Transcript of The Houthis Are Winning & AI Is Making Them More Dangerous | EYES ON GEOPOLITICS

All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm D. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett and Andy Milburn, my two Marines. Mick Mollroy out today. Congratulations to him. He just became a grandpa, so shout out to our boy Mick. Mark P. I don't even know what's happened to him. It's like I don't even know him anymore, and he's my fellow Greek. But anyway, back to the show. A lot happening over the last week. Dizzying again. We haven't shot as many missiles, I Iran, so I guess that's a plus. But the big story from a couple of days ago is the Houthis are making advances towards the Strait. I'm going to broach you this name. I always butcher it. That's why I call it the Red Sea Strait. Bob Almandeb. At the same time, the Saudi pipeline, East to West pipeline, got attacked by most likely Iranian militias in Iraq, taking that offline. If you're tracking the oil price, it's over 100 bucks after-hours. I think it's We're getting close to it. We'll see what happens when the markets open, obviously. The big crazy story that came out and actually on Anthropic, there's a huge story with AI, where AI is going to kill us all and stuff like that.

That deserves its own podcast on its own. But the little bit Anthropic put out a report saying that the hoothies were using clawed code for... And John will explain this better. Like missile telemetry, just getting a ton of information. Supposedly, Anthropic thwarted That's what they've said. Who knows how they're using it. If they're still using it, most likely they are. Also the AI, the grander AI story about it's going to kill us all and everyone's freaking out. That's another podcast entirely because there's a lot of argument to be made on both sides in terms of that. Another big part is we talk about freedom of navigation, and that's why we have 12 aircraft carriers and a huge Navy budget. But The US let, I guess, tanker companies and shipping companies know that there's certain windows where they can pass through the Strait of Hormu's with actual defense coverage. If that doesn't speak to our lack of control of the Strait of America, I mean, the Strait of Hormu's, I don't know what does. Obviously, our stockpiles are continuously being depleted because I do feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, guys, shooting SM6s, whether it's drones or ballistic missiles to try and protect tankers, I don't know if that's exactly cost-effective for us because those SM6s are not exactly cheap.

Obviously, we have the CRAM and stuff like that or the CWIZ, sure, but I'm sure that you have to let a missile or a drone get pretty close for the CRAM to be effective. I guess we have windows now in terms of if you want to transfer this straight. Also, I'll say another thing because you've seen a lot of talking points over the last couple of weeks about the straits bringing out 15, 20 million barrels a day. Absolute bullshit. You're either an idiot or you're lying, if you believe that. That's the case. We have a lot going on today. I hopefully will hit everything. Obviously, we saw that big Heretz article, Israel's elections coming up. There's an October surprise, I guess, in every election about how the UAE called up. The UAE King or leadership called up Bibi Netanyahu prior to October seventh and warned them about Yaya Sinwa cooking up something like a big attack, and nothing was done on Bibi side. Especially According to Andy's research in his book coming out, it seems like on the lower end of the Intel poll, the Union 8,200 people and the Schimbe people obviously saw that there was chatter about a big attack happening, and it didn't go to the necessary people for making decisions.

October seventh happened. That's a huge story out of Israel. It's more or less October seventh, whether you like it or not, has definitely changed the face of the Middle East. Our Middle East policy, too. It's not just Israel that's bombing indiscriminately. It's us, too. We're involved in this just as much as they are. There's a fuck ton of stuff happening. Sorry for the long intro, but there is so much stuff. Also, there's a fun little story out of Tablisi, Georgia, where the Trump organization is planning on building a huge hotel. Georgia, obviously, and the Dream Party, right? Is that what it's called? Georgia Dream. Yeah, they're aligned with Putin. Obviously, there's, I'm sure, a big undercurrent in Georgia about being anti-Russian, too, but there is a party there that's pretty aligned with Vladimir Putin, and they're all making nice to try and build a big condo development, hotel development, some 70 stories in Tablisi. The grifting and the money-making schemes doesn't end when you become president, I guess. That's basically what's happening in our world. I wish there was a good story, but there isn't. I don't know where you guys want to start. Let's kick off with the Houthis and get a general rundown of what went on the last week.

Hack it.

You go first. Yeah, so the Houthies have taken and surrendered territory at various amounts since 2014, 2015, when the initial most recent hostility was between Saudi Arabia Emirates and Yemen took off. The most recent stuff we're seeing is the Houthis regaining. They're in a position of regaining what they had previously lost. They used to control all the way down the Red Sea Coast, let's say 2015, 2016, until the Saudi and Emirati coalition combined together pushed them back. They took Parim Island, which is right in the middle of the Bab Al Mandab Strait. This is the Houthis took this island. They took Zugar and Haneesh, which are other islands. They're gaining very important pieces of terrain in the water, not just on land in the Tehama Peninsula or the Tehama Plain area. They're definitely exerting territorial authority further than they had in the past, let's say, 6 years. The change here is that the US was previously directly supporting the Saudis and the Emiratis in this pushback to push the Houthis back up into the mountains. This time it looks like the US is not doing that. In fact, I believe Trump was in Ireland the past few days.

In Ireland, he said that the Saudis need to basically figure it out themselves, which is a huge difference from how it was in the past. It's concerning because the Saudis had probably built their defense against the Houthis with the concept that the US would be there to help them. From a partnership perspective, there's going to be some offloading of responsibility between the different parties that are involved. So the Saudis were probably thinking that in some areas of our defense, we can put less effort because we know the US will be there to fill that gap, and vice versa. The US will know that same thing for the Saudis. And it seems that that is not occurring. Mbs, apparently, called Trump and asked for help. Trump said no. And that's an interesting development, especially because we just signed our one, two, three agreement or have proposed our one, two, three agreement on nuclear cooperation with the Saudis. So there's some areas where we want to help the Saudis. And one has to wonder, maybe that had something to do... This lack of support might have something to do with the fact that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed the Mecca Agreement recently.

So maybe that's a rebuke of that agreement from the United States. And interestingly, Turkey and Pakistan have not helped the Saudis in this recent development. This was supposed to be a mutual defense agreement, and the countries that signed it are not helping the third partner. That's also an interesting demonstration of what is this actual agreement supposed to do. We spoke on in previous episodes that everyone who signed that mutual defense pact has a different interest for signing it. The Turks want to expand influence into previously held Ottoman areas, which includes Saudi Arabia. The Pakistanis want to exert sovereignty vis-a-vis India and other interests in the area. Saudi Arabia has its own interests, and the Houthis are not of interest to the Turks and are not of interest to the Pakistanis to the degree they are for the Saudis. It's important to think from that diplomatic perspective of why are these countries not helping the Saudis? But that leaves the Saudis now wondering What do we do next? Because they have a real threat on their border now, more than before. They also have a threat in the Straits. They had to close the East-West pipeline, although that wasn't the Houthis, that was actually Iraqi origin strikes.

Now, they have two fronts they have to worry about militarily, not just from an economic perspective. There were several million barrels a day of oil moving through that East-West pipeline to Yanbu. Not only that, there are goods besides oil transiting the Red Sea. Two and from the Suez Canal. Now that is threatened in a new way that it was not previously to February 28th. Before February 28th, in the Straits of Hormu's on the other side, there were 20 million barrels a day of oil passing. Now, there's about half of that. Zero of that is Iranian oil. The rest of the 10 million that's passing through is Gulf GCC oil. The GCC partners are actually planning to have a meeting with Abbasaragchi, the Foreign Minister of Iran, this week to talk about the straits of Hormu's and how to move oil back and forth there in some agreement, which is the first time that Iran and the GCC have actually sat down and attended a meeting in person in Doha since 2024. There's certain moves on the chess board that are happening right now, and it's interesting to see. I wonder how the Saudis would react to these moves.

It's clear that they're trying to actually bring Iran closer because they see the US as further away. So this would be a point for the US to be probably more involved with helping the Saudis, because if they don't, the Saudis would probably turn in a direction that we may not see as in our interest.

Yeah, it's been 4 years, at least, of disintegration among the forces that have opposed Houthi, and then Houthi consolidation has all come to the fall in this last week. When was it? Back in 2025, there was a ceasefire. The finding came to a stop, and the Houthis used all that time to consolidate and build power. But then among the opposition, and John, help me out here, but the Saudi's backed or I mean, they still do back the NRF, which is the National Resistance... I forget what the F stands for. Someone's going to tell me that. Force. Force. The NRF, which Which is Tariq Salah, the previous President of Yemen. I mean, it was essentially his force. For a while, that was backed by the Saudis and Emiratis. And then the Emiratis started to back something called the STC. And the Saudis essentially drove the STC back. Do you remember that? It was just last year. And And it was at Hadramat. The Saudis were bombing, essentially, the Emirati-backed opposition to the Houthis. Anyway, so what you had was a fragmented force, right? Defending this coastline. And by the way, the coastline that just was taken.

You see things in the news. It was, what, 2,400 square kilometers. But the essential thing is it was the last port, Mokha, which was on the Bam, the Banda Al-Mandeb. So it now gives Houthi's exclusive control of that entire coastline. And because of the bickering between Saudis and Emiratis, there was no real coherent opposition to them.

Yeah, I think the Houthis are seeing this as a special moment for them as opportunity because the Saudis are distracted elsewhere. They're being attacked in their northern front by Hashdashabi or popular mobilization forces in Iraq, which is significantly attention gaining for the Saudis. Plus, you've got the Straits of Hormu as a challenge. You have decreased oil exports, all kinds of problems going on. The Houthis are probably looking at this as not the perfect opportunity, but a better opportunity than they've had in a long time to extend power in the area, especially as you mentioned, Andy, that Southern Transition Count Coalition that the Emiratis backed no longer is aligned with Saudi forces. That unified front in the domestic unified front Emirati forces, right? It was backed by the Emiratis, but then they withdrew their backing off the Saudis. Right. That left pieces that were unprotected and are still unprotected in the region, both in the south and the north for the Houthies. If people remember, the Houthies are in the mountains. The place they just took is in the lowlands. The mountains have been the historic stronghold that have been very difficult for external actors to push the Houthies in a direction of influence.

But the plane, the Tehama plane that's inside the Bab al Mandat, that's a critical area. As you mentioned, Andy, the last port was just taken. That's the area that actually matters for true control in Yemen. It's not the mountains. The mountains are just a defensive area. It's that low land area that really matters for who actually controls what goes on in Yemen. Even in previous history, like before the 1990s, there were two Yemen's. There was North and South Yemen. The reason North and South Yemen was separated like that, not just because of the Cold War, but because of terrain. One part of Yemen is relatively flat. The other part of Yemen is mountainous. The Houthis have, since the ninth century, controlled the mountainous area. So that's not really up for grabs. What's up for grabs is the flatlands. And the Houthis are looking at that flatlands right now and saying, this is the time to take it.

Yeah. I know we're going to talk about the AI-driven targeting, but the Houthis, we got to give them credit, right? I mean, there's a lot of joking about them being flip-flops, wearing Militia, and with the inference that they're not very sophisticated. But actually, they are fairly sophisticated. They're incredibly resilient, what they have done. I'm not a Hooffy fan. I'm just saying, you think about it, they've resisted the best efforts of the three most technologically advanced militaires in the world, arguably the UK, the US, and Israel, to defang them, to prevent them interfering with with the ban. And those efforts have not only been an unsuccessful, plus Saudi Arabia, all the resources behind Saudi Arabia. And by the way, the NRF is Yes, they haven't displayed a tremendous amount of fighting abilities, certainly recently, but it's a sizable force of five divisions. The Saudis were trying to form them into divisions, but that's the size of the force, 31 or 30 brigades. And the Houthis have just steam rolled through that. But getting back to their tactics, their intelligence is good. They learned the Saudis were trying to, in the wake of the Emiratis pulling out, the Saudis were trying to consolidate these disparate forces into a single one with a single operation center, which was an ambitious task based in Moca.

And and the Houthis had been focusing drone and missile attacks on Moca, on that operations center, and obviously to good effect. Then right after in consort With them having this success in Yemen, they've been targeting Saudi Arabia, you've probably seen. They've hit several cities, airport, Khmismashet. I Actually, the pipeline that was just severed, that was not the Houthis, though, right, John? That was-Right, that was Iraqi forces. Yeah, which may be some coordination. But they've been striking at the Saudi Arabian homeland in addition to causing mayhem in Yemen. It's just been a bad week for the coalition.

Really, too, since 2015, this is really what's What we're seeing today is an extension of that 2015 conflict that began when the Saudis crossed over into Yemen to start offensive operations. At that time, the Houthis had around 20,000 to 30,000 fighters with weapons. Today, 10 years later, they have 300,000 to 350,000 armed fighters. They've gone up an order of magnitude in the 10 years since this conflict has started, this localized Yemen-Saudi-Emiradi conflict, which is just an interesting development that if you're doing it in a purely numbers measurement of success versus failure as far as operations go, you'd have to question the success of the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, unfortunately. I think a lot of that has to do with terrain. Any war in Yemen, the principal challenge is the terrain. That's the same thing in Iran also, I think why the US decided not to use ground forces in this recent conflict. Because if you look at a terrain map, a topological map, it just looks very forbidding, and it's very difficult to invest forces there in a way that you're going to actually have ground force victory against the incumbent, the home team that's got control over that rigid mountainous territory.

Yeah. So now they've got the the BAP, right? So I think it's worth talking about what that actually gets them. I mean, it doesn't get them close to the strait. And, arguably, a determined naval force could suppress the Houthi coastal launch sites and escort traffic through, which has been done before. But what it does get them is a sustained, a cheap close range access to a major shipping lane. And they've got anti-ship missiles with very short flight times. They've got drones, they've got small boats. Potentially, they have the option of mining. And now they own a piece of ground that in order to dislodge them, someone has to physically take it back. As we've seen, bombing doesn't do any good. They don't need to close the Bam, as we've talked about here. Just making it dangerous, driving insurance costs up. Or they could say that navigation is safe for everyone except Saudi vessels. Either way, they're in a position to impose a de facto blockade.

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Thanks, guys.

I have a question. Let's say they do that, or at least threaten to do it, and they drive the cost up. We have the issue, obviously, with the straight-ahard moves that we're blockading and escorting ships through. Who's the naval force that clears up the bam? Because we tried it a year and a half ago, when they were threatening shipping lanes, and it was like a 60 plus day. Not exactly victory. But now that we're stuck in Hormuza, what do we send another aircraft carrier over there?

There's actually a multinational force that's designed specifically for this particular area that's not deployed in the straits of Hormuza. It's the Combined Maritime Task Force, partly led by the UK, partly led by the United States. There are, I think, around 40 nations, I can't remember the exact number, including Japan, that are involved in this. Their mission is actually counter-piracy off the Somali Coast, which is heavily tied into the Yemen Coast. You could argue that it's the same theater of operations. Those deployed forces are actually there for that purpose of securing that strait. In a way, it's actually different than the options for security that exist for the straits of Hormu's. Because for those nations that sent their forces there, their domestic buy-in was to protect that one strait, not to protect the straits of Hormu's. It's like the Japanese, for example, the government would have a in order time selling defense of the straits of Hormu's than it would selling the defense of the Babelmunda, because that's actually why those ships are there in the first place. In fact, there are Japanese forces deployed in Djibuti for this maritime task force, which I don't know if people know this.

The Japanese have been there for a long time. The Japanese have wooden mine sweeping vessels that are designed to avoid exactly this mining problem that exists with the Houthis, with these sophisticated mines that make it difficult for metallic held vessels to actually go through and do mine sweeping. The Japanese to have a number of these, I think half a dozen in the region to actually go do this. It's interesting to think about it from that perspective because there already was a force there for this problem that existed already for the past 10 years. Whereas the Straits of Hormuza is a newer challenge that would be a harder sell for those people sending, especially European partners, sending their vessels there to go help defend the Straits of Bab Al Mandab and the Suez Canal transits, which are important to Southeast Asian, East Asian, and European consumers.

Yeah. It would help, actually, Dee, I'm not directing you to do this now, but to throw up a map or put a map in the chat because as we've known, Hormous has been constricted since late March. And then for a while, traffic, specifically Saudi, sea-born, crude, traffic through the Bab Al Mandib increased, I mean, hugely, around eight times its 2025 volume. So after March, because the Red Sea was an alternative. And then, as we've seen, drones launched out of what's it, Maissan province in Iraq. So obviously, the militias there, they hid the East West. So there were two ways to bypass it. Bypassing Hormuus. There was the Red Sea, and then there was the East West pipeline out of it, south of Medina. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is there was a sea-born and the land-born means for the Saudi still to export crude, a huge amount. So by the pipeline alone, it was a huge... It's a long pipeline. It's 1,200 kilometers, and they were pumping 4-5 million barrels a day. Well, that pipeline was just hit. We don't know whether it can be repaired or not, but clearly by Iraqi militia. Then at the same time, same week, the Houthis seized the coastline along the Bam, now making it really dangerous for the Saudis to use the Bam to export oil.

You've got Hormous continually to be squeezed, the Red Sea coastline seized by the Houthis, and the bypass cut. It looks like It looks like a coordinated, I mean, if it is, it's well done, coordinated campaign, putting the squeeze on the Saudi's.

It could even be just an alignment of interests of these different threat actors who all see an opportunity right now that, Hey, the United States is not as focused. There is a midterm election coming up. President Trump has said himself that the midterms are causing a reduction in hostilities currently. So these actors, all of them with the same interests of harming Western interests and harming Saudi oil production, are looking at this and they're saying, Hey, this is probably a good time militarily to do something, even if they had not coordinated. If they had coordinated, it's even more threatening and concerning. But even without the coordination, it's still possible that they chose this because this is the moment that they see to act. Yeah, that's a good point.

We don't want to give too much credit to the Iranians. I wrote an article for War on the Rocks where it said, actually, they had exercised campaign design more so than the United States in this war. But that's a low bar, and that may be true. But then I think it was the New York Times this week said that the July attacks on shipping, the ones that disrupted early on the ceasefires, the July attacks by Iran on the Straits of Hormous were launched by a hardline faction without authorisation from Pazesh Gain, who's the President, or the IRGC Commander. That's what really killed the memorandum of understanding. If that's correct, if you believe the New York Times on this, Iranian escalation isn't centrally controlled.

But as John points out, it's unfortunate happenstance that it's all coming. On that point, too, the mosaic doctrine is something we've discussed and other analysts have discussed as well about how the IRGC operates with its military forces. There are 32 IRGC units led by a one-star general each, and each of those generals is empowered in a way to make decisions without coordinating them with the IRGC leadership or the central government of Iran. What you just mentioned, Annie, is a type of that behavior where that general decided, I'm going to attack what I think should be attacked without checking with higher headquarters. It ended up torpedoing the agreement that we had. But that's actually how they're designed to operate because their mentality is, even if our senior leadership is completely decimated, we can all operate independently and continue the fight against whatever the adversary is. They've told us for 47 years who their adversary is. It's the United States and Israel. That's how they're looking at this. This is what I'm supposed to do. This is what I was taught. This is my doctrine. I'm going to execute without checking. That can help them. It can also harm them, as it harmed the leadership, generally, with that disruption of the memorandum by that lone actor, essentially directing his forces to do what he thought was right.

On your point, you're talking about the news just gets worse, right? So we talked about the limits of the air campaign. I mean, the Saudis Just talking about what's happened the last week, the Saudis flew over 140 in 48 hours, right? But the bottom line is this. There's no ground force capable of retaking that Coast. The Emiratis are gone, and the Saudis are understandably reluctant to put their ground forces into Yemen. They're not going to start now with their own oil infrastructure on fire. And the Southern factions, they'll continue to fight for the South, but they've got no interest in dying to take back the coastline. All right? So what do you do? The naval The naval task force John was talking about, there's actually two Task Forces. You got the Combined Maritime Forces, CMF, which is this massive thing, 47 nation naval partnership. And that was the most coherent, the most powerful task force there. It's actually four or five different task forces. And as John pointed out, there's counter-piracy, once focused on the Arabian Gulf, once focused on CTF-153, I think it is, is focused on the BAM, Red Sea. And that was stood up just 4 years ago.

But here's the problem. Command and control is out of Bahrain. And Bahrain, as I think, as we know, has taken a schlacking. So it's not clear, and it's not in media coverage what the status is of those forces. And there is an EU Task Force there to operation that's a speedies or something, which is controlled out of Brussels. But again, not clear if... The last reports were that they're not what they were before Bahrain took its hit. Some of them are being sent home. They're short on holes. They're short on... Yes, they do have some mine hunters, but they've always been short on mine hunters. As we talked about here, last year, before the war even started, the US sent back all the mines. They decommissioned the minesweeping vessels in Bahrain. So this is a lengthy way of saying, air campaign is not going to do what it needs to do. There's no There's no option for a ground force right now. And naval forces are depleted, command and control, and key assets. So again, the picture is not really very rosy right now.

I think also- And I want to thank us for that. It highlights the diplomatic informational military economic, the dime concept, where right now the military instrument is not in a perfect position to achieve success alone. But if we can create a way where, whether it's with allies or partners or people in the gray area between our allies and our adversaries, we can co-op them with diplomacy or economic instruments to create space so that we can actually operate militarily again or create time so that we can rearm, reequip, resupply, and then reengage on the military instrument. But it seems that right now we're heavily focused on the military instrument from a US policy-making perspective to the detriment of the diplomatic, to the detriment of the economic. The regional powers, the GCC countries and Iran and Turkey, for example, are also thinking diplomatically. That's why they're meeting in Salala this week with the Iranian Foreign Minister, because these GCC countries, like the Bahrain, for example, are saying, We need to end this and we need to figure out a way. They're going to talk to the Iranians, of course. They can see them literally across the water.

It makes sense that they would diplomatically engage, which means the US needs to also diplomatically engage on our own to ensure that these partners not co-opted in a way that might harm them in the future by engaging with Iran in a way where they feel like they're backed against a wall and they have to accept some concession that's going to be negative for them in the future. So this is an opportunity for the US to act diplomatically and economically to do so.

Yeah, it's certainly the US, the standing of the US in the region, and we've talked about this before, too, has taken a beating, and it wasn't helped this week by I'm not saying he didn't help it. I'm just saying it wasn't helped when MBS called Trump twice on Thursday, I think, asking for direct American strikes. And against the Houthies and was turned down both times. Now, the US is providing intelligence targeting. If you read media reports, 200 US Service Personnel already in the Kingdom. But that's a long-standing agreement, and it's based on FMS projects. It's not combat advising. It's not like we're helping them set up a targeting cell or anything like that. These aren't really useful. They're not useful, American Service Personnel here as far as my perspective. And of course, SENTCOM Commander is visiting. So From the US perspective, the stated logic is to keep the force concentrated on Iran and Hormous rather than open a second front. But arguably, that second front has already been opened, right? There's just no easy option. I mean, there's no good options right now, it seems. On the other hand, opening a second front without a ground partner to relieve pressure on a coalition that arguably dismantled itself isn't really a serious plan.

We could do strikes. I don't know. Sometimes you just do things to keep a partner on-site. Yes, we may know the strikes may not achieve anything, but maybe that's just the price we pay to keep Saudi Arabia on board, as it were. I mean, as John has pointed out, the optics aren't good right now. I mean, our regional allies are reaching out to our adversary and saying, Hey, let's talk, regardless of- And the same thing is happening with Canada.

I don't know if you saw, but Canada is in discussion with the European Union to enter a special trade status where they can begin trading frictionless with the EU as if they were almost an EU economic component, which I think the US policy against Canada was to force Canada into concessions with the US on trade issues. Canada said, Well, we just won't trade with you then. We're going to trade with Europe instead. Every country has its own interest and can do its own things, especially if they feel threatened, whether it's economically or militarily. With the Canada situation, it's economic. With Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, it's economic and militarily. They're saying, Okay, well, the US isn't doing what's in our interest, so we need to look somewhere else to achieve our interest. In the short term, to them, it appears that talking across the street is in their interest. John, hit up Go ahead, Andy.

No, I was just saying, meanwhile, it looks as though, I mean, Yemen is going to be partitioned, arguably, and there's probably not going to be a pushback from the Saudis. They may even be exceeding to this with the north going to the Houthies, the south under Saudi influence, frozen conflict, sea lanes open. That arguably would be a short term and a longer term solution for all concerned.

John, you want to touch on a little bit about the Houthies using the Claude Code? Yeah. So Clawd Anthropic just released a recent threat summary about a group that they identified as, I want to make sure I get the quote right, a cell of threat actors in northern Yemen. Okay. So they didn't say the Houthies, but I I don't know who else would be up there doing what we're about to talk about. The Houthies used Clawd to design, simulate, and flight test ballistic missiles, multi-stage ballistic missiles, not just regular V2 rocket-style missiles, tactical guided rockets, and multivariant missiles of different categories of distance and payload and so on. The way that Anthropic categorizes this, they said that there's three different ways that you could use Claude to design a missile, which is crazy that this is something that we're talking about. They use the design phase, simulation phase, and then flight test phase. These are three different ways to do research and development for ballistic missiles. But they did it using Clawed. They got to the point where they actually flight tested and used these missiles in operations. Now, Anthropic doesn't say who the targets were, but in the last 7 days of news, it's pretty clear who the targets were.

It's pretty insane. Also, to be hearing this from Anthropic makes me question how much content was actually told to us through Anthropic because it's, of course, in their interest not to tell everything that would be threatening to their business model. It's pretty amazing that these guys were able to do this. Three different weapons development programs at the same time, simultaneously. Remember that the Houthis already had Chinese anti-ship missiles. They already had Iranian drones and missiles and rockets in their inventory. What's likely going on here is that the Houthis are taking existing weapon stocks and thinking about how to make them better, how to make them faster, more efficient in not only strike capability, but range, fuel, economy, all these different things. They're using Claw to actually optimize their arsenal. The weapons they had, the ultimate origin of these weapons were China. A company called Nerenco, which is a state-owned defense company. Because if the US owned Lockheed Martin. That's what China's ownership of Narenco is, these anti-ship missiles that they're modifying are Chinese weapons. So big picture zooming out, remember last week, Scott Besson was saying that there's economic D-day against Iran, all these sanctions and bad actors and so on, but they're not going to touch China.

This is why it's a problem not to touch China, because whether the Houthies can use Claude or not is less important than whether the Houthies have the equipment to use after talking to Claude. And that equipment is coming from China. Here is a great opportunity, an example of why it's important to stop Chinese exports of these weapons to Houthies, to Iraqi forces, like weapons the Iraqis are using against Saudi Arabia are ultimately Chinese origin via Iran. This is just important to contextualize that we have this whole opportunity here to reduce the arsenal of an adversary. Instead, we're not touching Chinese activities. We have this company, Anthropic, allowing it to occur because they were clearly monitoring this while it was happening and only chose to act after the weapons testing phase. In real life. The design phase was not stopped. The simulation phase was not stopped. It wasn't until the actual flight testing and operations did Anthropic decide to release to the world that they noticed that ballistic missiles were being developed in Yemen using Clawd. I'll I'll put it there, but it is shocking.

So even if Claude... I mean, even if they ban these accounts, the capability is still there. I mean, it sits on It sits on the Houthi's hard drives, right?

I mean, you can't take that back. And actually on that, so they did a live field test in Yemen, and then they brought the field test data back to Claude, and they ran a failure analysis within just a couple of hours of launching these missiles. They're using it in the loop, their entire R&D loop incorporates Claude in it. As you said, Andy, now they have that data. They don't have to do that again. They already did it, right? It wasn't just like we think about ballistic missiles, like launch to target strike, very simple. They're using hypersonic glide variants and medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These are some of the most advanced missiles that any country has, including the United States, Russia, and China. They're using Clawd to do it. It's not just about the Houthies right now. It's also theoretically how dangerous this AI use can be to any country, any actor. Imagine if the Bader Meinhoff Gang in the '80s had Clawd Or Ruby Ridge guys had Claude. It's not just about the hoothies, but although this does highlight the danger, I think the danger is a lot deeper than people might expect because they're just using Claude to correct their emails when they're sending them instead of thinking about what's the actual full of the danger of using this tool.

As we see, Anthropics not stopping it when it starts. They're letting it go for a while. What if you let it go for a while and you don't realize when is the appropriate stopping point, and they've already got a nuclear weapon? Because that was a big challenge in Iran was that Iran had a nuclear energy program. They wanted nuclear weapons, but the weaponization of the nuclear material is very difficult. It's a leap as far as expertise, but they don't need to worry about that chasm between enrichment and weaponization as much anymore because they have a helper named AI that can help bridge that gap in a way that did not exist previously and that we relied on as a safety mechanism that, Oh, don't worry, they're a year behind or whatever they're behind because they don't have the technical expertise because we kill all their scientists. Well, you don't have to worry about their scientists anymore because this AI model has the global knowledge of all scientists in it. In some ways, they're using gray literature, they're They're using other information that's not actually available to everybody. They're tearing off the bindings of these books and putting them into these AI models.

In some ways, these threat actors have more access to the information than our own scientists do because of the way they're using it. I think that might be a cause for concern.

Yeah, But it's not... And all of this is stuff that we've been told from the company, right? So it could be conceivably be worse. When we talk about interdiction of these more sophisticated weapons, right? I mean, it's typically counter proliferation involves either interdicting the expertise, the people or the material or both. But here the expertise arrived. I mean, it came through a subscription to Claude. And the hoothies knew to compartmentalize so that it became like an engineer delegating compartmentalized tasks. And each element of Claude working on that task, didn't know enough of the other tasks to put two and two together and say, Hey, wait a second. We're doing something bad here. So it could happen again and again. And the brain, the part of this, my understanding, it was based just on a phone-grade technology, cell phone-grade technology. It wasn't anything incredible.

Yeah. And even Anthropic admitted that There was an offline simulation toolkit that the Houthies were also using concurrently with this production. Exactly what we're talking about, it's likely that they took the data they got from Claude knowing that it would get caught or interdicted. They probably know, you've got one shot to put this in Claude to get the real analysis that we want, maybe using Fable or something to get the real output and then put it in our offline package that cannot be stopped and cannot be interdicted. Then we'll just play with that data without being stopped in the future. That's probably what's going on right now. Mama mia.

When you were saying about other threat actors, I was thinking like, ISIS, being able to cook up biological weapons or anything.

Yeah. I mean, there were even in Japan in the 1990s, if you remember, there was, I think it was ricin or one these biological weapons was used on a subway, and that was a small threat actor. What if they now had quad to help them weaponize and create a larger target set to hit using optimization that they never could have thought of on their own? Mamma mia.

I don't know what to do anymore.

So potentially, yeah, potentially that improves accuracy, right? It improves... They can improve range. I think one of the programs they're working on was a hypersonic glider, right? Yeah. And then we're just talking missiles here. I mean, applying this technology to drones, right? Drones sworms, target acquisition. It makes you realize that the concerns about AI are well-founded.

Yeah. I mean, they also use it to help them understand export control laws of every country available in the data set so that they could better figure out how to circumvent sanctions to acquire new pieces or components to make these weapons in ways that our laws had not really contemplated yet because we're still operating off of human-designed legal regimes to prevent these export control violations. They've already done this. They've already come up with a strategy. They had Claude do a trade study to find out who are the best trade partners to work with and which countries are the best with the types of export controls that they can get around. And all of this material is already done. They already thought of it. And so the fact that Anthropicic is now telling us about it, it's helpful for us to understand the threat to see that. But the thing has already occurred. It's already happened. So the question is, what's happening next to stop their next move?

Yeah, it's scary stuff. All right, let's move on. I mean, it's not like the stories get better. Herets had a bombshell that 10 days before October seventh, the King B of UAE called Bibi Netanyahu to warn him about an attack from Hamas, and Netanyahu didn't inform his seeing your intelligence officials. Bibi's side is denying it. Obviously, Herets is holding to their story. Obviously, it's being right place, right time. I mean, it's being dropped at a perfect time because the elections are coming up. What are you guys seeing that? What are you guys thought? What are you guys thoughts?

I mean, it's right in line with... You don't have to be a conspiracy, Thierry. You don't have to theorize that Netanyahu knew 7 October was coming and didn't give a shit. But it falls in line with the fact that what we do know that Netanyahu had bolstered Hamas because Hamas, he knew, was the unacceptable face of Palestine Palestinian nationalism as far as Western countries were concerned, and that as long as Hamas represented the Palestinian people in the eyes of the world, there would be no hope for a two-state solution. That's in a nutshell, right? That's why Netanyahu was allowing the Qataris to provide loads of cash to Hamas and why he turned a blind eye. I've written extensively in this book about all the warning signs that did not register, were not analyzed correctly, were not acted upon. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. You don't have to say, Well, the Israelis knew about it. But there was definitely a cultural inclination to read the signals incorrectly. That may just have been what. I'm not justifying what Netanyahu ignoring a straightforward warning. I'm saying that seems to be the most likely explanation I think at that time, a lot of the focus was on the West Bank.

There was this thought that because Hamas had returned to negotiations before that period, that they were in good faith negotiations. There was some less deep interest in things in Gaza at that time because I think the Israeli government was hoping that those negotiations were real. They weren't. They were clearly a cover for what was coming up. And because of that idealism, they were more focused on West Bank and the Northern border and trying to focus there and really using hope as a weapon to try to make things different than they ended up being. Even Yasi Cohen, former Mossad director, said that it was known by some people that this was happening. And there were different indications, whether it's Unit 8,200 or Shin Bet or Mossad, saying that, yes, there are indicators that this is going to happen. There's troops doing this and that. There's activity going on. There are rehearsals going on. These are all indicators that operate within the spectrum, within space. It's really hard to focus on signal versus noise in the situation When at the policy level, policymakers are saying, Don't worry about Gaza, worry about West Bank. When that permeates down, even as an analyst on the ground, maybe you're hearing some discussion over a radio or something and you hear the enemy saying, Hey, let's do a rehearsal for this attack we're going to do.

You're not in the position you normally would be because policy doesn't think that what's happening there is real or is credible or is X, Y, or Z. Instead, they want you to focus somewhere else. It's highly likely that some people in different in place as new pieces of this larger jigsaw puzzle, but they weren't permitted by policy to put that puzzle together in a way that could have helped stop it before it happened.

Yeah. I mean, it was part of a bigger picture, right? I'm Now, we're talking about all the reports that were indeed bubbling up from everything from the spotters to a ham radio guy who was picking up Hamas, very unencrypted Hamas messages It was about an impending attack. There was the cell phone thing, the SIM cards. All of these were bottom-up pieces of intelligence coming up at the same time. You got this warning from UAE You have the Egyptian intelligence chief, Abbas Kamal, warning Netanyahu around the same time of something unusual, a terrifying operation that That Hamas was going to cause, I think you use the term, made the ground tremble in Gaza or cause an earthquake. So even though you could say one of these warnings alone was not enough, substantial enough, the combination of all these things just makes it... And again, I'm not suggesting there was a conspiracy to allow Hamas to attack. I'm just saying that it just seems almost incomprehensible, doesn't it? That all these things were ignored and not acted on.

But of course, as you mentioned, Dee, it's perfect timing for opposition to Netanyahu for this story to come out because their elections are going to be in about a month. So it's clearly... I mean, this was a few years ago now, almost 3 years ago. So this information has been known for those 3 years, but only now is it coming out. So there's clearly a political reason for this to be chosen. And of course, the authors of the It's an article even said, they're writing their own piece about this, and so they chose to talk about it right now, to perhaps amplify their own authorship. So everybody involved has some interest in it. And the interest of these authors, I think, is to call attention to it now at the beginning of the election to perhaps push Netanyahu out. I think there are a lot of people in Israel that don't want him to be the Prime Minister anymore. You have people like Gadi Eisencoat, who are very different than Netanyahu, which might be difficult for him because he's a military man. He's not a political actor. I think it'll be challenging to see what happens despite these revelations, because Netanyahu has a history of pulling rabbits out of hats around election time.

He's done it numerous times and just really shocked and surprised outsiders that he's been able to survive the way he has. I wouldn't be totally surprised that this story has almost no impact on what happens in October.

Yeah. The licensed code's leading in the polls anyway, it's a narrow margin, right? But there's bubbling... So the weird thing is Netanyahu has threatened Heretz with a lawsuit He's going to say... He says he's going to sue them. Heretz says, Go ahead. But the weird thing is Netanyahu seems to be basing his case, his claim on an official call lock, the Prime Minister's call lock for those days, right? Between early September and seventh of October. And he's saying, Hey, you can look through the call log. There's no trace of it. And so that means this story was a plant. But he's staking it all on this official call log. The call could easily have gone through a channel that doesn't appear in that log. Leader-to-leader calls don't always go through the front door. As it were. I mean, it's bizarre. So he's made a very narrow... He's staking everything on this very narrow defense. And Heretz is saying, quoting them, they won't hesitate to expose the truth in court.

Yeah, it's going to be an interesting one to see what goes on. Last bit, really fun story, I'd say. A story of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship. Let me get this right. So the Trump organization is planning on building a hotel and building in Tablisi, Georgia. It's a 70-story building, I guess, currently projected. The big beef is essentially Actually, the land is tied to a foundation connected to a guy named or a family, Benzina Ivashvili, Georgia's dominant political figure and sanction by the United States, and the Georgia Dream Party, which is closely tied with Vladimir Putin. At a time when, obviously, things are very tense between Ukraine and Russia. Just today, President Trump made a statement that it's because of Zelensky bombing. Refineries in Russia is why diesel prices are so expensive, and he needs to stop doing that. So the graft is alive and well in America, I would say, with the Trump family. The fact that this isn't by itself a story enough to ruin someone's presidency is, I don't know if it's a sad state of the world or a sad state of America. America is like news media, just how pacified we are as a nation in terms of it's just a nonstop endless deluge of corruption and backhanding and stuff like that.

I get it. You need a little bit a bit corruption and stuff. That's par for the course. But it seems to be at a level that we have not seen before, frankly.

John, what do you got? Well, first, the image that the architectural firm submitted in their proposal, which was accepted for production. It's funny if you've been to Tablisi in Georgia. Beautiful place. Highly recommend people to visit. I love Georgia. I was actually just there last summer. The skyline in Georgia does not look like the skyline in this image. This image has all these tall buildings and skyscrapers in it. Georgia, Tablisi has one tall building. It's called the Biltmore Hotel. It's 32 stories high. So this building is already proposed to be twice as high as the existing tallest building in the entire country. And interesting because the Biltmore itself is already taller than almost any building in Tablisi. It's a weird building because there aren't many other tall buildings around to even rival that one. So the question of economic supply and demand, where's the demand for this building? If it's not corruption building it, where's the demand? Because it's either one or the other. It's either there is a significant demand for new commercial construction in Tablisi, or someone is funding this project for reasons that have nothing to do with economics, generally, besides personal economics, like graft.

It's just interesting. It's sad to see what's going on here because Ivanashvili founded this Georgia Dream Party, which is a Russia-aligned party. If you remember, in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia and took over a place called South Ossetia. They're still occupying it now. People who live in South Ossetia are issued Ossetian passports as a breakaway separatist country that's supported and recognized only by Russia. It's part of Russia's attempt to reassert post-Soviet authority in these areas. Some analysts have said, and I was at the National Security Agency in 2008 when this happened, that perhaps Russia was rehearsing its invasion of Crimea by invading Georgia in 2008 because they used very similar tactics in the way that they occupied South Ossetia versus Crimea. People who are interested should go check that out. But this is a problem because Russia and Ivanashvili are closely aligned. For a while, Georgia was going to join NATO. There's actually a NATO office in downtown Tbilisi that you can still go to now. That was basically a private attempt by the Georgian government to lobby the West in allowing Georgia to join NATO because Georgia saw Russia as a massive threat. Rightly so, Russia is occupying Northern Georgia, even to this day.

They're also in Abkhazia, which is in the Northwest It's part of Georgia. There's a lot of this Russia-US stuff going on inside of Georgia. It's strange that the Trump Organization is finding its alliance with the Russia-backed side, not the Western-backed side of Georgia. Since the last 2 years, there's been accusations that the Georgia Dream Party was a Sham election, and there's been a lot of protests against it. If you go walk around Tbilisi, especially the old city, there's graffiti everywhere saying, Fuck Russia, Russia, get out of Georgia, very, very anti-Russian sentiment. And so this organization, the Trump Organization, chose to work with the group that's opposed. That's a Russian-backed group. So Ivanashvili himself is a billionaire from Russia. He's Russian, a Georgian-Russian. So within Georgia, this is a very controversial thing, not to mention the US angle of the President's organization purchasing a multimillion dollar right, put this unnecessary building in Tbilisi. So there's a lot of question marks that show to me when I look at this. Milburn?

Yeah, I've got very little interest. I mean, Tbilisi is a wonderful city. I've got very little interest in what the Trump family is pouring money into. But I will say this, okay? And it's going to It's been an interesting topic. I think for next week, we've been quite rightly obsessed with what's going on in the Middle East here, but back to Ukraine. I think it was September the 12th was this week. It was in the last couple of days. So ISW, the Institute for the Study of War, which is probably the think tank, along with RUSI, Royal United Service Institute, which is the British think tank. The two West think tanks most closely tracking the war in Ukraine said that the Ukrainians have seized the operational strategic initiative, again, by seizing Lyman, which is a town in Donbas, and it's a hinge. It was in a key position. It's the hinge of the Russian offensive for many ways. So it was an important place to take. Then at the same time, you've got Russian military leaders saying they need 800, say that again, 800,000 more troops in order to regain the initiative and do what they need to do when there's just no way, of course, the Russian mobilization process, and they are due for mobilization in October.

There's no way that's going to support that demand. I'm not being overly optimistic, but it is significant that ISW has made that comment. They're normally quite reserved about making these judgments.

Yeah. A lot of shit happening, as usual. Nothing good of it. Nothing seems good. I guess unless you're like Donald Trump Jr. And stuff like that, that's pretty good. I guess you got some money. We'll see where it goes on. Obviously, we'll keep an eye on it. Eyes on geo-politics. You get it? I want everyone to do us a favor, everyone listening, check out Andy's new book. It's not out yet, but he's releasing chapters on his sub stack, so you can follow it there. The link is in the description. Please check that out.

The latest chapter is on the Hannibal Directive, and there is information in that chapter that I can tell you is not anywhere else on on open source if you're interested in that particular topic. Yeah, so that link is in the description.

Of course, Jonathan Hacket, his books, those links are in the description as well. He's working on a new book. Very exciting. I'm working on a book. It's coming out next month. I'll let you guys know when it comes out. October 20th is the date it's coming out. There'll be more to that. It's not exactly a historical or journalistic piece of work like John's or Andy's. It's more fiction. Or for it to become historical. I'm praying to God it doesn't, to be honest. Yeah, as I was writing it and things were unfolding in the news, I was like, Jesus Christ, what am I, the fucking Noshadamas? Anyway, look out for that. I'll I hope everyone posted. But again, the best place to support is patreon. Com/teamhouse. You get both Eyes On and Teamhouse episodes ad-free and early, so two for the price of one, and you help support the show. Guys, a pleasure as always. I I want to have one day where we talk about movies or books or something. Something not frivolous, but something enjoyable rather than the world going this shit every single week.

I don't know about you guys. I'm talking about the best war movies of all time.

Yeah, something, bro. We need something. We need some talent cleanser for my love of God.

I'll see you guys later. Thank you again. Thank you, guys.