Transcript of Is the U.S. Navy About to Break? | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

Hey everybody, welcome to a new episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm here with Mick Mulroy, Mark Polimeropoulos, and Jonathan Hackett. I fired Jack Murphy. He upstaged me last week and I'm not happy about it at all. Uh, so he's gone and we'll never see him again.

You better do so. All right, dude.

Yeah, he started sharing the screen and shit. I can't multitask like that.

You usually take a nap after a while.

Yeah, yeah, I just let you guys go.

Yeah.

So yeah, a lot going on. Thanks, Jack, for covering. I mean, Jack will always be on the show at some points. It was a good show. It's fun to actually listen to it rather than like worry about hosting it. Like, it was good to just turn it on and listen. Pretty good podcast, I have to say. So a lot happening as usual. I mean, there's so many things happening all the time, it's ridiculous, to be honest. Some stuff I want to cover today, definitely the USS Abraham Lincoln and, uh, the controversy happening there. There was reports early this week that up to 6 guys jumped off. I don't know how true that is, it wasn't confirmed. We know one guy jumped off for sure, right, and they scooped him up. Um, so supposedly the conditions are terrible on there. Obviously probably are because they've been out 250 days, they haven't seen port in 200. They're heading back, or they're waiting to get relieved by a new aircraft carrier that was already planned on coming in. This comes on the back of the Gerald R. Ford that was out there for like some 300 days and that had a big, uh, fire in it, and it's probably like out of commission for like 18 months.

And that's like our new shiny one, which is interesting. A lot of aircraft carrier news. I wish Andy was here so I could trigger him a little bit because I know his hatred for aircraft carriers, but Um, there was also a bit of news talking about how Trump wants to redesign the new catapult system to revert it back to the old one. It's like, that would cost probably tens of billions of dollars and probably take 20 years because we have no shipbuilding capacity. So a lot happening. Obviously the Middle East's a fucking disaster, we all know that. Um, a little bit of like, we're like kind of like a holding pattern when it comes to Iran. Um, Strait of Hormuz is not open. Despite what everyone's saying, like all like the administrative— administration officials are saying. Um, Lebanon seems to be getting really bad too. I mean, there's just videos out there of them like basically controlled demolishing an entire village and stuff like that. Um, so there's so many places to go. Also, you know, the CIA getting busy in the Galápagos. That story out of Washington Post. Let's start with John Hackett. Where do you want to take it?

You pick whatever you'd like.

Yeah. So there's two interesting things behind me here. One is my enlisted rank, which you can see on one shoulder. And then you can see there's an image up there of me standing on an aircraft carrier when I was working at the US Embassy in Jordan. And we were taking the US ambassador and the crown prince to go visit the flag mess on a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, just like the Abraham Lincoln. And I was there as a diplomat, but there was a problem. I was enlisted. And I think what a lot of people don't understand is on a Navy ship, things are very different than the rest of the military for the officer enlisted divide. And I think that's what's kind of missing from all these stories about the conditions on the vessel is that it was already terrible for the enlisted. It's worse now, but it's not as bad for the officers. And a lot of times it's the officers who are the ones that get to talk. I mean, the spokesman for the Navy is an officer, right? The SECDEF is a retired or former officer, not retired, but former a reserve Army officer, right?

There's a lot of officers. Hung Kao, the Secretary of the Navy, officer. Where are the enlisted members being able to talk about what it's like on a vessel? And I mentioned that because that day when I took the ambassador to the flag mess, I was stopped by a lieutenant who was about 20 years old, 22 years old. And he pointed at a wooden sign on the wall and it said, "Officer country." And he said, "What are you doing here? You're a gunnery sergeant. You don't belong here." This is while I'm standing with the Crown Prince of Jordan and the US ambassador.

Right.

There's no question that I should be there, but there was a problem. It's because I was enlisted. And if that is the culture on any Navy ship, you can imagine how at 250 days of that, it gets to grind on people. Right. So there's probably a cultural morale degradation going on here, regardless of how many days at sea or what the exterior conditions are. But you've got high humidity, high heat, high stress, high pressure. There's no mail getting to the vessel. They're not getting liberty. If you could see what the showers look like, they're terrible anyway. The beds are terrible anyway, right? Even if it's day 1 underway, these guys went out on this vessel thinking they'd be back in 6 months. It's month 9 now. So when you think about what can I pack in a small sea bag, which is what they're allowed to bring with them, a small green sack, what can I pack in there? They're only thinking about 6 months of packing. They're not thinking about 9 months. They haven't gone into port except in Oman. And then in Southeast Asia wants to, to refuel, not to go on liberty.

So for 9 months, these guys have not actually been able to go out on liberty anywhere. You can imagine the kind of things going on for the lower-ranking folks down there. There's probably some— some would describe it as criminal activity, most likely going on on the vessel just because of, you know, things break down over time when you're at sea, right? I remember a few years ago when I was in Afghanistan, there was a story about a prostitution ring that someone was making a very high cash economy, revenue off of this just because people are out at sea and like, what else are they going to do? They have no, nothing to do. They don't have Wi-Fi. They don't have computers. They don't have telephones. This is the enlisted I'm talking about. Remember, this is not the officers. So these enlisted people, some of them are having their, their kids are being born while they're at sea. They haven't even seen an image of them, let alone talk to their wives. One of the sailors that jumped off that was in the water for an hour, his wife is in San Diego and she gave birth on month 6 while they were at sea.

They're at month 9 now. He's not seen his child, not spoken to his wife. She shared her text messages with a local newspaper in, in California, and that's how I know about this, uh, where he was basically over a few months talking to her and, and you could see the downward spiral in his communication with her over that time. There's only 5 people on that 3,000 to 5,000 person vessel that are qualified mental health professionals. Can you imagine how much, how difficult it must be to get an appointment with one of those people? Not only that, they are also on the ship for 9 months too. They haven't had a break either. Right. So you're talking about every single person affected kind of in a global sense on that vessel. And I just want to put that context there because I think that's kind of missing from the understanding in the general public about— I saw some people saying, well, they're at war. Isn't that what's, you know, what they're supposed to deal with and blah, blah, blah? Yes, that's true. But in places like Afghanistan, I was sharing a base tent with my team leader who was an officer.

He and I slept on the same ground together. We had the same sleeping bags. We ate the same food. We suffered the same.

Oh, that's right, man.

Absolutely. And that's the Marine Corps, right?

That's the entire ethos of the Marine Corps right there. You just— Right, exactly.

Suffer together and leaders eat last. This is a really big thing. And on a Navy vessel, the flag mess, they're eating steak, they're having juice. They have E-7, what the equivalent of a Marine Corps Gunnery Sergeant, which is a chief in the Navy, pouring orange juice for them because the officers can't pour their own juice. Right. And I witnessed this myself when I took the ambassador there.

Right.

Very different than the question of, aren't they at war? Can't they suck it up? That's not what it's like on the ship. That's not how it's designed. It's a, it's a series of traditions that are unshakable for the Navy at sea.

Where did those traditions come from? Really? Like, uh, the English, right?

These, these are hundreds and hundreds of years old. Exactly. Yes. These are ancient traditions. And even some of the things we do, like crossing over certain lines of latitude and getting hazed while doing so, we don't call it hazing anymore, but you know, going through some ordeals. Those are all very, very ancient traditions that are still part of that, that culture on the vessel. And so is the criminal justice system on the vessel. There are separate laws for what a commander is able to do to another American citizen on that vessel that they cannot do while they're in the United States or even in a foreign country. There's a separate set of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that allows them to put certain extreme— what we would describe as extreme punishments. For example, restriction to bread and water for a number of days, that they're only allowed to eat bread and water. And, and the amount of evidence to prove that they should require that sentence is very low compared to what it— what any sentencing would be in the United States. So it's a different world, literally, on a vessel. And I think that's important to point out.

Can I ask you guys something? And, and this is really applicable. I know, I, you know, I did my kind of conflict zone time for, you know, several years, and there were some, certainly some, some hardships. But I think both of you guys are probably more qualified to respond to the notion of that you see in the media now, especially from the right, let's just be honest, where people are saying, you know, suck it up. This is war. This is what happens. And it goes back to just my thinking, like just because let's say collectively we had it bad, does that mean that the next generation has to? Wouldn't it be smarter to have great conditions for the men and women who have to fight? I mean, that's the thing I don't understand. You see this and it's playing nonstop on Fox News about they're trotting out veterans saying, "Hey, this sucked here, this sucked there. These guys are a bunch of whining pussies." And that seems to me to be missing the point that wouldn't we want to have our men and women in the armed forces have as best conditions possible to fight well?

I mean, when you see your veteran brethren, some of them coming out and saying that kind of stuff, "Hey, we had a bad everyone else should. Like, what is your response to that?

Well, unfortunately, I think a lot of this is politics, right? So if it was, you know, they'd be outraged if it was a political opposition to them, and they're sucking up buttercup if it's their guy. So I mean, I'm not saying that's everybody. I'm sure that there's plenty of vets that are saying, hey, you know, I ate MREs for fucking 6 months, you know, try that, dude. And I slept in a ditch. Um, but I, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. So I agree with you, Mark. I mean, obviously you should try to— you should try to make it the best scenario, best conditions for all the troops— Army, Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, Space Force, I assume. Um, because that's what you do as leaders, right? It's the mission and the men and women that carry out the mission. That should be the ethos, and I think it is, of the military very large. I think Jonathan's right, there is a different different culture of the Navy and say the Marine Corps and the Army. And I, you know, I was both enlisted and, you know, an officer. But I remember when I was a Lance Corporal, some captain was late for duty, asked to get in front of me.

I was like, yeah, of course, sir, you know, whatever. And some major had seen him but didn't see the exchange and literally yanked him out of line and I don't know what happened to him, but he went outside with him, right? So that's the ethos of the Marine Corps. Like, you don't— leaders eat last.

Anyway, that was the Marine Corps version of rendition. Yeah, see you, bud.

And there's probably a lot of Marines that have a similar story, but that's, that's kind of like, like, you know, you're, you're nothing as a Marine officer if it wasn't for your Marines, period.

I mean, so then you do a deep dive, and I think I've read in the Wall Street Journal, like, so how has this happened? And it happens logistics issues, right?

What I was going to say though, ration.

So let's, let's just go to the nitty-gritty. The, you know, they're running out of supplies because, you know, you know, Bahrain is all fucked up and the Navy base, you know, you know, perhaps is, is not operating as effectively. And so there are legitimate logistics. It's not like the Navy wants to have this happen. Of course. Yeah.

Right.

So go back to the, the issue and I'll make everything about the Marine Corps. Um, but to go back to the, first of all, this crew has done exceptional. They seem to kind of— I try to bring it up on the ABC, even though they don't ask questions, but they're fine with the answer. But it's like they have done 10,000 sorties. They have been— it's not just that they have like the longest sea deployment, it's in combat and they're like the main target. Let's just set the stage. Like how great would it be from the Iranian perspective if they actually hit even if they didn't necessarily take it out of commission, but hit an aircraft carrier, right? So the main target, 10,000 sorties, they're part of the naval blockade. They certainly were a huge part of Epic Fury. So hats off to them for the effort they put in. And not just them, right? All the other sailors and Marines that are aboard these ships that are doing this great work out there. So let's start with that. Secondary, I think there is a part to this, the fact that they are in combat, right?

They're having a hard time getting logistically resupplied because I think we still do most of our resupply the old-fashioned conventional way, side-by-side ship shuttling stuff back and forth, right? So not what the Ukrainians are doing with multi-drones, different stages, park, hide, not humans. right, that are delivering stuff to frontline troops. In this case, they happen to be on an aircraft carrier. So there's an element of this that we need to get much smarter on how we do combat resupplies. We don't put people at risk and it's continuous because every time you do, and I have, I've seen it. So I obviously don't know the operation to resupply an underway ship. I've seen it from the, from a ship, but it looks super complicated to me. And if you're, if you're under, you know, constant threat, it'd be even more complicated. So there is an element, I think, that's fair, that the officers on the ship could be doing everything they possibly can to make sure that their troops are getting— their sailors and Marines are getting everything— it's still having a hard time. So let's be fair about that. It's easy to sit in, you know, Montana talking about what's going on in the Gulf of Oman.

There's something good to say about, about congressional oversight too. And this is the bipartisan issue because there was a whole bunch of Republican members of Pentagon was saying, uh-uh, this ain't right, this is unacceptable.

It deserves to be.

Yes.

In some ways, this is the congressional oversight finally working.

Yes. And they, and this needs, so the other thing I would say, Mark, to your first question is it doesn't do the Pentagon any good to come out and declare that everything's fine. It just tells everybody, okay, you don't really care because there's no way you could actually have done an assessment already. Right?

Isn't that exactly what the Secretary of Defense did?

That's not helpful at all. It just tells all the troops like, okay, so he doesn't really care. I mean, some of the issues are probably going to be exaggerated. Some might even be fabricated. Not saying they are, but maybe. And some are going to be real. And some of it are going to be real because it's a combat situation. And some maybe there is a logistical issue we need to change. But to do a real assessment shows that you care about the actual folks that are carrying out the mission. And if there's, and it doesn't mean that necessarily anybody's done anything wrong, but the one thing that makes the US military the best, biased, but the best, is a continuous self-assessment to get better. And AAR, for example, is, yeah, yeah. And AAR is all about the negatives, man. You don't go in there and say, we're great, next, right? You literally just focus on the negatives, even if the mission was successful. Right? The best units, if you're in their ARR, you're like, wow, you guys are hard on each other. It's like, that's the point.

Yeah, for sure.

So, I think we need to do a full assessment. I agree, Mark, at least to the point of the question is it needs to be bipartisan. And that's what the oversight committees do. And we've all seen them out on the front lines, you know, to give them some credit. And I know Mark has, and I imagine Jonathan has too, but I know Mark has. We've seen like, people on the House Armed Services Committee in forward operating bases during times of active conflict. I'm not saying that should be the ideal, but they can go out to ships that are underway currently in mission. They can. I mean, there's a CNN reporter that was on there, right?

So you guys would be impressed with me in a very rare occasion is that I actually did a trap landing on the GW.

Okay.

You know, it was the COD. So it was just their carry-on board delivery. And I think I was briefing the air wing on some surface-to-air missile threat and we missed the arresting hook the first time and I nearly crapped my pants. We came around and landed again. I said, you guys did that for me. They're like, no, we fucking missed. Yeah, it's one of those times I spent overnight. It was, it was, I spent a night there and briefed the air wing, the captain.

I remember officers are enlisted though.

Well, this was the F-18s, a Marine.

No, no, no. I'm saying, were you treated as an officer and enlisted guy? You got state—

I mean, look, when you're, if you're a civilian, yeah, CIA people are very—

I'm just, I'm being a prick.

No, I mean, it was ridiculous the treatment we got, but yeah. And then it was, they were like, hey man, you're from the CIA. You're pretty cool. I'm like, you're fucking F-18 pilot. You're cool. So we went back and forth and who's got the bigger cool factor.

Cool factor.

Clearly was not me. But it's, but I think your guys' input on this is huge too, because this now has gotten totally political. And, and, and Mick, I did the same thing on, on MSNOW, just trying to have a nuanced conversation because the first— it's outrage, and you're like, okay, this is a little more complicated here.

Sure, but when you have the, the SEC def saying things like that, and then like literally like there was like a spin, uh, program going on, there were people going on, on TV talking about spinning it, and then you have the president saying not long enough. It's very difficult for it not to be political unless you have a— if you have working fucking brain cells, you know what I mean? Like, because if a Democratic guy said that, if Obama said that, there'd be articles of impeachment.

Yeah. And if this happened under Democratic administration, the Hill GOP would be outraged. And this is just the way it is here. But I hope that things are— I mean, ultimately, yeah.

But the fact is, like, most presidents and their cabinet members would not be going out and spinning this as everything's fine in terms of like this specific part. And a president, Republican or Democrat, would not go out and be like, you know what, nah, it's not long enough. And like, what's the excuse for that kind of comment, right? What, he's old and dotty? Like, that's not a great excuse because he's the president.

Jonathan, I was in the Counterterrorism Center years ago. We used to— we have detailees, as you know, and we had an NCIS special agent detailee. In CTC, and he had just come from 6 months on board a carrier, and he was the resident special agent for 5,000 sailors. He said it was, I mean, this is like an urban city. There was crime, like there was prostitution, drugs, crime, fights, assaults, rapes. He said it was nuts. 'Cause I said, were you bored out there? He said, are you kidding me? He said, there's a whole city underneath there, and there's a lot of crazy shit that happened. And so, And, and you know, throw on top of that, you know, 20-hour days of, of, of, as Mick said, 10,000 sorties of combat, you know, shit's gonna go crazy sideways too.

There are entire economies that develop on there. Like they'll have like little chits that they use for money cuz there's no cash sometimes. So they'll use that to trade. They'll, they'll have gambling rings that, I mean, there's a lot of creativity. It's actually very fascinating from an economics perspective to see like how do these things just organically develop and what actually has value and doesn't have value and what can be traded for as currency. Fascinating.

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It's almost like they're prisoners.

And there's no end in sight. I mean, to kind of expand this into the policy thing is like the blockade ain't going anywhere.

Yeah, that's right.

I mean, this is, we gotta fix it. Cause it's not like, well, that was bad. Let's hope that doesn't happen again.

Well, here's something for you guys. I saw something, someone, I can't remember her name from AEI, American Enterprise Institute, who studies naval warfare. And they said that the Navy's about to break. They said, AI's product paper, and I can find it and send it to Dee to put out on the site, is that the Navy, this is not sustainable for the Navy to do this. They, you know, when Trump says, you know, great, we'll do this forever. Hex says that you can't. The Navy will break. That's kind of interesting and pretty scary. Particularly, we're not supposed to be in the Middle East. Supposed to be doing, you know, Asia, China.

Right, right.

Our national security strategy. I mean, a broken Navy, that doesn't help.

And isn't it our side too? Like the Western Hemisphere wasn't that part of the Five Strikes?

The George Washington is coming from Indo-Pacom, right?

Yeah, actually that's the last one to leave Indo-Pacom. There are no longer any nuclear-powered Nimitz-class vessels in the 7th Fleet AOR. So if China wanted to, this would be the moment.

So like, take our national security strategy. Zero, zero, uh, that's in— I think they're in Vietnam. It's gonna be about 9 days, that's what I'm told, to get to, get to the Gulf of Oman and replace the, uh, if China wanted to take Taiwan right now, or 9 days when we, when the George Washington shows up in the Middle East.

What would we be able to do? Nothing? Strongly condemn it?

Not much. They know they're kind of on their own. I was just talking to somebody, got back from Taiwan, who said their plan is to go from being able to produce 10,000 drones a month to 100,000 drones a month by 2030. Their entire plan is to basically out-Ukraine China.

Yeah, I was going to say, like, yeah, take something out of Ukraine's book, page 100%.

100%, man. And they got money. So how would you like to be the Chinese Marine that's on the amphibious ship trying to make that journey? Yeah, 100 miles, 2 million drones coming your way from subsurface, surface, and aerial. Jesus. Very interesting.

And Mark, to talk a little bit about like where the Navy's at in terms of like its preparedness and stuff like that, our shipbuilding capacity is absolute dog shit. Especially compared to China's, right? I saw somewhere it said China's shipbuilding capacity is 232 times ours, right?

Yeah. That is a big issue.

Well, they're on that, just saying that how, you know, how basically it's like, okay, the Democrats are complaining about the state of the Navy, except that Democrats are blocking funding for increased, consistently for increased shipbuilding. That's probably fair for the general to say, but But yeah, I mean, it's, can you guys comment though? I mean, I'm not, I'm like, I don't even want to pretend to do this. And I pretend to do a lot of shit on TV and even here. But this idea of like, what is up with this catapult system that Trump has now seized on? We're going to go back and re— is this going to, is this completely nonsense? I mean, you know, it's going to cost us billions and this is ridiculous or will this never happen after 28? I mean, what is he talking about here?

Well, the important thing is that he could say that, but it's a congressional involvement that would be required to actually do it because this is a different appropriation from what the original appropriation was for those vessels over their lifetime. Logistically, it would have to happen at the midlife period, like the refitting period that these vessels have, which is every few years. So that also would push it down the line. So there are a lot of kind of spoilers that could jump in here to prevent this from ever coming to fruition in the first place.

Why doesn't he just have it go better? Or is it not?

Well, this is a person who said that their body was like a battery and that the battery runs out if you exercise. So they might have a different grasp of how things work.

I'm no expert either. I've talked to plenty of naval aviators who just shrug and say it's never going to happen. So to your last point, I mean, it's, it's, if you, if we had a podcast that responded to every statement, you know, like, like that's all we do.

We never talk about substance.

I'm not saying this isn't substance because, you know, if the president says it, it has but, you know, they just go, yeah, it ain't going to happen. There's a 0% chance. It's, it's not even— that's their opinion.

It's not going to happen. Is this a thing that he's obsessed with, like wind turbines, like the little windmills you see everywhere? He hates those. I mean, someone's got something in his head that we have to go back to World War II era steam catapults. And this— and I think, doesn't the Ford have this new system which is actually working well?

I understand it from talking to them. They're, they're like, the system's working fine.

Yeah, it's weird.

Okay, there's always going to be something that breaks on every system, right?

You guys want to talk about that, uh, the plane switcheroo thing at all, or no? Because it's kind of old news, but we didn't do a show, uh, until after that.

What perplexes me, and maybe this is, it's Monday morning quarterbacking, but why not have just switched the president to the DOD plane, let the DOD plane take off, just keep the Air Force One I mean, how long would it take to be out of the threat area? 10 minutes, right? Right.

It's in Turkey. Yeah.

And then just say, announce, hey, we have gotten the president out of Turkey by alternative means of Air Force One because of a threat. Because they know the threat's going to come out and they know it's going to be— and then they could tell the people on Air Force One, hey, you can take off on Air Force One or you can get off, you know, it's up to you. But the threat isn't toward the plane anymore because the president is not on it. It's— see, I— maybe I'm being too oversimplistic, but they've created a scenario where they actually did use the plane as a decoy. They made it seem like he was on the plane.

There, there, I think there's a, there's a couple things on this. First is that I don't blame the Secret Service at all, you know, and because, you know, there, there's threats that come in, they have to make a decision. They have a different criteria. You know, there's all this thing that was a low confidence CI assessment. Well, that just means it's uncorroborated. It means nothing else.

Yeah, probably low confidence.

There's no second or third sourcing. And when this threat comes in, the Secret Service, and also the Secret Service, they will take input from the agency, from agency analysts, but they have their own analytic shop that has to make decisions on threat based on their unique role. And then it goes to the kind of the protective division there. So, I mean, you know, I don't blame them for what they did. I mean, it's, you know, it's a zero-fail mission. The other part that, and this is going to drive Dee crazy, everyone is kind of shitting all over the Israelis on this. Well, the Israelis collected information, let's just say, and they legitimately collected a threat report. They didn't make it up. I don't think they would make it up either because they would get caught doing it, but maybe it's sketchy. They have to pass it. Any liaison service that is a threat to the United States with zero exception has to pass it to the US because if they don't and something happens, that's the end of the bilateral relationship. And so—

And not just against the president.

Just front and point, period.

Yeah.

It's just, it's, it's part, it's baked into the intelligence community, baked into relationships. And then, and you know, and then you do go, you know, uh, forward with the process of assessing the validity of the threat. But, you know, they, they had to have passed this. Um, uh, uh, and so, you know, and I think it also, um, there, then, you know, the, the, the key part of this, of course, that we kind of forget is that stupid Cuttery plane is totally incapable of transporting the president or anybody else safely. And so that kind of masks it. But I think this story is gonna go away a little bit. It just certainly, there's distrust, even more distrust between the White House and the press corps. And just to kind of bookend this all, you know, this has happened in the past. And then Clinton, in a trip to Pakistan during the Clinton administration, they did switch planes. The press was told, the press pool is small. I think there's only, there's less than 15 or 20 members of the press. And they are, they can be trusted and they have been in the past. But I think this is just a reflection of the complete lack of, transparency and the kind of failure right now, this administration and how they—

but in that case, there wasn't a threat to the plane, right? It was just him trying to get into—

it wasn't— yeah, it was just, it was just for, for, for general purposes of safety flying into Pakistan during the, you know, um, but, but, you know, it's a, uh, what a— I think this could have been handled in a much better fashion, but I don't, I don't blame the Secret Service and I don't blame the Israelis for this time. By the way, the Israelis are always going to try to, you know, influence the US, whatever.

Yeah, I don't either.

I just think they do a very good job of it.

They could have done a slight modification and avoided all this, right?

Putting— I mean, yeah, he would have let Marco Rubio take the fucking hit. He didn't give a shit. He was still on Air Force One.

There's so much good stuff like Saturday Night Live could do here, or South Park. I mean, it's just so good. But hey, you know, a lot of TV hits based on this.

Yeah. Let's switch gears a little bit to actually not really much. We're talking about Israel and what's going on in Lebanon specifically. A lot of, a lot of images coming out of southern Lebanon now. They're like wholesale demolishing entire villages that are empty, um, and there seems to be no really end in sight in terms of like the Israeli occupation there. Uh, what are you guys tracking on that? John, you go first.

Well, it's important to remember that Israel occupied South Lebanon for 18 years previously. This is not the first time they've been there, and we've talked about this on the show before as well. There are symbolic locations there in South Lebanon where there were a lot of battles during that 18-year period that soldiers now are returning to those positions up to the Litani River. And the Litani River has been that kind of last line of COVID and concealment for the Israelis back during the 18-year period previously. And it seems to be again, the kind of terrain feature that they're choosing as the northern limit, although they are penetrating out through that occasionally. But to your point, D, about the villages being destroyed, these villages are empty because the people were told they had to depart the villages. The IDF told them, you have to leave or you will be killed. This is the message. So these people listened. I mean, men, women, and children, some of them probably with Hezbollah, some of them with not with Hezbollah, some of them Christian, some of them completely unaffiliated with any political party left, right? They're displaced. There's over a million people displaced now.

Those places are empty, like literally empty of humans. So that means the IDF is going in there and destroying empty homes. The reason why would you destroy an empty home is so that people can't return to them. What they're trying to do is make a military zone in the south that is a de facto border or buffer zone that was supposed to be created with UNSCR 1701, which was the disengagement, uh, United Nations Security Council resolution that had a component of Hezbollah would disarm, the Lebanese Armed Forces would come in, the blue line, which is the line that is the actual border of Israel-Lebanon now, uh, on the ground. Would, would go away eventually because the Lebanese military would have sovereignty down to that border area, which never occurred. Hezbollah controlled that area. If you've ever been to South Lebanon in the last several years, you would see before Nasrallah was assassinated, there was pictures of Nasrallah and Ayatollah Khamenei, thousands of pictures all up and down the highway, the Seacoast Highway, up down into Nabatiya and these other areas. And it was absolutely 100% controlled by Hezbollah governance in addition to their militia wing, but it was not really Lebanon governing South Lebanon.

And you had other groups like Amal, which is Nabi Berri leads Amal. He's the Speaker of Parliament in Lebanon, but he was a warfighter back during the '80s. And he also has a controlled area that Amal controls. Amal was the parent organization of Hezbollah before Hezbollah became a group. This is all going on in South Lebanon. And what Israel's trying to do is destroy or delete that truth, that reality down there, and create a new status quo. The problem is that the Lebanese government is not being allowed to participate in that change. So that means there will be new conflict in the future because the actual country that owns that land is not being brought into the consulting process. And you see a lot of diplomatic activity back between President Aoun in Lebanon and the United States right now, trying to get the Lebanese Armed Forces somehow down there. There are these pilot areas and some other things being floated right now. They may work, they may not. It's hard to say because Lebanon has never actually had sovereignty de facto in the south. It's always been a different armed group, whether that's the IDF, Hezbollah, Amal, the Syrian armed forces, which people forget Syria was also down there during the '80s controlling a lot of this stuff.

So what they're trying to do now is something new. And when I say they, I don't mean just the IDF. I also mean the Lebanese government and the United States. So this is kind of a new moment and it depends on who sustains longest. And if Israel is the one that has the most sustained presence there, that's who's going to have the buffer zone. If the Lebanese Armed Forces can somehow convince the United States to help, it will be the Lebanese Armed Forces. And it should be the Lebanese Armed Forces. It is Lebanon. It should be the country's military. And there's also the internal security forces, the intervention regiments or the IRs. The 6th Intervention Regiment is the one that's down in the south. I actually trained them when I was there. Their mission is to actually secure the border area and make it so that Hezbollah doesn't have a place to operate. But these intervention regiments have been kicked out by the IDF. So even those groups are not down there. So all you have is the IDF down there. So I'll leave it at that. So you guys can talk about it, but that's kind of the context leading up to what we're dealing with right now, which is the annexation of Southern Lebanon.

Okay. Let's just make sure we get that headline up there. Guys.

So this is, I mean, from the Middle Eastern, uh, outlets that I do during the week. Lebanon's been the biggest discussion, so, you know, we're not talking about it as much, but they are. And I don't know that I can add much to what Jonathan just said. It was an excellent description of what's going on. I guess what I could add to that is, so we're looking at an election in Israel. I think it's October 27th. This obviously has a huge impact on what's going on now and what could go on in the future. So from talking to my Israeli friends, even if I wasn't asking them, they're telling me it's, it's looking like Gotti Eisenkot. And to be fair, the people I'm talking to are Gotti Eisenkot fans and actual friends. And if you're not familiar with Israel, everybody knows everybody, especially if you're in the military. He's very well respected. He has a— he is, you know, Obviously, he was a chief of the IDF, and he has a very practical view of things, although he certainly is hawkish, as you would expect. But anyway, for their, their take on what's going on right now is that his coalition, Yeshar, I think, will get his coalition.

So not just his party, which also includes Bennett and others. Would get 56, whereas Netanyahu's coalition would get 51 seats in parliament. You need 61 to basically be controlling. And there's about 11 that the Arab political parties will get. So it's not determined yet what the outcome will be, but I think Eisenkot's coalition's favored. If you look at like the prediction markets, if those are valid, he's higher than Netanyahu. A lot of— there's a lot of issues there. I don't know if we want to get into Israeli politics about, you know, ultra-Orthodox being required to serve, etc. But for what I'm being told by people, and I won't use their name obviously, but people who know him. So what— so for relevance for us, well, what's going to be the difference? Well, he, they think, is going to be much more inclined to do a phased withdraw disarmament plan, both in Gaza and in southern Lebanon. Because right now, basically, Netanyahu's like, I'm not just withdrawing anybody until they're completely disarmed, which is just a recipe for never happening, never happening, right? Like, obviously we don't like Hezbollah, we don't like Hamas, but if we're in their shoes, we're not going to completely disarm and then hope the IDF withdraws.

It's just illogical. So that's why in, in the, in the Trump peace plan for Gaza, for example, uh, it does have a fate. Like, you partially disarm, we partially withdraw. It's about trust, right? So according to them, he's much more inclined, as long as it can be validated, to do that. He's also much more inclined to have very specific stated objectives for the war in Iran with a clear exit strategy. So maybe they're talking to me, so they're talking to their audience, but this is what— and I've had multiple conversations with people not in the same conversation— they think Eisenhower's stance would be. Definitely a hawk, but in my opinion, a good way, but a very pragmatic one who would work hand in glove with the US. To try to end these conflicts in a way that's obviously acceptable to Israel's national security, but not a maximalist. And the far, far right, the Smoltrits and Ben-Gavirs, would probably not be in that coalition. So that factor would be somewhat mitigated. That just to add on to what Jonathan said. This other factor.

Marco.

Yeah, no, I mean, that— these are great summaries. I'm not gonna— I don't want to rehash any stuff. And Eisenkot, you know, I think you can consider him as, you know, is a centrist security hawk. Um, it certainly is going to be wildly more acceptable to the United States, uh, uh, most of the US, I think, uh, as well as, um, Arab states as well, too, uh, you know. And, and, you know, the— my only kind of And look, when I say concern, you know, Netanyahu has pulled rabbits out of his hat for his whole career. You just never know.

He sure does.

He's a survivor. So, so who the heck knows? But I think the polls, Mik's right, the polls are looking like his coalition, that his Yeshua Party is going to do well. I think just to, just to kind of a quick sum of his strategy, which is the right one, again, as a centrist security hawk, is you know, fight hard, but don't fight without a political end state. Don't fight without strategic goals. Netanyahu has none of those. And so, you know, in some ways that certainly would be welcome. You're not getting someone from Peace Now. You're not getting a, you know, a peacenik here because that person couldn't survive, you know, in an Israeli political election. But I think this opens a lot more possibilities. The only thing I would add is on Lebanon in particular, there's got to be a political solution. It just can't be military only. And the final, final piece on this is when you think about the missed opportunities with the Abraham Accords and any kind of expansion of it, it was simply because Netanyahu couldn't get himself to say, yes, in the year 2001 billion, we'll have a Palestinian state.

And he couldn't even do that because of the members of his coalition, the extreme right. And so Eisenkot will not have that. And so you could make an argument there is more possibilities down the line of the Saudis joining something. If a new Israeli government would at least say things that would be politically more palatable. It's just going to make things a lot easier for everyone. So it'll be interesting to see. And yeah, October is a, it's a, it's a relatively big deal, but don't count Netanyahu out. And this guy is, yeah, you're right. He's been right. He's been, people have said he's dead politically so many times. It's just unbelievable. And here's the other thing too. There's a big question on how much is Trump going to campaign for him? Donald Trump is wildly—

Yeah, he hasn't weighed in yet. He hasn't weighed in at all yet.

And so, you know, and Trump, I think, also knows this and is just kind of, and likes fucking with Bibi a little bit too. But you haven't seen kind of the, and you know, Netanyahu has taken, you know, more than half a dozen trips here. You know, don't be surprised if he tries another, does this again to come to the US to get this Trump endorsement, which Trump has not done. And one on that, now you're getting me going on geeking out on Israeli politics. What's interesting is the mess in the West Bank, with these crazy settlers.

That's also a big issue.

Even that are being protected by the IDF, not just the settlers, but even Ambassador Huckabee has called them, Ambassador Huckabee, who is as right-wing an American in terms of a lot of his fucking mind.

Yeah, we could say Huckabee has called them terrorists. These are the settlers who are going after the Palestinians there and being protected by the IDF. Yeah. And so even the US government doesn't like this now. So interesting times.

Well, settlers actually going against a lot of what the IDF is asking them to do too. This is really complicated. Like, they're like, this is the plan, you're not supposed to be here, and they're going, fuck you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And then they protect them anyway.

Well, I mean, in places where they, I guess, they are authorizing settlers to be, then yes. But there's also places where they are not that settlers are going and they're telling the IDF to get get them out of there. They're trying.

Yeah, they're stealing houses and the IDF is protecting them.

And there's also units within the IDF who are more ideologically, you know, close to the settlers. So it gets really complicated. And I think the, and I'm going to get that wrong, it's the Central Command. It's the IDF general in charge of this was removed recently. So it's the whole thing is very, it's very politically messy inside Israel, but poor Lebanon as usual.

Yeah.

And poor Palestinians as usual. Alright, last bit. Let's talk about Mark and Mick's old firm's escapades in and around Ecuador in the Galápagos. There was a report, an article by Washington Post saying that supposedly CIA or CIA contractors smoked a bunch of fishermen. Uh, John, give us more context. You're very smart.

Well, one thing to point out about Ecuador, that's— that is—

insinuation hits hard, Mick.

We need somebody to say something smart.

Mark.

Yeah. Let's turn to John.

Jonathan.

Well, let me distract away from the COVID action discussion and talk about the facts on the ground in Ecuador, which is that Iranians can get into Ecuador without a visa. There are very few countries on earth where that's true. And if you think about cocaine—

See, that was smart.

Yeah, if you could think about cocaine shipments out of South America.

Yeah, but I'm about to bite back at John even though I love John. Yeah, like, okay, who gives a shit? Were they Iranian fishermen?

Well, this connects in because—

Please, let me hear you.

This is a place where these guys can go without a visa, so there's obviously a reason for that. The cocaine going out of Latin America mostly goes to Dakar, Senegal, going into Europe and into Asia, which is a port controlled by Hezbollah. This is just something to kind of think about globally about why is Ecuador important. Why is, you know, obviously the drug trade into the United States is a big issue, but there's an international drug trade and there are parts of Latin America that are not focused on the United States. They're focused on Asia, they're focused on Europe and Africa. And some of that, a large amount of it goes out of Ecuador over through the land or out of the water over eastward toward Africa so that it can be further sold or processed or moved to make more money in, especially in the European Union where these drugs are very expensive. So I just wanna put that there because there's a lot more to it than just the US, Latin America, drug stuff we've been seeing with the current Trump administration. This is a very deep economic multi-billion dollar economy that goes out of Ecuador and Brazil and Colombia, not just to the United States, but to the world.

And there are also a lot of precursors coming out of India and China for methamphetamine that come into Ecuador and other countries in the western part of Latin America. And during my time when I was working on this issue about more than a decade ago, there were 3 factories in the world that produced the precursor for methamphetamine. 2 of them were in China and 1 was in India. The one in India agreed with the United States to not transship it without certain requirements so that it wouldn't get put into the precursor process for meth. But the 2 Chinese factories didn't agree to that, and they sent those precursors out to places like Ecuador and Mexico. And that's part of the reason we saw the increase in methamphetamine into the United States in the last 15 years, because of this route that we're describing here that you guys are about to talk about in great detail about why the US might be interested in covert action in that area.

Thank you for bringing it back. Yeah, because I was going to ask, I was like thinking of a question to like kind of like knock off, like, yeah, Europe and Asia love drugs, right? Just as much as America does. But we're definitely the lion's share in terms of market share from Central and South America in terms of where the drugs are coming from. And there's a reason why the CIA is operating and the US government is operating in the Pacific and the Gulf and in Mexico, as we've clearly seen reports, you know, that ground branch guys have been on the ground there. Uh, so yeah, yeah, tell us. So guys, tell us about it. Mick, tell us about every, you know, how do they plan these things?

You know, you already know from what our private discussion, what I think about talking about COVID programs, even if they're—

he did not listen to you, did he?

He did not. So I'll repeat it for everybody else. I don't think we should be talking about covert operations that are current. Uh, I mean, I understand why the media does. I mean, that's the way it does, but you know, uh, and I'm not even blaming them. I'm just saying that I'm here, and maybe I'm drawing an odd connection, but I just did a, you know, our regular Stoic podcast. We did it on The Odyssey. Well, what kicks off The Odyssey? What makes The Odyssey The Odyssey? It's Odysseus's incapability of doing something without freaking taking credit for it, right? Polyphemus, you guys know the story. He gets out of the cave, he wounds the monster, the Cyclops. The Cyclops thinks his name is Nobody. Just substitute Nobody for covert action. And then he's sailing away and he has to turn around and say, you know what, eff it, my name's Odysseus, the Sacker of Cities. And that is why it took him 10 years to get back to Ithaca, right? So I know it may be an odd connection, but what I'm saying is, Somebody who knows about this program— I'm sure it's not the actual people executing it— that knows about this program, if it exists in all these programs, is talking during the program.

Shouldn't do it. So I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll stop there. But, um, I just think that needs to be reinforced with, uh, because I, I'm speaking primarily to policy people because policy people, in my opinion, are the ones that leak the most because they're not on the ground doing covert programs. They don't see the consequences. It's all about— and this is both sides, this isn't a partisan thing— it's about taking credit sometimes, um, when, when the whole point of COVID action is not to take credit, it's to disassociate the U.S. government from the action itself. But anyway, Brother, love it.

Okay, so I'm gonna throw— just like Mick wove all sorts of cool shit into here, um, uh, I went to see in Philly— I went to see Camden, New Jersey, Avenged Sevenfold the other night. One of my— this is my, you know, my crazy love of heavy metal music. And the bartender at this little VIP thing— D, I get very fancy bougie, I got the VIP.

Of course you do.

And so, hold on, hold on, this is all going to be tied in— had a Marcus Aurelius tattoo. Okay. He said, dig your tattoo, dude. And he's former military, loves stoicism. So we're chatting about stuff and Mick, all the stuff that you're doing and stuff like that. So that was pretty wild. So that's excellent. I had to throw that in there cuz we're doing Odyssey stuff. Plus I actually, I watched Troy last night. I went back to watch that Brad Pitt movie.

Classic.

That's good.

Classic.

Certainly not as intellectual as the Odyssey, but still kind of, it's more of the Iliad. It's more of the story before the Odyssey.

Yeah. Kind of good stuff. On this thing. So just D, so just to have some fun with this, and I did this on a TV hit, you know, I basically, if you said CIA Galápagos covert action in a sentence, you know, that's not on anyone's bingo card. And in fact, about a week ago, my wife and I were talking and she's like, hey, let's go to the Galápagos. We have what, you know, we get all this shit from National Geographic. There's a trip there. And I said, I'll check it out. And she's like, you think it's safe with all this stuff that's going on? I said, sure. And then this happens. She's like, see, we're not going to Galápagos. We're going to get droned by. The old outfit's gonna fuck us up. No, but I think the way to do this safely in discussing this is it's not as crazy. US government interest in waters around the Galápagos is not crazy because as Jonathan mentioned of all the drugs that move off the orders of Ecuador, but also, and I went back and I did some research on this 'cause I was curious knowing that we'd have to talk about it is you know, I think it was a British publication, might have been the Times of London.

But basically, fishermen in Ecuador are paid a shitload of money to take gas canisters out to meet the drug boats. And so the— okay, so, you know, is the US killing innocent fishermen? If they are, whatever it is, but okay, but the fishermen actually have a big part of this story.

So we should smoke them?

Well, so we're saying the article is unclear. Some fishermen seem to have been missing, others were captured and then released. So I'm not saying we should do it. But I'm just saying the substance of this is not as outlandish as, you know, CIA covert action programs in the Galápagos. And I will say, this goes back to the overall theme. How in the world did all of us get stuck in the sandbox for 20 years when all the other people who conceivably could be having fun are doing it in the frickin Caribbean or all these nice warm areas? Oh, ships. I mean, shit. Whether it's Venezuela or Cuba or Mexico.

I mean, yeah, let's do drone. Let's have drone programs for everything.

No, I was saying let's do TDYs in nicer locations.

Yeah, I know, but I'm talking about what actually is happening, and it's like people getting bombed on fishermen.

Okay, so you're trying to be serious, and I am.

Yeah, I am trying to be serious a little bit. Yeah, I know you guys are trying to like, you know, misdirect and stuff, and I get they teach you that at the forum and shit, but like, this is my shit.

Polythymus.

Yeah, this is my show, and I'm gonna bring it back.

So I'll say that probably there's, there's a lot of, you know, questions from Congress, from the oversight committees going on about this.

I mean, question from Congress? Are we serious? Congress doesn't question a fucking thing.

Mark, I think the intelligence committees are going to be questioning a lot of this stuff.

I do.

Have they been since we started drone striking? You know, even if they are narcos, even if they are narco boats, like, have they been?

Well, it wouldn't be public if they were because they would be classified briefings.

Yeah, you don't think they're going to leak at least that it's happening or that the oversight committee's given something, given a little bit of guff?

The thing is, the Gang of Eight's usually pretty close-lipped. They're very disciplined. So at the higher level, they wouldn't be leaking that stuff. They're pretty serious about it.

Also, I want to ask a question to CIA guys here and another intelligence officer.

Who you claim is smarter than the CIA guys? Do we know this? We're keeping record.

Yeah, it's okay. It's— we're being recorded. So, you know, probably 6 months ago or so, I remember we spoke about it where like the CIA general counsel right before they designated or right after they designated cartels terrorist organizations. Resigned, right? And the deputy director took over the job as general counsel.

That's correct.

You're telling me a CIA general counsel, you know, the general counsel of the CIA, who, you know, usually you want to get your blessing from your own internal lawyers about whether it's a covert operation or anything you're trying to do, fucks off, resigns, and then they don't pick a new guy? The guy that probably came up with the idea for doing this stuff takes over the position That's— you're flirting with things that are fucking possibly maybe illegal.

There's a new general counsel though, who has been confirmed.

Okay, well, congratulations on him and the job or her. But you know, what's going on?

Let's win the House. All of this is going to be— there's going to be investigations on this. And there's legitimate questions. There's oversight that should be done on these kinds of things. It's not just the agency. It's also the US military strikes.

I completely agree with you.

I'm not saying there'll be more kind of robust, robust oversight. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. That's just—

and just remember when that happens that the CIA responds to orders as given by the president.

That's correct.

Right. So it, it— for some reason we always end up with like, it's our idea, rogue, right? It's like, I didn't know. Um, so I mean, it, it doesn't happen in the military, right? You don't blame the military for going to Vietnam, right? But somehow when they, when the CIA is tasked with something by the president, although it's briefed to, you know, both committees, it somehow ends up like it was our idea and that we were like exclusively responsible for it.

But at some point the question's gotta be asked, is it legal or not?

Right?

Of course.

Well, that's gonna be asked while it's happening.

It has been asked. I mean, there's been, there's been a lot of congressional scrutiny, but the Democrats don't control the Senate or the House. And so I think if they do, they will have subpoena power. You'll see a lot more, you know, oversight over foreign policy. That's just the way it is. That's nothing wrong with that. It's just, you know, but not to mention the White House General Counsel.

One of the things they do is they write memos that justify these policy activities. Looking back to 2008, the torture memos and all this stuff that, you know, came out, that's what those documents were for, was to cover the guys below the policy level so that they could go out and do those things. Even if it was a veneer that was later taken down, it was so that those lower ranking guys would not be prosecuted as individuals committing crimes. Alone. Instead, it was that, hey, there was actually a policy cover for this.

Gotta get your PLI, everyone. Professional liability insurance.

Yeah, we got it after that. Most of that stuff was just Sears school, by the way. Design was legal to do to us, right?

Um, anything else, guys?

I think we covered a lot.

Yeah, did we? Are we missing something? I feel like— no, maybe not. I feel like I had something in my brain that I wanted to attack the CIA guys about, but We'll leave it for next week.

They distracted you successfully.

But such bullshit. I mean, I mean, I know Mick loves stoicism, and I respect that. I know I love it. And then Mark with the other one. It's like, guys, it's so obvious. I mean, I know it was kind of the analogy did sort of make sense. Like, I'm not disagreeing with you that that analogy—

take credit for your act, right?

It's supposed to be covert ops. I agree. I agree with you.

Silent professionals.

Yeah.

There's a point on this that actually it's a whole separate debate, but covert action usually does get leaked in every— it does basically every one of our programs. And so, and that's when, when people tell me there's the, there's the CIA out there that you don't know about, they're doing all sorts of shit. And like, actually that's really not true. Everything that's coming out should be.

I wish it was.

It should be true.

But this, you know, maybe covert action should be eventually because, you know, people need to know, but not while it's happening.

Well, remember what covert action is, Mick. Covert action is the thing— I mean, it's, it's not clandestine. It's covert in the sense of an event occurs and we don't take credit for it, right?

It can be covert and clandestine.

Those are better. Something happens. Yeah, yeah. So it's harder to keep that secret. You just don't brag about it. But this—

you just don't say who did it.

Can't do that.

Yeah, like smoking fishermen in Ecuador.

I just, I don't even think they care. They're probably happy.

Have you seen the movie The Odyssey?

Yeah. How many times have you— I've seen The Odyssey twice. How many times have you seen it, Mick?

I've only seen it once.

Just once?

And my stoic buddy, he went and saw it on the theater that Nolan watched it. It's like the original IMAX theater with lasers and stuff up in Canada.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

Jonathan, have you seen it?

No, because I don't want to spoil my feelings about Troy, which I love.

Okay.

Ah, I'll watch it eventually.

Love the classicist. So he's, you know, there's even, even the historical stuff to argue, I think, is, is cool. Like the boat ain't right, or what. I mean, people get all uptight about it. I'm like, nah, that's cool, man. If you're a historian, then you want it to be historical.

It doesn't mean the controversy over this is so— in fact, uh, the Greek prime minister actually called Chris Nolan, thanked him, because now there's this huge interest in the classics. There's obviously tourism is going to go up more. I mean, But yeah, also it's a fake story, it's a myth, everybody.

It's based on truth. It's just based on truth.

The Trojan War, it's also a movie. Just go enjoy them. By the way, if you go and see Troy, Troy is historically incorrect as well.

Yeah, so is Gladiator, but Gladiator's awesome.

Yeah, it is. But at least it gets you back interested in the classics.

Love it.

Yeah, totally.

I thought it was very well Yeah, so if people watch The Odyssey, that's great, but also look up that, uh, that web— that, uh, article about— in Washington Post about the, uh, Ecuadorian fishermen.

Galápagos. Why don't you join the CIA? You can be chief of station Galápagos.

I would never pass the polygraph.

They have the oldest tortoise that's alive there. It's a 150-year-old tortoise in the Galápagos.

What'd you say?

Hormuz is part of the U.S. territory.

I'm excited to visit there. In the summer. What'd you say, John? We talked— spoke—

there's a 150-year-old tortoise in the Galápagos. It's the oldest tortoise on the planet.

I was planning on seeing it. Now my wife won't let me go.

She said CIA covert action program down there.

Okay, look up everywhere. Kind of looking around.

All right, boys, a pleasure. I want everyone to check out Mick's podcast, Applied Stoicism. The Pub in the Porch Applied Stoicism, that link is in the description. Mark P, he's got a book, he's got a Twitter account, follow him there if you want to rage at him over there on Twitter. John Hackey's got two incredible books, Iran's Shadow Weapons and The Theory of Irregular War. All those links are in the description. We got the Whitefish Security Summit coming up in February of 2027. Check it out. That link is in the description as well. Guys, a pleasure as always.

We'll see you next week.

That was a fun one. Absolutely.

Hello everyone. If you're hearing this, uh, you are not a member of the Patreon. You can get your hands on ad-free episodes that come out early, and you can ask us questions. Maybe we'll answer them. You can also watch the Team House podcast completely ad-free and early, and you can also watch it live as we interview our guests. Um, and it's the best way to support the channel. So if you can, if you're open to it, you can go to patreon.com/theteamhouse. That link is in the description. Uh, we appreciate the supporters and we hope you would consider being one. So it's patreon.com/theteamhouse. Thanks, guys.