CHINESE SPY OPERATION BEHIND IRAN'S DEADLIEST STRIKE ON U.S. TROOPS – w/ Charles Finfrock

0:00Hi, this is Dave Roberts. Heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, that's a risk. Summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything. That's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit. It includes Dr. prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses. So if you wake up sick, at home or on the road, you already have what you need. It's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home. Say $45 with code blue at urgentcarekit.com slash blue urgentcarekit.com slash blue. This is Dave Roberts. If you're heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, you're taking a risk most people don't think about until it's too late. Summer colds linger and can turn into sinus infections at last for weeks. Getting sick right before vacation can derail everything. And we are traveling, finding a doctor and pharmacy is stressful. That's why I ordered medical emergency kit. It's like having an emergency care and a pharmacy right at home. It includes essential prescriptions like moxasillin and generic z-pack to treat a wide range of common and serious illnesses.

1:00So if you wake up sick, at home or on the road, you already have what you need. No waiting for your doctor, no hours at urgent care, no pharmacy lines, no copays. Just match your symptoms to the right prescription in your guidebook or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. Start on your med sooner and feel better faster. Every home needs at least one medical emergency kit. 40 years online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say $45 with promo code blue at urgent care kit.com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgent care kit.com slash blue. And we're back and I should just let everybody know because I see the comments. The reason I go like this is because the team doesn't always have the audio listening. So if they don't see me flapping around, we'll be staring at each other for minutes until. So that's why I do that. I'm not crazy. Maybe I am, but I'm Brandon Wiker at We the Brandon Twitter ex the Wiker brief on sub stack. And I'm joined by Charles Finnfrock former CIA ops officer operations officer and intelligence expert.

2:05Check him out on Twitter and I'm blanking on the handle now. I apologize, but if you just type in his name, you will find him Charles. Thanks for doing this. Sure thing, Brandon. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So the report, I think it's CNN, you know, the report is that three US servicemen or members were killed by the recent Iranian missile fuselage and that Iranian missile attack may have been or likely was guided by Chinese satellite intelligence. So what do you know about this because it I believe it personally, but I as this been confirmed, do we know this for sure? What do you know about this situation? Yeah, so reading the open source, you know, reading the press and I believe I read an article about the Wall Street Journal as well. You know, it's hard from the outside to confirm whether it happened or not, but I presume based on the sources they were saying and based on, you know, the way that the article was characterized that the US government is pretty confident that that is factual.

3:16Yeah. What does this do? I mean, obviously the Chinese, we kind of know that Chinese have been helping the Iranians from the beginning of this war. Or I guess we shouldn't call it a war. It's a non-war war. But they've been helping out from the beginning. What does this mean for US China relations, especially now that we've got this summit coming up between Xi Jinping and President Trump? Yeah, I think that we could say China has been helping Iran out since well before this previous conflict, their weapons programs, particularly the ballistic missile programs, you know, helping them circumvent sanctions. So not nothing new on that regard. I would say China specifically providing information at supporting targeting efforts. Again, we shouldn't be surprised. I think what was it a month or two ago, we saw the Chinese spy ship off the ghost of Oman, probably providing information. And at this point, you know, with the amount of degradation that we have facilitated with the Iranian radar and the Iranian targeting perspective, they've got to be having some kind of external help.

4:22And whether it's Russia, whether it's China, you know, I want to say I'm not surprised, but I'm just not surprised. No, I agree. Now the interesting is the Iranians have been in the last decade launching a handful of satellites that they claim were surveillance satellites. Are they not able to depend on those? Have we disrupted the capabilities of those satellites? Well, so having a, you know, a satellite or two is different from having a GPS light capability. Right. So I think I think probably in what some of the things I've read is that they may be relying on the Chinese Beidou version of GPS. And so if we've jammed their GPS and we've prevented them from using our GPS constellation for targeting, being able to tap into the Chinese targeting, even if you've got the best information, if you don't have terminal guidance on your missiles because you lack the GPS function, then you can't get there. So, but I have never seen any kind of Iranian espionage satellite capability that would be significant, significantly useful in a conflict.

5:30If anything at this point, you know, commercial satellites, good gravy, you know, you can buy commercial satellite imagery directly or through a proxy or through China. That would give you the targeting fidelity you need, but it's that it would be that contact with the Baidou GPS like or GLONASS through Russia that would allow them to turn on terminal guidance on their weapons systems. Although GLONASS is better if you're operating sort of more, more north, as better coverage. Yeah, no, it's just I don't really it's it's fascinating to see this this play out, especially leading into a summit. What else are the Chinese doing to help the Islamic Republic of Iran in this conflict? You know, I think for me, this is just the arc of the way we're seeing great power competition play out, you know, in the 21st century. And so I oftentimes I think about us and the Russians, you know, it was the it was US and Vietnam, so the Russians fed the Vietnamese and let us there.

6:34The Russians in Afghanistan, we fed the Afghans, but the Russians there. Then it was us in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now it's their turn in the barrel in Ukraine. And from the great power competitions, you know, the Chinese supporting the Russians in Ukraine, make sense. And, you know, again, I don't think there's any mystery about us preparing the island of Taiwan to defend itself. So in a little bit of a way, you know, this is just the arc of geopolitical conflict playing itself out in different theaters of war. And so I don't think we should be surprised at all about China supporting Iran, whether it's militarily, whether it's financially, whether it's giving them some type of lifeline to help them with this crippling sanctions regime that we've got them under. Right. I think we could absolutely, I mean, I would be shocked if we weren't seeing additional intelligence being provided. And then I don't know weapons wouldn't surprise me, but I don't know how they would get weapons in at this point. Well, but I mean, they do have overland routes.

7:36You know, they've got the belt road, those rail lines in the north, and they've got also the Caspian sea routes with Russia. So, and we had heard about what a month ago, 400 manpads were moved in from China, I believe, about a month ago, into the waiting arms of the Iranians. And what I assume they assumed was some kind of an escalation that never came. Let me ask you also about the summit, and I couldn't find it in the last interview. I just found the article now. Bonnie Glazer is posting this about 10 hours ago. It's from kioto news.net. China is threatening to cancel the upcoming summit. If the US approves new arms sales to Taiwan, Bonnie then Glazer, she arms sales to Taiwan will resume. The only question is when, not whether or not likely in the next two weeks could happen after the summit.

8:40Given the fact that there is this tension, what is the over under that Xi Jinping or Trump or both just walk away from the summit? I would be surprised if they walked away because both of them, I believe, are looking for Trump obviously. I never know him to walk away from the summit. He'll talk to anybody at any time, whether that's good, bad, or indifferent. Now, President Xi possibly, but part of it makes me think he's setting the conditions for negotiation. There's a broad array of things that we've got more common interests than we have not. Particularly, I think talking about an AI framework and how we can protect ourselves from super intelligent, artificial general intelligence. I do think even if we table Taiwan, if we table Iran and focus on that particular issue, if that would be worthy of a heads of state meeting, I don't know. I think that probably should be.

9:40Absolutely. I mean, in today's world, when you hear the guys say, oh, it's fine. We'll probably all be extinct soon. Iran, Taiwan, who cares for all of us working for the robots that are running at the Olympics, Beijing there. Good gravy. I think in a lot of ways, there's a lot to talk about. I think there's a lot of major issues to talk about. So I hope they don't cancel it, but. I don't need. I hope they don't either, but then again, I don't know how much movement. There's going to be on any of this because it does seem like we're at an impasse. What about the situation? I think there's a lot of things that we need to be aware of. I think there's a lot of things that we need to be aware of. There's going to be on any of this because it does seem like we're at an impasse. What about this? And I don't mean to throw a curveball at you. It is related, but. You know, the Canadian trade talks have really imploded in a really bizarre sort of way.

10:42And they're going in a bizarre direction where now. One of our guests said that Mark Carney was talking about restarting military to military ties with the people's liberation army. In terms of possible training and the Arctic, there's been talk now about. Doing greater levels of trade for electric vehicles, possibly and some high tech stuff between Canada and China. Possibly moving Canadian energy to the Pacific coast to move it out to China. How significant of a problem is this? Is this just bluster? Because Canada is right next door. I mean, is this bluster or should we really be worried about the growing Canadian threat to the United States? You know, did you have this on your bingo card for 2026 a couple of years ago? No. So, okay, so my thought on Canada look we're involved with some pretty serious negotiations with them and some pretty tough negotiations.

11:42And so in trying to do that, they're trying to gain whatever leverage they possibly can. But the Canadians obviously have more in common with the US and with North America and with the Western hemisphere than they do with China. I think they're, I would hope that they're too smart to invite the wolf in to help guard the hen house here or the fox to guard the hen house. I think for me that's posturing. I can't imagine something like that happening. Yeah, I did that just betrays, you know, common sense for me. I've been surprised before, but no, I can't imagine. But it does seem like the Chinese as we're bogged down in another war, they're rewriting the entire global trading network. I mean, I've been, for my next book that's coming out, I did a deep dive into what they're doing in Chanke, the port in Peru and Peru. They're building the railroad connecting that port to, I think Brazil, the Atlantic coast there, they're, they've now created an exclusive transshipment route linking the port of Chanke to Shanghai, which bypasses the North American checkpoints.

12:52Are we going to wake up in another 10 years and find, it doesn't matter if we win all the wars, the whole trading network has been co-opted and rewritten by China. Yeah, I think, you know, I think, you know, and actually, actually, if I, if I relook at the question you just asked me, I would say from the Canadian perspective, I'm not concerned from the Chinese perspective, absolutely makes perfect sense. Yeah, you know, we've been playing in their neighborhood, we've got great relationships with people that are literally right on their borders and are building better relationships with people on their borders. And so, turn about on that as fair play. Now, I would argue, Brandon, that we have spent 20 years watching the global international trade system up ended in favor of China. And that a lot of the negotiations that we see out of the current White House is geared toward resetting those relations and bringing that back, you know, bringing manufacturing back to the US. And disrupting the global reliance on China for the cheap supply chains. And so, in a bit, China is still pursuing, but gosh, Belt and Road initiative and all the work that they've been doing over time.

13:55I mean, this isn't new for them. They just can, you know, continuing on with the drumbeat. I think the fact that we're confronting them on it and forcing our, you know, and confronting in a tough way with traditional allies that we would have not thought about this. I think that obviously is new and different, but I have very quite a bit about, you know, the country's wanting to decouple not just from China, but decouple from the US. Whether it's Europe, you know, trying to decouple from our technology or our EVs or their reliance on us and their concerns about our trust as a partner. Yeah. What about the, we're having the bricks summit going on right now in New Delhi. My previous guest, Larry Johnson was another former CIA guy was just saying that, according to him, the, the, they issued a joint statement condemning US and Israeli unilateralism in Iran. This mirrors a statement two weeks ago from the Shanghai cooperation organization in which they also less directly, but they did the same they condemned US and Israeli military actions in Iran and then announced that they were going to be forming possibly a SEO development bank.

15:10And they were certainly going to be conduct. Hi, this is Dave Roberts heading into summer without a medical emergency kit. That's a risk. Summer colds can linger and getting sick on vacation can derail everything. That's why everyone needs a medical emergency kit. It includes doctor prescribed medications to treat common and serious illnesses. So if you wake up sick at home or on the road, you already have what you need. It's like having an urgent care and pharmacy at home. Say 45 dollars with code blue at urgent care kit dot com slash blue urgent care kit dot com slash blue. This is Dave Roberts. If you're heading into summer without a medical emergency kit, you're taking a risk. Most people don't think about until it's too late. Summer colds linger and can turn into sinus infections at last for weeks. Getting sick right before vacation can derail everything. And we're traveling, finding a doctor and pharmacy is stressful. That's why I ordered medical emergency kit. It's like having an emergency care and a pharmacy right at home. It includes essential prescriptions like a moxasillin and generic Z-pack to treat a wide range of common and serious illnesses.

16:12So if you wake up sick at home or on the road, you already have what you need. No waiting for your doctor, no hours at urgent care, no pharmacy lines, no co-pays. Just match your symptoms to the right prescription in your guidebook or call their telemedicine doctor standing by. Start on your med sooner and feel better faster. Every home needs at least one medical emergency kit 40 years online in minutes and it's shipped to your door and say 45 dollars with promo code blue at urgent care kit dot com slash blue. That's promo code blue at urgent care kit dot com slash blue. Acting trade now among the SCO members in their native currencies, divorcing from the dollar. Is the US, are we being taken down as the world leader here? Yeah, I think we're going through a period of transition. I think we're reestablishing what our position is going to look like in the global order. And you know, for me, people ask me a lot about the bricks and about the Shanghai cooperation organization.

17:15And I'll be honest, I don't get real worked up about either one of them. Why? Because China is going to be the dominant player there. They're going to be trading in their own currency. However, comma, right? China is going to be pushing the you want as the currency of choice. And the reason why the dollar under under rights, the international financial order is just the general trust in faith in the US dollar. Now, I would say we've done quite a bit over the last hour, many years with our money, money printing machine to erode that trust more so than than any, you know, perceived political up evil now. But I just don't think there's enough trust in any of those if you if you think about the Shanghai cooperation or the bricks, whose currency do you want to go for? Who's currency you're going to trade in there? And so as long as we don't go away from the petro dollar and, you know, oil and things like that, I just can't imagine that those other countries want to trade in the Chinese you want over the US dollar. Yeah, but at the same time though, they are establishing the infrastructure that that would allow eventually to shift. 40 trillion dollars in debt we are and counting. It does seem like they're hedging and then all the gold they're amassing in China and in Russia and India and Turkey.

18:26It does seem like possibly they're hedging here. Let me ask you this, the Chinese seem to be very intent on asserting their control in their their part of the world. How likely do you think a Chinese run on Taiwan is is is is and what do you think that might look like? Would it be a conventional military strike would it be a blockade? Would it be a slommy slice? What do you think that and when do you think that might play out the air forces convinced 2027? I don't know anymore. I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I don't know, you know, China and I'll use the old trope right China plays the long game and they've got a hundred year vision and yada yada. I do think they're reasserting their hegemony, you know, trying to assert their hegemony in their hemisphere, which okay, you know, I get it.

19:31I think they're in a big country. You know, okay, even the formation of a development bank, I feel like they've looked at what the West did after World War II and how we we influenced the world and how we built our power by developmental banks and things like that, loaning money to other nations and how we kind of control the international order in that regard, particularly the financial order. I think that's very attractive to them now specifically your question on Taiwan. I don't know what what it would look like would it look like a massive cyber attack would it be a coordinated deliberate manipulative, you know, a series of deep fakes cyber. I was at a conference a couple of months ago, I think what a what what what a what a DEF con maybe where we talked about the undersea cables and the vulnerability of Taiwan to undersea cable cutting and being cut off from the international. Communion in that regard. It's hard for me to believe that we would see a traditional maritime amphibious invasion that just fits into our our our wheelhouse from the perspective of I can't imagine we would ever be surprised from it.

20:39We would have a lot of indications and warning that it was going to happen. I think it would be more likely that they if they thought they saw weakness with us or they thought that they saw that we wouldn't stand up for Taiwan, you know, then is it going to be some kind of blockade. Some kind of blockade some kind of cyber attacks and kind of blended, you know, blended operation. Well, can we stand up for Taiwan is their political will is their economic capability capacity and what about our logistics because it looks like we are depleting ourselves in the quicksand of the Middle East. You know, I sat and talked to Mario. I don't know a couple of months ago when he was challenging me on that. He said, hey, you know, the US is depleting its weapons stock pile. I said absolutely not. There's no way we've been designed to fight wars on two fronts. I don't believe those reports and now, you know, I think it's well to be clear under Obama. It went from a two front standard to a front and a half. Yeah, remember that. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So and we're at a front now, although we could maybe argue whether Ukraine's taking up the stock pile of a half.

21:43But certainly, I think, you know, it's funny with the American military, it's not a matter of can we it for me, it's always a matter of will we right. Right, we've got superior weaponry if we choose to use it. Right, there's a reason why we've got a nuclear triad and we've got a lot of if we want to bring the pain on Beijing, we could do it if we, you know, it would obviously be painful for everyone involved. But that's just a matter of I'm basing would also bring the nuclear pain on us. I mean, 100% 100% right, I mean, it would be it would be a horrific, but this was the balance of power in the Cold War. Mutual shared destruction. Listen, don't cross the line. You know, whether we're talking about Cuba, Berlin or now Taiwan, you know, that framework kept for a long period of time. Let's work on a negotiated settlement, but we don't want to bring out the big sticks because it will hurt too bad for everybody. And that maintained that balance. I feel like that was the reason why, you know, we find ourselves in a middle east fighting it over. We're fighting over places where there's proxy wars, but very few places where we're actually, you know, next to each other in a conflict.

22:48So yeah, because. We have the political will if it comes to it, we have the political will, Brennan, I don't know the answer to that. Yeah, I think if we do not, I don't think we do. I don't think we have the economic capacity. It's funny because I bring on will bring on military intelligence people. And they, you know, give a pretty standard. Well, what I'm, because I, you know, I was an analyst as well. So I'm used to hearing pretty standard response about the national security paradigm and whatnot. We bring on the finance guys, you know, and it's like, why would we do this? This is insane. We should be, you know, so it's just interesting hearing the perspective from the sort of the DC crowd versus the Wall Street or the Silicon Valley crew. Because it, you know, and then we have a guy from Shanghai that I interview pretty regularly who he's an American, but he does business in Shanghai and he makes a pretty good case for why it would be utterly insane from an economic standpoint for both countries to basically go into this conflict, this potential cover.

24:00In terms of the Chinese capability, I have asserted for a few years now, and I noticed defense priorities is now saying this, but I'm saying it for two years. It looks to me like the Chinese have achieved overmatch in the first island chain. And in terms of missiles, the volume of missiles, the range of missiles, hypersonic even drones, all of it. What are we at a point now where we just, even if we wanted to defend Taiwan or help Taiwan, we can't get in close enough to do that without risking key assets. I think Taiwan's a really interesting place, right? China has been able to develop since the end of the Great League forward and since, you know, since Dung came into power with with his economic reforms, they've been able to just build and grow without interruption and without involving themselves and any foreign entanglement. Instead of cost them blood or gold, right? Blood or treasure or capital or blood. So, you know, we've been through this Russia has been through this.

25:06So in a lot of ways, I've seen some really compelling arguments, I don't care how good their weapons are until you get out there and exercise until you use them until you learn those hard lessons of having fought war yourself. You know, you may imagine it's going to go one way or another way you may have all this great new technology, but until you actually do it, you know, you don't know. Now, I don't know which way that leans, you know, because in a certain way, if I put on my pants, if I put on my Xi Jinping pants, right, Xi Jinping pants, you like that, that's kind of roll off the tongue. I would look through this and I would say, I feel pretty good about the way the world is going. I feel like our influence continues to grow. I feel like this is a time for us to continue to grow and, you know, stay in the gym, keep getting stronger, because I see Russia bleeding. I see the US, you know, embroiled in another conflict in the Middle East, it's causing treasure. I see a midterm election that could go the opposite way, and you're going to have a latent duck US president that's going to spend the next two years being impeached and not being able to make any decisions. So if I'm China in a lot of ways, I may just sit and continue to build my capital and use my soft power or hard power economic hard power, but not military hard power to continue to achieve my goals, because at a certain point, I think for them, that that is, that's going to be a more effective strategy, and it just depends on the time horizon.

26:23Now, as you said, look, it fools Aaron for me, man, I was a China analyst a million years ago, and I looked at this and I'm like, oh, man, it'll be, you know, it'll be every single ruler, you know, by the time they get out, they're going to want to do this, and they're going to want to do this, and they're going to want to do the. John Zaman and Ho-jin Tao and Yadia, from a very US centric way, you know, the one thing I think was Xi Jinping is he's taking himself out of the cycle right I mean, we've made himself the emperor and so we don't know what his time horizon is. I am very skeptical nowadays that he's going to want to engage in a military intervention he that's just my view I used to say otherwise, but i'm looking at if you're sitting in Beijing, like you said, you're two greatest competitors Moscow and Washington. I mean, they're off the board for the next few years, they, they military, they can't do much, you know, especially when you control the world's rare earth mineral.

27:27Processors, so. And honestly, you're in a sprint right now to develop the stronger artificial intelligence that really is going to be the nuclear weapons of the 21st century. And so if I'm them, I don't want to take my eye off the ball, I'm going to continue with my economic development, you know, the risk, the risk of going after Taiwan, you know, that could cause internal dissent could cause, you know, economic hardship, they, they would just fall into a little bit of the same trap that we fall into and that Russia has yeah exactly exactly that we us in Russia just taking turns. Right, I'll put in the barrel right right now and China's been able to sit it out and just sit there and collect money, just collect money, money, new technology, economic dependence, now they're going to have a development bank, you know, just slowly, slowly, slowly South American Central America and Africa and we're just we're just going to keep on doing other thing, man, you guys keep doing your thing we're just going to keep making money. And then we'll you know, I mean what a what a for a communist country, what a great capitalist effort, hey, we're just going to stack your money and we're going to buy it.

28:29Right, that's exactly what it's a corporate takeover, hostile takeover. In fact, it mirrors very similar to what the United States did in the run up to the world war is is that we kind of, you know, just became the creditor and a thousand percent everybody else was involved in a World War one, then World War two, we sat in the back, we just made the money, we built the industrial capability, the war happened, they all these countries were destroyed and we're we're out there like, hey, look at all my cape, we got in late. We got in late, we got in late, we were able to sweep up the gains. I mean, we looked to me, the United States and feel free to correct me, but I to me, the United States looks a hell of a lot like the British Empire and the World Wars, where we're constantly intervening and getting involved early and earlier, draining the Treasury, we're highly financialized like they were. That's not a good place to be right now, not at all and Brandon, I don't know if you when you were a kid, did you ever play that board game risk? I did. Yeah, that's right, teaching my kids how to play it, too.

29:32Right, so you had two choices. If you became the the hyper power in that game and everyone was attacking you, I don't care how strong you were unless you made the bold move to take it all over, you would get cut apart on every front. You know, and I feel like in a lot of ways we are, we've been playing risk in the last 30 years and we've been overextended, we've been, you know, we're everywhere and everything to everybody while at the same time letting our own country sort of decay from the inside and what we can talk about immigration or yada yada yada, whatever, you know, just the the the issues that we've got domestically, but at a certain point, we can't be everything to everybody and all the money that we spent the $40 trillion with a T good grade, you know, and so a lot of ways, I feel like, a lot of ways I feel like we are the risk power that is just on the, it's right, throw our own mucking. We were wildly successful and we a lot of large s, a lot of seems like every California homeowner knows someone whose insurance has been canceled. That's where kin comes in. We can help with flexible coverage across all 58 California counties and policy options tailored to the risks you face where you live, including wildfire, wind and severe weather concerns.

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31:55For an aid lot of you know a lot of countries have gotten rich under the blanket of the protection that we've provided including China. Yeah and in our interest right let's just not let's not say we we did it because we're you know right altruistic although I think you know we're probably fairly altruistic as a country but a lot of countries you know Germany in Japan and a lot of countries have been able to rebuild Europe you know we've spent a lot of money on this over time and at a certain point. It's too much. It's too much and so now we're at that a little bit of an inflection point and I yeah if I was China move I would I would I would be the US in 1930 you know just sort of sit back and keep on keep on doing. That's right and you know and they're also in the process flipping Russia into their camp which is you know always beneficial to have that resource commodity base. Right next door it's not a natural fit but it's definitely becoming a very serious fit.

32:55You know it's a shotgun marriage that has become one of love and respect seems like so. Especially makes strange bedfalls that's right that's right so let me ask you then. With and I don't know you I know I know we weren't really planning to talk about this but with what's happening in Europe with Russia and Ukraine. British intelligence and Ukrainian intelligence are claiming you know half a million Russian troops have been killed as many as 1.5 million Russian casualties since the war began. Are any of these figures accurate because I don't believe anything coming out of either side in that particular war but I think it's hard I think it's hard to get a man count but at the same time we've seen you know early in the war the amount of troops that the Russians were putting into the conflict that we're being killed. The nancy their prisons and they were using mercenaries and now for you know when you start importing North Koreans right or labor again I don't know what the number is but it is a hell of a lot.

34:04And so I think for the for the Russians whatever percentage you know of their population this is I think it is significant and I don't think. So you know as I want to do right because I'm a former CIA guy and intelligence expert I was talking to a buddy of mine who's a former KGB officer that is live with us here in the US the other day. And we were just talking back through when he was telling me you know listen the KGB the FSB Vladimir Putin you know he doesn't get out of this a lot. He wins or he dies there's no yeah you know and and powerful motivator though well 100% he walked me back through the early the early heads of the KGB and it was how they all ended it was shot shot shot shot. And it was one of those like oh this isn't this isn't an negotiated settlement sort of civilization or something like this and and the red terror and how they maintain control by you know the force against their own citizenry that we've seen for Russia. We've seen for Russia and so you know whether we can trust the numbers of how many Russian soldiers have died in the conflict I don't know.

35:08Certainly we could argue the demographic hit and the impact to the people of Russia they're going to feel this forever and whether they're going to have their stolen grad moment where they're going to look back at it and say by God we we did it or whether this is going to look more like you know Afghanistan for them or some other conflict where they just get chewed up. I don't know what Russia will look like after this but boy again I just keep saying if I'm the Chinese I'm licking my chops yeah strong power on the north is having his legs cut out from underneath this here's the US is struggling financially you know in the debt issue and also now with this military conflict brand good I mean yeah yeah what about China's other pal the North Koreans you mentioned that they you know they've been rotating personnel into the Ukraine for the North. So when do the Ukraine front basically they got a lot of frontline experience in a very modern war our friend Matt Bracken who's a former Navy seal has asserted and I think he's right that any of the officers who survived those encounters were sent back to North Korea and given top promotions so they can sort of disseminate that experience to the other lower echelons of the North Koreans and certainly because of this the Russians have opened up the vault if you will.

36:24You can give in a lot of technology and capabilities to the North Koreans are the North Koreans they getting ready to pop off soon against South Korea you know I would say ironically of all of the major players right we talk about the four majors you know Russia China Iran North Korea. North Korea is probably in the best shape coming out of this other than the Chinese yeah just as you said now they have military leaders with frontline combat experience. They've got a lot of cachet you know with the Russians you know supporting them with weaponry and with with people I read a report not too long ago that talked about the economic booming in North Korea now of course there number one you know source of revenue was stealing from the US and the West. But hey you know whatever it takes I guess and so of all the people that have come out of this really well I feel like North Korea is is ironically probably in as good shape as anybody else except China. Yeah we don't even talk about North I mean you know I will yeah that's why bring it up because I've been I keep an eye on them and you know that they they signed recently another round of agreements with Iran.

37:35You have the South Koreans potentially absurdly I think sending of destroyer to help the US you know in the straight or moose or whatever. And the North Koreans are are are now possibly you know getting upset by that or you know so is it possible that they're going to do something is it possible that as partners of Iran. Iran is like hey we don't need you to start an war but can you do something to really kind of distract everybody. You know is I mean is this in the offing do you think you know it's interesting because I think probably Iran would welcome that however China wouldn't right if there's something that pops off in the Pacific that gets our attention and gets our logistics moving toward the Pacific that hurts hurts China. I think you know Iran or I'm sorry North Korea on this one again is probably one that stands to win from just sort of sitting it out and building a capital from all that the economic activity they have going on.

38:37However you know we've seen it time and time again from North Korea just when you forget about them just when they're out of your mind right that something it's like that it's like the kid at the table that you know everything's going well at dinner and he throws his mashed potatoes and you say why in the world did you do that. And it's just because I can because I can because I want something else I want reserved you know and I feel like that in the North Koreans up it just masters that yeah I feel like a couple of ballistic missiles and we'd probably like all right fine. Here's some concessions just just be cool we got other stuff going on you know and for China I think yeah keeping them under control however common if they do get a little bit round bunches you know something that we you know all throw some concessions at them and you know maybe draw the South Korean or the Japanese attention away from Taiwan could potentially be useful. Yes yeah and then speaking of Japan we have a one of my colleagues is former Green Beret independent war correspondent who now lives full time in Japan Michael Yon he sort of had like an off comment as we were logging off the other day and I was like I kind of want to follow up but he said that he spoke with what was it a Japanese military leader

39:55off the record who seemed really open suddenly to the possibility of exploring nuclear weapons development now I don't know if that's anywhere near a majority of the opinion I maybe not probably not but the Japanese are remilitarizing quite seriously conventionally there is a concern I think in Tokyo that the US umbrella defensive umbrella is not so good anymore anymore are we approaching a time period where Japan says okay America we can't depend on you we're gonna we're gonna nuke up you know I could see us approaching a period of time where Japan would say hey America we can depend on you and we're still gonna nuke up you know so they changed your constitution to allow for a national intelligence service now you know for the longest time they've only had a self defense force which is a name only right And I think at a certain point, you know, and again, this is what a world to live in what we're seeing in Germany and Japan

40:57Right now and almost at our at our request Right remilitarize, you know getting the fight. We need a good strong ally there and boy I keep thinking I've read some books man Satinorm McDonald joke about Rearmament, I don't think I want that. Yeah, yeah, here's a tough spot right we're 40 training that we have two choices right We can continue to be the world's police or we can we can build up a lot of people and say all right We're gonna stand as allies together now, but you got to pull your own weight well once we do that We've got to be willing to live with the consequences of you're gonna have a lot of middle powers That are gonna have you know that have a good economic situation Japan same thing is being able to rebuild their economy over You know since World War II onto the you know sort of our support Rightly so look great partner great ally great locations for us. It's not we know again We're not mother Teresa. We've certainly got what we need out of the relationship, but you know And if we're willing to and in a lot of ways, I think that's really the only choice for America at this point

42:02You know again playing risk we better find better find some allies and start sort of if we've got it If we've got a taper our sales let them build up a little bit and help help carry the load now That's the good news the other news is People like that tend to have their own opinions about you know foreign policy and domestic policy and right may not always be the way It used to be when you know Sam will come around and say all right, you know, you're with us. Let's go. Let's go do Whatever adventure we're on whatever side quest we're on and they're gonna they're gonna throw in with us Maybe that's for the better though if we're this much in debt Maybe we need to take our foot off the gas on some of these side quests as you say Maybe having a restraining element would be good A thousand percent right and I hate to say it but golly. Yeah, no, we have to we have to we can't continue to spend the way we're spending You know, of course we've been able to borrow money from everybody else and in print print money So I borrow a dollar from me and I only pay you back 50 cents because I printed another couple of dollars And so but the world's waking up to that game right they're waking up to that game and so yeah, no I think longer term from the geopolitical perspective

43:06and and you know Here's what I'm torn right as a classic conservative sort of small government not not You know not necessarily I wouldn't necessarily call myself an internationalist but but you know Hey, if we pull back from a few conflicts here and I know that somebody else take one on the chin Is that the worst thing in the world? I don't know. Yeah, yeah, I agree I agree I would not describe myself as an internationalist I'm not an isolationist, but I definitely want to focus on at least the Western hemisphere Western hemisphere is neglected and that's as a problem Let me ask you though about Japan one other follow about Japan if I mean they're already rearming They're already remilitarizing maybe not in name, but certainly in action Chinese View Taiwanese is fellow Han that you know, there's a cultural affinity there I have been told by people who are China analysts in the United States who are from China that

44:11There's a chance there's a very significant chance that politically G will not want to go into a major war with Taiwan Partly because they don't want to send Chinese boys to kill fellow Ethnic Han Chinese and what will be a bloody war? But everybody in China hates Japan and if they sense there's a threat there From remilitarize it especially if they get nukes Maybe not obviously an invasion of Japan, but maybe like a a war of the cities type situation China's got all those missiles They're all arrayed on the coast right across from Japan or right me, you know they can range Japan Um, could we be facing a scenario in the next few years where it's not Taiwan That gets targeted, but it's the rearming Japan that gets gets targeted in like a missile war Yeah, again, I would look at that as a very low for me personally very low likelihood

45:11You know, even if two pan continues to grow What China's going to grow as well and that you know a little bit of armament on both sides actually I think foster stability You know fine peace through strength, you know a little stability on both sides I think you know, I think your observation there about the Chinese not wanting to kill brother Han and Taiwan is is interesting and important As well as look this a one child policy generation Imagine your friend tells you she's taking an innocent family trip to Greenville, South Carolina We'll call her Emma the trip sounds great to you hiking at Jones gap dinner at top soil A room at the best hotel in town harmless, right? Here's the thing Emma and her family never return from Greenville. They disappear You search for answers, but nothing adds up Emma had a great life back home. You guys were best friends What happened? Well the truth is once Emma realized she could have access to Michelin recognized restaurants Nature local shops and performing arts all in one place

46:14Everywhere else started to seem a little Meh Emma's vacation is a cautionary tale if you're coming this way Don't forget to tell your friends and neighbors goodbye Visit Greenville South Carolina, but you may never want to leave Learn more at visit Greenville sc dot com You got one son Generally, right, you know how many of your one sons are you gonna want to die and what would that do to social You know the social order and in China and I think that they spend a lot of time taking opinion polls in China But at the same time You know that there have been significant you know throughout the course of history in China You know significant social people. It's left to left left, you know, the really big big changes Now I don't see I would like to see the the the the the Japanese continue to you know sort of grow and and and get a little stronger And that probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world for their economy You know defense spending always seems to help out your your economy if you don't mind a little debt Yeah, that's a key though is the debt. I mean look at Germany Germany is

47:18I mean they used to be such a low debt country not long ago and now Everywhere they're they're in debt and the the defense spending for Germany's not helping with that Yeah Yeah, no, I hear what you're saying though. I just I I'm a little bearish on the idea that defense spending stimulates the economy I don't know we'll see about that. Let me let last question here Putting on our big picture hats here I thought we've all we're all around the world man. We're Hey, yeah, well, this is good. I mean Ask you a predictive question Okay 10 years from now Where do you think the world order is do you think we're in world war three do you think that it's we've gotten over these issues and we're building Something better where where do you see based on current trends, which is always dangerous I know but where do you see if you had to brief somebody in government and give your analytical best opinion

48:21I'm where things seem to be going What do you see happening top three things? Okay, so top three things for me. I think the US will not be isolationist, but we will have pulled back quite a bit Assuming you know again, we we remain a full full-on Westphalia nation state here So that's one two. I think China will continue to ascend I don't I don't see them invading Taiwan. I think that they're going to be in a situation where they're going to be significantly strong economically militarily although they still won't have bloody themselves and so have that experience, but nonetheless And three, I think Russia will be going through a transition because I think Putin either way Putin will be gone He's old yeah, and whether that means that we're going to get some kind of significant political change or whether it's going to be a secondary You know tough man like Putin that comes in and retrenches it I think I think for me Russia is going to be the one that's really interesting because when he goes I don't know who behind him and his whole leadership structure and all the guys are Are old at this point. They're not quite the old Soviet polyburet, but I don't see where that's coming from

49:26And then I'll just give you a fourth in that yeah if we're still around Right and I'm one of these I'm not a doomer, but I have been following I'm accused of being a black pill the black pill Brandon is what they call me off. It's oh my gosh Look my p-dume is not zero. I mean I think whoever whoever Wins the AI race with these frontier AI models is going to have significant power And what I see with mythos and fabled and even the models that are since then and what that means for cyber security and for cyber espionage I think we're at the cusp of a massive Yeah Change and and I don't know not necessarily I don't believe in the sort of everyone's going to die, but but by god the first person This is nuclear weapons first person. It has it is going to have a significant advantage against everybody else Well, let me ask you one last question then sort of like an addendum here. I meant to actually bring this up when you mentioned it um Something I'm very confused by and I don't know if this is just salesmanship or if this is legit

50:30I saw Eric Schmidt former Google CEO He's basically an arms dealer now for the US military He was at a panel back in I think Year ago or maybe less and his comment was Really China's only at most six months behind us in sort of these really top level Frontier AI development programs um In fact, they may even be at parity with us Now what confuses me by that is it seems like China's spending a fraction on their AI development model It also seems like a key component of the AI race is the race for data centers the physical infrastructure We have at least Over 4,000 and counting data centers in the United States China has at most 367 If they're spending less and they have fewer data centers and they're only six months behind us

51:34What the hell is going on in America distillation They are training their models on our models right? So we're spending all the money and all the time and all the data to train our models And then they just turn around and what we've already trained and they train them on what we've already trained It is typical typical typical Chinese Modeling where they're not spending the money right? They're not developing a joint strike fighter. They just steal our plans They're not developing a stealth plane. They just steal our plans And so now they don't you know they'll develop a biotech they just steal our plans And so that's exactly what's happening with the AI model and it's one of the reasons why they're behind us And they will stay behind us, but they're not that far behind us because they're training off the models We're training now. I think it's fascinating You hear me get a little excited because I get a little worked up about this Look data centers in the US the and I've read all the guys I listened to all the guys and talked to all the guys the strength of our models is the amount of compute that we have in our data centers And so we have to keep building if we keep building We're going to be in great shape and they're never going to be able to catch up now

52:36So they distill they train off the models that we train great Second thing they do they're using them right? They're using our models to work against us and I use our models I Do some really wacky stuff with these models and the things that I'm able to do with them with prompt engineering and you can imagine as an intelligence officer who's got all the different former intelligence officer who's got all the different ideas You can do some really powerful things with them and I think they're using our models against us in ways that we wouldn't do it Well the hoodies apparently use the claw to target You know, yeah, yeah, I read one today that talked about you know one group using it to build bio weapons That who's using it to try to target missiles and then target men. Yeah, just adjust their missiles You know based on feet, so so I think that's the argument I think in the US if we just for the love of goodness if we get our heads out of out of the out of the south You know and focus on what we're trying to do build the data centers Right these are data centers now that are that are that are advanced from the perspective of there's not the water use

53:37Don't believe the Chinese propaganda Get out of the way build the dinosaur data centers keep the compute up And at a certain point we should be able to use this and I would like to say close them off the other thing We've got our semiconductors look naviti is here and we you know the chips act and some other things We've done to prevent the chips from going there Dario amade from from anthropic has said that multiple times The best thing we can do is prevent the Chinese from getting this Which is as obvious as saying we should we shouldn't send the the Soviet Union advanced computers No one would think twice about that you know For years like well of course we would I don't know if playing keep away though is gonna work anymore because the the Silicon Valley guys Don't want to do it. I know they say all the pretty things In public, but I know some of these these groups I mean if they can only make so much and we've got a market for them and we can buy it from them Yeah, yeah, I don't know I just you know I told light hizers team that I told I told light hizers team this in 2018 When I briefed them I said look you can play keep away with China on this for a little bit

54:40But if you don't have an offensive strategy to bring these things home And I know they they have the chip sack. That was like a little little You know and by the way TSMC you know being the point person or point group on that is actually not helpful because they have no incentive To really build out a semiconductor fabricator here because then that means you know we don't support them No, you know I'll tell you so I got a buddy of mine who's working on the TSM project in Phoenix massive massive build massive construct massive job opportunities for us construction electricity HVAC the whole shoot and match uh, I don't know in a lot of ways. I think that's you know that that's our superpower is Economic man you can't go against us in our economic engine Why they that was true at one time. I'm not so sure with the way we do things now. It's very bureaucratic and oh yeah No, no, look we're the we're the we're the what it was that the old about democracy. It's the worst system except for all the rest

55:44uh, I don't even know for a democracy anymore to be honest with you though with some I would still put our ingenuity look. There's nothing you know the things that are coming out of Silicon Valley The things that are coming out of the US from our The creativity and and the the front to your AI models you don't hear Anthropic or you don't hear open AI training on Yeah, yep, no doubt or training on these other models absolutely not they're training on our models Yeah, let me ask you one other thing one. Yeah, there's a couple things that I want to ask but I we're running out of time Uh, let me ask you about the data centers thing because again It just comparing contrast. How is it 4,000 plus data centers here in counting China's got a fraction of that And you're saying that that we got to keep building more To stay ahead It sounds like we're already by light years ahead in terms of the number of data centers. What why do we need more? Yeah, you know great great question So the more compute we have the faster the models will work and the more powerful the models will be

56:48And again, I just I just read a read a long book about this and that ultimately is what it boiled down to and that was the big Do you remember what the name of the book was? Yeah, it was uh Dario Amadei. It was Uh It's all right just the audience if you're interested look up Dario Amadei No, no, no, that was the great one look and I've read a couple of them recently, but the Amadei one was outstanding and it was called Uh See my eyes Oh, help it. It's the it's the it's a bio about it's a bio from If yeah, I always like to give people a book recommendation. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah No, you're good Dario Amadei's book everybody of those people in the comments who like to read just uh look it up on Amazon Yeah, and look at the end of the day, you know the the more compute we have it the more compute the more The strength of the algorithms and the more the strength of the of the models And that's what it was allowing us to drive the models and that was a big thing You know the big thing that was looked at and said well, you know Do we make better models and what they realized was

57:50At a certain point the models don't get better, but with more compute Yeah, we train larger neural nets and they're stronger and more complex and my last question here Maybe this is a sensitive topic. I don't know it might be Last last question related to the data centers There is a component Like because we have civil libertarians on the show and they bring us up all the time Yep, this will support and it a more comprehensive surveillance state won't it more data centers equals more computing power not only for AI and whatnot But for the sort of the national security intelligence Electronic gathering apparatus and there's some concern that that will be used against americans What do you say to that? Yeah, I would say that's a little bit misguided and it's odd I don't know where some of these folks are getting their talking points, you know, and again I would go back to you know Chinese propaganda that's that saying things like this If the US wants to dedicate our resources towards spying on americans

58:54We you know we just don't Right, we just don't we just don't and so more compute will be more opportunities for people that are learning to use AI and more Opportunities for commercial development I just I don't see that as a I don't see that as a thing now You're gonna ask me the most controversial thing. I'm getting ready to get off the phone here and watch the Ohio State University Well, I'm a I'm a I'm originally from south of indiana. So I'm a Notre Dame fan. So Okay, it's that time of year now You know, we got a lot of things going on in the world But we can't forget, you know, some of the important things No, but I think on the on the on the data centers. I really think for us uh, I think that's an important thing and I really hope that we don't hamstring ourselves uh You know from from whatever movements are trying to get us to slow that down Fair enough and you and I will I am sure circle back in a few weeks and uh, I really enjoyed talking and Sorry, we ended up going longer than I had planned, but you know these things happen. It's an interesting conversation

59:57I have another interview So he is Charles Finnfrock former CIA ops officer and intelligence expert type in his name. You'll find him on twitter x I'm Brandon wiker and I will see you in about a minute. Bye bye You Imagine your friend tells you she's taking an innocent family trip to Greenville, South Carolina We'll call her Emma the trip sounds great to you hiking at Jones gap dinner at top soil a room at the best hotel in town Harmless, right? Here's the thing Emma and her family never return from Greenville. They disappear You search for answers, but nothing adds up Emma had a great life back home. You guys were best friends What happened? Well the truth is once Emma realized she could have access to michaelin recognized restaurants Nature local shops and performing arts all in one place Everywhere else started to seem a little

1:00:57Meh Emma's vacation is a cautionary tale if you're coming this way Don't forget to tell your friends and neighbors goodbye Visit Greenville, South Carolina, but you may never want to leave Learn more at visit Greenville sc.com