Bits + Bips: Why This U.S. General Believes Iran Could Be a Huge Opportunity

0:00This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills, fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate to see. According to Indeed Data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today, with Indeed. Get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit at Indeed.com slash podcast, Terms and Conditions Apply. Hey, everyone. Welcome to Bits and Bips, where we explore how crypto and macro collide one basis pointed at time. I'm your host, Austin Campbell, high scholar of zero knowledge consulting here with my hosts, Ramal Awalia, master of wealth, leader of Lumina, and Chris Perkins, the golden hand of coin funds. Today, we have a very special guest, James Spider-Marx. He is currently the head of geopolitical strategy at Academy Securities, and prior to that, over a 30-year career in the Army, including his senior intelligence officer, the LA riots,

1:02the Balkans, Korea, and Operation Iraqi Freedom. He culminated his career as the commanding general of the U.S. Army Intelligence Center and School at Port Wachuka, Arizona. So before we begin, as always, I have to say nothing we say here is investment advice. Check UnchainedCrypto.com slash Bips and Bips for more disclosures. And before we begin, a quick word from one of our sponsors. So, there's only one place to begin right now, and that's Iran. Up until recently, the Strait of Hormuz has been effectively closed, though perhaps we're

2:04seeing some ship traffic slip through today. And we're going to look at everything that's been happening on the ground, and we have the perfect guest for that. So I'll start with a little context. So, U.S. and Israel led strikes on Iran, killed Supreme Leader Kamani. Iran retaliated by attempting to close the Strait of Hormuz, warning that ships attempting to pass could be attacked. Tanker traffic was highly disrupted. Oil prices ran up very significantly overnight, though have come back down throughout the day. As a reminder to everybody, the Strait normally carries about 20% of global oil supply, making it probably the most important energy choke point in the world. The macro-train reaction was large, and then has abated some much discussion and developments today. So I want to start right there before we go any further, and ask, and General Arts start with you, what is going on with the Strait?

3:07What is going on with oil supply? What is going on with macro markets as a result? Yeah, bear in mind the Strait of Hormuz, we're not physically close. Iran does not have the capacity to do that, especially now. But their Navy is at the bottom of the Gulf. They don't have an Air Force. Their missile inventory, ballistic missile inventory has been attritted considerably. Their ability to mine the Strait of Hormuz, and by frame of reference, 20 miles, but only two of those miles are passable for the tanker traffic. So Iran threatens a lot, and has said forever they've got the capacity to shut the Strait of Hormuz. They don't. States Navy, frankly, is the only element that I'm aware of that could really do that. So what Iran is doing right now, they are threatening, and they can disrupt traffic, and they have. We're seeing that right now. The threat of closure has affected the backlog that we see. We have the capacity, and we would use both Air as well, you know, maritime as well

4:10as Air to assure a safe passage. That could be done. Those are policy decisions. Look, military folks don't make those decisions. They just turn around, when asked, they either say yes, or they say no, or I can get to yes, give me some time or give me some additional capabilities. So the Strait of Hormuz are open, you know, also bear in mind, we have done some significant damage in Iran to its oil infrastructure, but Carg Island has been off limits. Why? Because it's going to continue to pump and it's going to continue to fill up tankers, or it's going to fill up storage capacity ashore. Those are conscious decisions that are being made. We are right now in the fight where we've transitioned from, I would say, the, you know, the simultaneous attack, the opportunity to decapitate the regime, which happened incredibly rapidly. That then kicked off the campaign we've seen over the course of the week. We are now into what I would call the grind. You've got to work your way mechanistically through the air tasking order.

5:13Inside baseball, we have an ATO, one-to-end list of targets. We're going to service those targets, HVTs, high-value targets. In fact, Humane Sun, which Abba has just risen to the top of the HVT list, I mean, he's going to have a crosshairs on him the first time they've got it, they get an opportunity. So I think it's more a determination of industry as to whether they're willing to accept the risk, the insurance challenges that are certainly attendant to that. I would imagine that the flow is going to begin here anytime now. I can demure to Chris as a, as a, as a former Marine Corps yet albeit Naval Academy graduate. What we do and what we have done at the past is you can line up three destroyers and you can hand those tankers off to each one of the destroyers. The destroyers have the capacity to return fire, pinpoint return fire to provide the coverage. So I would anticipate that this will open up here within the next day or so, and it should.

6:17Chris, what do you think? No, look, I think this has been a spectacular Naval combined arms effort, our Navy is just proven itself again and again, been very impressed there. I'm looking closely at the Isle of Carg. You mentioned that general controls 90% of our Indian exports. It's been a part of war plans, I mean, it's not something that we overlooked, everything that we're doing in and around it is, you know, been thought of and planned for. But I feel like one of the objectives here is, you know, with this administration, it's the Venezuela playbook, right? So what is the opportunity that we have now, like, come any son, he was injured, he was seriously injured, they've been reports, he's not really legitimate, he doesn't have, he's not an Ayatollah, he's really angry right now because he just lost his wife, his sister. So that was a real, like, I would say middle finger to the Trump administration at the point in him. And so what I think the administration is doing right now is it's looking to repeat the

7:20Venezuela playbook. They're looking for somebody with access to force, whether that's a senior general, someone in the IRGC, to step up and say, listen, I'm in control, I'm going to be sympathetic to the West, the oil is going to pump the, you know, administration, we're going to make sure that you get your fair share of it, which has actually been a part of Iranian history if you look back in one of the reasons we worked with the UK to put the Sean in the first place was around a previous leader, seizure and nationalization of oil. So, you know, geopolitics continue to cycle. What I'm looking for is someone to step up and say, I'm in control, let's have a chat. But, you know, Chris, that's going to be extremely, first of all, extremely hard to do. I think the president's going to walk away from unconditional surrender. That doesn't happen. And without being flippant, who do you surrender to? A home, any son is a creature of the IRGC.

8:21So, the IRGC stands to increase its role. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if in the next couple of years it's, there is no, there is not going to be a popular uprising, there is not going to be anybody who's going to be in that position as either the supreme leader or fill in the blank, prime minister, president, whatever you want to call it, in Iran it's going to be acceptable to this administration. So you have to balance all of that. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if in two years what we have is an increase of a secular type rule and it may be through the IRGC unless a clerk, a leader in in Tehran may not wear a turban. It's going to be IRGC and it's going to be that much more secular and it's going to continue to be brutal. The point is, I think that anything other than nukes, ballistic missiles and proxies are, those are the red lines. Anything else beyond that is what I would describe as unnecessarily punitive. So what has taken place so far, we can continue to service targets and you're going to have

9:25to look at the Iranian people and say, did we do enough, balls in your court, do you like this outcome? Hameini's son is truly going to be embraced and is going to be very much a tool of, you know, he will respond very responsibly and very directly to what the IRGC is looking to try to achieve. And there will be no fissures in the IRGC structure. And if there were in our test, that's the conventional military, don't know that that would even be significant and certainly no break in the M O I S. So where will the opportunities come to have, you know, a platform upon which you can kind of have a successful change in regime? Bear in mind, in 1979, the region that, you know, the Ayatollah came back from Paris in 1979 because the Shah was, it was losing credibility for a whole bunch of reasons. Uprising's were very present, but what happened? The conventional air force flipped and was supporting the uprising.

10:28So there was a platform to achieve additional momentum, Hameini came back and it worked. He then had to embrace this conventional military, a conventional military who had been protecting the Shah's Shah's now gone. He had to create out of this this whole cloth, somebody who's going to protect the revolution and then somebody else is going to protect the country. So you end up with our test, the country, IRGC, the revolution. So if the revolution today is now less important, you now have an opportunity. So that's kind of what we're looking at going forward. This is a longer horizon than this year or maybe even then to next year. Give the Kurds. You also have the Kurds, right, that are going to be making a move as well. So they may be seeking to undermine the entire country itself and try to reestablish Kurdistan. That noise as well. But I guess general, my question would be, at the end of the day, a secular, powerful leader

11:28is probably the outcome that the administration would be fine with and that may not be great for the Iranian people, maybe it is, I don't know, it depends where you are. I think the question is, is that the end state and then what is the time frame to get there? And you're saying it's not happening overnight, how do we get there and is that is at the end state? Yeah, I think what's going to happen, it's going to take some, it's obviously going to take some time and some of the steps leading to that will include a consistent application of pressure against the regime as it now exists over the course of time, not the volume and the velocity of what we've seen over the course of the last week, right? It is not going to be surprising as we transition out of this. Look, in our president has got political pressures he has to deal with, I'm not going for a second presumed that I have a political pulse, but he has to do it about face and look at his base and say, look, this isn't an unending war, albeit unconditional surrender and having somebody in charge that I approve of kind of seems unending to me because you're not going

12:31to get there in the near term. I am confident, I am, I would say with a level of high confidence, he's getting that input right now. That is going to take some time and so over the course of time, if targets still are going to pop up, which they will, they will be engaged, further attritting the reputation and the capabilities of the regime. And then, you know, there's a social contract in Iran. You've got the social contract that exists from the top, social contract and you have a faith contract and the hypocrisy coming out of it to run to the gentleman and the family on the street is un, I mean, it's unimaginably difficult. If I want to live in my faith, I don't want this, this hypocritical leader telling me how I have to do that. If that gets eliminated, I now have eliminated one sore point. Now I can focus in on the social contract, which I may not like, that becomes a little more palatable because he's not in my mosque. And if I can get him out of my mosque, I can now isolate the IRGC. That takes time. Well, it's looking like a hereditary monarchy now, which is what the

13:36original Ayatollah was campaigning against. What's the relationship between the people and the IRGC now? Obviously, you've got a Shia population, which is like 24%. Is the IRGC viewed as legitimate by a significant portion of the population? Or is it viewed as like an oppressor? What's the, what's actually the view on the ground? Yeah, it's an acceptance that it is present. It is an oppressor. I have a brother-in-law who's Iranian. So he's my source. He's a great source. He says the challenge with the Persians is that very modern society look, they invented math, right? Just talk to my brother-in-law. He would tell you they invented math. I call my brother-in-law Xerxes and he loves that. So you've got this very modern society that are over the course of 50 years. It's now become part of their DNA. I mean, they're very submissive. And as he describes it, he says we're very proud people, but we're not prepared to sacrifice.

14:38That, you know, they've accepted so much. They've been, this is a bunch of body blows over the course of years. And it's very difficult for them to think that there might be some type of possible alternative out there. There could be, as I described, there could be a possibility here, but the IRGC is immensely weakened, but it still exists. It's a control mechanism internally. They're not going to export this. That becomes the major problem. So are the Iranian people, 93 million folks, are they prepared to make some type of an aggressive, and the reason we did this now is we thought they were in a position to make kind of an aggressive, sustained move. I mean, we had an opportunity. We took it. We decapitated the regime. We did it because we had incredible weapon systems. As Chris indicated, maritime air campaign unprecedented. It's absolutely phenomenal. But we saw the unrest over the course of the last six weeks, two months, and we thought maybe something's here. Let's, oh, and we now have an opportunity. Let's see if we can accelerate

15:39this unrest hasn't happened yet. Maybe after the guns don't go silent, but become a little more sustainable over time. There could be an uprising. I don't see that happen in the near future. Well, I'd like to go back to another conflict. I know you're familiar with, which is the Balkans, right? Because as we look at Iran, I would not describe it as an ethnically homogenous, like country once you move outside of call it the center of power. And so as I look at the country, and I ask, where would the fishers appear? Where would the cracks appear? I think as Chris brought up, not just the Kurds, but the Azerbaijanis might have something to say about this as well, because you know now that they've been weakened and the balance of power in the region is potentially shifting. This is when other people see opportunity and sometimes make their moves. Do you see a potential end game that looks a little bit more like the dissolution of Yugoslavia, where Iran may no longer be the exact same geographic footprint, and we have some breakaways.

16:41No. Okay, short answer. The longer discussion on all of that is I don't see Chris mentioned the Kurds. I don't see the Kurds having a significant role. Number one, I don't know that the CIA is in fact going to follow through with this operation and how we found out about it. Pisses me off as a guy grew up in the Intel world. Routine leaks like that are on a, when, you know, it is something that needs to be addressed. Okay, that's a long-term issue. So we've understood, or at least we think there might be some type of an army of the Kurds as they migrate across. That's what I would describe in military terms as an economy of force. It is not going to significantly alter the dynamics in Tehran, and as this new regime kind of tries to coalesce and come together, and as you've described it as not homogeneous in Iran, nor within the leadership. There are a whole bunch of fissures

17:41within there. So the Kurdish operation, if it occurs, if it occurs, is simply a, it's going to, a distraction that must be addressed. So it pulls attention, it pulls voices, it pulls resources away. The challenge legitimately, in Iran, is it could it dissolve into what you described so accurately in the Balkans? I really don't think so. I think that level of the differences among them have either been reconciled or have been tolerated over the course of years. In the Balkans, this was millennia-old hatred that emerged and simply erupted because it could. And there was no, there were no boundaries that have been put around it. What we see in the Middle East certainly is you have a new hegemon. It's without doubt, it's Israel. So you've got a new hegemon. That's not going to, that hegemon is going to routinely be involved in what Iran

18:462.0 or whatever the heck it is, looks like. It's starting out a rising hegemon. Sorry, go ahead. I have to ask a question. Is, is Saudi not a rising hegemon? Yes, regionally, yes, but Israel is the, what I would call the regional hegemon. I mean, it's, yeah, I don't, and I don't think, and I think what may happen as a result of what we're seeing is the Abraham Accords and Saudis engagement with Israel going forward, whether it might be moderated in some way, I don't know. But I don't see that as competition that will bring itself to cataclysmic outcomes like we're seeing right now. Look, Iran, as we know, has just been isolated by its neighbors for the longest time. They're, they just get tired of this yet. And they've got the Shia arc heading into Syria. That's going to exist for a while unless somebody can cut that up or address it. We now have the potential with Iran's attack against Turkey. We now have the potential for article five. Not going to happen. Commerheads will prevail.

19:51And article five, as we know, with NATO is not everybody get on board and let's go to war. It's, hey, everybody, one of our partners is being assaulted here. Do what you can do to help. So it may be writing a note saying hang in there or it could be I'm going to send you money or whatever. I appreciate us already taking shots at the British on that note. But to bolster your previous point, there was a rumor today that Lebanon, who's cracking down on a regime partner in Hezbollah, was actually reaching out to have intermediation between them and Israel in terms of finding like a livable piece between those two parties as well. So to bolster your point, it is a trend we've been seeing with some of the news items where Israel appears poised to play call it a more constructive and active diplomatic role alongside some of the neighboring nations in that area. So certainly, I think we can all agree Iran's influence in the region has been greatly degraded by what's happened.

20:52Completely. And then you look at Syria. Let's bring Syria into the mix. That's ungoverned space. What does Jolani, what is he trying to achieve? Great opportunity. I mean, he came to the White House. Great opportunity for him to say I can help A. Mr. President. I'm on your team. I can help you. And oh, by the way, give me a little money and I can help relocate folks from Gaza, right? You want to move Palestinians? I might be available for you. I'm totally spitballing here. But with this ungoverned space in Syria, that's a legitimate concern. You talk about the potential essentially new lines being drawn. Syria could be one of those very easily. We got our strong man there, didn't we? Yeah. He seems to be keeping some things under control. How the Chinese feeling about this? I mean, they get their ponderance of their oil through the state of Honduras. You've talked off at the times. I've heard you talk about the tree world that we're in. And that's usually referencing China, right? So how does this all come together,

21:55General? Yeah, China and you got to throw kind of Russian to the conversation at this point. Their support of Iran has been kind of muted, right? All we see is the diplomatic narratives. Obviously, there could be support that we maybe are tracking, but it's not going to move the dial again. Iran is still in the position that it's in incredibly weakened. China, China, the problem with China, I mean, certainly you got a near term concern, but Russian oil is now back up as kind of the savior for this potential problem. I understand that. It could be where, and China has routinely gone to Russia anyway. Let's be Frank Russia as a vassal state of China. So I think their problem with oil by itself is good and fine and could find a resolution, but China doesn't have partners. China has vassals. They transact and they have clients. They don't have partners

22:57that are going to step up and help resolve or change the dynamic that they have to deal with. China is increasingly isolated because of that. I mean, you know, Joe, did you follow prediction markets at all? I don't. I should. Yeah. So these are new markets where people, you know, sometimes we've seen, you mentioned that leak. We've seen instances of potential insider information. We really don't know that they're monitoring pizzas out of the Pentagon or whatever, but you know, it's something that we watch a lot in the crypto space. And right now, probably markets saying that they'll be a ceasefire by March 31st with the 45% chance. I would say sooner than that. I would say, yeah, I think it's going to probably be maybe the end of this week, this week, but a ceasefire. I mean, I don't think anybody is going to declaim, you know, proclaim, I got victory. We're going to fire. Nobody's going to say that. So I don't know how do you surround that? How do you put bounds around that bet? What does that mean?

23:58Nobody's going to say ceasefire guns down. Let's count our ammo, you know, resupply, bring in food, take the wounded off the battlefield. That's that's not going to happen. So I know that sounds like bullshit to me. That's going to be a difficult market to adjudicate. It sounds like, and I apologize for the problems we have. We like to swear on this. I apologize. You could say Chris and I are former traders. The fact that I'm constantly as a minor miracle. I have a rule. Every time I speak in public, if I do that, I put a hundred bucks in a job jar that then eventually I take that, I take that jar and I give it to a great veteran cause. So maybe I should just light it up. Let's go. Let's go, man. Send him some money just to get your closet. I mean, that's sincerely. I get thank you notes. You know, you know, thank you for swear. I got one of these letters. I need to find it. Thank you, General, for your check. Don't stop effing doing what you're doing. Sorry. My bride of 50 years is not watching this.

25:06I was going to say, so I don't relate it notes that my wife is Indian. And so one, she would have thrown rocks at us when we said that the Persians invented math. So Raj, I'm fully aware that you would dispute that clay month behalf of India right there before I get it. It's always a math or a chest. Those are the two to big debates. But two, in terms of bad habits and swearing at things I've had to attune for, we did have one incident where my four-year-old daughter is on the couch with her iPad. Something doesn't work and she just puts it down and looks up and goes, fucking iPad. And my wife just had turns and looks straight at me. And I'm like, that's not her influence. No, that's bad. Get it together. I have the same problem. So swearing allowed. So speaking of swearing, oil markets were absolutely swearing up a storm overnight. But the market has calmed down dramatically already today. What do we think in

26:09Ram, I'll start with you because I know you've been following the market and I know you had some views. What do we think the market is taking from this conflict at this point? Right. So the oil futures spiked on the news of Israel bombing a depot there. My view is that you've had forced short covering in the futures market. And that marked a top. And you're not going to see oil 110 again. I think that's behind us. We'll have to see what Trump says at 5.30 p.m. today. He said this afternoon that we are ahead of the four to five week timeline. We talked about last week how that was managing expectations low. So he kind of sets up the win. There's a mismatch between what he's saying and what Pete Hegsett is saying. Who's saying we'll take as long as it takes. But we know who works for the other guy. So I think there's a little more credence to what Trump is saying. My question for the general would be those like, why haven't the tankers started moving? I know what you said earlier is, well, anytime now, what have we been waiting for? The Navy's been gone for three days. The tankers aren't moving. And is it enough

27:12to have control and provide security or do you need some compulsion? Because ultimately, these tankers have owners and captains. Why haven't they started moving? Right. That's a great question. I would say it's a combination. Whoever owns the tankers, they've got to embrace that risk. And there are huge dollars associated with those risks. Number one. And the second thing is the Navy is conducting an air campaign on an incredibly hard target. This is their priority. And I think at some point in the I'm thinking days, once you get into what I described is just walking your way through the ATO. And boots are not going on the ground. And I don't think we're going to take car guidelines with boots. But as you walk your way through that, you now are into some significant muscle memory

28:12and you can divert assets and resources elsewhere. Are boots on the ground required for one validating that there's no longer any enriched uranium as reporting to as opposed to relying on satellites. And number two, truly controlling the shoreline or on the straight of her moves to protect against speedboats and other kinds of attacks. Yeah, you can you can have boots, but you're not going to put boots in Iran to do that on the streets. You're question about the streets. Yeah, on the streets and then the valid in the uranium is secure. The uranium, you've got to have people open it up doors, walking inside that eventually has to happen. Absolutely. And so my point about that is that may not happen for years. And this is where you get into a sustained engagement against HVTs going forward. And you know, we embrace for years the Navy that Chris was in, the Army that I've been a part of forever, you had Colin Powell that established the rule that if you break it, you own it. And we're going to we're going to stick around, put all the

29:14pieces back together with your help. Well, we've reached the point now. We don't care about that. We're just going to break it. And if you get back on that horse and you think this makes sense, we're going to break it again. We're going to kill the horse. We're going to keep doing this. I think that's what we think about the enriched uranium. There will be a run at some point is either going to just continue to be hammered. And at some point, the Iranian people say, I can't enough. Stop, stop, stop, stop. When Trump want to hand off unfinished business to a future administration, though, because he's the only president in the modern era that would have the mindset, let's say, to take this kind of action. Would he be willing to have just a loose thread out there as opposed to get the mission done? Great, great question again. I can guarantee everyone at Trump's predecessors right now is drinking bourbon and smoking a cigar. I wish I'd done this at the very least. I wish I'd done this relative to zero as well.

30:23God, why didn't I do that? Well, you chose not to. And then the second question is, oh, absolutely not. He's not going to hand this off. I mean, he will declare mission accomplished a bad reference, bad reference, if you recall. Right. That's George W. on the aircraft carrier. Wow, wow. But he'll at some point he'll say, we're going to try a ribbon on this. And Iranian people, you got it. We're here for you. Knock on our door and give us a call. But we have one. However, however you want to, however, the political wrapping and all this, have a nice day, make it pretty. You can see right through it. But we're not there's no victory in this. And I think the longer term solution is, when does Iran have a leader of some sort that's going to be open to Western engagement? And I do think Iran is a business opportunity. It's huge. Look what happened when the Soviet Union collapsed in December, December 91. You know, they struggled for about five years and in boom. I mean, the army that I was a part of,

31:27we started training with Russian forces. We took a Russian separate airborne brigade to the Balkans for working directly for a U.S. Army general. And I got to know, I mean, incredible force until they abandoned and went across the river and went to Prostina and Kosovo. So the point is is we could handle Iran if they were willing to allow the West to come in and say, we're here to help. We don't care if you have some guy who's incredibly oppressive and you know, he's going to crack down on everybody. That's internal control. You guys got to figure that out. But we might be able to set up markets here. Let's go. I think part of what's interesting about this whole conflict and the pressure that's going to be on whoever takes over for the regime is exactly what you just set, which is you have the balance of having good sanctioned, having been isolated from the world, having been a less than full participant in the global economy. And if you start doing things a very different way, suddenly you could have the helping hand of the richest country

32:29in the world pulling you in the other direction. I feel like if we're going to see call it genuine change in behavior coming out of the regime there, it's probably money talks more than anything else from a long-term trajectory. Totally agree. And I would say that our president sees it that way, right? I want to play back. So what you said is other American presidents are looking at this and saying they wish they had done this. So they view this as a win. And what you just defined here then is a new doctrine that Trump created that others might emulate in the future. Yes. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. We are what we're seeing right now. We're in a period in transition here. The roots that are being that are growing right now are getting deeper and regardless of political stripes that follow Trump. We're dealing. I mean, how many more is it now a real possibility for any successor to get involved in interventionist type engagements

33:35like this? Yeah. Heck yeah. Does that mean anything for North Korea? I mean, they've got to be looking at this. Oh, they are. Don't mess with the United States. You got it big time. Notice what has happened in North Korea since the Russia went to war in Ukraine. There have been no nuclear tests by the North Koreans. And there was a sequence. There was a sequence of those tests starting in I think in 2004. After we gave tons of money to the North for peace kind of reunification type efforts in the South Korean president. Empty Jung won the Nobel Peace Prize. Never thought this is wonderful. We dumped hundreds of millions of dollars in the North. What they do two years later, they were popping a nuke. Thank you very much. So North Korea has been silent over the course of the last four years in nuke development. But their relationship is so historically interwoven with Russia and China. I would not. I think Kim is fine doing whatever he's doing. I'm sure he's

34:39taking ozimic. He's a skin. But I think he's I think they're okay. Frankly, I mean, there are too many challenges there. And so why would you enter into some type of a provocation there? There's an opportunity for us to now make it very clear that unacceptable behavior won't be tolerated, but we can work around the margins, which we have with North Korea forever. Who's next in general? North Korea is not as it Cuba? Cuba. Yeah, you had, yeah, absolutely. You had Maduro in December, El Minto in January. You had Hamanay in February and you got Castro in March. So line them up. All right. I'm not trying to be flippant, but I mean Cuba's next. Cuba's next. So on that note, let me ask about the really hot button geopolitical issue then and what will be taken from the current conflict is what implications does this have for China and Taiwan?

35:44China's got some real issues. So the short answer is I apologize. I got some light. I can't fix it. It's like an interrogation. Let me bend down and tell you anything. China's got some real, Xi Jinping has got some significant problems. As you've seen, he fired his chairman equivalent. He was the only guy who had combat experience. And that combat experience was in Vietnam, 1979, which was punitive exclusively. So his military has got some legitimate challenges, not unlike the Russian military. And so when Russia fell on its face in Ukraine, she turned around and said, okay, dude, pressure test this thing. Let me know what's happening. And he fired a bunch of guys. Didn't like what he saw. That doesn't mean he got more confidence in. He certainly got more loyalty in, but I don't know about the confidence level. So he is concerned legitimately about that. It's a far different military set, right? Over 100 miles of open ocean. He has other tools that the Russians don't have. I mean, he's got isolation tools. He can move in the direction of

36:48quarantine. He can be very, very provocative, which he does routinely over flights of Taiwan and his airspace and territorial waters, etc. But he needs to be very, very cautious. And as we know, the Chinese have a much longer horizon in terms of solving their problems. I don't think he's going to be in a rush to solve this problem. Because he, you know, first of all, here's going back to a Trump point. You know, he has to balance. She has to balance his Trump going to give a shit about Taiwan. Or is he going to go and, you know, you know, it's an aberration. What's this one country two systems things? I don't get it. You're like FIFA. FIFA is a mood ring for the world. You know, they don't invite Taiwan. They invite Chinese Taipei. So what's FIFA thinking? This is crazy. Well, most of the world thinks this is crazy. This Taiwan thing is nuts. Solve it. Don't kill anybody to solve it. It kind of works. But Trump, you know, Trump has given us every sense that he

37:50might not, well, that he doesn't care about Ukraine. He does. He's blaming Zalinsky for not being particularly intellectually, you know, a droid about how to solve this thing. That's because Biden caused this problem. It's Biden's problem. Why do I, why do I care about this? In terms of Taiwan, this would be a person to your question earlier. This would be a personal affront to Trump. And so I think he would look at she and say, no, no, no, don't, not while I'm here, don't push me. Don't push me. General, I keep thinking that the submarine attack on the Iranian frigate was very symbolic in the message to China. Why? Because it's really our submarines that don't have an answer for in the street. Was that your take or am I going to make it crazy? Or the intelligence guy? No, no, no, you're exactly correct, Chris. Absolutely correct. The more than China was reading this, but it clearly a message like we're, if we have a

38:50stated policy, we have determined that you're an outlaw nation. And we want to try to adjust that because you're an outlaw nation because you're a threat to your neighbors and globally. We're going to, and we choose to do something about it. This is a holistic approach. So you can't wander around Sri Lanka and think that you're out of balance. No, you're clearly in balance and we got you. So what you're saying is the US is more secure than has ever been before. You know, competitors like China are watching the action and saying, we've got nothing to contest in terms of capability. They're not attempting to. And that Trump has been successful here. Now you, you saw that the defense budget was increased from what's really into 1.5 trillion. There's already incredible dominance in the US military. You know, Ray Fianna is quadrupling the production of interceptors. How much of that is truly needed given that the US occupies tremendous competitive position and our deficits are sky high? Yeah, the balance unit against deficits is always the challenge,

39:53but you don't, you deterrence matters. Two things we're seeing in this world where we're shifting spheres of influence or shifting. And as a result of that, the definition of risk and deterrence matters. We always talk about risk. But I guarantee you, most organizations don't really embrace risk. They keep the comfortable kind of position and whatever. This is all about risk. Deterrence only matters and can work if you can exercise influence and you can prevent those with whom you are dealing, friend, enemy, whatever from exercising influence. That's what readiness is all about. So 1.5 trillion is all about what else do we need to make sure? It's a good investment or is it over investment? I mean, it seems like what the US accomplished around Iran and Venezuela is extraordinary. People are going to write documentaries and movies about this. I can't wait for the movie two years from now that comes out around this. No one else can hold a candle. I mean, is a 50% increase truly necessary? Or is there other threats,

40:57maybe like UAPs, your senior disclosure? Is some of that investment directed towards that? Did you have any insights around that that you can share? Well, I would tell you, nobody's going to know whether this is an effective investment until after the fact. Look, as an intel guy, I got beat up every day because we failed to see the collapse and the cancer of the Soviet Union and we invested tons of billions of dollars in reconfiguring our military and as an army guy, the reconfiguration of the army was phenomenal. From Vietnam to what we eventually became about five years after the collapse of the embassy in Saigon, it was an army that I almost didn't recognize. I'd been through those intervening ten years and I thought, my God, look at, we have professionalism at multiple ranks. We're increasing our capabilities to exert power. We have long-range fires. There's accuracy. There's

41:58mobility. We had none of that in Vietnam. It was a horrible, horrible slog. So this army went, my army went through this amazing transformation and it worked and then it was validated in desert storm, right? It's phenomenal. Then the Soviet Union collapsed and then we get the shit beat out of us. And they said, did you know the Soviet Union was going to collapse? I would, I'm glad we wrote those checks. Well, on that note, I am going to pause everybody because speaking of writing checks before we run too long, we do have to take a word from our second sponsor here. So we're going to run to that one. And when we come back, Chris, you're going to have the lead because goodbye everybody. I have to go teach a class. So now a word from our sponsors. Thanks. Quick note before we continue with today's episode. Bits and Bips now has its own dedicated home. We're spinning off from unchained and launching a standalone podcast and YouTube channel focused on the Fed macro AI and how it all collides with crypto. If you want to keep up

43:00with our weekly live streams and macro meets crypto breakdowns, make sure you're following Bits and Bips directly. We won't start publishing until March, but getting set up now means you'll be ready on day one. You can find the new Bits and Bips channels at unchainedcrypto.com slash Bits and Bips. You can also find us by searching Bits and Bips on YouTube, Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. General, so we were talking about letters of mark over the commercial break, which is near and dear to my heart. We have to do a dedicated episode on that one. But as we finish out the Iranian discussion, one thing that's been on my mind is new technologies. We talk about new technologies on the show a lot. We've seen AI on the battlefields. You know, a lot of this I think was really the laboratory was a Ukraine. This is the first thing we've seen of an American use of some of these technologies. We've seen directed weapon, directed energy weapons. We've seen what's called the Lucas lettering edition. So essentially we took the Shahed drones that the Iranians are very good at. We replicated it made it better, which was like a very

44:01low cost munition that people should be using. So as you think about the technologies in the battlefield, what has stood out to you that either surprised you or you said, wow, that's amazing, that's going to be the future. Mostly what we're seeing today in terms of the application of AI in terms of facilitating targeting and being able to get that level precision because our munitions are that precise and our targets are that precise and very difficult to identify. Yet there's sufficient, there's sufficient data out there that is being mine so that you end up with a target that gives you a level of confidence that it can be serviced appropriately. That's phenomenal. And then the growth of the unmanned autonomous unmanned systems is phenomenal. In many cases, they are not many think we could just buy a bunch of drones and that's how we're going to fight every war. We need to look at what's taking place in

45:03Ukraine very precisely. Look, this is a frozen conflict. It's frozen and as a result of that frozen status, drones have become increasingly important because you can't move on that battlefield without being detected and then targeted instantaneously. You can't light a cigarette, you can't move back, you can't arm a weapon, people see the movement, you're gone. The reason that's working is because neither the Ukrainians nor the Russians had the capacity, have the capacity, present tense, to conduct operational warfare, to really achieve maneuver that gives the movement that then allows you to have maneuver. There's a difference here and to try tactical successes together. And the Ukrainians and the Russians are not going to achieve that in the near term. They've got to inculcate, aggregate, understand what the lessons learned are from this conflict, put that back into their training profiles so the units that are now coming forward

46:06have a different capability than those they're replacing because the ones they're replacing are getting hammered. So we need to be able to understand that the growth of these unmanned, unattended platforms is significant but use them to enhance what maneuver is required in a ground in a ground fight. You got it. Have you been tracking this argument between Dario, the CEO of Anthropic and the Department of War? They just sued the Department of War today. A great strategy to sue your customers, last I checked. I know. It was a very big open AI fan. I gave them some reservations around AI. But I love to hear your reactions. Without like, how do you think that's going to play out? Well, it's being used and I think the contract terms are we've got it for

47:07excuse me, another seven months, DOD. We DOD has another seven months. Yet at the same time they've said we're going to push away. I don't know how you can do both. I simply don't understand how that works. Yet right now it's working with great accuracy and efficacy. Yeah. Why would you not continue with that? Unless you're something that's on the topic of good. I hear you're making the case that AI is actually more humanitarian because you can use the data to be more precise in your lethality. And so it sounds like through that lens as someone who's a general officer, you're like, give me these tools because they can probably, you know, the big questions around, you know, automated lethality. We're going to get to a point where the bots are much better than us. I mean, they're better at in their crypto space and generating yield in certain cases. So why wouldn't you, if you had over the keys to that bot, if they're better at that targeted lethality, minimizing, you know, civilian casualties? You should. Exactly. The answer to the question is,

48:10of course, we're moving in that direction. But you know, the human is always going to stay in the loop. Chris, you and I, I think, have had this talk. You know, depending upon the context and the risks associated with that context, you're either in, on or out of the loop. You're, you're called. You're called. So it may be autonomous and look, I'm alive today because we had an autonomous system that did its thing. Yeah. Me too. He's alive today and you go. Wonderful. So General President Obama was asked on a talk show a few weeks ago, whether there are aliens, which he replied, yes, then a Trump on Air Force one said, Obama shouldn't have said that. And when asked if there are, he did not deny it. There have been decorated service men, current informer that I've testified in front of Congress. There's a subcommittee focused on disclosure. Are there aliens? Blink twice, if yes, if you can't, just blink. And then that means yes

49:11too. So I'll take I'm under duress right now. I don't know. I don't know about aliens. I do know about ghosts. I live in a 250 year old house. I think there are. Yeah, I think there are. Okay. Yeah, heavy breathing. The veil is thinning out. They strive up. Before we wrap up, let's end. That's the way that's a high note right there. You know ghosts. Yeah, you know, I want to rather bring it all together, though, from a market's perspective. So like, so do crypto, like you and I, you know, we disagreed a little bit. I'm like apparently the bull on the show. I'm bullish now. I'm bullish now. Welcome. Welcome back. I've been there the whole time. Long story short, this market, it's showing that we're oversold. I mean, despite this volatility that we're seeing, due to political, I mean, crypto has been very strong. And is this, do you think it's time for that for a breakout? I think you get a tactical bounce opportunity just across animal spirits in general, right? So animal spirits describes those assets

50:16that respond to fear of missing out and human emotion and all across the board. It's not just digital assets. Look at rocket lab today. Look at hymns. Look at uranium stocks. They're all rally. So I think that's what it is. However, I would underscore that there are deeper issues underneath the market, like enjoy the rally, but these deeper issues are around private credit, capital markets dependency around the open AI and the optics of the world at about trillion dollar fantastical revenue. They can't back. And industrial stocks, which are incredibly expensive that are overpriced and showing some signs of weakness. So there's the tactical view where I'm constructive and the strategic view where I'm a bit more cautious. Add to that midterm area, which is generally more risk, fears of inflation with commodity prices over us. Yeah, I'm watching midterms as well. One thing that really jumped out of me last week was when the bombs were flying, Trump put out on

51:18truth, you know, doubling down on the clarity act and telling the banks to get their act together, trying to push over this final policy issue. General, we're trying to get this bill pass for crypto, and he weighed in while the bombs are flying. That again tells me that this is going to get done. I think it's around a 51% chance, but we're in the black. Why? Because if he's got the chips, and if he wants to spend them, he's going to spend them and it's going to get done, that could be very, very positive in the space as well, which I'm watching. Also, I think this could play in either direction right now. In the prediction markets, looks like the Democrats are very poised to do much better in the elections than they had. So how this plays out as we approach November, it's going to be very, very interesting. But look, I think sentiment store remains really, really bad. Fear and greed is really, really bad on the fear side. Fundamentals are improving, like, you know, the other thing that we've seen this week, I'm down on FIA Boca, which is this double-secret, TradifyCon conference that nobody in crypto knows about, but they kind of do. All the institutions are here. We're seeing dance partners getting together. We're seeing,

52:21you know, just this morning. We saw Crackin' in Nasdaq tie up, Crackin' and Deutsche Boise tied up before that. We saw ICE with OKX. So like, we have this institutional building that's going on, slowly moving forward. You know, while sentiment remains really bad, I think clarity is looking better by the day. That's not conventional thinking, but I think it is. So generally, I'm with you, Ram. Good setup. But I'm not sure how long it's going to last or how it's going to play out. Plenty of unknowns out there. I agree. All right. So any other thoughts, General, before we call it a day? I got to take you, Chris, you described our president in the middle of warfare. Although Congress hasn't declared a war. Everybody wants to know, is this a war? I'm sorry. It's a special military operation. Well, frankly, Congress, if you wanted a war, declared a war. It's your job. It's not nobody else can declare a war, so stop bitching. But also, you described in the middle of this conflict,

53:25he's working on a crypto bill. He also, if you recall, as a former college-level NCAA jock, he's working on working with the NCAA. Do you see that the other day? You know, like, we got to figure out this NIL stuff. I'm going, wow, double-tasking. It's amazing. Keep those balls in there. It's unbelievable. Yeah. Well, he's got a lot to do before his term is over. Did you see? Again, I'm off topic. Did you see what they did? The state of Mississippi, if you get NIL money, it's not taxable. Ole Miss. So you're going to go play for Ole Miss next season, General, or what? My grandson's there. Are you kidding me? All right. Get on it, brother. Well, Rob, any final thoughts today? No, terrific. Thank you so much, General, for joining us. Every minute was truly insightful. Thank you so much. Thank you, Chris. Thank you for your friendship, partnership. I appreciate the invitation, immensely. Yes, sir. And check out Academy Securities. We're both on the advisory board there, and it's been great to partner with you, sir. So thanks again.