Latest / World Ablaze with George Fontes / 65 - Dr. Jonathan S. Lockwood - Russian Aggression Towards Ukraine and America's Iron Dome Solution

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65 - Dr. Jonathan S. Lockwood - Russian Aggression Towards Ukraine and America's Iron Dome Solution · World Ablaze with George Fontes

• 0:00
  You are listening to a Fonts Media Network production.
• 0:10
  Welcome World of Blaze listeners.
• 0:13
  Today I have retired Army Intelligence Journal, Dr. Jonathan S. Lockwood, Ph.D.
• 0:20
  Dr. Lockwood offers his insight based on his many years of experience into the Ukraine-Russia situation,
• 0:28
  as well as offering some very unique solutions that can be deployed to further strengthen American defenses and deploy an effective Iron Dome.
• 0:38
  Dr. Lockwood and I had an insightful conversation that I believe you will find very informative.
• 0:45
  With that overview of what's going on in Ukraine, I deal with it twice a week on the Ukraine show with IBM TV Pod TV.
• 0:53
  We do it every Tuesday and every Friday.
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  And one of our podcasters, Ivan Kirichenko, he is in Kiev.
• 1:04
  So he's our man on the spot.
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  And the host of the podcast, Sasha Starr, he is based in Canada, but he's Ukrainian, native Ukrainian, and he lives in Canada.
• 1:17
  And so I have a Ukrainian host based in Canada and a Ukrainian co-host who's based in Kiev.
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  And I'm the Russia expert.
• 1:26
  Got it.
• 1:27
  So you have definitely got to grasp what's going on with the Ukraine-Russia situation then.
• 1:34
  And so before we go too much further in this recording, I got to announce your name so people actually know who you are.
• 1:39
  You are Dr. Jonathan Lockwood, PhD.
• 1:42
  Yep.
• 1:44
  And you know what's really striking about that?
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  and you don't have to mention this to your audience,
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  but I came into the Army with my PhD
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  the same year that our current Secretary of Defense,
• 1:53
  Hegseth, was born.
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  Well, we're recording,
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  so we're just going to let everybody know about that
• 1:58
  because I think that offers some unique perspective
• 2:00
  in terms of who you are
• 2:03
  and your experience in these matters.
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  It's one thing to be recognized, right?
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  Such as SecDef Hegseth right now,
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  But for someone with your experience with a PhD who's actually taught at a university level, and you have been leaned on as a subject matter expert for so long in your career, I mean, I think that just speaks volumes.
• 2:27
  So for me to have you on is awesome because I've talked about this Russia-Ukraine situation with many people, some YouTube famous people, some people maybe you know, I don't know, but also in the intelligence community.
• 2:39
  Well, here's something that will make you excited. When we get to the discussion about the Iron Dome.
• 2:44
  Yeah, I want to talk about that for sure.
• 2:45
  I have some unique recommendations that if the Trump administration hears about them and acts on them, this will be awesome.
• 2:53
  The thing that I'm going to be talking about, the suggestions for making the Iron Dome work, I am the only one in the world making these particular types of suggestions.
• 3:04
  No one else is.
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  And you will understand why once we get into it.
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  because I first introduced the concept back in my book,
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  The Russian View of U.S. Strategy, which was published in 1993.
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  And the predictions that I made in that book are coming true now.
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  Wow.
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  So, this could be wild.
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  Well, we're definitely going to get to that for sure.
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  So, I'm going to put a pin in that.
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  But just because it's so hot right now,
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  let's start with the Russia-Ukraine situation
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  because it seems as I had an idea of what to ask you and what to go over,
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  But as we just discussed online earlier, it seems by the hour, almost every 20 minutes, there's an update as to what's going on.
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  It is a fast-moving train, and we have to jump on board.
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  We are at the hinge of history.
• 3:57
  Absolutely.
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  This is a decisive moment in history.
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  and the great favor that this conflict is giving us,
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  it is making the world more aware of historical precedent.
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  Absolutely.
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  Of trying to learn the lessons of history.
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  If there was ever a need to learn the lessons of history, this is it.
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  Yeah, I agree.
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  But it seems like at the moment we're kind of repeating a bit of it.
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  Yep.
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  Yeah.
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  Because people keep thinking about Munich 1938.
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  Right.
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  And I'll bring up that parallel, and I'll bring up what Churchill had to say about it.
• 4:35
  Well, actually, let's get to that point you want to make right after we discuss this, because I want to ask you a question.
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  I do get political on my show when I do my solo episodes, but I'm going to try to keep out of that.
• 4:51
  We'll just talk about the president for who he is and whatnot and stay out of right-left politics for now.
• 4:56
  Right, right.
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  So the question being, do you yourself, with all your experience and knowledge and everything that you've done in assessing these situations throughout the years, how do you feel about Trump being criticized for trying to negotiate with Putin?
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  People are feeling that Zelensky should have a seat at the table.
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  I don't think he's necessarily not going to be invited, but we also have to acknowledge that during the Biden administration, even a little bit towards the end of Obama's, mostly during the Biden administration, they kind of isolated Putin from any types of negotiations.
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  Only talked to him through the ambassadorship in, you know, what, 2022.
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  And then there was nothing really more from that since then.
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  How do you feel about the criticism that Trump is getting for trying to bring Putin to the table and talk to him directly?
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  to find out what he would like in this.
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  Well, I don't fault the president for wanting to reach out and bring an end to the war.
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  The problem is you can't focus on bringing an end to the war just for the sake of bringing an end to the war
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  because you have to be able to guarantee the peace that follows.
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  And the problem is you cannot have peace at any price
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  because if you focus on that,
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  you can fall into the trap
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  that Neville Chamberlain fell into in 1938
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  where he basically,
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  in order to gain peace for our time,
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  as he put it,
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  he engaged in what is appeasement.
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  You gave him what he wanted
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  and hoped that he would honor
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  and not start a war as a result.
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  And Winston Churchill,
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  as we recall,
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  he said to Neville Chamberlain,
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  he said,
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  you had a choice between dishonor and war.
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  You chose dishonor.
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  and you will have war. And it was true. And Churchill was absolutely correct. And now people,
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  to their credit, various nations across the world are remembering that historical precedent,
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  and they are drawing parallels with it. And they are very concerned that the Trump administration
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  may fall into the same trap in their eagerness to establish a peace agreement. Now, President Trump
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  wants to, he pays very much, he is very mindful of his potential legacy after the end of his second
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  term. He would certainly like to be remembered as a man who brought peace to the Russia-Ukraine
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  war, but by the same token, also he does not want to be remembered as a sucker.
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  Yeah.
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  Or someone who has taken advantage of and played for a fool.
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  I agree with that.
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  He does not want that either.
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  Right.
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  So, I have noted that he has mentioned some major remarks that said that we can't afford
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  to stop supporting Ukraine or otherwise Putin will think he's won. And Putin apparently does
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  seem to think that he is winning, although I would tend to argue with his rationale for it,
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  because he is not gaining a decisive victory on the battlefield. He is taking horrendous
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  casualties. They are largely his own fault because he overestimated the Russian army's
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  own ability to essentially occupy Ukraine.
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  He greatly underestimated Ukraine's will and ability to resist.
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  And I agree with that point.
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  I agree with that point.
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  I have talked about this previously with another individual.
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  And what is interesting, though, is he's not winning the land battle at all.
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  But we also have to point out that Putin has not unleashed the full potential of the Russian
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  military either.
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  which I have to question why.
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  I don't understand it.
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  It's above me, to be honest.
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  It's beyond my comprehension as to why he's not going full force
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  other than maybe that he knows he would decimate a land
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  that he wants to make part of Russia,
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  and maybe he didn't want to go through the process of rebuilding it if he did.
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  But what is your opinion on why he hasn't unleashed
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  the full potential of the Russian military on Ukraine?
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  Well, okay.
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  He has – one of the things we have to remember is that
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  Putin has been capitalizing on the fact that they have technically the world's largest nuclear arsenal.
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  And the importance of the nuclear arsenal to Russia itself cannot be overstated.
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  Because based on my research in my book, The Russian View of U.S. Strategy, as well as the previous book, The Soviet View of U.S. Strategic Doctrine, and my observations of Russian behavior in the post-Cold War period,
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  former president, Russian president Boris Yeltsin stated in a speech to the Russian Duma in 1994,
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  he stated, the only reason Russia is considered a great power is because its armed forces have
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  nuclear weapons. Now that statement tells you more than, he practically gave the game away there
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  with that statement. Because during the Cold War, as well as in the post-Cold War period,
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  the Russians viewed their nuclear arsenal as not only as a symbol of their great power status,
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  but as their principal means of leverage over the West. The implication of their view of U.S.
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  strategic doctrine, they saw it as a forced response to the growth of Soviet nuclear power.
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  The implication, the more the Russians built their nuclear arsenal, the more the United States
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  would be forced to accommodate itself to the growth of Soviet power. So this provided no really
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  definable upper limit. It gave them a self-sustaining motivation for building Soviet
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  nuclear power. So that is interesting. And in the post-Colbert period, they have used that as their
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  principal means of leverage, of trying to intimidate the West, relying on the Western
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  fear of nuclear escalation in order to give them cover to pursue their military and political
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  objectives. So this becomes a fascinating dynamic. It's playing out. But this also reveals a potential
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  weakness, a means that the West has not yet fully taken advantage of, but the implications of it
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  are clear in the success of the ballistic missile defense efforts in Ukraine. Ukraine has experienced
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  a great deal of success with the Patriot system.
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  And it had a high rate of intercept.
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  And other ballistic missile defense systems,
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  at least not the laser, not laser systems,
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  but ballistic missile defense systems
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  that have been highly successful.
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  This has great potential
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  if it is properly complemented
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  with other types of developments of the,
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  for example, bring in to fully create
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  the Iron Dome over the United States.
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  But it has to be done in a different way
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  than Israel is doing it.
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  So do you think that maybe their power is just a perceived power
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  because of their nuclear armament?
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  That is correct.
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  Okay.
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  They call their forces, it's interesting, the Russian word that they use,
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  they don't have an exact word for deterrence in the sense that we have it.
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  They translate our word for deterrence, they translate it as
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  which means intimidation.
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  So they call their forces the nuclear intimidation forces.
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  Okay.
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  And this has not caught on very well in the West.
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  What about the Arishnik missile technology, the hypersonic missile technology?
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  Was that just a show?
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  Kind of like, hey, look what else we have in our arsenal?
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  Because it seemed like it was a one-time use, and it's been argued that the only reason that they haven't used more of them is because they can't afford to.
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  And maybe there was a financial constraint here as to also why they're not doing a full-court press, as they say, against Ukraine.
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  What do you think of that assessment or that opinion?
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  Well it probably a very sound assessment because we must one of the historic weaknesses of the Russian military which very clearly shown in World War II and carrying through to the present still is their logistics capability their ability to supply and sustain war I will point out that in World War II the Russian logistical system was basically horse wagons and if it had not been for the fact that the united states during world war ii was supplying
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  russia with ford trucks that was that gave the russian army a motorized logistical capability
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  which eventually enabled them to drive the nazis out of russia out of the soviet union without that
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  they would have had a very hard time driving the germans would have been able to last a lot longer
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  on the Eastern Front had it not been for the logistical capability provided by the United States.
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  Now, that carries over into the current situation.
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  The Russian logistical capability has been very suspect.
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  There's a lot of corruption in the Russian logistical system.
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  They steal from their own system.
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  Yeah, hence the black market.
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  Exactly.
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  Right.
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  You've nailed it.
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  So here's what happens.
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  Because of that weakness in their logistical capability, the Ukrainians are fully aware of it.
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  And so they capitalize on it.
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  They are striking deep at the Russian logistical system, at the infrastructure.
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  And it has shown up in a continuing decrease in the power of a Russian offensive.
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  They don't really have – they are becoming less and less capable of sustaining offensive actions against the Ukrainian military.
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  They are not much better off in their offensive than they claim to be.
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  Of course, they're using disinformation and other types of reports to confuse the issue and basically try to convince the world, yes, we are winning this war, when in fact they are not.
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  Their Russian Black Sea fleet has been severely damaged.
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  They really don't have a naval presence in the Black Sea.
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  NATO could, with certain coordination, take advantage of this by getting Turkey's permission to allow NATO's fleet to get into the Black Sea and establish naval superiority for Ukraine on behalf of NATO, helping them to shut off the Russian ability to use the Black Sea completely.
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  There are opportunities there, depending on, and I pointed out on the Ukraine show, even in the current situation, we have to remember, we do not know everything that is going on behind the scenes.
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  No, we don't.
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  No. And the thing is, people were saying early on in the war that Ukraine would never be allowed to use HIMARS, Ukraine would never be allowed to use ATACMS, and lo and behold, the Ukrainians come up with surprise after surprise.
• 15:41
  Right.
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  And there's still the potential, even though right now you know everybody's saying, oh, it's impossible for Ukraine to recover the Crimea.
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  I pointed out on the show several times that the Crimea is a significant center of gravity in the Russian-Ukrainian war.
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  If the Ukraine does have the potential to seal off the logistical and reinforcement lines to Crimea, if they seal it off and make it impossible for the Russians to reinforce or resupply the Crimea, then the Ukrainians can use whatever strategic reserves they have to mount an offensive into Crimea and force the surrender of the Russian occupiers in Crimea.
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  If that occurs and the potential is there, then that would inflict a decisive operational defeat upon the Russian forces, which they would not be able to disguise or explain away.
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  And that would provide a significant victory for the Ukrainians to then form and negotiate a, shall we say, just and lasting peace.
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  Yeah, Crimea is an interesting piece because it also, a piece of the puzzle anyway, I mean, is it kind of started with that, what, 2014?
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  2014, yeah, exactly.
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  But, you know, this leads me to this question.
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  And he may be, I don't know what Trump's strategy was in this statement,
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  but blaming Zelensky basically for this war and even pointing out the war that started back in 2014,
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  which led to the Minsk agreements and all that.
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  And so is it Zelensky's fault?
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  I mean, here's the thing.
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  It was started under the guise of, hey, we're going to go in and protect Russian citizens or the people of Russia because Crimea was mostly populated by Russian sympathizers or Russian citizens, allegedly.
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  I don't know all the ins and outs.
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  You probably, I'm sure, do.
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  And so that was a justification for Putin the first time going in and saying, we're going to take this.
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  They annexed it.
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  It's part of Russia now.
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  But what you're saying is, even though that happened, fast forward to days times, they can no longer really hold on to that land militarily if Ukraine wanted to press Russia for it.
• 17:51
  And I think that would be a major win.
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  There is a potential there for an operational surprise.
• 17:56
  Yeah.
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  Yeah, because Russia has failed to anticipate, during this war, Ukraine's ability to resist and to inflict.
• 18:05
  They didn't anticipate Ukrainian counterattack into the Kursk Oblast, and they still have not been able to demonstrate any real capability for driving the Ukrainians out.
• 18:16
  Now, it's a very interesting situation, and what I would say is that obtaining a significant operational victory is vital for Ukraine at this point.
• 18:31
  If I would use, using a historical, good historical analogy would be the American Civil War. During that time, the Confederates in 1864, after Gettysburg, the Confederates were hoping for a political victory by running McClellan against Lincoln in the 1864 election.
• 18:55
  Now, in order to guarantee that the Union could pursue the Civil War to its conclusion, the Union Army had to win victories against the Confederacy that would make it impossible for a foreign power such as Great Britain or France to politically intervene in the American Civil War, which was still a possibility.
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  and the confederates were trying to gain a political victory in the 1864 election so the
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  interplay between military operations and political developments was certainly very much at play all
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  throughout the american civil war and i would argue it is still very much at play here in the
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  russian-ukrainian war and ukraine as you know that you may have noted uh has uh selensky did talk to
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  Mark Sturmer and to gain their support. And there is a great deal of evidence that various NATO
• 19:53
  nations will be willing to have peacekeeping troops in Ukraine to help secure a peace.
• 20:00
  Now, that is not the optimal solution, but it is if the, and if President Trump,
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  I would argue at this point, whoever are the people that are on the Trump team who are supposed to be the Russian national security advisors, whoever is advising Trump on Russia, in my opinion, is not doing his or her job at all well.
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  They do not apparently understand.
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  So you don't believe...
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  Or if they do understand, they're not being listened to.
• 20:33
  Understood.
• 20:34
  Yeah, because, I mean, it's the statement he made about this being Zelensky's fault.
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  Zelensky's fault for defending his own country from being invaded.
• 20:43
  Look what you made me do.
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  You made me invade you.
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  Right.
• 20:47
  What?
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  Yeah.
• 20:49
  Hey, look, I can agree that that is a bit of a ridiculous statement,
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  but I do know that Trump's power in negotiating is making very outlandish public statements
• 21:01
  just to stress test the situation and see how people react.
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  So I'm not sure if that is what he was trying to do here, but either way.
• 21:09
  That may well be.
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  Maybe.
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  Let's give the man, there are advantages and disadvantages to President Trump's approach.
• 21:18
  Yes.
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  His approach is that it's almost like he's using a principle of judo.
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  And judo, as you know, is the Japanese, the gentle way.
• 21:27
  Yes.
• 21:27
  Using an opponent's off-balance points and trying to apply strength against weakness to keep an opponent off-balance and not being able to anticipate your next attack to defeat him without killing him.
• 21:40
  So what is interesting is that Trump's approach keeps his adversaries off-balance and not being sure exactly what course of action he's really going to take.
• 21:49
  Because he sounds crazy.
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  Yeah, people that pointed out the madman theory.
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  Look out, he's crazy.
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  He might attack.
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  And this is a clever element of deterrence because if you can keep your opponents uncertain of what you are going to do, President Trump is probably correct in saying that if he had been president a consecutive second term, that the Russian war never would have occurred.
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  He's probably quite correct in that because Putin would never have dared attack because he feared Trump's unpredictability.
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  so that besides that case he is now relying on his unpredictability to keep not only his
• 22:31
  adversaries off balance but it also unfortunately keeps his allies off balance yes yeah you're right
• 22:37
  there yeah it's it's very it's very hot and his his nato allies and his other allies are trying to
• 22:45
  accommodate and predict and roll sort of go with the flow and try to figure out okay how do we work
• 22:51
  around this.
• 22:53
  So the question here, Jonathan, I have, is how else should have the U.S. gone about in
• 23:02
  supporting Zelensky or trying to get involved in ending this war through a negotiation?
• 23:08
  Because it seemed, I'm just saying by administration because it was a previous administration, not
• 23:13
  for calling one good, one bad.
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  But the previous administration did seem to not be interested in talking to Putin whatsoever.
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  Even though he invaded in 22, there were warning signs leading up to that where they could have definitely gone to Putin or gone to Russia and tried to squash this from even happening, I think.
• 23:37
  And we also have to acknowledge that this is just my opinion based on what I see.
• 23:42
  I'm not claiming I'm right in this, but from my perspective, I haven't seen the EU do much to get in the way or get ahead of this either.
• 23:49
  and so
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  like comments made by J.D. Vance
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  in Munich where he was
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  basically saying hey look you guys put yourselves here
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  and you need to step up and protect yourselves and watch
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  your own backyard basically
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  what is your opinion on that like
• 24:03
  how should the U.S. have handled that
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  and how should the EU have
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  handled that since it really is
• 24:09
  like their backyard like right there
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  you know and here's the thing if Russia
• 24:13
  encroaches and gains control they're right
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  on Poland's border and now we do have a potential
• 24:17
  NATO situation
• 24:18
  So, you know, what are your thoughts on that?
• 24:22
  Yeah. The EU and NATO both have their respective spheres of influence.
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  The EU is primarily economic and NATO is primarily for military.
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  And ensuring proper coordination between the two, because there is no overarching command over both the EU and NATO,
• 24:42
  that can make them act in a fully coordinated fashion.
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  so you know klaus witz has said you know politics a war is an extension of politics by other means
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  so eu has certain instruments at its disposal they could participate in imposing sanctions
• 24:58
  if necessary on russia but that's in the peacetime realm right and now you have and nato
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  only if one of its members is attacked can they invoke article five since ukraine is not
• 25:12
  not a member of NATO, at least not yet, and because the essence of the NATO charter precludes
• 25:21
  them being brought into NATO while they are being invaded. There's that complication.
• 25:29
  So Ukraine has been trying to work around that with a series of bilateral security agreements
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  and negotiations, which they've been able to do fairly successfully up to this point.
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  so now you have
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  the problem
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  for the EU
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  is they have to get back to a state
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  of
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  relative peace
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  so that their economic sanctions
• 25:53
  they have more ability to interact with Ukraine
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  and other allies in order to make the economic levers of power work more effectively NATO for its part because the United States is signaling that they are not willing to be the principal load bearer of the military effort
• 26:12
  now the burden is increasingly becoming on NATO members to step up and devote a larger share of their budgets of their GDP to military spending and aid.
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  as well as coordinate their response to the Russian invasion.
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  And this is a very complicated problem,
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  one that none of the NATO nations foresaw.
• 26:36
  None of them foresaw this situation.
• 26:39
  Well, it's complicated.
• 26:41
  Yeah, it's complicated.
• 26:42
  But when it comes to NATO,
• 26:43
  we can talk about percentage of GDP,
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  but we also got to talk about dollars,
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  like how much is funded.
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  And the U.S. funds over 70% of NATO on their own.
• 26:54
  If it was a board of directors,
• 26:55
  we have the majority. I'm not saying it's right for us to act that way,
• 26:59
  but what I'm trying to get is I guess I understand why Trump is saying what he's
• 27:03
  saying. You're like, hey, you know. You've got to chip in more
• 27:06
  so that it's more sustainable. Because at the same time, remember that
• 27:11
  President Trump and his team, they are trying to tackle the
• 27:14
  enormous national debt. Oh, absolutely.
• 27:19
  It's out of control. Right now, it is out of control.
• 27:22
  and in order for those to achieve its objectives to get this thing under control,
• 27:32
  remember, here's a key figure.
• 27:35
  The interest on the national debt is about, oh, something like, what is it,
• 27:38
  $858 billion a year and increasing.
• 27:41
  It's like an out-of-control credit card.
• 27:43
  So in order to pay down that national credit card, if you will,
• 27:49
  That's why they were using that target of reductions of $2 trillion a year around that.
• 27:55
  Yes.
• 27:55
  If you paid it down, if the Doge team succeeds in identifying and the U.S. and the Congress managed to reduce the national debt the next year by, say, if they were to do it by $2 trillion, okay, great.
• 28:11
  then that means they have reduced, they have exceeded that amount of interest,
• 28:16
  and therefore the next year would have a lower interest on the national debt.
• 28:21
  It would not be $858 billion.
• 28:23
  It would be significantly lower.
• 28:25
  That kicks the whole process into reverse.
• 28:28
  If you can generate large enough spending cuts that are essentially $1 trillion a year or greater for the next several years,
• 28:38
  You start to kick the process into reverse, and you also give the tax cuts and economic growth a chance to generate more revenue.
• 28:47
  So by doing large spending cuts, not just breaking even at $858 billion, you give this whole thing a chance. So economic strength and sustainability is directly tied to the United States' ability to support its allies in a military sense for the long term.
• 29:11
  So it's all intricately related.
• 29:13
  None of these things that Trump is doing can be considered in a vacuum.
• 29:18
  You cannot consider them as problems unrelated to other things that he is doing.
• 29:22
  I agree with that.
• 29:25
  I agree with that.
• 29:26
  And the other thing, outside of NATO, people don't understand that the U.S., and I've done plenty of shows on these numbers, but the U.S. funds, literally funds and assists 200 countries every single year.
• 29:39
  not a small amount that we pay out every single year.
• 29:44
  I want to circle back a bit, though,
• 29:47
  because you explained the EU's part,
• 29:51
  like what they could have done to help avoid this war
• 29:54
  or get ahead of it through the economic side of things,
• 29:57
  and also what NATO could have done by putting pressures,
• 30:01
  not being directly militarily involved,
• 30:03
  but trying to put pressures on this situation to keep it tame.
• 30:09
  Um, but when we talk about Europe, the powers of Europe, for example, uh, the powerful nations,
• 30:15
  uh, what could they have done differently in your mind?
• 30:18
  Because like France, when this, when this was going on, let's fast forward to 2022,
• 30:22
  not, not back through the 2014, but France could, I think could have more like, they
• 30:27
  didn't come to the table to try and negotiate with Putin.
• 30:29
  When they did, he put them, Putin put Macron at the end of a hundred foot table and just
• 30:32
  kind of like, yeah, who is this guy?
• 30:34
  Whatever.
• 30:34
  and the only country that has gone to try that from my knowledge memory anyway is really been
• 30:41
  turkey has been very involved through this time period previous to trump's administration and
• 30:46
  trying to actually bring putin to the table and negotiate and you know try to find out what can
• 30:51
  be done in concessions between putin and zelinski i'm not sure like okay what i'm trying to ask is
• 30:57
  why hasn't europe been more involved in trying to to get a handle on this situation seems like they
• 31:03
  didn't really jump until America said, fine, we're sending attackums over to Ukraine. We're
• 31:09
  going to increase our funding and send billions of years since this has gone on. It seems like
• 31:14
  they were just kind of waiting until we got involved for them to realize, oh, it's time to
• 31:19
  step up because Germany didn't want to do anything. They didn't want to do anything for a while.
• 31:22
  France didn't want to do anything. It seemed like nobody did anything to help Ukraine until
• 31:26
  America stepped in. So was Europe right in waiting or should they have really gotten ahead of this
• 31:34
  from the outset? Well, the European allies made the mistake of thinking that the United States
• 31:40
  was going to carry the bulk of the burden indefinitely and that there was no need.
• 31:47
  The sense of urgency was not impressed on our NATO allies to really step up and says,
• 31:53
  oh, we don't need to step up.
• 31:55
  America's going to step up to the plate and carry the burden.
• 32:00
  And so there was no sense of urgency.
• 32:02
  It was not until Trump was elected and President Trump said,
• 32:08
  no, you guys have to do your part because otherwise we just may take our marbles and go home.
• 32:15
  The implication being.
• 32:16
  And so that lit a fire under our NATO allies.
• 32:23
  That, yay, we've got to take this seriously because Putin has made it very clear that they are not interested.
• 32:31
  There are many signals that are coming from the Russian side that indicate they are not interested in compromise in the sense that we understand it.
• 32:39
  Now, until the 90s, believe it or not, the Russian language did not even have a word for compromise.
• 32:47
  because compromise as, when you hear the word compromise,
• 32:52
  what do you think of?
• 32:54
  When we talk about making a compromise with someone,
• 32:57
  what does that mean to you?
• 32:58
  Yeah, you're literally giving up a little something
• 33:01
  that you want to appease the other side
• 33:04
  in order to make peace, right?
• 33:06
  Yeah.
• 33:06
  And that's something that Russia doesn't want to do.
• 33:08
  The American political system is built on compromise.
• 33:11
  Right.
• 33:12
  And it's also compromise in the sense of both sides,
• 33:16
  you are meeting the other person halfway. You are giving, each side gains something. They don't gain
• 33:22
  everything, but they gain something. Compromise in the American sense is a more positive word.
• 33:30
  When the Russians, they saw that word compromise, they essentially translated it into Cyrillic,
• 33:36
  compromise, whatever, the Cyrillic letters. But when the Russians translate the word compromise
• 33:42
  into their language, compromise to them means mutual surrender.
• 33:48
  That is a negative connotation.
• 33:52
  And the Russians hate compromise.
• 33:55
  It makes sense, though, to be honest.
• 33:56
  Yeah.
• 33:57
  It's a fine nuance.
• 34:00
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 34:01
  The Russian language and culture puts a more negative connotation to compromise.
• 34:10
  They hate leaders who compromise.
• 34:11
  It signals weakness.
• 34:14
  Yeah, it's like there's no surrender in their culture.
• 34:16
  Correct.
• 34:17
  There's no surrender.
• 34:18
  It's like, we're not going to admit defeat.
• 34:20
  We're not going to surrender.
• 34:21
  Yeah.
• 34:21
  Matter of fact, the Russian phrase in Russian culture that is common, which we don't fully understand ourselves, is kto kovol?
• 34:31
  Who whom?
• 34:33
  Who rules whom?
• 34:35
  Who is superior to whom?
• 34:37
  in the russian culture you are either someone superior or you are their inferior you are never
• 34:43
  their equal equality is something is a concept that doesn't even exist in russian culture either
• 34:49
  the only word they have for equality ravna is being equal in the sides of the two sides of
• 34:55
  a mathematical equation are equal so when they read the u.s constitution and they see the words
• 35:01
  all men are created equal,
• 35:04
  then the Russian mind says,
• 35:06
  that's impossible.
• 35:08
  It's kind of a rule or be ruled mentality.
• 35:13
  Exactly right.
• 35:14
  Yeah.
• 35:17
  I'm sorry, Jonathan.
• 35:18
  That leads me to this, really.
• 35:22
  The implications here is
• 35:23
  if we can't find a deal,
• 35:26
  which in Russia's mind
• 35:28
  would literally be surrendering, right?
• 35:30
  Surrendering something that...
• 35:31
  But if we can't find a deal, Putin's actions, if you're just looking at everything he's doing and what he has actually stated, he wants to reunite the USSR, the old USSR.
• 35:44
  He's literally trying to claim those old territories.
• 35:46
  So I think the fear is, if the European nations are paying attention, and I'm sure they are, is if he takes Ukraine, he's not going to stop there.
• 35:57
  he's going to continue to try to gobble up the prior or previous ussr territories and i think
• 36:04
  that's part of what he wants to do and i don't think people understand look he's how old is he
• 36:08
  now in the 70s late 70s he is oh yeah he's in his early 70s he's up there a little bit 70s and what
• 36:16
  i mean by that is he's looking at his legacy at this point so he has nothing to lose really
• 36:21
  so this may just really be about his ego more than anything
• 36:26
  and given the fact that he is in a position of
• 36:30
  near absolute power in russia we have to
• 36:33
  we have to assume that right uh lord lord acton once pointed out
• 36:38
  power corrupts and absolute power tends to corrupt
• 36:41
  absolutely yes so you might you might enlighten you might liken
• 36:46
  uh latemir putin to someone who is in possession of the one ring of power
• 36:50
  from the Lord of the Rings.
• 36:51
  Yeah.
• 36:52
  The ring,
• 36:53
  as you know,
• 36:54
  the ring of power,
• 36:55
  the Lord of the Rings,
• 36:56
  the ring,
• 36:56
  the one ring of power
• 36:57
  inevitably corrupts its user.
• 36:59
  Yes.
• 36:59
  Yeah.
• 37:00
  And so they,
• 37:01
  so you might,
• 37:03
  you know,
• 37:03
  President Trump
• 37:04
  and Vladimir Putin
• 37:06
  obviously each have a ring of power.
• 37:10
  So,
• 37:10
  and you're right.
• 37:11
  And can I,
• 37:12
  with that being said,
• 37:13
  where,
• 37:14
  where do you think
• 37:15
  this is going to go
• 37:16
  with these peace talks?
• 37:18
  Will we actually have peace?
• 37:19
  Will this be a prolonged war that actually leads to a larger peer-to-peer-on conflict?
• 37:24
  What do you think is going to happen?
• 37:27
  Given my study of the Russian perception, both of U.S. strategy and its own great power status, it is reaching what Clausewitz called the culminating point of war, culminating point of a battle.
• 37:45
  So inevitably, when one side is on the offensive, you reach a point where the offensive side can no longer continue the attack.
• 37:54
  And there is an opportunity for the defender to counterattack.
• 37:59
  Arguably right now, the Russian side is steadily reaching that culminating point where they will no longer be able to continue an offensive effort against Ukraine.
• 38:11
  And this is why it is such a vital turning point right now.
• 38:15
  If the NATO allies and the United States simply continue to supply Ukraine with an ability to resist, because Zelensky is calling for larger Ukrainian military forces, if they succeed in, in the worst case, bringing the Russian offensive to a halt so that it is no longer making visible progress, or even if they manage to drive back the Russians in certain cases.
• 38:40
  or, as I also mentioned,
• 38:42
  inflict that decisive counter-offensive blow against Crimea,
• 38:46
  which most people are discounting and saying that's not possible.
• 38:50
  And I would disagree.
• 38:52
  It is those things that can't ever happen
• 38:54
  that change the course of world history.
• 38:57
  We fought in World War II remember in World War II on the Western Front we were driving in December 1944 Hardly anyone except for Patton G2 thought that the Germans were capable of launching a counteroffensive
• 39:13
  But they did in the Battle of the Bulge.
• 39:16
  And the U.S. suffered tens of thousands of casualties.
• 39:20
  It was the most devastating war, devastating battle for the United States.
• 39:24
  all because they failed to anticipate that the opponent could launch a counteroffensive.
• 39:30
  So do you think people are, or at least Putin, is underestimating Zelensky's chances here?
• 39:38
  I think he is.
• 39:41
  He has shown time and again that he has underestimated both the Ukrainian will and the Ukrainian ability to resist.
• 39:50
  and there have been several instances throughout this conflict where the ukrainians have surprised
• 39:56
  the russians tactically and operationally so it is not to say that they are uh there is that that
• 40:03
  potential exists yet again and even though we may be on the verge of a negotiated peace
• 40:09
  any peace that that visibly rewards russia in any way for having started the war against ukraine
• 40:17
  and engaged in this conflict, that is not a peace.
• 40:20
  That is appeasement.
• 40:21
  Yes, agreed.
• 40:23
  And simply invites more war later on.
• 40:25
  Yeah, exactly.
• 40:26
  And that's the issue.
• 40:29
  Okay, so that, I kind of kicked this can down the road in my mind here,
• 40:34
  but it's going to lead me to asking your opinion on this.
• 40:38
  Now, I've had others say that they don't believe this will happen,
• 40:41
  but as Trump's statements,
• 40:45
  everything he's making
• 40:46
  in terms of his statements
• 40:47
  and what he's saying
• 40:49
  about Zelensky right now
• 40:50
  and how it seems like
• 40:52
  he's really trying to appease Putin.
• 40:55
  And of course,
• 40:55
  this just could be a tactic
• 40:56
  to get him to relax
• 40:58
  and sit down and talk.
• 41:00
  Could be.
• 41:01
  But where would that leave us?
• 41:02
  If it gets to that situation,
• 41:04
  because Zelensky obviously
• 41:05
  has made it very clear
• 41:06
  he's not backing down.
• 41:07
  He's not going to back down
• 41:08
  unless they both come to the table
• 41:11
  and it's clear that he does not want to give up
• 41:14
  any more land whatsoever.
• 41:15
  In fact, I know he wants Crimea back
• 41:17
  as it was originally theirs from the outset,
• 41:20
  going back to that 2014 war.
• 41:23
  But where does that leave us?
• 41:25
  Where does it leave America if we,
• 41:27
  because it has been said that we may have to put boots
• 41:29
  on the ground, for example.
• 41:30
  But on whose side?
• 41:32
  Where would we be in this situation in your mind?
• 41:36
  Well, as far as putting American troops in Ukraine,
• 41:41
  Either as part of a peacekeeping force, or are you suggesting it's part of a peacekeeping force?
• 41:47
  Either or.
• 41:49
  Yeah, what's your assessment?
• 41:49
  Where do you think this will lead if we absolutely do have to get involved in putting troops in the area?
• 41:59
  What do you think that means?
• 42:00
  We have troops in NATO Europe still.
• 42:03
  Well, yes, we do, but it's not like a large...
• 42:08
  Correct.
• 42:08
  I'll let you explain.
• 42:09
  I'm sorry.
• 42:10
  Go ahead.
• 42:10
  Yeah, no, it's not a significant enough contingent to affect, if we wanted to force a confrontation between the United States and Russia, yeah, then we would put American troops in Ukraine.
• 42:25
  And that would be a situation reminiscent of, believe it or not, the January 1997 Army After Next Winter War Game.
• 42:36
  That was the first strategic level war game in which I was a participant on the red team representing Russia.
• 42:42
  And it was designed to simulate, it was designed to test out the revolution in military affairs force structure as a proof of concept.
• 42:53
  and it was stationed, the scenario was set in 2020 with a hypothetical war or conflict.
• 43:02
  And the problem was the United States was, excuse me, the blue player.
• 43:10
  We were willing to commit forces.
• 43:13
  We had advisors in Ukraine in the war game and the red team, we saw that as an intolerable provocation.
• 43:20
  So in order to do that, we were stating, analyzing the situation and said, if we are going to invade Ukraine and we do not take out, lose intelligence and communication satellites prior to the beginning of the war, we're going to lose.
• 43:38
  so the red team in that war game launched a preemptive strike in space to destroy using
• 43:46
  its satellites that it had its counter space weapons to destroy blue's communications and
• 43:51
  intelligence satellites in the war game it paralyzed blue and the war game controllers
• 43:56
  told the red team well absent intervention by the war game controllers red just won the war
• 44:00
  And so that was a devastating conclusion. We learned from that war game that if you put, if you have counter space satellites and say, for example, interceptor satellites with laser weapons in space, and you have that, you have an unstable hair trigger situation in Earth orbital space, almost like a Mexican standoff in Earth orbit.
• 44:25
  So from that standpoint, if you're looking at the United States intervening in Ukraine or putting troops there, that would provide an almost intolerable provocation for Russia.
• 44:40
  so right now
• 44:42
  it would
• 44:43
  but real quickly
• 44:45
  that also hinges
• 44:48
  that also hinges on these negotiations
• 44:51
  talks being successful
• 44:52
  because if
• 44:53
  Putin doesn't want to
• 44:56
  back down Ukraine
• 44:58
  Zelensky doesn't want to back down
• 44:59
  and Trump says fine we're going to send
• 45:02
  a peacekeeping force
• 45:04
  that peacekeeping element is
• 45:06
  entirely hinged on Putin
• 45:07
  still respecting the US
• 45:10
  as a force to be reckoned with.
• 45:12
  And if we lose that respect,
• 45:14
  are we truly going to be a peacekeeping force at that point?
• 45:18
  Yeah, that's going to be a very naughty problem
• 45:21
  for the United States and its NATO allies.
• 45:24
  Because in order to,
• 45:27
  Putin has made it very clear
• 45:29
  and the Russian leadership itself has made it clear,
• 45:32
  they are not interested in peace
• 45:34
  and they want the whole of Ukraine.
• 45:37
  They want all of Ukraine.
• 45:38
  And once it becomes clear to the U.S. political leadership that Russia genuinely is not interested in peace, but in effect are de facto surrender in this war, then there's going to be a crucial test for the Trump administration.
• 45:56
  they will be uh compelled uh trump uh has said had said to putin previously we can do this the
• 46:06
  easy way or we can do this the hard way yeah and content and given the give him correct give
• 46:13
  president trump credit he will recognize however reluctantly that as much as he wanted to be seen
• 46:18
  as the peacemaker as the deal maker yeah for his legacy he may have to earn his legacy the hard way
• 46:26
  And that could be bad for all of us.
• 46:29
  Yes, it could.
• 46:30
  If we have to go that direction for sure.
• 46:32
  As Mark Twain once said, history doesn't repeat itself.
• 46:37
  It does rhyme, though.
• 46:40
  Wow.
• 46:42
  Well, so let's go to what you were saying earlier about the capabilities, for example.
• 46:48
  And it kind of leans towards the U.S.'s capabilities.
• 46:56
  at the moment because when you're talking about satellites, lasers,
• 47:01
  I mean, that goes all the way back to the Star Wars program
• 47:02
  that was launched years back.
• 47:05
  And why don't you explain that element and what that can do
• 47:10
  for not just our security, of course, as Trump has mentioned,
• 47:13
  the Iron Dome for America just as we've done for Israel.
• 47:17
  But how is that going to come into play here
• 47:21
  if we have to go that direction as a deterrent?
• 47:26
  Now, this is going to lead into some fascinating ideas and potential. So, let's step through this. When President Reagan first declared the Strategic Defense Initiative back in 1983, and that was when I had come out with my first book, The Soviet View of U.S. Strategic Doctrine, in which I had also recommended space-based defense as an element.
• 47:49
  Now, the interesting thing is that when the Soviets saw the Declaration of Strategic Defense Initiative, this terrified them. It absolutely terrified them. As a matter of fact, if you take a look at the book Inside the KGB by Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, in that book, Gordievsky talked about a KGB report that went to Gorbachev in April 1989.
• 48:19
  discussing the U.S. Star Wars program. In that report, the KGB concluded that the U.S. SDI
• 48:28
  program would eventually be able to block 90% of Soviet missiles in a first strike and that there
• 48:34
  was no way the Soviet Union could keep up with this capability. Now, as I told my students,
• 48:41
  any of you out there who believe that the SDI program could block 90% of Soviet missiles in a
• 48:46
  first strike, please raise your hand. The point is, it didn't matter. The Russians believed it.
• 48:52
  They acted on that belief and they spent themselves into bankruptcy,
• 48:58
  really, trying to counter a phantom SDI program, which in reality was really a research and
• 49:04
  development program. The Soviets were so terrified, they saw the patriot system.
• 49:10
  When I was a Brigade S-2 in Germany, my brigade commander, because I was a Brigade S-2 of a Hawken Patriot Brigade, the first one deployed in Europe, and my brigade commander said, hey, Captain Lockwood, you read those Russian military journals.
• 49:28
  Take a look at them and see if the Russians are saying anything about Patriot.
• 49:32
  Well, I looked at the issue of Vesnik Protovovostovny Oberoni, which is Herald of Anti-Aircraft Defense.
• 49:39
  in that art in that journal there was an article on u.s medium to high altitude air defense systems
• 49:46
  and the last third of the article talked about patriot so i'm busily translating it and then
• 49:52
  all of a sudden i see the an act the russian acronym for pro protovoraketnoi overoni anti-missile
• 50:00
  defense and the author was crediting patriot with an anti-ballistic missile capability now this is
• 50:08
  really wild, considering the fact that the Patriot system had not yet demonstrated that
• 50:13
  it could intercept ballistic missiles.
• 50:15
  Okay, so, all right.
• 50:17
  They've been terrified of Patriots since the 1980s, is my point.
• 50:21
  No, no, and also makes you, almost confirms the PSYOP capabilities of the U.S. and how
• 50:29
  effective it is.
• 50:31
  Oh, yes.
• 50:31
  It was, and a matter of fact, the U.S. reinforced the Russian fear of Patriot when in September 1987, the U.S. Patriot successfully intercepted a U.S. Lance ballistic missile and demonstrated that it could work.
• 50:50
  And Raytheon continued to refine the capabilities of Patriot until it was able to successfully intercept Scuds in the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
• 50:59
  And they've kept on refining ever since until now when they send patriots to Ukraine, the Ukrainians promptly adopted them and made them work even more effectively, near 100% interception rate.
• 51:14
  So this shows the full potential of patriot and reinforces the Russian fear of U.S. technology.
• 51:19
  The one thing, the major conclusion that I have reached from my research and analysis of the Russian perception is that the one thing that the Russians fear more than the Russian military and political leadership, what they fear more than anything else is the potential of American technology to neutralize the one thing that makes the Russians a great power in their own perception, their nuclear missile arsenal.
• 51:45
  And therein lies the key.
• 51:49
  What President Trump and his administration, by declaring the intent to produce an Iron Dome defense over the United States, they are essentially repudiating the previous Biden administration's strategy, which was essentially to...
• 52:04
  be prepared to fight a nuclear war with three nuclear armed adversaries and expand their own
• 52:11
  nuclear arsenal to do this, relying on the concept of mutually assured destruction.
• 52:16
  Right.
• 52:16
  Mad.
• 52:17
  If the Trump administration should be repudiating anything from the previous Biden administration,
• 52:25
  that should be right at the top of the list.
• 52:27
  And apparently they are implicitly doing this by declaring an intent to create a so-called
• 52:33
  Iron Dome over America. This presents an interesting problem. Remember the lesson from
• 52:40
  the Army After Next Winter War game? If you put satellites in space where the other side has
• 52:46
  counter space weapons, you produce an unstable hair trigger situation in earth or over space,
• 52:51
  a Mexican standoff, where the side that fires first has a decisive advantage.
• 52:57
  Now, how do you get around this problem? Well, Congress in its Iron Dome bill has allocated
• 53:03
  $900 million for studying space-based interceptors.
• 53:07
  That's an implicit recognition that there is a hole in the Iron Dome.
• 53:12
  You know, because you can, Israel only has to worry about short-range and intermediate-range
• 53:17
  ballistic missiles.
• 53:18
  Right.
• 53:18
  We've got to worry about the intercontinental ballistic missiles that can come through that
• 53:22
  hole in the Iron Dome that we can't really intercept.
• 53:24
  And potential hypersonic missile technology.
• 53:27
  Exactly.
• 53:27
  The only effective way really to deal with both hypersonic and intercontinental ballistic missile systems is using space-based interceptors, but in what form?
• 53:40
  You can't really do it with satellites because that's too unstable, because it gives to the other side a very huge incentive to fire first.
• 53:48
  But how do you do that?
• 53:50
  Well, you create what I had advocated back in 1993.
• 53:56
  You create something called the Worldwide Strategic Defense Matrix, WSDM, wisdom.
• 54:05
  This is both a symbolic and a real paradigm shift.
• 54:08
  It would be a real paradigm shift.
• 54:10
  And I am the only one in the world discussing this because I've searched for it.
• 54:16
  And from when I first talked about it in my 1993 book, no one else is talking about this.
• 54:23
  But in order to, you know, go ahead.
• 54:24
  I'm sorry.
• 54:25
  I like your idea.
• 54:27
  And it's something that was brought up before, but I think it was more of a psyop previously with the Star Wars program.
• 54:33
  I think there was nothing ever really proven or tested.
• 54:35
  It was just, it was just really just propaganda, I think, but it worked on our behalf.
• 54:41
  But fast forward, you can't deny the technology.
• 54:44
  You can't deny that laser technology has come a very long way.
• 54:48
  And that is a very plausible, it's very plausible these days that that could absolutely work.
• 54:54
  Well, it works even better when you consider the following.
• 54:58
  Now, if you're going to have space-based interceptors, you don't put them on satellites.
• 55:05
  What you do is, here's the key, and this is something that I discussed that no one else does.
• 55:10
  The key to making the Iron Dome, in effect, the worldwide strategic defense matrix, even more effective than an Iron Dome, is you upgrade the U.S. Space Force with a space fleet manned by Space Force Guardians.
• 55:27
  Where do we get the space fleet from?
• 55:30
  You buy it from SpaceX.
• 55:32
  The Pentagon effectively says to Mr. Musk, says, Elon, Pentagon would like to buy 12 of your Falcon 9s, 12 of your Falcon Heavies, and 12 of your Starships.
• 55:44
  and the Pentagon can then add to the Space Force,
• 55:49
  add the appropriate weapons, equipment, and crew,
• 55:51
  specifically lasers that would be mounted on these starships in low Earth orbit.
• 55:59
  Once they are in low Earth orbit,
• 56:01
  now you have effective interceptors against any ballistic missile attack
• 56:05
  by Russia, China, or North Korea.
• 56:07
  Because at the speed of light,
• 56:09
  there is no way a nuclear missile in its boost phase coming up from the ground
• 56:14
  can evade a laser attack.
• 56:17
  So that effectively blocks.
• 56:19
  That is the key.
• 56:21
  And the interesting thing is,
• 56:22
  okay, well, what if the Russian
• 56:25
  and Chinese counter space weapons,
• 56:27
  these counter space satellites,
• 56:28
  what if they fire on a space force starship?
• 56:31
  Well, guess what?
• 56:32
  If it were satellite versus satellite,
• 56:35
  no one cares much
• 56:36
  because satellites don't have mothers.
• 56:39
  But if a Russian or Chinese counter space satellite
• 56:42
  were to fire on a U.S. Space Force starship armed with laser weapons, that is a clear and
• 56:49
  unmistakable act of war. And in self-defense, the starship could simply destroy the satellite.
• 56:57
  Now, that is a very powerful counter-deterrent to any preemptive action in space. And by
• 57:04
  neutralizing the nuclear arsenals of Russia, China, and North Korea simultaneously, this provides a
• 57:13
  very stable deterrent for countering any future Russian invasion of Ukraine. Because if we have
• 57:19
  an effective strategic defense against nuclear missiles and the other side does not, game over.
• 57:26
  you can preserve the peace indefinitely that is an idea that i am and yeah and here here's the
• 57:35
  other here's the other wonderful thing about it people might say well what if russia china and
• 57:41
  oh let's say russia and china what if they start developing strategic defenses against ballistic
• 57:47
  missile attack and i would say to them knock yourselves out go ahead and build it because
• 57:54
  they will be forced to build defense. They'll either be forced to build defenses to keep
• 57:59
  themselves from being vulnerable to U.S. and NATO nuclear missiles, or they're all going
• 58:04
  to have to start channeling Mr. Rogers and learning how to be good neighbors.
• 58:08
  Right. I think the only nation that would be able to keep up with this currently in
• 58:14
  the race for laser technologies would be China. And I could see China definitely doing that.
• 58:19
  But I have to ask the question. I like the theory and the idea of this because it makes
• 58:23
  a lot of sense. And
• 58:25
  it makes me think to the
• 58:27
  Helios, right? Laser
• 58:29
  weapon that has been used on
• 58:31
  naval ships lately. Now, they've
• 58:33
  tested it. It does work. The only problem
• 58:35
  they have is it doesn't recharge or the power
• 58:37
  source at the moment doesn't charge quick enough for
• 58:39
  repeated use, for example, or
• 58:41
  at least rapid fire use.
• 58:43
  And it does have a limited range
• 58:45
  currently. It's like, let me see.
• 58:47
  I think I looked this up. Let me, okay.
• 58:49
  I think it's a, what, 300
• 58:51
  kilowatt laser. So how
• 58:53
  would we be able to develop that or do you think we're close to developing something that could be
• 58:57
  put on a ship, for example, that would be effective and
• 59:01
  be a rapid fire use weapon? Well,
• 59:05
  here's the other lovely thing about putting such a laser
• 59:09
  weapon in Earth orbit. If you are firing from space,
• 59:13
  a laser is not obstructed by the atmosphere because it's firing
• 59:17
  down. Lasers are much more effective in space
• 59:21
  than what they would be if they're firing from the ground
• 59:23
  because they won't be dispersed by the Earth's atmosphere.
• 59:28
  And if you have several starships equally spaced apart in low Earth orbit,
• 59:33
  what it does is it creates a ring of interlocking shields around your adversaries
• 59:39
  so that you will have continuous coverage of their ballistic missile launches
• 59:43
  and it prevents overhauling of the system.
• 59:48
  And how do you fund such a system?
• 59:51
  Well, here's another beautiful thing about it.
• 59:54
  If you are going to focus on defense, on neutralizing the other side's nuclear arsenals peacefully,
• 1:00:00
  you don't build, you don't spend another dime on nuclear weapons.
• 1:00:05
  You do not build additional nuclear weapons.
• 1:00:08
  You do not try to build improved nuclear systems.
• 1:00:12
  All you do is you focus on pure defense and neutralizing their systems.
• 1:00:17
  And the motto I use for wisdom, WSDM, wisdom does not kill. It is a purely defensive system, which does not threaten the existence of Russia, China, or North Korea. It threatens their power. It threatens their ability to intimidate.
• 1:00:34
  And that is what they fear more than anything else, because if their nuclear arsenals are rendered obsolete and impotent, they lose their great power status in their own perception.
• 1:00:48
  So if the U.S., if our Defense Department was to take this idea serious, I think from the outset we would have the advantage because as you brought up Elon Musk, we currently have the richest individuals in the world in America that have already proven that they can privatize spacecrafts and space travel.
• 1:01:10
  and because they're not beholden to government oversight necessarily and funding,
• 1:01:15
  they've been able to really push the boundaries
• 1:01:18
  and show how effective they can be when they're not restricted.
• 1:01:22
  And so if we had, for example, him and Bezos together behind this
• 1:01:28
  and the U.S. was able to tap them both,
• 1:01:32
  that would be very interesting.
• 1:01:34
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:01:34
  As a matter of fact, you and I are on the same track here
• 1:01:38
  because let's say, for example, that Hegseth, the Pentagon, issues this contract.
• 1:01:45
  Now, he has a couple of options here.
• 1:01:48
  He could issue the contract as a sole source contract.
• 1:01:52
  In other words, say there's only one company that can really do this, and that's SpaceX.
• 1:01:56
  Or he could make it a competitive contract in which SpaceX could become the prime contractor,
• 1:02:02
  and then Elon Musk could trap his billionaire buddies
• 1:02:07
  who have space capabilities as subcontractors
• 1:02:10
  and expand the power and ability to produce the Space Force fleet.
• 1:02:16
  Here's the other interesting bonus and incentive
• 1:02:19
  for the Space Force having a fleet,
• 1:02:22
  other than satisfying all the happy Star Trek fans out there.
• 1:02:26
  We have Starfleet Command in the 21st century.
• 1:02:30
  How about that?
• 1:02:31
  Life imitates art.
• 1:02:32
  So we have here, when you have a Space Force fleet with Starship, even if they're only chemically powered at first, there is promise for them having nuclear thermal propulsion, which gives you even more options.
• 1:02:46
  But when you have a Space Force fleet in low Earth orbit and one in geosynchronous orbit, as well as Starships that can form a lunar base or doing other things, you gain several bonus capabilities which are not fully realized.
• 1:03:01
  A Space Force fleet in orbit can also, this sounds mundane, but they can clean up space junk.
• 1:03:10
  While they're on station, while they're monitoring and doing other things, they can clean up space junk and they can take turns shuttling that space junk to the lunar base to form a lunar junkyard.
• 1:03:25
  to process all that stuff and get it stored in those lunar caves they're talking about.
• 1:03:33
  You could establish a storage place for them there So cleaning up space junk is one useful function Also that Space Force fleet armed with lasers and other supplementary equipment could also be assigned the mission of blocking intercepting or destroying near objects such as asteroids meteors or comets
• 1:03:55
  You know, that asteroid they're talking about, that, oh, it might collide with the Earth in 2032.
• 1:04:00
  Well, if you've got a Space Force fleet, now you've got an answer.
• 1:04:03
  That was the original concern when it came to space-based laser systems.
• 1:04:10
  Originally, it was deterring that possibility of an asteroid colliding with the Earth.
• 1:04:16
  So with everything that you're proposing, which some people may...
• 1:04:21
  Okay, years ago, people say, oh, that's an outlandish idea.
• 1:04:24
  But in 2025, it really doesn't seem that far out.
• 1:04:27
  It's not.
• 1:04:28
  The technology has advanced.
• 1:04:31
  Technology has advanced to the point where it is now quite thinkable.
• 1:04:36
  But what do we, so what about now, given the situation we're in?
• 1:04:41
  It seems like the idea of an iron dome over America is long overdue, given the threat potentials,
• 1:04:48
  especially how they have escalated over the last 12 years, for example.
• 1:04:53
  So what technologies can I deploy now?
• 1:04:56
  What is available now that can quickly be deployed to be effective?
• 1:05:01
  We can deploy now all the things.
• 1:05:05
  We can increase the production of THAAD.
• 1:05:07
  We can increase the production of Patriot.
• 1:05:09
  We can increase all of our ballistic missile defense interceptors that are capable of intercepting.
• 1:05:15
  It still leaves a hole in the Iron Dome in the sense of the –
• 1:05:20
  And that is why I propose the development, the upgrading of the key to plugging the hole in the Iron Dome is to upgrade the Space Force with a space fleet.
• 1:05:31
  Right, right.
• 1:05:31
  That's how you do it.
• 1:05:33
  That's the quickest way you could do it.
• 1:05:34
  And so we do need to get there, but we should absolutely stop putting off the deployment of what technologies we have now to at least create some dome, right?
• 1:05:42
  Correct.
• 1:05:43
  A partial shield is better than no shield at all.
• 1:05:45
  Yeah.
• 1:05:45
  Yeah. Should this be something that should be a joint coalition, not just for America, but for Mexico and Canada as well?
• 1:05:53
  I mean, they're right on our borders and they would definitely be affected by any kind of attack.
• 1:05:57
  Well, here's the beautiful thing about wisdom is that when you upgrade the Space Force, you create the potential for cooperation and alliance with our allies.
• 1:06:09
  I say, let's say our NATO allies, we started producing the space fleet, and our NATO allies say, hey, is there any way we can benefit from this?
• 1:06:18
  Well, you can say to our NATO allies, well, if you want to buy a starship, you want to buy a starship from SpaceX, and they will help you equip it, and it becomes a symbol of national pride and power.
• 1:06:30
  Instead of nuclear weapons, each nation that wants to be considered significant would have its own starship, which they could have crews on it.
• 1:06:41
  Now, by the way, how many crew would you need to crew a starship for the purposes of a Space Force mission?
• 1:06:48
  Well, you don't put 100 on there because Elon Musk is talking about sending 100 to colonize Mars.
• 1:06:54
  people who have analyzed the starship
• 1:06:57
  saying a more realistic number for a starship
• 1:06:59
  crew is 10.
• 1:07:02
  Now that's workable.
• 1:07:04
  You would need 10 to perform
• 1:07:06
  all the functions as well as
• 1:07:07
  operate the nuclear laser
• 1:07:09
  the laser interceptor.
• 1:07:12
  So 10 is realistic
• 1:07:13
  and we could, even in the
• 1:07:15
  US Space Force itself, we could invite
• 1:07:17
  our NATO allies to provide
• 1:07:19
  crew for our Space Force
• 1:07:21
  starships to help provide crew.
• 1:07:24
  So this could potentially be an effective, affordable arm or leg of the Department of Defense.
• 1:07:34
  Yes.
• 1:07:35
  Yeah.
• 1:07:36
  So then, but what will end up happening is exactly what's happening now.
• 1:07:40
  Instead of a nuclear arms race, we'll have a laser arms race.
• 1:07:43
  And then we'll be back in the situation of deterrence just based on who has the more effective laser defense system.
• 1:07:49
  Well, here's the interesting difference about that. In an offensive arms race, in which there's theoretically no limit, there is no finish line.
• 1:08:03
  In a defensive arms race where both sides are developing defenses against nuclear attack, there is a finish line. When both sides have fully operational defensive shields, essentially you're like two gladiators with full-length body armor.
• 1:08:19
  it's a stalemate.
• 1:08:22
  Fine.
• 1:08:23
  That's more acceptable
• 1:08:24
  than mutually assured destruction.
• 1:08:25
  No, absolutely.
• 1:08:26
  Much more acceptable.
• 1:08:27
  Yeah, and technology is advancing.
• 1:08:31
  I mean, we're dealing with drones.
• 1:08:32
  We've never seen it
• 1:08:33
  to the level we have before
• 1:08:34
  to where now it's not just about,
• 1:08:36
  you know, singular drones going out
• 1:08:37
  and shooting missiles from afar.
• 1:08:40
  They can be used as a kind of a swarm attack now
• 1:08:44
  where they're launching in Baltimore.
• 1:08:47
  It almost looks like something out of Terminator.
• 1:08:49
  I was just going to say that.
• 1:08:50
  Yeah, exactly.
• 1:08:51
  A robot army going against a flesh and blood army.
• 1:08:55
  Yeah.
• 1:08:55
  That's a nightmare for the Russians.
• 1:08:58
  There's no Ukrainians for that.
• 1:08:59
  Where are the Ukrainians we can kill?
• 1:09:01
  They aren't there.
• 1:09:02
  They're using robots.
• 1:09:03
  They're back there with their little joysticks sending the drones to attack you.
• 1:09:07
  Well, so we definitely need to do something in terms of an Iron Dome.
• 1:09:12
  Yes.
• 1:09:13
  I think you're right on with developing space-based capabilities for defense
• 1:09:18
  and deterrence.
• 1:09:20
  Hey, I could save Congress
• 1:09:22
  $900 million off that
• 1:09:24
  interceptor study and say, guys,
• 1:09:26
  I've got your answer. Now let's
• 1:09:28
  concentrate on upgrading the Space
• 1:09:30
  Force.
• 1:09:34
  That's
• 1:09:34
  still a little ways out, I think,
• 1:09:36
  but I think it would be an effective solution.
• 1:09:39
  Let's
• 1:09:40
  circle back to where we're going to...
• 1:09:42
  We've been doing this
• 1:09:44
  for a little bit, so I want to bring it back
• 1:09:46
  to this Ukraine-Russia situation
• 1:09:48
  because the Iron Dome proposal
• 1:09:51
  would work not just for America,
• 1:09:53
  but also work as an amazing deterrent
• 1:09:55
  in this Russia-Ukraine war as well
• 1:09:58
  because you can target those systems
• 1:10:00
  wherever need be,
• 1:10:02
  especially the way you're describing it,
• 1:10:05
  like how you would deploy it.
• 1:10:07
  It would be very agile in that respect.
• 1:10:10
  It could turn into an offensive weapon
• 1:10:12
  if we wanted it to.
• 1:10:13
  Yes, and as a matter of fact,
• 1:10:15
  If we had an effective shield, again, the beautiful thing about introducing a ballistic missile defense system, especially one like Wisdom, is that it introduces a great deal of uncertainty into the mind of a potential attacker.
• 1:10:33
  If the Russians were to contemplate attacking the wisdom system, they would not know how many of their missiles would actually get through the system. They do not know which ones will get through.
• 1:10:46
  However, they do know that if their attack failed to destroy the integrity of the wisdom system and left our nuclear forces largely able to counterattack, they would be faced with a massive nuclear counterattack from NATO and the U.S.
• 1:11:02
  And once you do that, defense introduces more uncertainty.
• 1:11:07
  And even if they started building defenses themselves, that means they have to divert resources from attacking to defense.
• 1:11:14
  And that is also beneficial.
• 1:11:15
  So even with how delicate the situation is now,
• 1:11:20
  and for example, if we did have to have a peacekeeping force,
• 1:11:26
  do you think that maybe,
• 1:11:27
  do you think that maybe that if Putin felt that he was being respected
• 1:11:33
  from the outset, that a lot of this would have been able to be,
• 1:11:37
  would have been able to come to a peace deal a long time ago?
• 1:11:43
  Well, here's why I think that is problematic. One book that I would recommend for you to read and introduce to your listeners is the book by Tim Marshall, Prisoners of Geography.
• 1:11:59
  and it tends he calls it 10 simple maths which explain world politics and geopolitics
• 1:12:05
  wonderful book i would recommend that book not only for every american for but for every high
• 1:12:10
  school student and middle school student because it's very readable but makes geopolitics and
• 1:12:16
  geography readily understandable and important and the pro and the thing is with uh with the uh
• 1:12:25
  The problem with prisonership geography, you have to be able to, oh, lost my train of thought there momentarily.
• 1:12:33
  I was going off with the prisonership geography thing.
• 1:12:36
  But the problem is you have to be able to understand the importance of geography.
• 1:12:40
  Oh, yes.
• 1:12:42
  The problem with the Russian is the Russian perception of security.
• 1:12:46
  The Russians have a word, byezopostnost, to describe security.
• 1:12:51
  Byezopostnost means without danger.
• 1:12:53
  their concept of security is more absolute than our concept of security we what they are talking
• 1:13:03
  about when they talk about guess of posnost without danger they are talking about the absence of threat
• 1:13:08
  and so they in order for them to feel insecure in order for them to feel secure
• 1:13:15
  their neighbors must be made to feel insecure or subordinate it's an extension of the russian
• 1:13:23
  cultural attitude of
• 1:13:24
  superior, inferior,
• 1:13:27
  not equality.
• 1:13:28
  I see the point there, and
• 1:13:30
  you kind of touched on that earlier, but
• 1:13:32
  this is just my take.
• 1:13:35
  And it's been very
• 1:13:36
  well documented during Putin's time
• 1:13:38
  of existence as a
• 1:13:40
  leader, or the leader of Russia.
• 1:13:43
  And
• 1:13:44
  he seems like just literally
• 1:13:47
  an alpha male type who just
• 1:13:49
  needs to be acknowledged,
• 1:13:50
  needs to be respected.
• 1:13:53
  And I think he felt slighted.
• 1:13:55
  Now, I'm not advocating for him being correct in invading Ukraine in any way.
• 1:14:00
  I'm just saying that he did seem like he felt slighted by being ignored and isolated and everything.
• 1:14:07
  Because he was obviously, he's a world power.
• 1:14:10
  No matter how much we want to diminish, or most people do want to diminish Russia as a world power, they are.
• 1:14:18
  And when all of this was going on, the powers that be, the biggest currently in the world, which is still the United States of America, wanted to isolate him and just kind of pigeonhole him from acknowledgement or even trying to have any kind of talks whatsoever in how to alleviate this.
• 1:14:36
  No matter how wrong Russia was, I still feel that the Biden administration's tactics didn't help in the situation.
• 1:14:44
  and here we are now
• 1:14:46
  and now we have Trump making outlandish statements
• 1:14:48
  to try to get people to the table
• 1:14:50
  and everything just seems very unstable right now
• 1:14:54
  and I'm not really able to see that
• 1:14:57
  we're going to actually come to an agreement
• 1:14:59
  because as you said earlier, Russia will not surrender.
• 1:15:03
  It's not in their vocabulary.
• 1:15:05
  They don't see that.
• 1:15:07
  They don't see compromise
• 1:15:08
  and Zelensky is adamant on not compromising either And so I not sure there an answer I not asking for an answer by the way We being theoretical at this point I give you one Here the essential problem again which the Trump administration has to address is
• 1:15:27
  the fact that during the Cold War, the United States and its NATO allies had a grand strategy
• 1:15:34
  which governed the actions and allowed the United States and its allies to consistently
• 1:15:39
  deal with the Soviet Union during the entire period of the Cold War. That was the grand
• 1:15:44
  strategy of containment, which was originally, but George Kennan elucidated that strategy in the 1947
• 1:15:56
  issue of Foreign Affairs. Essentially, containment was a strategic defensive designed to not try to
• 1:16:05
  roll back the Soviet Union, but to prevent it from achieving through subversion or conquest,
• 1:16:11
  just be a defensive strategy to contain them, not go to war against them, but essentially to rely on
• 1:16:17
  the internal contradictions that Kennan argued were consistent within the Soviet system,
• 1:16:25
  that essentially contain them long enough and the Soviet Union will buckle under the stresses of its
• 1:16:30
  own internal contradictions. History proved Kennan right because starting in 1985, the Soviet
• 1:16:38
  Union was starting to show the problems of political instability and the failure of its
• 1:16:48
  economic system. So eventually the Soviet Union collapsed of its own dead weight by 1989 and the
• 1:16:54
  republics and the Warsaw Pact dissolved. And here NATO is confronted with essentially a power vacuum.
• 1:17:02
  And the Eastern European nations wanted to join NATO. So NATO gladly accepted. And while Putin is
• 1:17:11
  seeing this as a great disaster, well, it was a disaster of the Soviet Union's own making.
• 1:17:16
  And so he really does not have a leg to stand on claiming that it's going to contribute to
• 1:17:22
  world peace and political stability for Russia to rebuild its own empire.
• 1:17:28
  They have shown that their ambitions are essentially unlimited.
• 1:17:32
  And that is just simply going to bring on more warfare.
• 1:17:36
  How do you stop that?
• 1:17:37
  You have to stop, you have to, as disagreeable it may sound to some people,
• 1:17:42
  you have to neutralize the thing that makes them think they're a great power.
• 1:17:46
  You have to make them channel Mr. Rogers.
• 1:17:50
  Make them learn the hard way how to be good neighbors.
• 1:17:54
  And it may take a while, but it's better than going to all-out war.
• 1:17:59
  Okay.
• 1:18:00
  I can absolutely swallow that for sure because it seems like it may be the only effective measure against such a powerful military.
• 1:18:13
  I mean, it is a big military regardless.
• 1:18:15
  Yeah, it is.
• 1:18:15
  Yeah.
• 1:18:16
  And we don't want to have a world conflict.
• 1:18:19
  No, we don't.
• 1:18:19
  in anyone's interest.
• 1:18:21
  No, no, no, no, no.
• 1:18:22
  Not at all.
• 1:18:24
  May I ask the one
• 1:18:24
  who won into World War II
• 1:18:26
  should have taught us that.
• 1:18:27
  Yeah, what led us
• 1:18:28
  from getting away
• 1:18:29
  from this containment strategy,
• 1:18:31
  though, because it seems...
• 1:18:32
  Ah, well, remember,
• 1:18:34
  when the Soviet Union collapsed,
• 1:18:35
  there was no opponent
• 1:18:37
  to contain anymore.
• 1:18:38
  No, understood.
• 1:18:38
  I get that.
• 1:18:40
  But we obviously got away
• 1:18:41
  from that strategy
• 1:18:42
  because Putin has been
• 1:18:43
  very effective
• 1:18:44
  for so many years.
• 1:18:46
  Yes.
• 1:18:47
  And we may have gotten
• 1:18:49
  away from it
• 1:18:49
  Europe may have gotten away from it.
• 1:18:51
  We forgot a crucial lesson of history.
• 1:18:55
  Henry Kissinger, in the preface to my book, The Russian View Yesterday, I pointed out what Henry Kissinger was predicting at the end of the Cold War.
• 1:19:05
  Even though Russia seems to be prostrate right now, he says Russia will eventually begin to reassert itself.
• 1:19:12
  Henry Kissinger correctly predicted this, that Russia would inevitably begin to reassert itself once it is economically recovered, and it will become an assertive power once again.
• 1:19:24
  So the interesting thing is what we failed in doing is we failed to develop a grand strategy for the post-Cold War period.
• 1:19:35
  We failed to say, okay, how do we deal with a resurgent Russia, a competitive China?
• 1:19:40
  Do we develop a new neocontainment strategy? Or what I propose in my book, The Russian View, is that the U.S. should become the world's geopolitical balancer.
• 1:19:56
  Mackinder once had this in his theory of whoever dominates the world island dominates the world. Well, Great Britain acted as a geopolitical balancer with respect to the continent of Europe during the 18th and 19th centuries.
• 1:20:13
  The old British Empire acted as a geopolitical balancer. So now the United States, in an analogous situation, should act as the world's geopolitical balancer in the 21st century and use its power not to control necessarily or project its power all over the world, but to be able to use it judiciously to frustrate or negate any potential aggressive empire builder.
• 1:20:43
  attempting to dominate the world island.
• 1:20:45
  You're basically trying to force a stalemate,
• 1:20:48
  an indefinite stalemate.
• 1:20:50
  Yeah, I agree with your statements there.
• 1:20:53
  Let me throw this at you, though.
• 1:20:54
  Sure.
• 1:20:55
  One of the greatest ways to control a nation
• 1:20:58
  is economically, really,
• 1:21:00
  because it's exactly how we've been keeping North Korea
• 1:21:03
  in check all this time.
• 1:21:05
  And so when it came to Russia, though,
• 1:21:09
  we never fully went down that pathway.
• 1:21:13
  you know, they supply Europe with so much energy.
• 1:21:18
  Now, what happened with this Ukraine conflict,
• 1:21:21
  finally, finally, they got wise and said,
• 1:21:24
  hey, you know what?
• 1:21:24
  We're going to have to turn off the finances here.
• 1:21:27
  We're going to have to turn off that deposit
• 1:21:28
  and we're no longer going to get energy from you
• 1:21:30
  and we're going to get elsewhere.
• 1:21:32
  But here we are, all of a sudden,
• 1:21:34
  European nations are backtracking on that strategy
• 1:21:37
  and saying, you know what?
• 1:21:38
  We need to re-engage Russia for energy again.
• 1:21:40
  so it's like we're not even
• 1:21:43
  I mean not even from history
• 1:21:45
  of old we can't even learn from history within a few
• 1:21:47
  months you know
• 1:21:48
  it's kind of ridiculous that we can't stick to
• 1:21:51
  the plan
• 1:21:51
  and the thing is we are not
• 1:21:55
  a truly unified coalition
• 1:21:57
  true
• 1:21:58
  and here's where the Trump administration
• 1:22:01
  could exercise genuine leadership
• 1:22:03
  in
• 1:22:04
  consultation with its NATO allies
• 1:22:07
  in formulating a grand
• 1:22:09
  strategic framework
• 1:22:10
  a grand strategy for the 21st century and beyond. This is the true challenge for the Trump
• 1:22:15
  administration. And the instrument of wisdom, the creation of wisdom, which I've described,
• 1:22:22
  would be one very important instrument in carrying out that sort of grand strategy.
• 1:22:27
  The idea is the United States as both the combination of the arsenal of democracy,
• 1:22:33
  the arsenal of freedom you know the an example for the rest of the world but also
• 1:22:40
  the potential to generate large amounts of economic wealth for example if we successfully
• 1:22:48
  develop fusion power for in in in for use commercially what quite few the potential of
• 1:22:56
  fusion power is to provide for the people of the world an unlimited source of energy
• 1:23:02
  clean carbon free if you're worried about that sort of stuff but the essentially an unlimited
• 1:23:10
  amount of energy forever right for all practical intents and that and the historical experience
• 1:23:18
  has been every time that humanity has developed a new source of energy the result has been
• 1:23:24
  a massive increase in wealth creation.
• 1:23:28
  Every time, it has never failed.
• 1:23:30
  It generates more wealth
• 1:23:32
  and raises the standard of living
• 1:23:34
  for people worldwide.
• 1:23:35
  So this is the potential.
• 1:23:37
  Yeah, and on that energy topic,
• 1:23:39
  since you brought that up,
• 1:23:41
  it's crazy how we've held ourselves back
• 1:23:43
  from not fully engaging
• 1:23:44
  in the nuclear energy possibilities,
• 1:23:47
  especially with all the safeguards we have.
• 1:23:51
  And we've been dealing with nuclear
• 1:23:53
  since, if I'm correct, the 60s or so?
• 1:23:55
  Yes.
• 1:23:56
  Okay.
• 1:23:56
  So with all that time gone by,
• 1:23:59
  we've definitely developed much safer measures.
• 1:24:01
  We definitely have a handle on power plants.
• 1:24:04
  We can even do them on a smaller scale now.
• 1:24:06
  I wouldn't say like a micro power plant,
• 1:24:09
  but definitely much smaller than they used to be.
• 1:24:11
  So you can have one in every city if you need be, for example.
• 1:24:15
  So I wonder why we haven't really gone down that road
• 1:24:18
  And we're still relying on these older methods of energy.
• 1:24:24
  The power grid, yes.
• 1:24:26
  Because our power grid is becoming increasingly vulnerable too.
• 1:24:29
  Yeah, because that's there.
• 1:24:31
  And that could really, as you said, push this world further forward.
• 1:24:39
  What's going on with that?
• 1:24:40
  Why are we so stubborn?
• 1:24:42
  Well, to its credit, the Trump administration is looking at ways for unleashing creation of more energy.
• 1:24:54
  And people like Elon Musk and others, you know, Elon would certainly welcome, for example, the development of nuclear thermal propulsion engines.
• 1:25:04
  because that makes the space fleet more effective.
• 1:25:07
  And it also makes missions to Mars,
• 1:25:10
  if he is looking at trying to colonize Mars,
• 1:25:13
  at least with a small scientific colony,
• 1:25:15
  because there are still many other challenges
• 1:25:17
  that come with trying to explore Mars.
• 1:25:22
  But you have the great potential for, again,
• 1:25:27
  widespread use of nuclear energy would be a useful backup
• 1:25:30
  for nuclear fusion power.
• 1:25:33
  Because those two in combination, you could satisfy the energy needs of humanity in a non-polluting manner indefinitely.
• 1:25:42
  And that would introduce a potential golden age for wealth creation.
• 1:25:48
  Wealth creation and the advancement of technology.
• 1:25:51
  Because now we have the energy.
• 1:25:53
  We have the ability.
• 1:25:53
  And if you couple that development, again, with the creation of wisdom to neutralize the possibility of global thermonuclear war, then you have a really winning combination.
• 1:26:08
  And you have the potential for the Trump administration to make significant contributions to the betterment of humanity.
• 1:26:15
  Yes. Well, Dr. Luck, I want to be respectful of your time because you are three hours ahead of me.
• 1:26:23
  and so hey i'm i'm armed with my coffee i can take i can i've got it i've got it i'm not running
• 1:26:29
  on fumes no no you're not you're not i i just want to make sure i'm respecting your time here
• 1:26:33
  so with that being said like i i i really like everything that you said and i and i liked your
• 1:26:42
  proposals i really hope though that we can come to some kind of peace agreement between ukraine and russia and you know this all hinges on whether or not Putin wants to be stubborn and prove the point I think um I
• 1:26:56
  I am a little fearful as,
• 1:26:57
  as far as how Trump has been acting lately.
• 1:27:00
  Not that,
• 1:27:00
  not that he hasn't been looking.
• 1:27:02
  I share your fear because he,
• 1:27:04
  it's,
• 1:27:05
  he's exciting to watch,
• 1:27:06
  but a little dangerous to emulate.
• 1:27:08
  Yeah,
• 1:27:09
  absolutely.
• 1:27:10
  And we need our allies.
• 1:27:11
  We cannot look.
• 1:27:12
  It's been predicted by,
• 1:27:14
  by Intel.
• 1:27:16
  people in the intel community that we are definitely
• 1:27:20
  going to be engaging with China in a peer-on-peer war here
• 1:27:25
  probably around 2027.
• 1:27:28
  It really seems like we're on the fast track to doing that.
• 1:27:31
  We need to get this situation with Ukraine and Russia under control
• 1:27:36
  before we can even think about engaging with China.
• 1:27:40
  And so there's my fear in how the Trump administration
• 1:27:44
  has been acting as far as our allies are concerned.
• 1:27:48
  I mean, are they correct in calling them out
• 1:27:51
  for not carrying their own weight?
• 1:27:53
  Sure.
• 1:27:53
  But at the same time,
• 1:27:55
  you do have to kind of like pat them on the back
• 1:27:57
  and realize that, look, I'm just kidding.
• 1:28:01
  No offense, but if shit hits the fan, for example,
• 1:28:04
  we need our friends, period.
• 1:28:06
  Yes, you do.
• 1:28:07
  Yeah, we're big, but we're not that big.
• 1:28:09
  I mean, the world is bigger than we are.
• 1:28:12
  So we do need our friends.
• 1:28:13
  even in world war ii we had we had to be very even though we had amazing resources we had to
• 1:28:20
  very carefully plan what how much were we going to develop devote developing naval power how much
• 1:28:28
  did we devote to like air power and how much would we have to devote for our army and we ended up
• 1:28:35
  building it we ended up using economy of force relying on air superiority and naval superiority
• 1:28:42
  to have to mobilize only 90 divisions, only 90 divisions.
• 1:28:50
  And we calculated that allocation of forces so finely
• 1:28:56
  that by the time of the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944,
• 1:29:00
  we had to win that battle with the forces we had left
• 1:29:05
  because we had just committed the last of our divisions.
• 1:29:08
  We had calculated it that precisely.
• 1:29:11
  and uh so that gives you an idea yeah we couldn't go it alone in world war ii no we were we were
• 1:29:19
  providing the bulk of the power and in any future war especially if we adopt a strategy of being the
• 1:29:25
  world's geopolitical balancer we allies are a must we have to reinforce what allies we have
• 1:29:32
  not attempt to go it alone or or god forbid become isolationist because eventually the
• 1:29:39
  eventually the war would come to us.
• 1:29:41
  That's not a strategy of success
• 1:29:43
  at all, being an isolationist.
• 1:29:46
  Now, since I did bring up China, though,
• 1:29:49
  they are an ally of Russia.
• 1:29:52
  And what I found interesting
• 1:29:53
  through this entire conflict
• 1:29:54
  is China has not been too vocal
• 1:29:58
  in their stance on this.
• 1:30:00
  They've sent some aid to Russia,
• 1:30:03
  but it's mostly in, I don't know,
• 1:30:05
  like microchips and other things like that
• 1:30:06
  so they can continue to develop technologies
• 1:30:08
  in the war.
• 1:30:09
  but they haven't even sent any troops to help,
• 1:30:12
  which was interesting because North Korea stepped up and did so.
• 1:30:16
  China's kind of been a little hands-off in this whole thing,
• 1:30:18
  and it's very interesting to watch them in this involvement.
• 1:30:21
  What do you think of that?
• 1:30:23
  I think they are recognizing tacitly that their Russian ally
• 1:30:27
  isn't exactly as dominating as they thought they were going to be.
• 1:30:31
  They're hedging their bets.
• 1:30:34
  And they are trying to develop their own sources of military.
• 1:30:38
  They're trying to develop their own nuclear arsenal and build that up, which is also all the more reason.
• 1:30:46
  Right, right.
• 1:30:46
  If you're going to be dealing with all the more reason for developing wisdom.
• 1:30:50
  Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:30:51
  I agree with you there.
• 1:30:52
  Maybe China also sees Russia as no longer really completely aligning with their views or with their agendas anyway.
• 1:31:01
  That could also be the case.
• 1:31:03
  I mean, Putin has kind of, well, he hasn't kind of,
• 1:31:06
  he is showing to be more dictatorial in his efforts and his actions in the world,
• 1:31:11
  especially now as he's getting older and really thinking about his legacy, I believe.
• 1:31:15
  So maybe China's looking beyond that.
• 1:31:18
  They're like, look, yeah, we're allies, but maybe you're not the partner we really need.
• 1:31:22
  Well, neither Putin nor Xi are spring chickens.
• 1:31:28
  Well, no, no, no, no.
• 1:31:29
  Understood, understood.
• 1:31:30
  I'm not trying to make this an ageist thing.
• 1:31:32
  It's just, you know, after a while, he's been, look, Putin's been a leader for a while and he's always wanted to reunite the old USSR, period.
• 1:31:41
  And he knows he has so much time to do so.
• 1:31:43
  So that's why I make that statement.
• 1:31:45
  I just think he can, he's feeling the pressure of, look, if I want to get this done, I better get this done now.
• 1:31:52
  And that's why I made that statement.
• 1:31:54
  It really wasn't to demean anybody by age.
• 1:31:56
  It was just, I think he sees his timeline.
• 1:32:00
  he sees how much time he has
• 1:32:02
  and he's like I'm going to now
• 1:32:04
  make this happen
• 1:32:06
  and that's just my opinion
• 1:32:08
  based on what I see
• 1:32:09
  well if he's
• 1:32:13
  factoring in his own
• 1:32:15
  mortality as driving
• 1:32:16
  his timeline then it
• 1:32:18
  becomes all the more imperative
• 1:32:20
  for the western powers to say
• 1:32:22
  no you're not
• 1:32:24
  agree I agree with you I do
• 1:32:26
  absolutely
• 1:32:27
  says that your mortality
• 1:32:29
  your legacy is not our
• 1:32:32
  priority
• 1:32:33
  no absolutely true I agree
• 1:32:36
  so
• 1:32:37
  that's going to be the message that they're going to have to
• 1:32:40
  learn to deliver to
• 1:32:42
  Mr. Putin and
• 1:32:44
  this is a George I have
• 1:32:46
  genuinely enjoyed this discussion
• 1:32:48
  it has been energizing yeah
• 1:32:50
  appreciate it and
• 1:32:52
  I welcome any future opportunities
• 1:32:54
  as things develop
• 1:32:56
  Listen, next time, I guarantee we're going to go the full two hours, believe me.
• 1:33:00
  If not longer.
• 1:33:02
  Well, let's see.
• 1:33:02
  Oh, yeah, it's a full two hours.
• 1:33:04
  Well, let's see.
• 1:33:05
  A mere hour and a half.
• 1:33:07
  Come on.
• 1:33:09
  Ah, yeah.
• 1:33:10
  We fell a little short.
• 1:33:11
  But I think that we covered everything very concisely, and you made some very, very good arguments.
• 1:33:21
  so it's like
• 1:33:22
  I'm not really sure what else we can add
• 1:33:26
  to this Ukraine-Russia situation
• 1:33:27
  because it's still developing
• 1:33:29
  and it's developing by the hour
• 1:33:31
  so it's probably best that
• 1:33:33
  look at this point
• 1:33:34
  you made some great points
• 1:33:36
  I had some questions answered
• 1:33:38
  and I think this is something we need to revisit
• 1:33:40
  because we're not done
• 1:33:41
  we're absolutely not done with the situation
• 1:33:43
  my closing statement
• 1:33:46
  as far as the Ukraine-Russia conflict is
• 1:33:48
  is that
• 1:33:49
  Here you have two nations with politically irreconcilable goals.
• 1:33:55
  The restoration of the Russian Empire versus the sovereignty of Ukraine.
• 1:34:00
  These are politically irreconcilable.
• 1:34:03
  They can be decided realistically only by war in which one side or the other prevails.
• 1:34:08
  And any peace agreement which rewards Russia in any way for having invaded Ukraine is not a peace agreement.
• 1:34:16
  It is appeasement, and therefore will set the stage for another war, which neither NATO, the United States, or Ukraine wants.
• 1:34:24
  Can't argue with that statement.
• 1:34:25
  Why don't you, or the listeners I have, tell everybody how they can connect with you, where they can find information on you, etc., if you have any social media.
• 1:34:34
  Well, okay.
• 1:34:36
  Let's see.
• 1:34:38
  They should check out IBM TV Pod TV, on which I appear on the Ukrainian show, the Ukraine show.
• 1:34:46
  with uh and uh i will what i will do george is i will send you the email for my producer
• 1:34:54
  okay and you can they can then send it to your listeners and they can tune into the ukraine show
• 1:35:00
  which is every tuesday and every friday at 11 a.m eastern standard time and usually goes for at
• 1:35:07
  least a half hour sometimes for as much as an hour and they have the option to you sort of
• 1:35:13
  actually pop into the broadcast itself and ask questions.
• 1:35:18
  All that doesn't happen too often. We are still equipped to handle it.
• 1:35:22
  And for viewers who are interested in the,
• 1:35:27
  I have two published books, which are available on Amazon books.
• 1:35:31
  You just simply Google Amazon, get on their book section,
• 1:35:35
  and look up either The Russian View of U.S. Strategy,
• 1:35:39
  It's Past, It's Future by Jonathan S. Lockwood and Kathleen O'Brien Lockwood.
• 1:35:45
  We co-authored that one.
• 1:35:47
  The other book is The Lockwood Analytical Method for Prediction, LAMP, L-A-M-P.
• 1:35:54
  Now, that might be a topic for another time.
• 1:35:59
  But that is an analytical method which I developed and for which apparently I'm still very well known in the intelligence community.
• 1:36:06
  Actually, when I looked your name up after we connected, I looked your name up just to do a little soft dive on you, and LAMP came up quite a bit.
• 1:36:15
  So we do have to discuss that on another episode for sure.
• 1:36:18
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:36:19
  There's some interesting things, but that was published in 2013, and it is a structured method for making an intelligence prediction.
• 1:36:30
  Yeah, let's save that for another episode because I am interested in talking about that one with you for sure.
• 1:36:34
  Okay, okay.
• 1:36:35
  You know what I'm going to do though?
• 1:36:37
  Let me mention this too.
• 1:36:39
  I'm going to create a guest page for you on my website
• 1:36:42
  and we were going to make sure that we have all these links there.
• 1:36:44
  So when they click on this episode,
• 1:36:46
  you will pop up and then we'll make sure that I can get all those links from you
• 1:36:49
  that you have and we'll make that part of your guest profile on the website
• 1:36:53
  on my end as well.
• 1:36:54
  So hopefully that'll help listeners find you a little bit easier as well.
• 1:37:00
  Fantastic.
• 1:37:01
  Yeah, this has been very energizing
• 1:37:04
  and interesting discussion.
• 1:37:07
  I really enjoyed it.
• 1:37:08
  I appreciate your time.
• 1:37:09
  Yeah.
• 1:37:10
  Oh, very good.
• 1:37:10
  And so, yeah, I'm going to get back
• 1:37:13
  to hunkering down in this cold winter weather
• 1:37:16
  and just chilling out
• 1:37:20
  and maybe getting a glass of bubbly or something.
• 1:37:24
  That's kind of where I'm going next.
• 1:37:25
  I'm a big champagne guy,
• 1:37:27
  so I'm about to pop a cork here.
• 1:37:29
  Dr. Lockwood, thank you very much.
• 1:37:32
  And I guarantee you and I will be staying in touch.
• 1:37:34
  So, yes, appreciate your time.
• 1:37:36
  Excellent.
• 1:37:37
  Awesome.
• 1:37:37
  Thank you.
• 1:37:38
  As always, thank you for listening.
• 1:37:41
  And don't forget to like, subscribe and share the show with others.
• 1:37:44
  And for all things World of Blaze, including social media links and more information about this particular episode, visit www.worldofblazepodcast.com.
• 1:38:04
  Bye.