do you mean? Well, how does sanctioning A
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pipeline or sending weapons conceptually extend the country?
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Ah, I see. The underlying logic is economic
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and military exhaustion. The Rand theorist calculated
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that Russian economy is relatively small and it's
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heavily dependent on energy exports.
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OK. So oil and gas.
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Right. By sanctioning their pipelines,
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you cut off their revenue stream.
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Simultaneously, by heavily arming their neighbors, you
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force Moscow into a paranoid state where they feel compelled
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to massively increase their military spending to defend
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their borders. Oh I get it, you are starving
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their wallet while forcing them into an arms race.
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Exactly. Theoretically causing the state
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to crack under the pressure. And Horton points out that the
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Biden administration seemed to take this specific document and
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treat it as a step by step instruction manual.
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Yeah, they followed it almost to the letter.
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But they completely ignored the warning labels because the Rand
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document itself explicitly warned that implementing these
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aggressive measures carried an extraordinarily high risk of
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provoking A catastrophic full scale Russian invasion of
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Ukraine. Yes, it warned of untold chaos
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and immense cost. But they just went ahead and did
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it anyway. Horton draws a very pointed
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comparison here to the underpants gnomes from the show
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South Park. Yes, I remember that.
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Step one. Fund proxy wars and inflict
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immense economic costs on Russia.
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Right, Step 2, a giant question mark.
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Step three, profit. They completely skipped the step
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of calculating how this actually ends well for the people living
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in the region or for a global stability.
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If we connect this to the bigger picture, this strategy of
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ceaseless provocation did not yield the intended results.
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Not at all. Instead of keeping Russia weak,
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isolated and compliant, the relentless pressure effectively
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kicked Russia out of European civilization by shutting them
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out of Western financial systems and markets.
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The US left Moscow with no choice but to pivot east.
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Right towards Asia. Exactly.
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This pushed Russia into a much tighter, incredibly powerful
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economic and military alliance with China.
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So the policy designed to maintain unipolar dominance
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actually accelerated the creation of a multipolar world.
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Which fundamentally disrupts the global flow of resources.
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Because pushing Russia eats wasn't just a military shift, it
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fundamentally challenged the economic side of this global
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chess board. Absolutely.
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And to maintain dominance, the US strategy requires absolute
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control over global chokepoints. And that brings us to the
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physical embodiment of that struggle, which is the Nordstrom
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pipeline. According to the sources, George
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Friedman, he's the founder of the intelligence firm Stratford.
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He described a very specific primordial fear held by US
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imperial planners for over a century.
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A. Primordial fear, What was it?
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An alliance between German manufacturing power and Russian
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raw materials. Right, because imagine you're
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living in Germany, relying on that cheap gas to heat your home
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and power your factories. Germany has the engineering
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talent and Russia has endless natural gas.
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A. Perfect match, economically
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speaking. Exactly.
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If those two economies fully integrated, they could
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theoretically dominate the European continent and
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completely freeze the US out of the market.
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That was the fear, yes. So Nordstream was the physical
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tether of that primordial fear, and then suddenly it violently
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explodes at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.
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The sources detailed 2 primary competing theories on the
13:47
sabotage. The first comes from legendary
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investigative journalist Seymour Hersh.
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And what's his theory? He claims the explosion was
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carried out by U.S. Navy divers operating out of
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Pensacola, FL. He alleges they use their deep
14:00
sea expertise to plant explosives under the cover of a
14:04
NATO exercise. OK.
14:05
And the second theory. The second theory, which is
14:07
proposed by author James Bamford, suggests it was
14:10
actually Ukrainian operatives using highly advanced underwater
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robots. Wow.
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But honestly, the identity of the divers almost misses the
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larger point. How so?
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Well, the outcome perfectly solved Washington's strategic
14:23
nightmare by violently severing that economic tether between
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Berlin and Moscow. That is undeniably true.
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Of course, it came at a catastrophic environmental cost.
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The Deep Dive notes that the destruction of the pipeline
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caused the largest single release of methane into the
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atmosphere in human history. It was an absolute environmental
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disaster. But pipelines carrying natural
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gas aren't the only critical choke points maintaining this
14:45
global architecture. We also have to examine Taiwan
14:49
and the supply of advanced microchips.
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Oh, this is where things get incredibly complicated.
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Because when you hear about the escalating military tensions
14:57
with China over Taiwan, you might be wondering why
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Washington would risk World War 3 / a tiny island.
15:03
Right. A lot of politicians argue we
15:04
should just pack up those fabrication plants, ship the
15:08
technology to Austin, TX and secure the supply chain at home.
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Problem solved, right? Yeah, that is a very popular
15:14
political talking point. But I have to push back on that
15:16
whole concept honestly. It drastically oversimplifies
15:20
the reality of semiconductor manufacturing.
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It really does. Not a shipping problem.
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Yeah, people think making advanced microchips is like
15:26
building a Ford truck on an assembly line.
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You know, you just need a big warehouse and some metal.
15:31
Yeah, just plug it in and go. Exactly.
15:33
But based on the sources, it's actually more like trying to
15:37
bake a flawless subatomic souffle.
15:39
You can't just move the oven to Texas and expect the same
15:42
results. The technical hurdles are almost
15:44
unimaginable to the layperson. The sources explain that
15:47
Taiwan's main manufacturer TSMC. The Taiwan Semiconductor
15:52
Manufacturing Company. Right, which is the singular
15:54
Titan of global chip making. They didn't just build a
15:57
standalone factory starting in the 1980s, they spent decades
16:01
cultivating a highly specialized, hyper dense
16:04
ecosystem. Right.
16:05
We are talking about extreme ultraviolet lithography machines
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that cost hundreds of millions of dollars each.
16:12
We are talking about dust free, clean rooms that are vastly more
16:16
sterile than a hospital operating theater.
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Furthermore, these advanced fabrication plants, or fabs as
16:22
they call them, they require a near perfect density of
16:24
specialized talent. Which you can't just find
16:27
anywhere. No, you need thousands of THDS,
16:30
chemical engineers and highly specific component suppliers all
16:33
living and operating within the exact same zip code.
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This generational institutional knowledge cannot simply be copy
16:39
pasted to another continent. Didn't Samsung try to do this?
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Yes, Samsung actually tried building an advanced plant in
16:46
Texas and the sources note that the yields, meaning the
16:49
percentage of usable non defective chips coming off the
16:52
line, were disastrously low. The precision required is simply
16:56
too demanding. Wow, so because of that immense
16:59
difficulty, Taiwan remains an absolute irreplaceable choke
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point for the technology that runs literally everything in the
17:07
modern world. From your smartphone to advanced
17:09
fighter jets. And that relentless need to
17:11
protect these fragile global choke points brings us to the
17:15
most urgent crisis detailed in the material the current
17:19
devastating war with Iran. We have traced the overarching
17:22
blueprint from the 1990s, through the provocations in
17:25
Eastern Europe to the economic sabotage in the Baltic Sea, and
17:28
it all funnels into this massive conflict.
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Really does. To understand how we arrived at
17:32
a hot war with Iran, we have to look at what Horton calls the
17:36
nuclear bluff. Let's breakdown that bluff
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because for years Iran had a civilian nuclear program.
17:41
But critically, this program was highly monitored by inspectors
17:44
from the, IE the UN nuclear watchdogs.
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Horton describes these inspectors as essentially
17:50
sitting at the barstool like they had cameras on the
17:52
centrifuges. They were tracking every ounce
17:55
of uranium from the moment it left the mine.
17:56
The consensus was that Iran had the capability to manufacture
18:01
nuclear weapon, but they were not actively doing so.
18:04
The analogy provided in the source material is that Iran had
18:07
a revolver in one pocket and bullets in the other.
18:09
Exactly. They purposely weren't loading
18:12
the gun, they were holding on to the potential as a latent
18:15
deterrent against invasion. So the question is, how did a
18:18
highly monitored civilian program trigger a preemptive
18:21
war? Well, the sources point to a
18:23
very specific closed door meeting where Benjamin Netanyahu
18:27
managed to convince Donald Trump to fundamentally change the
18:30
rules of the game. And what was his argument?
18:32
Netanyahu argued that treating Iran's program as a civilian
18:35
endeavor was a fatal mistake. He insisted that any domestic
18:39
enrichment capability, regardless of UN inspections,
18:42
should be treated as an active existential weapons program
18:45
requiring immediate pre emptive military strikes.
18:48
And the timing of this pivotal shift is highly scrutinized in
18:52
the deep dive. The sources note that Vice
18:54
President JD Vance, who had been a vocal opponent of entering a
18:58
war with Iran, was conveniently out of the country.
19:01
Really, where was he? He was attending a peace summit
19:03
in Azerbaijan and Armenia during this crucial war planning phase.
19:07
Oh wow, talk about timing. Yeah, with the primary
19:10
dissenting voice absent, Netanyahu allegedly bypassed
19:14
standard diplomatic protocols, sitting directly opposite Trump
19:17
to sell him on the illusion that a pre emptive war with Iran
19:20
would be quick, contained and easy.
19:22
Which led directly to the horrifying events of February
19:25
28th. Which is dead.
19:26
The sources chillingly point out this date is the anniversary of
19:29
the Waco siege. The US launched a pre emptive
19:32
strike, but they didn't just hit reinforced military bunkers.
19:36
No, the operational details of this striker severe. the US
19:39
military utilized an experimental Lockheed missile
19:43
instead of a traditional explosive warhead.
19:45
This specific munition is designed to detonate in the air
19:48
and shoot a massive high velocity spray of heavy tungsten
19:51
pellets over a wide area. It is designed for maximum
19:55
shredding of unarmored targets. Yes, and the sources detail that
19:58
these munitions struck civilian areas, specifically hitting
20:03
schools. It's awful.
20:04
Over 167 people were killed in the strike, the vast majority of
20:07
them being little girls. It's genuinely sickening to even
20:11
read about. It is heartbreaking.
20:12
Horton explicitly compares the psychological trauma of that
20:16
strike to the Oklahoma City bombing, but magnified because
20:19
an entire building full of children was wiped out by a
20:22
foreign military. It was a massive, horrific
20:24
provocation based on the arrogant bluff that the war
20:27
would be easy and Iran would just fold.
20:29
But Iran did not fold. The blowback was immediate,
20:33
highly coordinated and devastating.
20:35
What do they do? Iran utilized its massive,
20:37
previously untouched reserves of medium and short range ballistic
20:41
missiles. They reached out and
20:43
systematically struck 18 different U.S. military bases
20:46
scattered across the region. B2 bases.
20:48
Yes, from Erbil and northern Iraq all the way down the
20:51
Arabian Peninsula to Oman. They destroyed advanced radar
20:54
stations, cratered runways and completely disabled refueling
20:58
planes. And this exposes the terrifying
21:00
reality of how the US actually stationed its troops because we
21:04
always hear these bases are there to project strength and
21:06
keep the peace. But Horton points out they
21:09
essentially functioned as trip wires.
21:11
By scattering relatively small contingents of troops across
21:14
dozens of exposed bases in the Middle East, the US essentially
21:18
provided Iran with a map of hostages.
21:20
Sitting ducks. Exactly.
21:22
If conflict erupted, these bases were sitting ducks, unable to
21:26
defend themselves against a saturated missile barrage.
21:29
It reveals A profound strategic vulnerability in that 1992
21:33
blueprint for dominance. But perhaps the most disturbing
21:37
element of this entire escalation isn't the military
21:39
failure. It's the ideological motivation
21:42
driving some of the people at the top.
21:44
Oh, this part is wild. The sources cite A deeply
21:47
alarming report by Mikey Weinstein from the Military
21:50
Religious Freedom Foundation. Weinstein reported that
21:52
high-ranking US commanders were actually holding official
21:55
briefings telling their troops that this catastrophic war with
21:58
Iran was part of God's divine plan.
22:00
Wait, what? Yes, they were openly quoting
22:03
the Book of Revelations to the enlisted men, claiming the
22:06
conflict was meant to bring about Armageddon and hasten the
22:09
return of Jesus Christ. That reads like a script for a
22:11
dark dystopian comedy, but it's real life.
22:15
You have commanders smiling about the literal end of the
22:18
world while deploying experimental tungsten missiles
22:22
against civilian targets. What's fascinating here is how
22:25
this entire sequence of events with Iran serves as the ultimate
22:28
stress test for the post Cold War blueprint we started talking
22:31
about. The 1992 Wolfowitz Doctrine.
22:33
Exactly. The massive failure to quickly
22:36
subdue Iran, the targeted destruction of 18 US bases, the
22:40
exposure of these strategic vulnerabilities, it all proves
22:42
that America's conventional military empire in the Middle
22:45
East is fundamentally bankrupt. It failed the test.
22:48
The grand bluff of unchallengeable permanent
22:52
dominance, drawn up by Paul Wolfowitz in 1992, has finally
22:56
been called by a regional power, and the structural integrity of
23:00
that empire failed. So what does this all mean?
23:03
We started by looking at the arrogant blueprints of the
23:05
1990s, where planners thought they could treat the Middle East
23:09
like a risk board, assuming Domino's would fall exactly as
23:12
they commanded, right. We saw that same hubris provoke
23:16
a massive crisis in Eastern Europe, deliberately ignoring
23:19
think tank warnings just to expand military alliances and
23:22
sell weapons. We saw the destruction of global
23:25
energy pipeline. Yeah, and we saw how the
23:26
desperate need to control every global choke point like Taiwan
23:30
culminated in a horrific, ideologically driven war with
23:34
Iran that finally shattered the illusion of American
23:36
invincibility. It forces us to ask deeply
23:39
uncomfortable questions about the actual mechanics of power.
23:42
The sources mentioned an economic concept called of
23:44
public choice theory. What does that theory suggest?
23:46
This theory suggests that the people making these massive
23:49
civilization altering decisions aren't acting as selfless
23:53
philosophical guardians of the state.
23:55
They are rational actors responding to incentive, right.
23:59
It's like a city Fire Chief who gets paid a massive cash bonus
24:02
for every fire his team puts. Out a great analogy.
24:04
Eventually, you really shouldn't be surprised if his deputies
24:07
start handing out matches to the locals.
24:09
Exactly. If the politicians and planners
24:12
launching these wars are doing so for private short term
24:16
incentives like securing A multibillion dollar defense
24:19
contract for Lockheed or winning swing state votes in an upcoming
24:23
election cycle, what does that mean for the future of global
24:27
stability? It really makes you look
24:28
differently at that towering skyscraper we talked about at
24:31
the very. Beginning.
24:31
Yeah, the blueprint. You realize the blueprint wasn't
24:34
drawn up to make sure the building was safe for the people
24:36
actually living inside it. The blueprint was drawn up to
24:39
make the architects as rich and powerful as possible, even if
24:42
the whole thing is built directly on a fault line.
24:45
Which leaves us with a final thought to consider as we close
24:48
this deep dive. What's that?
24:50
If the higher, wiser conception of global peace is constantly
24:53
sacrificed merely for political survival and corporate profit,
24:57
how can any citizen trust the grand moral narratives used to
25:01
sell the next inevitable conflict?