New Chinese "6th Gen" Fighter, & What Comes Next w/ Iran and the New Administration | EYES ON PODCAST

today we talk about the Chinese Dorito that was unveiled and what the Iranian relationship looks like wiith the incoming trump admin Subscribe to the new EYES ON YouTube channel.⬇️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJytcQbSOEKLGyhNwkqpd3A Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Find Marc Polymer here: ⬇️ https://x.com/Mpolymer?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://bsky.app/profile/mpolymer1.bsky.social Find Andy Milburn here: ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 https://amilburn.substack.com/ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations https://bsky.app/profile/andy-milburn.bsky.social https://open.substack.com/pub/amilburn/p/journal-of-a-plague-year?utm_source=app-post-stats-page&r=emo6q&utm_medium=ios Find Mick Mulroy here: ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ https://x.com/MickMulroy?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ https://bsky.app/profile/mickmulroy.bsky.social Find Jason Lyons here: ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-lyons-666873316?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app https://bsky.app/profile/bgsilverback73.bsky.social Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:58Speaker 02

  Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes On. I'm not the host. My name is Demetri Kuntakos. I have Mick Mulroy here, Jason Lyons, both former Marines, former CIA officers. They're gonna start accusing us of being CIA shills.

• 1:17Speaker 03

  Don't they already, though?

• 1:18Speaker 02

  They do already, yeah. They totally do already. I hope everyone had a good Christmas, a good holiday, happy Hanukkah, happy everything. Lot going on. I feel it almost seems like the big news kind of slows down during the American, like the Christmas and stuff. But we do have some stuff popping off. The first thing that caught the attention of everybody was the new Chinese "six-generation" fighter that took a test flight. I think it's called the J-36, or that might be the NATO designation. Yeah, people are freaking out. It looks like a Dorito. I mean, it looks pretty advanced in terms of, you know, six-gen fighters.

• 2:01Speaker 02

  Uh, what do you got, Jason? You've been tracking this a bit.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, so, uh, first, um, I'm gonna start off by saying Alex Hollings, if you're out there, um, you should be the one doing this.

• 2:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:12Speaker 03

  And hopefully we'll get him on here soon to talk about it. Uh, he's the resident expert, but so I think the first thing from everything that I'm hearing and reading is that that term sixth generation, um, that's actually something that we came up with, if I'm not mistaken, with the fifth generation, I think Boeing or someone first coined the term, um, as a means of tracking how far ahead or behind we are with, uh, near peer, um, aircraft or, uh, technology. So, given that, I know there are certain parameters. I don't know what they all are, but one of the things that determines whether or not it's sixth generation, as far as we're concerned,

• 2:53Speaker 03

  is it's, uh, interaction with AI, autonomous aircraft, uh, UAS drones, can it control, um, like support aircraft, unmanned support aircraft, things like that. Um, whether it can or not, I don't think we know right now. Uh, but I know that it has caused, uh, our defense industry and our military to, to pause and say, what the hell? Because, um, not that it came out of nowhere. I'm sure we had a hint that it was out there, but, uh, it, this maiden flight, uh, also, there was another aircraft. Um, I believe it was the, was it the J thirty-five, I think? Uh, do you have that in your notes? There was a second aircraft that they.

• 3:34Speaker 02

  I know they coined one, the J thirty-six.

• 3:37Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 3:38Speaker 02

  Uh, the second one I wasn't really paying attention to, cuz I'm useless, but.

• 3:44Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  Uh.

• 3:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, no, but I mean, it's not.

• 3:49Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. So the J, their J thirty-five is the one that that's, I think that's coming out or soon should be coming out. It's basically like a pa- they have, the first flight was, uh, the first time it went into production was September of twenty twenty-three. So that one's been about for, uh, almost over a year and stuff that they've added to like their, their fleet essentially. Um, it's the second one with the J twenty, which was like, when that one came out, people were freaking out. But, I mean, for the little, I'm not an expert, of course, we need Alex Hollings on cuz he, he lives, breathes and eats this stuff. Um. The big problem with the J twenty, which I'm sure they haven't figured out for the new ones is the engines.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  Like the engines are old copies of MiG and Sukhoi engines that are not stealth at all. Like that really is causes a problem for them.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Uh, so in terms of like, and it looks like the NGAD concept, that's the American NGAD, which is a next generation air defense fight program, which works manned and then like it has unmanned like wingmen. Um, so I think people are freaking out, but at the same time, like we've had three demonstrators already do test flights. There was some talk about maybe it not being in the defense budget in terms of continuing to develop it and stuff like that. Obviously that might may or may change with the new administration and the new secretary, uh, um, chief of the air force like, so we'll see what happens more. I mean, it's just pretty, people were freaking out about it.

• 5:25Speaker 02

  I mean, Twitter was kind of going wild about it because it looks pretty advanced, but who knows really?

• 5:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, it's, it's ugly, that thing. I, I, yeah, it's, um, it's pretty big, good size. Uh, it's, uh, it's has no tailplane, it's tailless. It looks just like, what are they calling it? The flying Dorito?

• 5:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:46Speaker 03

  That's literally what it looks like. Um, a lot of control surfaces, uh, tailplane or, uh, control surfaces on the wings, I guess to make up for the lack of a, a tailplane. Um, and then I saw someone noted that it has two intakes on the bottom and one on the top, which could, I doubt it, but could I suppose, um, indicate like some sort of a ramjet?

• 6:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:12Speaker 03

  Ramjet sort of thing. I doubt it, but, um, you know, so, but it's interesting. It's very interesting and it's loud as hell. Like I was listening to the, uh, watching and listening to the video and it's loud. So, I mean, you know, not that that really matters, but, um, it'd be interesting to see what comes of this thing. So. Did you have something? I'm sorry.

• 6:33Speaker 04

  Yeah, no, I was gonna say we could probably have a whole episode with some experts on, not just to get this, you know, this potential sixth generation. Aircraft China, but you know, the whole US offset strategy of how we try to leap ahead of our competitors, you know, whether it's nuclear, GPS, and what's the next one?

• 6:56Speaker 04

  Where the future of aircraft are going, right? Is it, is any of them going to be manned? How are we going to transition to that? How, how much of a role will AI play? Will be the human component in it? I mean, there's a lot to discuss on this. You know, people are interested, perhaps we, we bring in somebody who really does specialize on not just the current, but where we're going. And then, of course, there's the whole issue of China stealing everything, right?

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:24Speaker 04

  Whether it's military technology, you know, commercial side, what are we going to do about that? Because it's, it's clear that, you know, they don't want to be just competitors. They want to, they want to steal our stuff. So I guess somebody could say that's part, part of competition. But if it is, then maybe we should be doing it too, right?

• 7:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:43Speaker 04

  So I don't think we are, especially on the commercial side. So I don't know, we could have a broader discussion on all that.

• 7:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, that'd be great. I mean, Alex Hollings is probably the guy. He, he's obviously has the YouTube channel, Air, uh, Sandbox.

• 7:58Speaker 00

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• 8:28Speaker 02

  And it's, his show is called Air Power. And he is an absolute, I would give him expert, like at this point, he's like

• 8:35Speaker 04

  Absolutely.

• 8:36Speaker 02

  So into it where he, he, he's tracking this stuff, uh, day in, day out.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  The interesting thing is.

• 8:45Speaker 03

  Go ahead, sorry.

• 8:45Speaker 04

  Sorry, I was just last, last point on, I was having a conversation with my son who's, you know, on the hundred first, they get places by helicopter. And he's, he's asking me like, when, when will they transition to, you know, unmanned aircraft? And I think it'll be the last will be the, the ones that actually, uh, transport troops.

• 9:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 9:05Speaker 04

  Right? But I mean, it could quickly move into any kind of the fighter attack aircraft bombers and all that could easily, uh, I think, transition. But I like to talk, I'm a ground maritime guy, so I like to talk to everyone about that.

• 9:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:21Speaker 02

  I mean, can we ask you something in terms of like how China steals like R I P and our military secrets and stuff? Um, are we in that game more and like, all right, if we come across some technology that they've cracked that like makes sense for us, sure, we'll steal it. But are we into that more in terms of like espionage, just to know what they're doing, when they're doing it, how they're doing it and stuff like that?

• 9:44Speaker 04

  We don't want to talk too much about that.

• 9:45Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 9:46Speaker 04

  What we don't do, but we, we, you know, generally we stay out of the commercial sector.

• 9:52Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:52Speaker 04

  Right? I mean, we have private companies there. I mean, we're a capitalist country, so we, we stay out of that. I guess that one can make an argument that our competitors don't, so maybe collectively we should do more, but that's a broad, that should be, that should be something for the, you know, the lawmakers to decide, not the, not the spies.

• 10:11Speaker 03

  Yeah. And it would seem to me that it would be more to your point, uh, uh, D is we just want to know what they're doing, what they know, you know, uh, because it, it, based on everything, let's just take China, China is an example. It seems like even if we did steal it, we'd be stealing our own stuff back.

• 10:30Speaker 02

  Right.

• 10:31Speaker 03

  You know, like, hey, we already have this.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:34Speaker 03

  Yeah. So I don't know that it would benefit us to steal any of this technology right now.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah. There is a thing about like, you know how people, you know, MS, the MSS is really like, because there's a lot of Chinese, like, Americans here. We could kind of reverse that on them, I feel like, right? Like, we have people that feel like more Americans than they do feel Chinese, and like, we could use those people as spies and stuff like that. Like, I think, I know there's obviously a threat on the other side of them, like, giving secrets up, and we see people get arrested all the time. But I feel like we could do a really, we could probably steal a good amount of shit from them, information-wise. Using our Chinese citizens against them.

• 11:22Speaker 02

  Whether it's first or second gen, like, more Americanized Chinese citizens. I know you guys can't say anything, but like, that's gotta be the move. I mean, what are we doing? There's a reason why we're a melting pot, and we should use it to our advantage in terms of intelligence.

• 11:37Speaker 04

  Absolutely. And, you know, there's, there's groups that specialize in, you know, double agent type scenarios, right? They're tricky, very tricky.

• 11:48Speaker 04

  But yes, I mean, they think they were vulnerable because they can use, you know, ethnically, in this case, Chinese, but of course, that's any country thinks they can do this with their own. But, you know, we are a melting pot, so you can hear you're, you're American, right? Well, a few countries, you know, you can come here, and even if you just got here and you're, you know,

• 12:09Speaker 04

  you're American if you want to be an American, right? And you do the, the legal stuff to get there. So, I think, yeah, to your point, it could easily backfire on them. They usually don't do it, I don't think, at least in my experience, and this is generality, for ideology. They do it because there's some kind of threat against their families that stay in these countries, right? So, it's, it's a coercion-type situation, not because they, they get here and don't like America and want to, like, support the Chinese Communist Party. It's more like they have all their family members that will get a lot of grief if they don't, if they don't participate.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  All right, next thing cooking, Russia shot down Azerbaijan commercial flight a couple of days ago. One thing I wanted to point out, like on Twitter, when it was going down, like a lot of Russian trolls were talking about how it was a bird strike. It was like, you're pretty, pretty, pretty strong birds, you know. Make you were talking about how Putin didn't admit it, but he apologized for it, which is like an odd, it's an interesting hedge.

• 13:11Speaker 04

  Yeah, that's what's being reported this morning, but I think, you know, from the US perspective, we have, you know, our satellites or DSP satellites, they have the capability, I think it's through infrared to see, you know, when missiles are launched, right? The difference in the heat signature between the background of the earth and traveling through, you know, the air, etc. I think we already know that this was a, I think we knew relatively soon after it happened that this was a surface to air missile. I guess it looks more like a proximity missile or that it's close to the aircraft.

• 13:46Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 13:47Speaker 04

  Um, we probably already knew that. And then of course, all the pictures come out and you can see the shrapnel, you can see it going in and not out. So it didn't, it was an explosion that was on board. I mean, it's pretty clear that the Russians did this and they, you know, it's they've done it before, 2014. UK. I think the biggest problem for the rest of the world should be, one, why are they approved an aircraft to fly into an active combat cell when they're shooting down drones at the same time? Two, how did they actually mistake a plane for a drone? Cause that's pretty, you know, with all the, with all this technology that tries to prevent these type of things. And then three, if they're not admitting it, the whole world knows they did.

• 14:29Speaker 04

  You know, their pension, they're not only negligent, they're intentionally criminal. Uh, to be frank, in obstructing the investigation. So, uh, there should be a lot of, hopefully airlines stop flying there. Uh, and hopefully, uh, there's some kind of consequences because, you know, people make mistakes. The US shot down a plane before, right? But we owned it like immediately. That's the difference, you know, mistakes happen and they shouldn't. But, you know, intentionally lying about it, that's where I hope the rest of the world would be. Be pretty harsh.

• 14:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:00Speaker 03

  Adding to that, too, I just before we came on, I watched a video and they said that the flight crew initially did report that they thought it was a bird strike because, you know, loss of control, things like that. But then they asked for permission to land inside Russia, back in inside Russia, and were turned, no, told no. And they had to turn around and fly like 200 miles back the other way. And so, of course, now the conspiracy theory is that they were doing that in the hopes that the aircraft would crash into the, was it the Black Sea or whatever?

• 15:37Speaker 04

  Caspian.

• 15:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, the Caspian, and so that would erase all evidence. Now, I don't know how true that is, but they, but it is on, it is recorded that they were told by Russian ATC, no, you have no permission, turn around. So.

• 15:51Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 15:52Speaker 03

  And.

• 15:52Speaker 04

  That's.

• 15:54Speaker 03

  Yeah. Yeah, apparently, the flight, the 200 mile flight, it would have been less time for them to turn around and go back to the airfield they came from, but they were denied. So they went back the other way and that's when it happened.

• 16:09Speaker 04

  Well, that's a plausible explanation because I didn't, I couldn't figure out why Russia would try to insult the injury and deny them landing in a, they were flying to Russia, right?

• 16:18Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 16:20Speaker 04

  Chechnya, right? So, okay, that does, I mean, obviously, we don't know, but that is one plausible explanation for why they were denied.

• 16:30Speaker 04

  You know, land in Russia.

• 16:33Speaker 04

  That's just horrible.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I mean, Russia's doing what Russia does, right? They're not going to admit to anything. It's pretty interesting in terms of like, I don't know, when Medvedev was like president for a little bit and like, it kind of seemed like Russia was like turning a corner in terms diplomatically at least. I mean, but it's, you know, just, maybe they're taking the turn he's taken. I mean, unbelievable, like a villain arc, you know, with his black trench coats and like talking about nuclear war. I mean, was it always bullshit? It seems like it was always bullshit that Russia was playing. Mick, what do you got?

• 17:13Speaker 04

  What do you mean? Well, you mean like you well, like estimated their strength or just talking smack?

• 17:20Speaker 02

  Well, I mean, I obviously overestimate.

• 17:24Speaker 04

  I mean, we've always overestimated. Look at the Soviet Union and it's collapsed, right? Um, I don't think any analysts, and that was an analyst, and God bless them, they do great work. They do great work all the time, but I don't think any analyst ever is, is, uh, you know, penalized for overestimating enemies. Right? Whether it's Chinese or Russia, um, they obviously could be severely, uh, criticized if they underestimated an enemy and it proves to be, uh, not the case, right? So I think we overestimate them all the time. I think they, this proved, I mean, think about if, you know, I'm in Montana, right? So if, you know, not to pick on Canadians, but if Canada, if we would have wanted to invade Canada and we would have bragged about it for months.

• 18:03Speaker 04

  And then we would have got, you know, what 30 miles into Canada and basically collapsed, couldn't feed our troops, ran out of food, had to go to, you know, our allies to send tens of thousands of their troops to get slaughtered, losing a thousand casualties a day. I mean, like this would be considered, uh, this would be considered an absolute catastrophic failure by the United States, showing the whole world that we were a paper tiger. And that's what happened to Russia.

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:29Speaker 04

  They're at over 700,000 casualties, I believe, right now. I mean, it's insane. The idea that, uh, and they're, it's billions, hundreds of billions of dollars and lost, uh, you know, revenue to their, it, they are a very weak, uh, paper tiger who, whatever they, I think, uh, are exposed for their lack of military capability. They just start talking about nuclear weapons, right? It's all they have. I guess that's one, one, I guess, problem. I guess you could put it that way with the US being so, so much ahead, most of our competitors is that they look at us and say, we're not going to beat them on the conventional.

• 19:09Jack Murphy?

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• 19:49Speaker 04

  So we're either gonna get nukes, or we're gonna just use terrorist-type tactics. There's nothing, nothing in the, you know, in the specter of modern conventional warfare that they can compete with.

• 20:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, so like what I was referencing with Obama and Medvedev was like, it kinda seemed like there was a warming of relations and stuff like that. But I feel like that was just a ploy, right? The whole like, I don't, over the last few years, it's like, you can't really trust anything the Russians talk about, report, they're not a global like, partner in anything really, you know what I mean? Maybe a couple of times they've helped us with counterterrorism stuff, but it's like, outside of that, it's like, they're absolute, they're just full of shit all the time. It's like such, it's just a facade, whether it's militarily or diplomatically, like, they're not friends, unfortunately.

• 20:48Speaker 04

  And they don't want to be friends. Yeah. As much as we think with, you know, and counterterrorism is what we always use because they're like, you got it, we got it. Why can't we work together? Right. And it never, it never works. It just never works. Even when we tried to warn them of that one attack, that big ass attack, you know, they didn't listen. Right? So, yeah, it's, we gotta accept they don't want to be our friends. I'm not talking about the Russian people, right? We're talking about government to government. But right. They say simply have no interest in everything, everything they do, even if it looks like an outreach, is, is to gain something on us. Yeah. That's it.

• 21:21Speaker 03

  I mean, every nation is gonna work in its own best interest, but they are at, they have proven over and over again that even as they're putting out their right hand in supposed cooperation, the left hand is stealing something from you. Uh, so they're always, and they're not good at it. They're not good at hiding their, you know, their hands. So uh, we have to expect it, you know, like you said, it's not the Russian people, it's their, their government.

• 21:47Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, all right. So what's cooking with, uh, you know, the current situation in Iran, um, new administration coming in. Seems to, seems like they're gonna be pretty tough on Iran in terms of whether it's sanctions or even more, uh, make, what are you thinking in terms of what's gonna go down? And I mean, do a little bit of speculation with what the new administration is gonna try and do.

• 22:14Speaker 04

  Sure. And to start with, I mean, we think Russia is doing bad. Iran's doing even worse, right? They've had their, uh, proxy forces. I think the last time I saw is they give, they were giving up the billion dollars a year to Hezbollah. Hezbollah has been decimated, their leadership's annihilated, even their very charismatic leader. Their mid-level leadership's kaput, their arsenals are depreciated. Uh, I mean, it's, and now Hezbollah wanted a ceasefire, right? Uh, they got it, uh, to a certain extent. Hamas, same situation. Uh, I think I saw about 20,000, estimated about 30,000 Hamas fighters to start with. There's about 19,000, I think.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  Estimated killed and 45,000, uh, you know, Palestinians in Gaza, right? It's completely destroyed. And then the Assad regime, no more corridor to fund Hezbollah. Now everybody's focused on the Houthis. So stand by, that's one. D, one of your, uh, answer to one of your questions is, I think, um, CENTCOM's been posing a lot of targets that haven't been proved. I would look for that to change pretty quickly. Once the new administrations set and in place. Certainly, the maximum pressure campaign, which was the Trump administration's efforts against Iran when we pulled out of the Jipola.

• 23:34Speaker 04

  A lot of those sanctions were removed from Iran. And even with that, the economy there is collapsing. I mean, they're they're one of the biggest, you know, countries of oil and gas, and they can't get oil and gas to their people. They can't even power their country. And I think the real is in like a free fall right now. It's not an economist, but it's like seven hundred eighty thousand real per one dollar.

• 23:58Speaker 04

  So they have a really good chance of getting the regime overrun. And I think the people in Iran are looking at Syria going, huh? You know, maybe it just takes a like one giant effort. I don't know. I don't know how that's going to happen, but I I think the Trump administration is going to look at that. Reinstate all the the maximum pressure campaign sanctions, potentially install new ones. And I know there's ideas about how to prevent them from using selling oil to fund the regime. I think they'll be looking at all of that. And unfortunately,

• 24:34Speaker 04

  there's probably going to be a renewed discussion with Israel of what to do if they raise toward a nuclear weapon that can be delivered. Because from Iran's perspective, they're out of slits, right? Their their proxies are getting annihilated. Their economy is down the drains. They have huge public,

• 24:54Speaker 04

  you know, dissent with the regime. And the only thing that I think they think that they can do to prevent, you know, at least outside interference is to get that nuclear weapon, kind of a North Korea scenario. So I think the Trump administration will, and and I'm sure the Biden administration had looked at it. But just how successful they could be at setting back the nuclear program substantially with a strike and how that would go down and how it would be viewed and and all the things that go into those military type decisions.

• 25:27Speaker 04

  Jason, you got anything?

• 25:28Speaker 03

  No, I agree. I mean, they're gonna take what came before them and what worked when they were in office, when the Trump administration was previously in office. And in concert with, as Mick said, Israel, I think they're gonna formulate their best plans. But I guess if you're gonna do it, this is the best time to do it, based on their current issues in the regime, as well as the economic situation in the country. And, you know, as Mick said, Syria, you know, because I'm sure the regime is looking over their shoulder like, oh shit, you know, it can be done, and it was done.

• 26:08Speaker 03

  So I wouldn't be surprised if that starts to peek its head up, if we see some serious crackdowns.

• 26:18Speaker 03

  As far as protests, or, you know, we see them, we see this, the stories here and there of, you know, women, you know, getting, you know, caned, or arrested, or things like that. But I think if it starts to go the way of Syria, and they get wind of it, because, you know, and Mick, correct me if I'm wrong, the, the one thing that still works well in Iran is their intelligence agencies. So I think if they get a, get wind of it, we'll see some serious crackdowns. So, yeah, the administration, the incoming administration has its full plate.

• 26:52Speaker 04

  They do. And I mean, that's one thing regimes seem to be good at, is protecting the regime, right? They have a very substantial internal security apparatus. They have a whole section of the IRGC that's basically home rule, which is designed to prevent both an invasion, you know, it's kind of segmented, but also the population uprising is huge. The kind of besieged, I think. And this ties into our earlier conversation when it comes to nuclear, is one of the biggest issues we're gonna be looking at is What do we have to do to be able to successfully target nuclear facilities? Because it's huge mitigation of air and missile defense. It's putting a lot of pilots at risk, a lot. Very slow moving aircraft at risk.

• 27:36Speaker 04

  You know, so it's more than just flying over there and dropping munitions. And of course, it's specific kind of munitions that are very difficult to make. And as far as I know, we are the ones that have it. So not Israel. So it's a, there's a lot that goes into that. That kind of ties together our first part of this conversation. Like if you had unmanned, you know, stealth bombers and fighters. It would still be a big decision, of course, because it usually leave a force. But it would be a different conversation.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Does Israel act unilaterally at some point? Do you think? Is that, is that in the cards?

• 28:17Speaker 04

  I think it's plausible. And I know I'm not unusual for policy folks that have talked about this.

• 28:25Speaker 04

  With Israelis, they basically make it clear to us, which might be their intention, that they will go along. They'd love for us to be part of it, but they're not, they're not gonna wait if they feel like there's a nuclear deliverable weapon about to be, you know, completed, that they would love to have the US. It would be a much more difficult task if it was just Israelis. But Israelis make it clear that they would still attempt.

• 28:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, definitely going to be something interesting to watch over the next couple of years. Ukraine, we got North Korean reports of like human waves. North Korean casual.

• 29:10Speaker 06

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• 29:41Speaker 02

  The supposedly North Korean POW. What do you guys, what do you guys see in there?

• 29:50Speaker 03

  Um, I, I know, uh, one of the things I'm seeing is the, uh, uh, there's videos making the rounds of North Koreans and Ukrainians, you know, who are saying that they're witnessing North Koreans using the tactic of human bait, uh, against drones, you know, send out, um, it's kind of, uh, and Mick, you probably remember this in the Marine Corps and some of the manuals they have, uh, at least when I was in, they had a thing where it's like, if you want to detect whether there's, uh, chemical agents in the area, line every, line the squad up, take the, uh, private PFC and be like, take off your mask. Um, you know, if he starts flopping, well, it's there. So basically it's like same thing. Send somebody out, you know, to tool around in a field, drone

• 30:34Speaker 03

  starts chasing him. Well, we do our best to shoot it down. If not, well, sorry buddy. Um, so, uh, yeah, so that seems to be a thing. And then I have seen, uh, videos about the, um, human waves, like there's just like, I think one Ukrainian soldier described it as, uh, old black and white movies he watched from the Korean War, where like somebody's like blowing a bugle and they just get online and, and you know, wave after wave after wave and they just get decimated because they don't know anything else.

• 31:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable that they would need these folks. It just shows you how desperate they are and that, uh, North Korea would just sign up their troops to be just purely fodder. Yeah. Just purely fodder. Right? So, um, I think right now we have uh, 4.3 billion left in approved security assistance to Ukraine. And I think they just announced today 1.82 billion that's going. So I think the Biden administration is trying to get everything out the door before, uh, January 20th, uh, obviously when President Trump takes over and his team takes over. I do, I, I, I think that people might be jumping to

• 31:48Speaker 04

  the wrong conclusions necessarily about what's going to happen under, uh, second Trump administration. If you listen to Mike Walz, uh, who's a very serious national security expert and is obviously the incoming national security advisor. But if you listen to his past statements, the criticism that I saw and I pretty much agree with was he, he thought the Biden administration was moving too slow on approving. You know, advanced weapon systems and it was dragging this out, having public debates. And it's like, if we would have just approved this early on, uh, we could have been in a different situation now. And it's, it's, it's almost like we were supporting them just so they didn't lose, but not really that they had an opportunity to be successful.

• 32:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:28Speaker 04

  So if that, if that line of thought is prevalent in the White House, which seems like would be, if you pick him as a national security advisor, it might be that President Trump looks at this as, okay, well, we'll throw some ideas on the table, but if Russia doesn't accept it, then maybe we'll go more in.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 32:45Speaker 04

  We're supporting Ukraine. Like, he will be the president that wins or loses this.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:51Speaker 04

  Right? Ultimately, he's the American president, we're the leaders of the free world, we're in NATO. If we don't win this, we lose it.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:02Speaker 04

  Okay? Cause Ukrainians are fighting, like they're doing everything they can, like nobody, you know, pro-Ukraine or not pro-Ukraine, if you look at what they're doing, they're doing everything they can to save their country. I mean, you got old men showing up on the, uh, in the front lines begging to replace a young guy, cause they know an entire generation of Ukrainians are gonna be gone, like they're not gonna have, uh, you know, Ukrainians. So can't, can't, uh, criticize them at all. It really comes down to the support. So if President Trump's administration goes all in, this could be, it could change. And maybe I'm being, you know, glass half foolish kinda, but I, I would just caution people who think they know what's gonna happen with the second Trump administration.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think there's gonna be.

• 33:45Speaker 04

  We're, uh, last point, it's not just the national security advisor, but Senator Rubio, likely the next secretary of state, you know, he's, he has a very, I think, traditional view of US national security priorities and policies.

• 34:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. What's interesting to me is it's like. The number sounds big, but um it's not cash, it's not like we're sending in pallets of cash. Um it's equipment that we were gonna decommission anyway.

• 34:15Speaker 04

  Or manufacturing.

• 34:16Speaker 02

  Right, exactly. And um there are no American boots on the ground. It's not like we're losing guys, you know what I mean? So like in terms of like, I know this is a war and it's, people are dying. But in terms of like US strategic policy, like the ROI is there. We're bleeding Russia. And like, sure, everyone could say, yeah, this has happened in history before where they've lost a ton of guys. They eventually win. Times are different, you know what I mean? Putin can't mobilize. St. Petersburg, Moscow, like he, he cares about staying in power. He doesn't, he doesn't, he can only push the Russian people to a certain point. Before they actually come out and, and overthrow him or cause major problems at home.

• 35:01Speaker 02

  So yeah, I don't get, and it's not like the sixty billion dollars is coming in our pockets. Like we're all gonna get a check in America, you know what I mean? Or we're gonna get health insurance. It's not gonna happen. So it's like, let's look at it a little bit more pragmatically in terms of what we're getting for this equipment support, all that. I don't know, that's my.

• 35:19Speaker 04

  And if, in the last year's budget for the DOD was eight hundred fifty billion dollars. And we've spent sixty four billion on Ukraine since February twenty two. Right? So it's, it's a direct correlation to, it's in our own interest. They've uh essentially decimated the Russian military. So there, our strength is relative to their strength and China's strength. So it's, it is in our own interest, even if we didn't have any moral or ethical issues of supporting a democracy, just take that out. It's, it's in our own interest. Russia still would be doing it for us a hundred percent, right? Like they did Vietnam, you know, right? So like, this isn't that complicated. So people would make this into a. Uh, you know, we're, you know, we'd be giving money to people, uh, you know, hurricane relief.

• 36:03Speaker 04

  No, we wouldn't. Uh, this is part of our defense budget. If we want to have that debate. I mean, I know we don't talk about those kind of things here, but um, have the debate, but in, you know, but thi- this is not either war. This could be part of the defense budget is depleting our enemies, right? Our adversaries have lost tens of thousands of tanks. Just go down the list. You can Google it yourself and just see just how. I mean, Ukraine destroyed their Black Sea fleet and Ukraine doesn't even have a navy, right? And it's, it's a lot of the stuff we're delivering and we're gaining all the knowledge of this, you know, new form of drone warfare that uh, we would have to be doing in action, you know, uh, if we're, we're learning it through our allies, which are the Ukrainians.

• 36:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm worried about what a peace deal looks like and if the Ukrainians take it. Because like freezing the lines, I mean, is Ukraine really going to take that? I mean, I know that's a bigger conversation, but.

• 37:01Speaker 04

  Well, the, my understanding from the Kellogg proposal, I think we're calling that General Kellogg, who's the uh, incoming special envoy. Is that they would be frozen, but it doesn't mean that Ukraine has conceded the territory they've lost. It just means they'll stop fighting and they'll seek to do that through diplomatic means, which I know, I understand is very difficult to get back. But it would stop the fighting, right? And then there'd be some kind of, it's, it would be, I think, in many ways Ukrainians in Ukraine's interest because they can build back up their capacity. Uh, we would be funding them, but not to the same levels because it wouldn't be an act of combat.

• 37:44Speaker 04

  And we could get them to a point where they're just so militarily substantial. That they would lose no more terrain. You see what I mean? So I'm not, I'm not saying I'm bought into it because I think ultimately it comes down to the Ukrainian people making that decision on us. But there's, there's benefits if you listen to the whole. And then if Russia, you know, because Russia lies all the time. So as soon as they see they have an advantage, they'll break the treaty. So let's be upfront about that. Or this ceasefire. Then we can, part of the agreement can be if you break the ceasefire, then we will fund to the maximum. Extent, everything is on the table, all weapon systems we have except for nuclear and they can be used anywhere in Russia. We can make these caveats, right?

• 38:28Speaker 04

  Yeah, make this a lasting. And if it's, if it's the Ukrainian people's desire, I think.

• 38:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's an interesting, yeah, it buys them time to like, kind of. Stand themselves up and be able to like, support, like defend themselves. Without as much support from NATO or EU or us, right? That, that is an interesting point.

• 38:56Speaker 02

  That's all I got, guys. Anything else on your mind? That's, that's a chapping your asses or anything?

• 39:02Speaker 04

  No.

• 39:05Speaker 04

  Not really. I think we covered, covered it all, man.

• 39:07Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 03

  Get that damn Alex Hall and Collings on here so he can call us all liars and say, you guys screwed that up completely.

• 39:14Speaker 02

  I'm gonna try and get, I'm gonna try and get Alex on for this week sometime, probably, uh, maybe first or second of January or something, maybe try and get him on to give us like the low down and the specifics about what's going on over there. In China with the new, uh, new fighter jets.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Fogwell, go ahead, so.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Oh, just one point on that, that I had an interesting discussion when I was in the Pentagon. Is what they call the post heroic era. And when AI takes over with robotics, that the consequences of war for the most advanced society is changed considerably.

• 39:49Speaker 02

  Right.

• 39:49Speaker 04

  But that's what they mean by post heroic, like nobody, you know, whether you're a soldier or marine sailor, airman, putting yourself in direct harm's way, and the country itself has to make that determination. And it's a real decision. It's gonna be a different situation when they're like, wow, we just lose a bunch of robots. You know, the post heroic part of what's coming, I think is, uh, is an interesting discussion because it fits with the artificial intelligence and, you know, unmanned terrestrial and aerial drones. We're headed toward it really quickly.

• 40:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 40:24Speaker 04

  And, uh, there's gonna be a gap between it's, I guess it could be the, the third offset, right? It's gonna be a gap, but we're so far advanced that we could just go do whatever we want, not that we will. But eventually, all these other countries are gonna come up with some version of that. So it's consequential to us, right? So something to consider.

• 40:42Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's kinda scary, dude. If you think about it, right? Cause they kinda take, if you take the human element out of war, it's like, are people really looking at the consequences? Right? Cause like, you're worried about losing your guys, right? But if it's just like, yeah, you know what? Click a button, send, send over the drones, wipe out this people, and it doesn't matter. Like, cause we're not losing any guys.

• 41:07Speaker 04

  Yeah. And we're getting to a point where we can clear buildings with drones.

• 41:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Right? So it's like, and I understand it. I mean, as a guy who spent my whole, you know, life involved in this, I like anything that mitigates chances of me and my friends getting, not getting killed, right? So, so it's not gonna stop. It's, it's, there's not really gonna be a debate like, okay, let's just all not do this. We're doing it.

• 41:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 41:28Speaker 04

  So there's got a lot of discussions that needs to happen with it because it's, you know, especially at first, all the advanced societies are gonna be able to just wreak havoc wherever they want. Um, yeah, there's gotta be, there's gotta be rules, there gotta be consequences and people have to abide by them or it's not gonna be, they're not gonna be relevant. It's just one of those things that Westerners, uh, do and not our friends in Russia or China.

• 41:53Speaker 02

  That's a great topic. We should have a show about that because that there's like so many ethical questions too about it. It takes you away from like what goes on in war, right? Like because you know, now there's people that go into rooms and clear them out and are fight in lines and die. When you don't have that risk, like it brings up a pretty wild ethical question in terms of like, will you be willy nilly with like? The death and destruction of people.

• 42:24Speaker 03

  And it desensitizes you to the the next step, which would be, you know, nuclear weapons. So it's like, if you feel nothing for sending a bunch of drones out to kill the bad guys, what says that you're not gonna, you're gonna care about pressing a button to launch nukes and just, you know, wipe everyone out.

• 42:46Speaker 04

  Yeah, and we get real comfortable with like advanced technology killing people. Be honest, like I don't know how many times I'm sure plenty of people had the conversations like, you know, we could just go in there and shoot the guy instead of dropping a forty five thousand dollar missile on him. And they're like, no way, that would be barbaric. You know, and you're like, um, okay, you have a different version of barbarism than I do, but um, because I mean, it's safe. We feel much more comfortable looking on a TV screen going, oh yeah, we got that guy. He's he's stuff. Right? But, you know, send somebody in to shoot him point blank and it's, you know, it's a it's it's a different conversation. So if that's where we're going, then yeah. And these conversations are happening, but I don't think they're happening in our society because our society kind of is now removed from our,

• 43:31Speaker 04

  uh, you know, our military, uh, pretty far.

• 43:35Speaker 04

  I think it'd be a good conversation.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  We're extremely removed from the military, like me as a civilian. You know, Iraq and Afghanistan, like that was something obviously I tracked and paid attention to, but it wasn't happening here, right? And it's a professional army. There's, you know, it's all volunteers.

• 43:55Speaker 02

  People are very much far removed and we just expect to be on top, right? And no one's gonna fuck with us. We got two oceans.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  It's, yeah.

• 44:06Speaker 06

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• 44:35Speaker 02

  It's, it's a wild things to come. Jesus. Thanks for the letdown, Mick. Jesus Christ. Happy New Year.

• 44:44Speaker 04

  Merry Christmas. Yeah.

• 44:48Speaker 04

  2025 is gonna be an interesting year, especially.

• 44:50Speaker 02

  Yeah. Um, don't forget to subscribe because we're gonna be talking all about it on Eyes On. Mick Mulroy, Fogbo, Lobo, everything is in the description. Cool new books coming out, right? Guys are almost wrapped up. I can't wait for that. So look out for that. Jason Lyons, all his links are in the description, LinkedIn, Blue Sky. Andy Milburn, he's back in the motherland for the holidays. His links are in the description as well. When the Tempest gathers, the best way to support the show is patreon.com/teammouse. That link is in the description as well. I spoke to Jack this morning. The sales are going very well for We Defy. If you haven't checked it out, check it out. We Defy: The Lost Chapters of Special Forces History.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Link is in the description for that as well. Um, and thanks, guys. Have a Happy New Year, everybody.

• 45:41Speaker 04

  Thank you. Happy New Year, everyone. Everybody.

• 45:51Speaker 00

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• 46:27Speaker 00

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• 47:02Speaker 00

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• 47:30Speaker 06

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of 5-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.