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I'm everybody, welcome to another episode of iiz On. We got Nick Mulroy, Jason Lyons here today, myself to meet you. Contacos. A lot popping off since we've had a last episode. We get to have an emergency pod with Mark Poe Moreopolis. It was for Greek Independence dy rather than the Signal Gate stuff. But yeah, yeah, I didn't want any Marines Sully podcast. But the Marines are back and we haven't
spoken about signal Gate publicly. We've been talking about it on our signal chat, but just what's gone on and the subsequent events afterwards, where you know, the entire administration seems to just be spinning this as.
Like not a big deal. H incredible.
I mean, everybody don't really need to rehash what went down. Mostly everybody knows what went down when signal Gate has been like the talk of the town for like the last week. So Mick, you start us off your thoughts, what if you did this?
Ah well, I mean I'd start off starting with this. I mean, if if folks were upset about, you know, putting classified information on an email and sending it to a private server and all that, what I was, they should.
Be upset about this.
If you're upset about one and not the other, then it's really not about national security is and it's more about your performative artisan you know, beliefs, which is up to you. But I don't have those. So people should deal with classified information the way it's authorized to be dealt with it texts, sources and methods. And to the extent that we're talking about the recent event, it protects
military members going into harms way. So everybody knows that, everybody that's served in the military and the intelligence community, this isn't this.
Isn't a hard call.
In my opinion, I've seen I've been in the Pentagon when we've had I've been obviously on missions. We had a mission chat. You know, my version of it was a little smaller than the Department of Defense. When I first got there and saw an actual like full military operation mission CHAT, I was incredibly impressed. But that's not what we're talking about today. We're talking about today is taking the TikTok from that which is definitely in a
classified system. Everybody knows it's in a classified system. This is talking about we're going to attack an enemy using this platform at this time. And people say, well, didn't say the location. Well, the enemy knows where they are, guys, right, So all you need to know is an F eighteen. Where the F eighteen come from? USS Harry Truman, Man, that's where they come from. Did they know where the USS Harry Truman is? Yes, they have Iranian surveillance vessels
all over the Red Sea. So if you know it's coming in two hours, you know where you are because they're going after Hooty leadership. And we'll get to that. Which is a good a good thing. This disclosed very sensitive classified information that never should have been out there.
It is what it is.
You shouldn't use signal, Yes, you're allowed to use signal. You're also allowed to pick up an open phone in the government but you're not allowed to do either of those with classified MATERI. So I would say the best to do, which is a little too late now and they're not asking me, is take responsibility for your actions.
It meant you screwed up, come up with these and take the consequences, and it's up to the president uh and and come up with a better way to do this in the future that never lets us happen again. That's the way everybody's taught first day at boot camp or ocs.
But that wasn't what happened. It was you know, excuse for this and blame this and on.
So that's my take that going forward, we got to hold everybody accountable for how they treat classified material. It does come down the sources and method There's a lot more you could talk about that was put out there in this chat, you know, when it comes to sources that are conducting clandestine operations and other stuff like that.
But ultimately this stuff should never have been put You can you cannot add somebody to a classified system that is not in the system, right you can on signal uh, and then probably means that this this person was already in somebody's you know, contact list. If you're if you have portable systems that you could use, they can set up tent. I think I forgot the name of the tent, but maybe Jason remembers it. But in a in a
hotel room. You can obviously go to a skiff embassy that has a skiff from jump into the CI spaces. There's a thousand different ways to do it other than to go on commercial app which is probably penetrated by our adversary. Certainly they're trying to the last thing and thought over Jason, is every one of these persons is on the highest collection list for Russia, China or I was on the highest and I was not obviously the Secretary of Defense, and I still have on their list.
They tried to They try to get into your personal devices and government devices every day, anything that touches the Internet they're trying to do. And there's and they also do that again journalists, especially if they report on national security, because who do they talk to national security? So they should probably do an entire review of this, figure out how to make sure it never happens again, and determine whether any of these devices had.
Already been penetrated. Just to make sure that we know what the enemy might now know.
Yeah, I agree with everything that you said. Nick.
Like you said, from day one, you're taught, whether it's in you know, blot camp OCS, onboarding, when you're going to an intelligence agency, whatever it is, that number one personal responsibility is huge because that will guide everything else.
And also, you know, stay off of unclassified platforms to discuss classified things, like even if you're something that we were taught when I was at CIA was even if you're down the street I forget the name of that pub that's right down the street from headquarters and you're with your classmates or your friends or whatever it is, you're not discussing classified information. You're not discussing work period
because you just don't know. Even if you think the room is empty, you don't know if that room is micd up.
You have no idea. So you have to be aware of that kind of stuff.
And also, as you touched on, every one of the people that were on that group, they've had these briefings. Whether they want to say they did or not, they've had these briefings, and common sense just tells you that, you know, this is a platform that probably kids use you know, yes, it's you know, it's a secure quote unquote secure platform, but everybody uses it, so this shouldn't be discussed here. As you also said, everyone's a target on,
especially everyone on that group. And I was thinking. I was talking with a friend about it, and he did the whole you know, wasn't classified thing, all this other stuff, and I said, okay, I could almost give it to you if the discussion has had a week after it happened, or you know, a month after it happened. But this
is two hours before it happened. And if I'm not mistaken, and maybe I am, but I believe that it was called the Hoothy Working Group or something like that, so it's not hard to put it all together, you know, if you're someone who's in there. And uh, I also want to add that the fact that you know it, along with the mental gymnastics of dancing around taking responsibility.
But people talking about charging this the reporter.
Or the editor in chief for this for for what you know that it's just it's ridiculous and I'd be having just like you said, this same conversation, just switching names out. If this was a democratic you know, democrat administration or somebody else, because wrong is just wrong.
So absolutely so, Jake Gilberts, is what you're talking about, Jay, j Gilberts to go there, But yeah, you want to run into some people.
Yeah.
I would point out to the last point that Jay made is if that's the idea, like it didn't say classified, then technically anybody in a skiff could read a document that has TSSCI codewordness and take all the information out of it, take it outside, not take the and just text it an it's not classified.
I know someone sorry to interrupted, I know someone who got fired from the agency for doing just that, cutting printing out. They were printing out cables, cutting the classification off the headers and the footer and not taking it out of the building. But like discussing with people, it didn't need to be discussed with. Yeah, it's it's just common sense.
It's this.
Yes, it is the source of the methods, but especially in this case, it's the information. Yep, right, this is this is stuff that could get people killed. And I'm not a partisans so I'm just going to call balls and strikes all the time. I just wish more people would, you know, decouple themselves from being partisan and just focus more on just being an American and saying, hey, this is obviously something that should not have been done and
it needs to not happen in the future. And then if the next step is talking about yeah, man, that is actually what we should be talking about. If it wasn't for this, you know, I think series of mistakes, because this is a pretty substantial escalation in a region.
Yeah, one quick question about like when you do when you are a principle and you're starting in a new job, and let's say you are a whit cough or you are somebody who's not really been in the governmental world like national security world or heg seth right, like he's never been He's was in the military, but he's never been to that level. I mean the first day, you've got to be getting fucking briefs on like what to do, what not to do, right, Like that's got to be
first and foremost. So it's not exactly like it was a couple of years ago and the things slipped his mind, Like this is like relatively recently. And you have a serious fucking job, man, like take it seriously. And you are provided with communications where you can chat with people about what's going on. Do that in the right way.
Like I I said the joke last week with you guys, like you know, my dumb friends from Brooklyn have better like op SEC and some of these people that are supposed to have like the highest secrets that we've you know, the Secretary of Defense, like you're the top of the food chain national security advisor as well, your top of the food chain. So it's just kind of mind boggling how this could happen and how they could at a report our editor in chief of The Atlantic to the clue chat.
And yeah, go ahead and mix.
And you have a staff too, I mean, so you know, one of the things I told my staff was, if I'm screwing up, tell me, you know, I don't think you can hurt my feelings. I'd rather just do the do it the right way than and get counseled by my staff and the other So every one of their staff, I mean, and they have active uniform advisors obviously to the Secretary of Defense and all the way down in
his staff. I did, they'll be they'll turn you up real quick if you're especially if you're breaking Opsact when it comes to a military operation, right, they take that very personal. So I don't know how this broke down. There's certainly a question of whether this is just the first time. To Jay's point, it said the HUTHI PC small group. PC small group is the normal term for the Principal's Committee meeting of that's pared down because it's sensitive, right, you don't need the Secretary of.
Treasure that even though there Yeah.
Yeah, I mean they can, they can pare it down that the small means it's it's not the full PC where you know, you have every Secretary of Agriculture and all that. So that's a question of whether this is the only time it happened. I mean, is they're they're labeling it of what you would label the actual meeting.
So I don't know, I don't don't know. I wish people would just own up to it and then and then come up with the policy that you know, fixes it, and then we can start talking about Wow, so one hundred sorties in like a twenty four hour period being off just trying to hit the target facilities or the launch facilities.
Rather they're going after the leadership. Yeah, which is great.
I think it's about time that these these hooty leaders would like to get on with their you know, you know, five hundred ribbons and talk about you know.
Back.
Innocent, unarmed civilian vessels, you know, trying to get through the Red Sea. Start time, they start paying the price. So hats off those who carried off the mission. And I think it was the right policy decision. We'll see if it works, but the only way you're going to find out is to actually do this.
And they're moving, you know. I think the.
USS, Carl Vincent's and Guam it's even now, it'll be there mid April. I think that is publicly available information. I just googled it. They are moving, and I know we're gonna get into this. I think there's multiple B twos that have moved to Diego, Garcia. There's thirty five squadrons coming in. I mean they're getting ready to tune up some and I think that's the right answer. And it's also supposed to send a message to Iran, which I think it will.
I think that's basically what the main thing is about, right, like sending the message to Wean, because I mean, you don't need five B twos to hit hoothy targets, right like what are we doing?
Right? And the B two, like we.
Discussed last week, is the only plan that can carry the mop the big boy, you know, thirty.
Penetrator. What are you trying to hit with that? Right? And yeah, yeah, thank you, And like.
You know, B twos can probably move around without their transponders on and get to from one point A to point B where it's not getting picked up on open source twitters and stuff that follow aviation. Like, let's be real, right, like, so there's a reason why they're putting this out there that we're moving such like that much hardware to a certain place which is in striking distance of around, Like the B twos can take off from Saint Louis from
Missouri and bomb a r in and come back. You know, it's not exactly like so, I mean, it's kind of clear what's going on. Hopefully it does make our Ran come to the negotiating table for their nuclear weapons and hopefully Isral doesn't pop off beforehand. One quick last thing with Pete Hexseth and the signal gate stuff and the lack of OPSEC from the Wall Street Journal yesterday and last night, Hexeth brought his wife to sensitive meetings with
foreign military officials. Mick, you were in the d D. Did you bring your wife to sensitive meetings with other you know, your your counterparts from foreign militaries.
Uh?
No, I mean I don't.
I don't know what they're I mean by and I don't mean that as a way just to defend secretary, except I.
Is it a meeting where like a meet and greet.
Yeah, I don't know.
I mean they definitely, you know a lot of these, Like I've been to events, a lot of events where I was there as the dasty with my wife, right, right, she's been doing that for thirty years, right, So right, man, I've got to a lot of meetings I didn't really want to go to. So I don't I don't know what the meeting was, So it's it's possible for me to.
To really sure.
It's not like a state visit where it's a dinner, dinner party or something like that.
Yeah.
Sorry, one last last thing I'm curious to ask to you. And I'm saying curious because I don't know the answer as to the legality of and I don't know if this is true or not, but I heard that the meeting the signal group chat was set to disappear, the messages to disappear after a certain amount of time. I don't know what that violates, you know, I do know, and Mike you know as well that the mantra is
if you didn't write it down, it didn't happen. So I don't know if that's what we're doing here, you know, But I'm just curious about that.
That's a good point, Jay.
So there's a record law which is like they take, even at my level, they would take. They took all the notes that I wrote. I'm sure nobody can ever read them, but yeah, there's do you have to you have to keep all especially in this especially in the
PCC meetings. That Policy Coordination Committee, which is the baseline inside the NSC, which is the old executive building right next the White House, right So there's there's people from the O, d C, I, A state and folks that come and meet in the NSC, and it goes the Policy Coordination Committee, which is what my level was. Then you have the deputy's committees, the deputy secretaries of this, that and the other.
Then you have the PC, which is a.
Principal's committee, so the actual secretaries and then if the president is there, it's called the NSC, so it's the PC plus the president makes it the NSC. But all that stuff there's recorded. I don't think they actually recorded, but they take notes and then people actually sign off on what was said.
So we all agree.
Primarily, we could agree what we agree to and what we're all going to do to make it happen right under the recage. Keep an act that way, under the transparency of government that people can eventually one day when it's declassified, say, oh, that's how the Bay of Pigs happened.
Yeah, So a little bit more about Hegseth's wife, just to get the facts in there. Hex Seth's wife, Jennifer Hegseth, has been president two meetings where sensitive information would discussed, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing multiple people who were president at the meetings or have not college of
her presence at them. The first meeting was high level discussion at the Pentagon with the top UK military officials, including the UK Minister of Defense John Healey, took place in early March, the day after the US was announced the US would stop sharing military intelligent military aid and intelligence with Ukraine, and the second was in Brussels in mid February at NATO headquarters during a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, a form of about fifty nations
meant to help coordinate military support for Ukraine as it tries to fight off its invasion from Russia.
Yeah, I mean, again, sensitive is sure. If it was it was a meeting in which classified information was being discussed, and I don't know that it was, then the rules applied to everybody. So if you don't have a clearance already, you know should be in there. If it was just high level discussions that weren't classified, I mean that's.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I can't.
I don't cast the judgment on something.
And then I don't know all the facts and I'm rarely not here a cast judge, and I'm gonna just explain what I think, you know, the rules are.
Yeah, So back to the Hoho thies and you know, yeah, I mean we did hit them yesterday as well, in the last couple of days, hit a bunch of targets. I think they said over seventy five. So it's still going on. I mean, hopefully at some point red Sea kind of loosens up a little bit in terms of trade.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I mean this is going on when I was still in government, So this idea is all about Gaza. I mean they've they've been attacking. They attacked the Saudi oil facilities, they attacked you, they tried to they almost hit the international terminal at in Albadami, Baby and the Hookies.
They obviously tried to attack Israel. They tried to.
I mean I saw one report where our destroyer going through the Red Sea was they tried to attack one hundred and twenty times, right, and then they've hit and killed crew on commercial vessels. So they're terrorists. They're doing terrorist activities. They're attacking the US. It's not primate. I mean the US has taken the lead because we're the ones and you can see that in the chat. Actually we are the only ones that have the capability to
do a lot about this. The French have an aircraft carrier there right now, I think near the Bob Almandez. But essentially no country can do this without the United States. So we have a coalition, but it's really led by US. It's not I mean, I think that's our place in the world, a leader in the world. We have the capability, but China gets more energy from this region than we do. Europe does send more trade through this region. Other countries need to step up. But I think it's the right
decision by the United States. Although you know, you could see the disagreement in the chat, I think that ultimately the President made the right decision and that we need to amp up our efforts against the Huthies because what we were doing before clearly wasn't working. And there's no
guaranteed this will work. But people tend to get You get their attention when you start killing them, right when the leadership starts seeing it's not just the you know, Joe Schmoe that's that's trying to launch these drones that's getting shacked, when it's you know, the head pooh Bah general and a lot of them got killed on these
last few strikes where we've started focusing focusing intelligence. The CIA's obviously got their their stuff together and are up and running in Yemen and they are taking out some of these UH senior leaders, and I think that's that's a good thing. If you want, if you know, I got asked for media a lot like, well, isn't this going to destabilize the region. Well, Iran's destabilizing the region.
So if these.
Guys want to stabilize the region, stop attacking commercial vessels in the US military. If you did that, I'm sure that the stabilization would would come back to the fold. But this is Iran, and I know we're gonna get to and this is the houthis and I think we'll see how it goes. It's gonna take a while, but I think this.
Was It's interesting too, because like the UK's got aircraft carriers, you know, China does, China's got a base in JIBOUTI like, what's up, guys, you know what I mean, Like they can step up? I mean it would it would make sense if they kind of did too. And I get there's more to this than just like the free passage of goods and stuff. It's definitely a message to our eight ye round, let's not kid ourselves, you know what
I mean? Because like it seems like the houthis for the for right now at least, they're like the only proxy force that's kind of still I guess tough, because I'm sure has Bull is still very active and as well as Moss.
But they're the only proxy force that's really.
Kind of in Israel's kind of periphery, I would say, rather than there forocus on Hasbla and Hamas and stuff like that. And yeah that's all I got. I don't know where I was going with that, but whatever. So yeah, Iran, what happens may speculate for me.
So that I think you're one hundred percent right. This is a message to Iran for two reasons. Right, Iran supports all these groups. Right, the who these didn't come up with advanced drones that can go from northern Yemen and hit Ben Gurion Airport, Right, this came from Iran. They're targeting information on the US vessels comes from the surveillance ships that are on.
I think.
All this stuff is are on. They back.
They started Hezbolah, right, it was the IRGC Krutz Force, kind of a combination of our CIA and Jaysawk. They started hes Below. That's their most significant and Israel's done a number on them. They funded Hamas. Ninety percent of their military support came from Iran. And if they didn't have military support, they wouldn't be conducting attacks, right, And they support the Houthis.
I'd say the houthies are probably the least able to be.
Directed by Iran, but they're still in the proxy category. And if they didn't give them weapons systems, they wouldn't be I mean, who cares if they're just up there rant and raven in the mountains and they don't have any ability to do it. So they're responsible for these folks, and we had to start with that. Second, President Trump set a letter apparently this is in the media to the regime in Iran and said you need to come back to the table. We need to discuss a new
nuclear agreement. The past nuclear agreement, the biggest criticism was that didn't address the proxy operations. It just addressed them not getting a nuke. There was a lot of discussion when we decided to get out in twenty eighteen that we should still keep it because we still don't want to have a nuke, and then we should just address the proxy separately. But we decided to get out. We did get out. We put a lot of sanctions on them.
It was called the maximum pressure campaign. I did think that had an effect with them funding, but they still obviously kept funding. They figured a way to wait around the sanctions and to sell their oil and all that stuff. And now we're to a point where in a breakout scenario they have enough enriched uranium up to sixty percent. Breakout scenario could be a month, and they would have
enough enriched uranium weapons great uranus nuclear weapons. Then they would have to they have to come up with a triggering mechanism and then of course figure out how to deliver it. But you could deliver it on a large a dow which is a small boat, so it's a triggering mechanism, but they could get that from.
North Korea Russia.
So this is a very real concern for multiple administrations. We've said it's completely unacceptable for Oran to have a nuclear weapon. There's got to be meaning to that. And I think what the Trump administration, the second one, is doing is saying there is meaning to that. So we see six plus maybe B twos that are in strike distance, and I think you're id They turn those transponders on for a reason, so everybody knows, and there are officials
telling reporters right now. US officials like this is the reason why we're sending the B twos. They had the two month period for to come back to the negotiation negotiation table is up. The next step, clearly from President Trump's comments, is potential direct military action. So I don't think anybody should view this as just bluster. I think it's I think it's meaningful, and I think we're really the only country, unless we do a lot to support
Israel that can can actually carry this out. Israel might do it if they feel like they were not going to US as a capacity. It would be a significant military of that. But it is, uh, it is doable, and they're getting everything into place because it's not just the bombers, right. I'm not going to go into the details, but you got to you got to mitigate air missile defense systems. You get all that stuff to make sure
we can do it. So it requires a lot of other but you're seeing all this stuff flow into the region, and I hope, I hope Aron takes the right decision comes to negotiation table because the US is offering a diplomatic way out. If they choose not to do that and to go for a nuclear weapon then unacceptable.
As I mean, so how you I mean agreed, There's not much more I can say. I think that, Yeah, this was all put out there publicly for a reason, and like you said, hopefully Iran will take the message and come to the negotiating table willingly rather than having to be physically dragged because you know, they just got decimated did their country was decimated militarily, So hopefully they'll take it.
And I I'm.
Gonna rare time say this, I applaud the administration for you know, this is the one one of the times that I say being public about it and blustering quote unquote about it is you know, it could work. I'm not going to say it's absolutely gonna but it's something that past administrators have not done and I think it's high time for it.
Yeah, well this could be an interesting next month.
Yep.
Yeah.
This past week too, that which kind of went out of the radar obviously, Israel sent a delegation to d C to discuss what to do I guess with Iran and whether they go with solo or with our help or with us you know involved completely. I mean, listen, man, if you're if I know, I ran the enemy and stuff, but if you're Iran, like what do you what else do you see in terms of like if your proxies
are decimated and you have Israel who's extremely belligerent. What else, what other move is there to do to secure your regime. I'm just thinking pragmatically. I'm not a fan of the Ayatola.
It's like, I mean, crazy idea.
But they could basically give up their proxy operations, stop their nuclear ambitions, have all the sanctions released are relieved, h and unleash their economy because, as I'm sure you guys know, the the Iranian population is very modern, very sophisticated, very educated. They have a middle class. Certainly from the education perspective they do. They would do really well on the international economy, I think, and yeah, but does that
preserve the regime. I don't know they're going to say, well, we get you know, middle It's maybe they'll well, yes, but it's unacceptable. I mean they have caused sally if you look at behind the curtain all of the problems of the Middle East, right, Israel doesn't want to pick up a war with Iran.
Why would they?
I mean, it's stupid that Israel is a burgeoning economy, very modern place, but yet they've got a gate attacked on four sides all the time. So and that propagation leads away from any kind of diplomatic resolution to the Palestinian issue. Right now, you go to Israel, you know, I go there quite often. I mean even right, right, left and center. Now they don't want to hear about two stage solutions.
Right.
People that were adamant for adamantly for the two stage solution because of the current situation, they want to talk about. Iran does not help the Palestinian people at all. I mean, look at it. Look at Gaza. It's completely decimated. It looks like you know, Stalingrad or Dresident or something that was because ultimately Iran, they they gave the weapons systems to Hamas that they used to attack Israel on October seventh.
You don't have to be, you know, an security analyst to figure out what Israel's going to do to an attack like that, and it happened. So Aaran is the problem of the Middle East. I think that's clear, and they could They're at a fork in the road, so we'll see which fork, which direction they take. I think I hope they take the diplomatic path.
It's better for everybody.
Yeah, I think in my in my minuscule knowledge of all of this, it's like common sense if you do it now if the regime comes to the table, now they can get out of it with savings, with some face saving. You know, I don't think this is going to be a post World War one, pre World War II Germany where it's like just devastated economically, militarily and everything and you know has to you know, bend the knee.
They could get out of it saving some face and say well, we did this, you know, we willingly did this for our people. Whereas if they take the step, they get the trigger, they're you know, just about ready to launch, and they just get destroyed. Well, now now it's going to be a pre World War one Germany,
you know. So I think it comes down to power and ego with any you know, regime, any government, it's we don't want to let go because we have the power and we don't want to bruise our egos by admitting that we we just took it too far.
That's a great way to put it.
The administration literally got to just take what you just said and use that like that. That is a clear path.
And you're right, faith yep, the emperor did it. After the Japanese emperor, he did it. He said I'm doing this for my people. You know, we're giving this up for our people. He was able to save some face, you know, but the power and ego get in the way every time.
Yeah, really, well said a little bit of history though, right, Like I know this is like this is kind of more of like a thought exercise. If we didn't go into Iraq, would i Ran be this like regional as big of a regional power that it is now.
Yeah, I mean it would have been a different scenario. I take your point. But Iran had already started heschla Hesslo before nine to eleven, was the most significant terrorist organization against the US. They'd killed more Americans than any other group, so Ran was super destabilizing before the Iraqi vasion on two thousand and three. One could certainly argue we shouldn't have done that. Sure, little to know a nexus to nine eleven. But to point out, Arnado ally
still went with us. They're still with us, and a lot of them got killed just because they honored the treaty, even though they certainly could have made an argument like wait a minute, so I'll Kaida attacks you and taken allness. So just the point there, just a point of the history in NATO, but I do think Iran.
That was their intent.
They have utilized our invasion of Rock to a certain extent to their advantage. But they always do They always in view, they take any kind of destabilized situation and turn it into essentially a worse situation, and they think it's in their national interest, right.
Yeah, speaking of our NATO allies, are you guys looking for a property in Greenland or like, what are we
gonna do? Because that's also been in the news unfortunately, kind of like I don't know why, absolute waste of time, you know, And Greenland is technically a territory of Denmark, correct, Yeah, Denmark's lost guys in Iraq and Afghanistan the war on Terror, Like they stepped up for us, and we're trying to take a piece of their land, which is absolutely for somebody who prides himself as or talks himself up about being an isolationist, Uh, annexing land doesn't really scream that
out to me, unless it's like a new age isolationism. Like I don't know, uh, Nick, what are your thoughts? Because I could see you, I could picture you just sitting in a DD meeting and they're talking about something with Greenland, and you're like, what the fuck? I mean, you want to do it, but you mean, what the hell's going on here? Like we got real shit to deal with.
Well, like before we came on, we started courting. I told you, like I geeked out on the Arctic when I was in the Pentagon and people kept reminding me of the freaking Middle East guys, though, beat it, right, But ultimately this is about this is about the Arctic, right, So the ice cap is melting. There is massive amounts of oil, gas and rare earth minerals in the Arctic region to include Greenland, Ah, and there is passageways. It
makes the world much much much more small. I mean, take your globe, look at it from the top and see how close Europe and the United States and everything actually is from that direction. So h and I won't I don't want to, you know, drone on too much. But essentially there's eight countries that have direct access to the Arctic. Almost all except for Russia are in NATO.
So we have a huge advantage in the United States thanks to the smartness of purchasing Alaska is one of them, right, But we also have key to NATO Allies all the rest of what Norway, Iceland connect Canada and.
The Allies maybe not so much anymore.
Well, I mean they always were no people. I think the.
Canada and England interest is not. It's not you know, economic equality. Maybe there's a part of it in Greenland's not because you know, they're not defending themselves. It's about US wanting to dominate the Arctic, right, so China's trying. They got you know, the Polar Silk Road. They're there there there, and I don't know why they're allowed. They have some scientific bases in Iceland and I think Norway
that should be kanked. They've tried to get into Greenland, and Greenland and Denmark as well as the request of the US kanked it. So there's actually no Russian or Chinese military presence in Greenland.
Not accurate.
The US used to have three air bases in a in a in a Navy base. We had over twelve thousand groups there. It was significant during the Cold War. We had intercept and detect missile launches and we even had ground based I think launchers for nuclear We had strategic bombers. We basically withdrew all that so one of the countries that has neglected the security of Greenland as
it relates to the US is a US. We now have one base with one hundred and fifty more ditties there, right, So that is not a big investment by the United States in Greenland security or since it's always been about
our security, because it's positioning our security. So I think we could go back and ask Denmark and Greenland if we could put more troops there have more direct access to the Arctic in Russia of course claim like more than half of the Arctic, which is not accurate, and so did Canada, and so all these overlapping claims of economics.
It seems to me that the way to do this that is more likely to be successful is to go in with our NATO partners that have Arctic presence and combine for the exploitation of oil gas and push back against Russia. That's the odd man out in this and this circle literally the circle, right, and if we need to put more military pres Russia has fifty bases of the Arctic, by the way, so they're they're doing the opposite.
They have you know, the TU one sixties, the strategic bombers, the biggest, heaviest, lifting, fastest strategic bombers that could drop nukes on the United States. They have them up there. They have Make thirty ones, They've got nuclear powered ice cutters,
they have god all in. So if we need to catch up, I think the best way to do it is to catch up with the partnership of our NATO allies and focus on the adversary, which in this circle is Russia, not Iceland, not Norway, Denmark through Greenland, not Canada obviously.
Anyway, that's my.
I mean that that sounds like, I'm under standable strategy from a common like a common sense, thoughtful person strategy that seems to be coming out of the administration does seems to be the antithesis of what you have. Maybe it's the same goal, but annexing allies doesn't exactly sound like great strategy to me.
And yeah, I'm a dummy, but you.
Know, yeah, I agree. I think that bare bones of it is. It's a great want, it's a great you know, strategy, but are I should say it's a great long term plan and need. But the way it's presented to the world when you're a world leader and you use world words like when you say things like we're going to have it one way or another, that doesn't you know, that doesn't generate any kind of confidence from your your allies,
especially the people of Greenland, you know. And then when you use words like annex, me personally, when I hear annex, automatically go back to pre World War two Germany, you know, I start thinking of, you know, things like that. So it's people can say, oh, it's just blustering, it's just you know, misspeaking. Well, when you're a world leader and you're a world when you're a superpower, words mean things.
They have you know, really really big meaning. So I think if it had been like one of those behind closed doors like Mick said, you.
Know, hey, with our NATO allies and.
Go behind closed doors, we come to some sort of agreement and then open the doors, have a press constant and say this is what we agree to, instead of saying we'll have it one way or another, because that's all people are gonna hear one way or another, you know, And even if they didn't mean militarily, that's what people are gonna think.
That's what other world leaders are gonna think. So we got to do better.
With the way we're and when I say we, I mean the President and his cabinet, the way they speak publicly about these things. They have to do better because the message is getting lost in We're going to take it whether you like it or not.
Right now, it might like, if we're to the Vice president's point that we need Greenland to be secure for our security, which certainly can make the argument that it is, then we could send more troops there.
Yeah, and I may.
I think I think they would now except for now, because it'd be like, wait a minute, is slow invasion here?
You know?
So yeah, I mean I think I think that the interest is is right, the policy interests in the region is right. I think the focus on trying to annex NATO allies territory when we could simply cooperate with them have joint ventures. I mean, all these rare minerals that were interested in require a lot of investment to actually get out of the ground. So and we could come in with the investment, the US, right, and then we could reap the benefits, so could our native allies, you know.
And that's another way.
To do it.
That's what I recommend. And if this is just rhetoric. I kind of feel like this is even if they have no intent obviously of invading Greenland or something like that, I think it makes the whole cooperation more difficult.
To Jay's point, what you just.
Said, Yeah, I mean case in point, the vice president was visiting Greenland and no one came to see him. Uh he had He went to the one base that we do have there for a few hours and then headed home. I mean, yeah, just the way they're doing things. Uh, what's the word that's a good word that's not a bad word. Is head scratching. I'll be honest, Yeah, it's completely and scratching.
On the form, I would say on the substance, I think it's a good thing that we're starting to look at not being so reliant in every other country in some cases our adversaries for stuff that we know we're gonna need. Right, So some of these rare minerals what they make all these these you know, advanced technological devices which the whole world's running on now, and a lot
of them com ou out of China. So I like the idea personally that we have more autonomy for the United States on making things and having access to things, you know, I just I would just advocate for a different way of going about it.
Yeah, all right, guys, that's all I got. What do you have anything else on your mind that you want to get?
You know, I don't think that's that's a lot of stuff.
Yep, guys.
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All right, assass