#1115 Mike Shelby | This Interview Will Scare You

Mike Shelby is the Founder & CEO of Forward Observer, a modern age Intel service. In this conversation, we discuss many geopolitical situations including China & Taiwan, the Russia & Ukraine conflict, the threat of nuclear war, and domestic issues across the United States. This episode provides an inside look into all of the major conflicts around the world and will give you a framework on how you can prepare yourself at home with the proper knowledge. ======================= With a Messari Pro subscription, you gain access to exclusive industry-leading long-form daily research reports, daily crypto news & insights in your inbox, advanced asset screeners, curated sets of charts and metrics and so much more. Try Messari Pro today! Get up to 25% off their Messari Pro membership by visiting www.messari.io/pro and entering promo code "POMP" at checkout. ======================= Valour (formerly DeFi Technologies) represents what’s next in the digital economy -- providing simplified, trusted access to crypto, decentralized finance and Web 3.0 investment opportunities. Institutions and investors can gain diversified, secure, compliant, and easily tradable access to a diversified set of industry-leading equity products and protocols, through a single stock purchase on a regulated exchange. Currently listed on U. S. (OTC: DEFTF) and Canadian (NEO:DEFI) exchanges. For more information or to subscribe to receive company updates and financial information, visit our website at valour.com ======================= The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. Even better? Eight Sleep recently launched the next generation of the Pod. The new Pod 3 enables more accurate sleep and health tracking with double the amount of sensors, delivering you the best sleep experience on Earth. Go to eightsleep.com/pomp ======================= Exodus is leading the world out of the traditional financial system by building beautiful and user-friendly blockchain products. With its focus on design and user experience, Exodus has become one of the most popular and loved cryptocurrency apps. It’s supported on both desktop and mobile, allowing you to sync your wallet across multiple devices so you can have access to your funds anywhere. You can instantly exchange around 100 different cryptocurrencies straight from your wallet. Interactive charts let you view an asset’s price history and your portfolio’s performance over time. And maybe the best part, Exodus is integrated with the Trezor hardware wallet - making advanced security easy for everyone. Visit exodus.com/pomp for your free download or search Exodus on the App Store or Playstore. ======================= Compass Mining is the world's first online marketplace for bitcoin mining hardware and hosting. Compass was founded with the goal of making it easy for everyone to mine bitcoin. Visit https://compassmining.io/ to start mining bitcoin today! =======================

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

• 0:02Anthony Pompliano?

  What's up everyone? This is Anthony Pompliano. Most of you know me as Pomp. You're listening to the Pomp Podcast, simply the best podcast out there. Now let's kick this thing off. Mike Shelby is the founder and CEO of Ford Observer, a modern age intel service that gives people the information they need and the ability to act on it in real time for current events around the world. In this conversation, we talk about all sorts of different things, including the China, Taiwan issues, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, domestic issues around the United States, and many other topics that many of you will be thinking about, learning about, and constantly trying to war game out in your minds on a daily basis. I really enjoyed this conversation with Mike. I hope you guys enjoyed it as well. After

• 0:46Anthony Pompliano?

  you listen to this episode, get on Twitter, let us know what you think. What'd you like? What did you not like? What do you agree with and what do you disagree with? We really enjoy the feedback and the conversation after each one of these episodes. Alright, let's get in this conversation with Mike. I hope you guys enjoy this one.

• 0:59Speaker 01

  Anthony Pompliano runs Pomp Investments. All views of him and the guests on his podcast are solely their opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Pomp Investments. You should not treat any opinion expressed by Pomp or his guests as a specific inducement to make a particular investment or follow a particular strategy, but only as an expression of his personal opinion. This podcast is for informational purposes only.

• 1:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Alright guys, bang, bang. I've got Mike here with me. I'm very excited about this because you operate in a world that I think most people don't understand, but is incredibly important. But it's all based on your background. You were in intel, in the military, you spent some time as a contractor. Walk us through, kind of, what were you doing in the military? And then we can talk about how you're now using this in the civilian world to keep people informed.

• 1:45Speaker 02

  Well, I enlisted in 2004. I was a 96 Bravo intel analyst. And, you know, the-

• 1:52Speaker 02

  The military career, I actually, I didn't really like it, I guess, but I loved to be on deployments. You know, you do your job, like you wake up, you have a mission, you have stuff to do. You know, we always say intelligence drives the fight. And I'm, you know, I'm not trying to, you know, play this up, right? I mean, most of the time I was sitting at a computer, but people have to make decisions. You know, commanders and teams, they have to go to X place. They have to know what to expect once they get there. And somebody has to provide them with that intelligence. And so it really is a critical part of warfighting. And so, you know, I really did enjoy the intelligence side. You know, you get to, you know, experience things that, that not many other people do.

• 2:37Speaker 02

  You get to watch, you know, things on TV and say, oh, that's not right. You know, you know, that's the US spin on what actually happened, you know? And so I tell you, I, I really just, I fell in love with the job. And yeah, and then I got into contracting after that. I did two deployments, went to Afghanistan in oh, six, oh, seven, Iraq, oh, eight, oh, nine. And then as a contractor, went back to Afghanistan for 2010 and 2011. And, uh, you know, I, I just, I really enjoyed, I really enjoyed that as a.

• 3:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. One of the things as you're talking that immediately goes back to is like, you wake up every day, shave your face, put on the same uniform, you know where to go, you know where to be. You don't gotta make very many decisions and like life's pretty easy.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 3:23Anthony Pompliano?

  People who've never experienced it, they're like, that sounds fucking crazy. These two guys are idiots, right? But like, there is this clarity that comes from being in an environment where you don't really think for yourself sometimes. Right now, yeah, out on the battlefield or whatever, or in your case, a lot of times you're writing reports, like you're having to synthesize information. But there is something different about that experience that I think is hard for people to understand until they go and do it. When you were doing the intel work, talk a little bit about the training that you get before you actually go out and get deployed and things like that. Cause I think most people are like, oh, intel, like, is that like, you know, Jack Bauer? Is that like, uh, some kind of field agent who's, you know, hanging people up and like doing all kinds of crazy stuff? What is the training like?

• 4:06Anthony Pompliano?

  And then what does that actually mean, you know, kind of day to day when you're out in an deployment?

• 4:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. You know, big army stuff, big army intel is, is like big army anything, you know? But there is a part of the army that, you know, it's not James Bond, but you know, it gets a a little bit into the gray, gray zone or, you know, gray area. But yeah, the train up, you know, on the, on the big army side, it is, you, you do your, your train up, it's like you zero your rifle, you go to the range, you get, you know, you qualify with a, with a M249 or, you know, whatever, you do rollover training. You know, it's probably a lot like just for everyone who's, who's getting ready to deploy. And then, but on the intel side, there is, you know, how well do you know the area? As, as soon as possible, you know, figure out where you're going, what unit you're replacing,

• 4:52Speaker 02

  get in touch with them, start getting a lay of the land because it's very important as, especially as an analyst, you have to understand the baseline of, of where you're going so that you can determine what is off baseline. And so having a head start on where you're going, learning the local tribes, the local power players, the Taliban, Nochi Bandi, whatever groups are active in the area. During that train up, the more you know about, about those groups and what they've been doing, the better off you'll be because, you know, once you're, once the unit you're replacing rips out, like there goes 11 or 12 months worth of knowledge and it just literally disappears. And so, you know, and then all of a sudden it's, it's a commander asking you, you've been

• 5:34Speaker 02

  there for 30 days, expecting an answer like you've been there for 12 months.

• 5:38Anthony Pompliano?

  One of, from my experience, some, some, something that someone said to me early on was they said the first two weeks and the last two weeks was the most dangerous ones. And I was like, why? And they were like, look, man, you, you think that these people aren't paying attention. You think these people aren't actively thinking all day long, how do we kill these motherfuckers? Right? But like, they are sitting there all day long and that's all they're thinking about. And when they see that truck drive by, they're like, I've never seen that truck with that number on it before. It's a new unit. These dudes don't know what they're doing yet. They don't know where they are. They don't know who we are. Like, and it's sure enough, like the intensity of attacks in the beginning and the end seemed kind of crazy. And you never really know why, right? Some of it's the changeover stuff. Some of it's maybe you're just on your game, you know, kind of in the middle of deployment. But I remember also the

• 6:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Entire intel that we would receive, there was a change in quality, you know, right around when you would do kind of left seat, right seat stuff. And it's just fascinating now in hindsight, kind of a little bit older, you get more context. You start to understand why this stuff happens. But like that happened, how many times when units were changing out, you know, throughout a 20 year war in two different countries, like thousands of times, right? And so literally somebody having to get up to speed on a brand new area in a matter of days, if not weeks, just happened over and over and over again.

• 6:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. And you know, intel is just like any other MOS. Like they're, they're the guys, these guys are going to excel. These guys fairly average, these guys should probably be like, you know, refueling trucks, right? And nothing against, you know, the fuel guys, because that's all very important too, you know?

• 7:05Anthony Pompliano?

  No, no, we can, we can give them shit.

• 7:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, yeah. No, no, it's just like you stick it, you know, you stick in an 11 Bravo in the arms room.

• 7:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Of course.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  You know, because he doesn't need to be out with, with everyone else. So in intel, it's the exact same thing, you know, you have the same, same challenges as everybody else. Just, you know, typically no, you know, nobody's shooting at you.

• 7:24Anthony Pompliano?

  So you talked about like establish a baseline and then recognize when something's off baseline. I'm assuming that this is both in the military and the contracting work. And then what you're doing today, kind of in the civilian world and keeping people informed on various threats and kind of regions of the world. How do you tell something's off baseline? Like, like maybe just when you go and you look at a situation, how do you establish a baseline? And then how do you know, oh, that's, that's an outlier? That's something that I should pay more attention to.

• 7:48Speaker 02

  Well, the first thing is you have to establish a subject matter expertise on your topic. So, you know, I'm knowledgeable about China and I can sit here and talk a lot about China and Taiwan, but I'm not an expert in the Chinese military. I'm not a PLA guy. And so what you often kind of see on social media, you know, especially it's, it's the Dunning Kruger. Right? You read, you read the Wikipedia page and you're, you know, here's my, here's my 26, you know, tweet thread on, on the Chinese PLA, you know? So the first thing in establishing a baseline is just have to have vast amounts of knowledge and information about what's going on. If you can, there's a couple of ways you can do this. Number one, you can use an indicator system where, you know, we see.

• 8:33Speaker 02

  The PLA moving tanks around, okay? Well, that's happened every day for the past, the past six months. Okay, that's very in baseline. And then all of a sudden, there's double the number of tanks. Or in addition to tanks, now it's command and control vehicles, or it's air defense, or, you know, something that, well, we didn't see that last week, and now we're seeing it now. So identifying those indicators is kind of the first step there. And, you know, and then beyond that, the knowledge that you accrue, just reading through the news every day, you know, I guess it's kind of the same thing. You say, you know, these politicians or these Chinese officials weren't talking like this last, last month. Now, now they are, and what's caused that change?

• 9:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. I know you're not an expert on China, but I think everyone who hears China now wants to know, are they going to take Taiwan? When? Why? How? How do you all just kind of wrap your heads around a geopolitical situation that not only is rooted in the current day, in kind of what I would consider more military warfare and strategy and things like that, there's also a commercial kind of threat standpoint, obviously with the, the chips and kind of Taiwan, Taiwan being so important to kind of the global infrastructure in that regard. But there's also a historical component to this. You know, how did Taiwan get to the point where it is today? And what is kind of the expectation over time? Like, how do you all break down a situation like that?

• 9:58Speaker 02

  Well, first, yeah, subject matter expertise. And you, you look at, you never, as an analyst, you never want to say, well, China's going to do X, and they're going to do it on, on X day. Being an analyst on stuff, something like this is, one reason why it's very difficult is because they may not have decided exactly what they're going to do yet. And so you're being asked, hey, what is China going to do? How are they going to do this? And if they haven't decided, well, it's, it's an impossible task.

• 10:24Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  However, you know, you, you look at, at what China has said in the past, and China said, well, we don't want to fight a war. I think that's true. I don't think they want to fight a conventional war, because it's not just going to be against the United States. It's going to be against Australia, or Japan, and other countries are probably going to get involved at, at that point. And really, at that point, we're looking at World War III anyway. They want to avoid that, unless they're maybe 100% sure that they can win. I don't think they're there. So we have This thing called the gray zone and it exists under below the threshold of conventional war. And so, you know, this is like using, China's doing this a lot with their maritime militia. They have a bunch of fishing boats that are armed and they act as like a quasi, you know,

• 11:09Speaker 02

  they call the maritime militia quasi Chinese PLA Navy. But, but they're just out there trawling, you know, trying to catch fish and so, you know, my, our, our China analyst Max has talked about this quite a bit. We really think China's, China does well in the gray zone. They really excel in the gray zone. So probably the most, most likely course of action at this point, it doesn't mean it's a hundred percent, but most likely course of action is stay in the gray zone. Why risk fighting a conventional war when you can just surround Taiwan and embargo it? And you're not dropping bombs on Taiwan, you know, you're not threatening to nuke Taipei, but you're also being highly coercive. You're just, you have not triggered war yet.

• 11:50Anthony Pompliano?

  And so if there's a, you know, some sort of embargo, blockade, whatever kind of the various tactics are, the idea would be that you almost have implicit control. You are driving the situation, you're coercing kind of what plays out, but you yet haven't stepped over the line to a point where the United States or other countries may say, hey, that's an act of war and now we're going to come, you know, toe to toe with you. And so by doing that, that's kind of this gray zone you're talking about where you have immense impact on the situation, but you're very careful as to where the line is. You never kind of step over. Is that like a fair way to kind of think about it?

• 12:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's like using, you know, like, let's just look at maybe a domestic scenario, right? Okay, I shoot you with the paintball, right? Is that going to cause you to use your firearm against me? Maybe not. It's a legal gray area. You're probably going to prison. You know, that's kind of a gray zone tactic, you know, it's where you are still taking steps to achieve your will. You're disrupting the enemy. You're deterring, you know, their, their vast military might in terms of the United States, just the massive amount of firepower that could be over there. Yeah, you're still carrying out your objectives. You're just not triggering war. You're, you're not causing the other guy to pull the trigger yet.

• 13:05Anthony Pompliano?

  If China and the United States win toe to toe, I understand, and I actually agree with you, that it's unlikely that either country wants that. Now, whether it happens, we'll see. But if we got to that point, is there a clear consensus, whether it's in the intel community, or just kind of in private conversations as to who would win that?

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Well, I think it's greatly contested. So, a lot of it depends on, one thing our China analyst, Max, talks about is the tyranny of distance. We do not have enough assets in there. If China goes 100% full tilt, high intensity, conventional war, invasion of Taiwan, we do not have enough assets in the region to stop them. And so, this is a case where China, over the course of several days, can be, can start their amphibious assault against Taiwan. So, A, it's going to be very difficult for the United States to win that war, just because it's going to take us so long to get over there.

• 14:05Anthony Pompliano?

  How, how long? Is this like a two week period, or is this like two, two, three months?

• 14:09Speaker 02

  Like, easy four to six weeks to get, well, okay, so we have, I mean, we have a couple of carrier strike groups in the region. But, and I'm not a Navy guy, but I would, you know, I'd expect easy four to six weeks to start, start putting stuff over there. You know, we've been doing a lot of, kind of, pre-positioned stock programs over there. We rebase some bombers to Australia, we're striking up some deal with the Philippines. I imagine we're going to start storing munitions over there. But, you know, I forgot who said this, but I think it's the, some Air Force general over there in Indo-Pacific Command. He said they have something like 10 days worth of munitions in a full-on fight against

• 14:53Speaker 02

  China. They have 10 days worth of munitions. So, we better win it in 10 days. That's why, that's why I have very significant doubt that we can actually win that war, short of full-scale mobilization, put everybody in theater, and throw everything you have at the Chinese.

• 15:07Anthony Pompliano?

  What I find intellectually interesting about kind of the war gaming of this, the kind of hypothetical situations. You know, and people have heard me talk about this before, but like it's not to minimize the obvious loss of life and kind of all the seriousness of war. But this is not an exercise of where the United States has been highly successful recently. This is not, hey, call CL team six and let's send a couple of guys over and like do their thing and they come back, we talk about it on national television like we win, right? This is very much if there is a direct combat type engagement, the United States is going to have to bring jets, bombs, strikers, you know, I mean, just everything we got. And we haven't fought a war like that in a long time.

• 15:51Anthony Pompliano?

  And what I think ends up being interesting is it's also not on land, right? Now, yes, could we get it to land? Could we kind of go play that game? Of course. But what we're talking about here, you're talking about, you know, a maritime militia or talking about Navy. We're talking about all these different things that add a degree of complexity, which it is unclear to me as a civilian who doesn't spend all day thinking about the stuff and reading it. How good are we, right? In in that environment. So how do you think about like, forget what China would do, just like the United States' readiness and its ability to, if it had everything in place, just fight in the sea against, you know, any enemy?

• 16:29Speaker 02

  So the first thing I think about about a war over there is logistics. We got to get troops over there. We got to get equipment. We got to get spare parts, food, water, ammo, all that stuff. China does not have a highly capable blue water Navy. They're trying to, I mean, they're in the process of developing that. So, you know, the first thing is how, how difficult will it be for us to have like an Iraq style logistics train, but to the Indo-Pacific? Now, some of that stuff will be coming from our allies in the region. We go back to like 10 days worth of munitions, you know, how, how many weeks is it going to take for us to get more stuff over there? And you know, the thing is, it's not just getting more stuff over there.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  We've been supplying Ukraine with so many munitions now. And I can't confirm that this is true, but you know, I'm sure people have seen it around. Like we have army units right now and marine units saying, hey, we're running out of HIMARS. We don't even have HIMARS to train the new guys who are just getting to their first station. And so. You know, I really do question, is this, this is probably going to take like years for us to replenish all the munitions that we've already sent to Ukraine. So that's the second thing I think about.

• 17:40Anthony Pompliano?

  I do wonder, again, it's very easy to talk about Russia, Ukraine as a conflict and a contained conflict in the sense of it, you know, two countries are going at it. And the United States obviously has a vested interest in trying to participate. There's plenty of people who think that we shouldn't be participating in any form or fashion, but we're at least sending aid at the moment. There was confirmation recently that there are troops on the ground, what they're doing, highly controversial, debatable, the whole thing. But it sounds like so far there has been no confirmation that US troops are actually engaged in direct combat on the ground with, you know, Russian troops or whatever. With that said, it's very easy to talk about China and Taiwan and the direct conflict there

• 18:22Anthony Pompliano?

  in a self-contained kind of environment. But what you're really highlighting is like, no, man, this is a global game. And, you know, imagine the world where Russia and Ukraine is just the warm up to China, Taiwan. And to your point, we've depleted resources, we've depleted the will of the American citizens, of our politicians, of military leadership to engage now in a dual front, you know, battle where on the outset of either one of those, you would say, hey, this is really important. And you put them both together, it's like, shit, this gets kind of crazy. And so do you think that this is top of mind for people right now, like the political leaders, the folks who kind of read the intel that you guys put out on a daily basis? Or is this something that you all are sitting

• 19:06Anthony Pompliano?

  there looking at it more from like a military strategy standpoint, like, yeah, I'm sure the military leaders are thinking about it, but everyone else pretty much is, you know, not even aware or thinking that this is an important kind of component to consider?

• 19:16Speaker 02

  Well, from the eastern perspective, the Russian and Chinese perspective, I think the Russians look at Ukraine as the first step in a strategic war against the United States. China looks at Taiwan probably as, you know, if they lose.

• 19:33Speaker 02

  Then this may be the end of the quote unquote Chinese century. But for the Chinese, they look at this and they say this is a stepping stone to replacing US global hegemony. And they're right now doing this economically and trying to do it financially. I don't think they want to do it militarily, but they're one way or the other, they're going to take Taiwan or they're going to lose a billion people trying to do it. So from the eastern perspective, yeah, this is about the next century. This is which sphere is going to own, you know, kind of have global dominance. For the United States, you read the latest national security strategy and latest national defense strategy and they're well aware, I mean, they outline it. They say this decade is going to be decisive. It is going to determine what happens this decade is going to determine the new rules

• 20:18Speaker 02

  based international order. I think they're acutely aware of it. I think they're way behind the curve, though.

• 20:25Anthony Pompliano?

  When you think about the military conflict, it's easy to say, hey, I get it. Cool. We don't line up, you know, soldiers in a line in a field anymore and kind of fire. But the direct combat, I think people can wrap their heads around. You mentioned financial and economic war and kind of, again, this ability to drastically kind of influence the direction of things without actually stepping over that line. What do you all pay the most attention to or most worried about in terms of the other types of, maybe in the most easy way to describe it, competition, in the most kind of direct and abrasive way, the actual conflict that is happening, you know, that isn't military but is more economic?

• 21:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think competition is a diplomatic term. It's, I think the United States and China in the East in general, I think they are going to be locked into kind of an economic and financial death match. When Biden signed the CHIPS Act and we undercut Chinese CHIPS production, I mean, that's escalatory. That's very significant. And we're still looking at how is China going to retaliate? I don't think, you know, Xi just came, Chinese President Xi Jinping came out some time ago and apparently wrote a letter to some Chinese interest groups in the United States saying, we don't want a confrontation, we don't want to escalate. And that's what they say, but. You know, back in Beijing, that's not at all what they're doing.

• 21:51Speaker 02

  Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi has even come out numerous times this year and said, Asia's time in global governance has come. We are going to replace the United States. We're going to topple the unipolar world. We're going to submit China as a driver of, as a matter of fact, they have this thing called the Global Development Initiative or the Global Security Initiative. We see China establishing BRICS and the BRICS Plus, which is fairly new. You know, Argentina, Saudi Arabia, several other countries. Actually, I think we're up to 19 countries now that have said that they plan to apply or are very interested in joining BRICS Plus. And so economically, or I guess I should say monetarily, China does not want to, I don't think they want to replace the US dollar as the world reserve. I don't think.

• 22:34Anthony Pompliano?

  Why not?

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Because their capital markets and credit markets are not large enough to do it. No one, no one in Brazil wants to accept the yuan right now or renminbi. But what they can do is, is use, is use BRICS and BRICS Plus to undermine the US dollar for probably 20 to 40% of global trade. And I think, I think the Chinese would be very happy to do that because if Brazil and India are no longer using the dollar as the standard of trade, then, I mean, that greatly diminishes US power and influence abroad. And so, yeah, I think China's not in a position to do that. And undermining the dollar is, is gray zone warfare. I mean, it is monetary and economic warfare.

• 23:20Speaker 02

  They're going to cause, potentially cause a massive monetary crisis. If, if they do start going down this road and more and more countries start saying, yeah, we're not going to use the dollar, we'll do bilateral currency trade. We'll just, if we have a, a trade, if our trade is even, then we're basically, we're just swapping each other's currencies. And as long as those currencies remain stable, we don't have to use the dollar. Well, that's a lot of international demand being just disappearing. That's exactly what the Chinese want.

• 23:47Anthony Pompliano?

  When you talk about currencies, obviously, everybody who watches this says, oh, Bitcoin's the solution, right? And I'll kind of give some context here. One of the ideas that I've had, which I don't necessarily think is right or see a clear path as to why it's wrong, but I think is interesting. I've always thought that the single best place to be is to be the owner of the global reserve currency, right? As we've seen for centuries now. But if you are not the owner of the global reserve currency, the second best place to be is to be using a currency along with everyone else that no one controls, right? And so kind of this idea of, okay, I want the global reserve currency. If I can't have it, then no one should have it. And then we should go use something that's decentralized or whatever. I like Bitcoin, right?

• 24:31Anthony Pompliano?

  I got a ton of bias when it comes to that. That story sounds awesome. How do you see Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, stable coins, like all these different technologies that are kind of related in some form or fashion and kind of coming from one industry, playing into these geopolitical games, especially like economic and monetary warfare, where, okay, if we can take away US dollar demand, like that helps us push forward this kind of 100-year plan that we have?

• 24:55Speaker 02

  I do watch the Federal Reserve with great interest where it concerns central bank digital currencies. I know they, like, it's every week, their Fed Bank presidents are coming out saying, hey, we have to have more regulation. We've got to have congressional action. I think they understand that stable coins are going to play a much larger role in the US and international economies. And this is not an area where they can lose control. I mean, you just, if you're the Fed, you cannot lose a monopoly over the US dollar or the use of dollar-denominated trade. You know, I don't know, I know there's a lot of, a lot of stable, like, very serious

• 25:36Speaker 02

  stable currencies, and the people developing those are developing, are stable coins, sorry, developing those to replace the US dollar. And I'll tell you, I'm just not sure how the Fed is going to be able to co-opt that. I'm not, I'm not an FX guy. I'm not a big monetary...

• 25:55Speaker 02

  Academic, but I, you know, I do wonder if, if those stable coins are backed one to one to the dollar, maybe that alone is good for the Fed because it, it just creates additional demand, even though China is trying to actively sap demand for the dollar in, in international trade.

• 26:10Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, it's, um, uh, it's something I've paid attention to for five years now. Um, I can remember 2018, 2019, literally going on national television, talking about this idea of, hey, uh, if the United States wants to remain, uh, the leader and have the global reserve currency, uh, there are a ton of risks and a ton of reasons why I actually don't think central bank digital currencies are good. And one of the pro arguments would be that it's all about accessibility. And so if you're in Venezuela and your local currency fails, uh, and you say, well, shit, that's not good. So I want dollars. I can't get dollars because it's dangerous. It's difficult. It costs a lot, you know, whatever the reason is. Um, and if I try to flee something that's physical like gold or whatever, that's also dangerous. Uh, let me get on the internet. What can I use there? It's actually not in many cases Bitcoin, right? It's volatile. They don't understand it. There's always

• 26:55Anthony Pompliano?

  things. They can get access to a digital dollar, to your point, is backed one to one to the dollar. That's damn well just as good as having a dollar, right? In that scenario.

• 27:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 27:03Anthony Pompliano?

  But if there is no digital dollar that's super popular, especially one that is, uh, backed by and, uh, kind of put into the market by the Federal Reserve, but there so happens to be a Chinese currency. Well, shit, I may become a fan of that because it provides me stability and, and the ability to, to use it in a digital environment and kind of all these things. And so I've always thought that, uh, the digital currencies, especially the central bank digital currencies, uh, yeah, there's, you know, who's faster, who, you know, is cheaper to use, all that stuff. But there's just a pure accessibility play, uh, and kind of competition because ultimately there are people around the world where their currency fails them and they're looking for an alternative. And some of them will turn to Bitcoin and, you know, decentralized or, or private currencies or whatever. Uh, some of them are going to turn to central bank digital currencies, uh, and kind of whoever's

• 27:45Anthony Pompliano?

  got the most, you know, kind of, uh, or the furthest so far, whoever's got the most accessibility has a significant advantage in my opinion.

• 27:54Speaker 02

  You know, I, I look at this as another avenue for gray zone warfare. You know, I, I think probably the Fed right now is intentionally trying to crush all other competitor currencies, you know, like, like the yuan, renminbi and

• 28:09Anthony Pompliano?

  They've been pretty damn successful at that.

• 28:10Speaker 02

  They have been. They absolutely have been. And so, you know, if you're, if you're China, you obviously do not like this. I, I am quite concerned about how China's going to retaliate. You know, China, they're not doing well. I mean, they're really kind of on the ropes economically. This, you know, this thing like, oh, we're going to be happy with 5% you know, GDP growth. Okay. You know, whatever you have to tell Financial Times, you know, to, but you know, they've had massive investor outflows, a lot of money leaving that country, a lot of concern about how, about Western sanctions, how, you know, if China's going to get the Russia treatment over Taiwan. And so I, I don't know how successful China's actually going to be when, when they're making, China's in a position where they have to grow the BRICS plus because

• 28:53Speaker 02

  a lot of these other currents, countries are going to start turning on, on Chinese commerce. And the more the world bifurcates and you know, Peter Zehan talks about deglobalization. That's a real threat to China. And so I, I look at that and just what's, I think what's going to end up happening is, you know, we're, we're going to go right back, we're already, probably already are right back into the cold, cold war. And, and these spheres probably going to be attacking each other's currencies just because they can get away with it and know that's, that's not going to trigger World War III.

• 29:23Anthony Pompliano?

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• 30:07Anthony Pompliano?

  They provide simplified trusted access in crypto, decentralized finance and web three investment opportunities. Institutions and investors can gain diversified, secure, compliant and easily tradable access to a diversified set of industry-leading equity products and protocols, all through a single stock purchase on a regulated exchange. They currently are listed in the US under the DEFTF stock ticker and on the Canadian NEO exchange under DEFI. For more information or to subscribe to receive company updates and financial information, visit their website at valour.com. That's V A L O U R dot com. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, has been quite lucid in his commentary about the US economy,

• 30:50Anthony Pompliano?

  about the US addiction to social media and printing money. I mean, just there's line after line after line in many of his recent speeches where you listen to it and you say, listen, I get it. People are super pissed and rightfully so that he invaded Ukraine and kind of all these things that they're quite upset about. But if you can separate out the man from the comments, the comments seem like something that we should be paying attention to and it fits very similarly in line with, I think, what you're talking about from China's perspective. Obviously, I don't see a lot of people lining up to go get the ruble, right? And there hadn't been nearly as much investment in that country as there had been in China and kind of they're coming out from a different perspective.

• 31:27Anthony Pompliano?

  But he talks about a multipolar world and that's like the phrase he continuously uses over and over and over again. Is that ultimately the goal? It's not actually even to crush the United States, have the United States suffer in some, you know, immense way. It's like, hey, look, if we can just pull ourselves up to be equivalent to the United States. They've got kind of one, you know, side of the world. We got the other side and that alone would be victory. Is that kind of the way you look at it or is that maybe being too innocent and naive in terms of their intentions and what they ultimately think is possible?

• 31:58Speaker 02

  It's probably a first step. But there are other steps. I really do. I think Putin wants to see the United States suffer. He looks at the fall, the collapse of the Soviet Union as a humiliating event. And you know, this is something he says in his speeches. One of the, you know, he gave a speech last month and he said, you know, the real travesty of the last century is that when the, when the Soviet Union fell, there was no counterweight, there was no counterbalance to world power. And he has to provide that balance. I think Ukraine is a first step towards that. We see Russia and China expanding and deepening their alliance. That is part of, of that. I don't think, I don't think China's going to be happy with just a multipolar world. They're, they're resource starved. They've got a billion people.

• 32:43Speaker 02

  They need components, materials. They really don't, I mean, there's no, virtually no domestic, I mean, there's some oil, but not a lot. They're a net importer of, of food and fuel. And so I don't think this is simply, I don't think the United States is going to be happy with that outcome. And I don't think China or Russia are going to be happy with the outcome. So I think we're probably in a position where one side wins outright over the other. It's a Pyrrhic victory and we just both destroy each other. Or maybe, you know, I'd say maybe some, some third party that's relatively unscathed kind of becomes the next global superpower. So, but to answer the question, I don't see China being happy with that. Definitely not Russia.

• 33:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Putin's invasion of Ukraine, how do you evaluate it?

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Obviously, it's been condemned by pretty much every country in the West for the most part. They don't buy the story of the denazification of Ukraine. They obviously believe there's a threat for a nuclear war. And I think it's pretty well covered and kind of documented in terms of both the Western point of view of the action, the actual invasion itself, a little bit of a celebration in that they weren't necessarily able to overrun the country in maybe the way that the West would like to think that they thought they could do. And now you got kind of a Western force that continues to supply aid and weaponry and

• 34:11Speaker 02

  kind of all this stuff locked up, you know, with the country of Russia. How do you look at it? Like, like what are the main takeaways for people? And then are there things that maybe that the West has been told or the media has covered that might not either be true? Or maybe we shouldn't put as much weight on it as they already have? I think the West did overestimate Russian capabilities. A guy I went to college with is still in the army and, you know, he was telling me about how they're running all these drills to learn how to deal with Russian artillery on the battlefield. And, you know, at that time, this is a few years ago, Russian artillery outranged what we had. And so I do think there was, and a few other guys led me to believe that, you know, there was the expectation that

• 34:55Speaker 02

  Russia was, the bear was back, you know, so to speak. I think the Russians have probably underperformed their expectations in Ukraine. When Putin came out and fired a bunch of generals, that's a pretty sure sign that they were not doing well, or they're not doing, meeting his standard. And I think that's probably the biggest indicator that Putin has been disappointed in Ukraine.

• 35:19Anthony Pompliano?

  So you think that the United States, we overestimated what they were capable of doing, which I guess if you miss, like, that's probably the better direction to miss in. And at the same time, that we're overestimating their capabilities, Russian forces are underperforming Putin's expectations and kind of desires. And so you get kind of this, I don't want to call it a stalemate, because it feels like there's still pretty heavy direct fighting. But it does feel like it's now gone from like, defend Ukraine to like, there is war. And, you know, I don't know the future, but it almost feels like, hey, if you woke up 10 years from now, and they were still fighting each other, Iraq, Afghanistan, right? Like, kind of just, hey, they're just locked into this kind of drawn out war now, that doesn't seem to have an end because they don't, they won't come to the table with each other. There's

• 36:04Anthony Pompliano?

  a lot of people who believe they shouldn't come to the table with each other. And so how do you kind of say, okay, where are we now? And like, where is this going?

• 36:12Speaker 02

  Well, it's going nowhere good. And, you know, you saw last month that the Democratic Progressive or Progressive Democratic Caucus come out, and they accidentally sent that letter to Biden that said, hey, go talk to the Russians, you know, stop the war. Yeah, the war has to be stopped. I think we are getting close, much closer to the nuclear threshold. And when Zelensky and the Ukrainians say, oh, we're going to go into Crimea, we're going to go and we're going to retake Donbass, that is right into, Russian doctrine says, hey, there's like three cases where we would use nuclear weapons and a

• 36:52Speaker 02

  A violation of Russian territorial integrity is one of them. And so this probably is the case where if the Ukrainians do pose a significant threat to Crimea, then yeah, I think, I mean, China would be well within their doctrine to use nuclear weapons. So I think actually this is the case where like the war really needs to be stopped. Otherwise, we try really hard at Forward Observer not to be like alarmists and hair on fire, but Max and I are both very concerned that the use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine to stop a Ukrainian offensive could well, I mean, that could become the first of several, first of many.

• 37:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, so there's a lot of people who, there's some details in here that I don't think that they're quite aware of. Crimea and Donbass, I think, is an interesting area. I'm not an expert. I don't know if you would consider yourself an expert or maybe.

• 37:46Speaker 02

  I've seen it on the map.

• 37:46Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, all right, you've seen it on the map. Russia took it. And from their view, my understanding is they believe that that is Russian territory that was outside of the Russian borders and now they took it back. It's theirs. Case closed. And they don't really want to talk about anything else other than that's ours. Ukraine feels like, hey, you invaded Crimea and Donbass and you stole that from us and, you know, we may not come back right away, but we are going to get our fucking country back, right? We are going to get our land back. Russia invades Ukraine and the Ukrainians, part of the surprise, I think, to many people in the West, and frankly, even Ukrainians that I know, people in Eastern Europe, right, that I've talked to are like, damn, the Ukrainians have held their own, right? They've been able to put up a fight in a way that whether it's the Russians screwing

• 38:30Anthony Pompliano?

  up or the Ukrainians just, you know, outperforming expectations, they have been able to hold the Russians off. But what you just described is not defensive. Now, what the conversation has shifted to, and Zelensky has publicly said, I think, on multiple occasions, is that the Ukrainians believe that once they basically push back the Russians, they then will go past what has been the quote, quote, "border," and I put that in air quotes because it's debated, of Russia and Ukraine, and they are going to take back Crimea and Donbass. Now. There are a lot of people in this entire region have been fighting each other for a long time, right? And I don't think it's fair, and frankly, it'd be arrogant and ignorant, I think, for Americans to sit here and say, we know exactly who's what and where they

• 39:12Anthony Pompliano?

  is and who owns what and the whole thing. And there's a lot of shit that we will never understand, frankly, because I don't speak Russian, right? And so you just get through all the complexity, all the caveats. But your point is that if Ukraine does breach that line and say, hey, we are coming for Crimea, we are coming for Donbass, and we are going to take them, and the Russians believe that it is possible, that's where you think that the nuclear weapon could be used?

• 39:35Speaker 02

  Yes. Well, it's not a prediction, but I will just say, Russia would be, would be well within their doctrine of use.

• 39:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 39:45Speaker 02

  Now, yeah, Crimea has been a part of Russia since, I mean, since the American Revolution. And yeah, you're absolutely right. We really do a disservice to this conflict by trying to view everything through American lenses. It's not, it is rarely the case where things are just as cut and dry as good guy and bad guy. Hey, you know what? What if they're both bad guys? I mean, let's just be honest here, you know?

• 40:11Anthony Pompliano?

  Or to that point, war happens, and in war, there's a lot of nasty shit that happens.

• 40:18Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 40:18Anthony Pompliano?

  Right?

• 40:18Speaker 02

  On both sides, yeah.

• 40:19Anthony Pompliano?

  And so to, from my view, to slap our moral frameworks onto this is to essentially raise our hands and say, we don't understand war, right? To some degree.

• 40:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, war is more than just the application of violence, especially among the people involved. I mean, there's a lot of psychology and information operations, you know, involved, the mental, the mental space. So, yeah, I think, you know, Putin has talked about doing this, I mean, Donetsk, way back in the, you know, mid, mid 2010s, Donetsk and Luhansk. There are ethnic Russians in that part of the country. And I'm not going to sit here and say that their elections and referendums were free and fair, and they said, oh, yeah, hey, let's go join the Russian Federation. Undoubtedly, a lot of them want, want that exactly. But I think this is a case where, you know, where Putin says, look, there are ethnic Russians there, and we are going to go back and reclaim

• 41:17Speaker 02

  territory from the Russian Federation that should have never been given to Ukraine, never given away. And so, you know, that's, that's where they are. I'm a realist and I say, is there, there's not a perfect world. You, you really cannot have your cake and eat it too. The best thing that could possibly happen, I think for the world is, is for Crimea and, and Donbass regions to be in the Russian Federation and, and, and the war. Because otherwise, Zelensky, look, Zelensky wants this thing to go nuclear. He wants NATO to get involved. Zelensky will start World War III to save Ukraine. And I'm just, I'm not in that position to support that.

• 41:59Anthony Pompliano?

  So it's very interesting because Zelensky, I remember reading, I don't know, whenever he got elected a couple of years ago, I believe Trump got elected and then Zelensky got elected shortly thereafter, you know, a year or two, whatever. I just read a headline, comedian gets elected, right? And I was like, oh, like, got a TV star, right? Then we got a comedian? Like, is this gonna be a thing? And that was basically my only exposure whatsoever to Zelensky. And then, when the war started, I saw him on television. I said, damn, that guy seems pretty inspirational. You could see how a country would rally around this individual, right? And a friend said to me, he goes, don't forget, he's an actor, right? And, and so, by the way, so are many politicians in the United States, whether they get paid

• 42:43Anthony Pompliano?

  for it or not, right? They, they put on the face and then they go and then they're media trained. They've got great communication skills, like all the things that you need to be a politician and be successful. And then it started to get kind of crazy, in my opinion, because you had the Russians doing things that you'd wake up every morning and be like, that's crazy, right? And like, that's bad. And then you would hear language from American politicians, from Zelensky, and other people around the world. Like, this isn't just, you know, Russia, Ukraine, and the United States. This is NATO, this is other countries, whatever. And you just started saying like, holy shit. Does anybody actually want it to end? Right? And I think your point about like, if Zelensky, and again, it's if, right? If Zelensky's strategy is to basically keep ratcheting this up until

• 43:28Anthony Pompliano?

  NATO steps in and says, we will protect you, we promise you, we have your back.

• 43:35Anthony Pompliano?

  I mean, it seems pretty clear that Russia would then say, fuck and send the nukes, right? And at that point, if NATO is involved, like, that just doesn't seem like a good place. I don't know. I'm very confused in terms of like, how the war game plays out if we get to a point where Zelensky is super offensive and the Russians actually use a nuke, kind of what happens after that?

• 43:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a good question. I think the US defense establishment, I think a lot of them do want to get more involved. I would bet dollars to donuts that NATO has troops in Ukraine. I mean, there are soft dudes out there, you know, whacking Russians for sure. You know,

• 44:16Anthony Pompliano?

  There's some of them who don't even have uniforms on. I see them on Instagram, right?

• 44:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 44:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Those are the unsanctioned ones. We're talking about the sanctioned ones.

• 44:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're in like Ukrainian uniforms. I should be more clear. But so, you know, if you're Poland, if you're the Baltics, you probably don't want the war to end. You want to see it keep going and Western sanctions try to bleed Russia dry. Putin came out, I think in like September or maybe October, came out and said, yeah, the Russian economy has, we're going to have challenges. We have to actually pivot the economy away from oil and gas. And he said, we have to start developing new industries. And so, you know, I think Putin understands this is going to be like a long-term strategic battle. If you're Poland in the Baltics, you don't want to be next. I mean, if you're Lithuania and Estonia have ethnically

• 45:08Speaker 02

  Russian populations in the eastern parts of those countries, they don't want to be dumbass. I completely, completely understand that. And so from their, from NATO's perspective, you say, well, if you, if you, if you give Russia this cookie, they're going to try to take the whole cake. And, you know, which I think there's probably some truth to the argument. So this is a very complex issue. It's not just like, hey, you know, Russia bad, NATO good. Honestly, yeah, so I don't even think NATO is the good guy anymore.

• 45:35Anthony Pompliano?

  You don't think NATO is the good guy anymore?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  NATO,

• 45:41Speaker 02

  All these NATO leaders, they're all globalists. And you know, you look at a lot of these European leaders, they're all WEF people, World Economic Forum, the superstars or the young WEFers or whatever they're called, you know, and I, you know, I'm, I'm an anti-globalist. I don't, I don't want to see that. And by supporting NATO, that's exactly what you're supporting now. And I, you know, just personally, I try not to interject my, my personal beliefs into this, but yeah, I don't think NATO is the good guy anymore.

• 46:09Anthony Pompliano?

  Mm hmm.

• 46:09Speaker 02

  I think NATO is defending and advancing globalism.

• 46:13Anthony Pompliano?

  And when they do that, I think their argument would be, and I always try to think kind of like, what's the pro and con argument, right? Their argument would be like, well, we were, we were lured into it, right? We, we were, somebody else instigated and we're just kind of finishing the fight. Do you think that has weight or, or kind of holds water? Or do you think that, that sounds good and, you know, as a soundbite, but may not be as, as obvious maybe when you actually do the analysis?

• 46:42Speaker 02

  NATO exists as a defender of rules-based international order. And so, you know, NATO, they can say, yeah, we're, yeah, we were, I don't think they could say like, we're, we're lured into supporting Ukraine. But you didn't, you didn't ask this question, but I would just tack on. You know, we've seen South Korea and Japan get involved in NATO. NATO, they've been sending officials to Japan and NATO, working on military interoperability. This NATO summit in June, they came out and said, hey, we're going to start taking an increased focus in the Indo-Pacific theater because China's a direct threat now to NATO or something like that. China's a competitor or something like that. And this is global NATO. I, I just ask, if NATO is not going to stick to the North Atlantic

• 47:27Speaker 02

  and now they're going to shift into global NATO, like, what's step three? And I don't, I, you know, I don't, I don't, I don't want to get close to step three.

• 47:37Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. The last thing I want to talk about Russia, Ukraine, nuclear weapons of any degree, I think scare the shit out of people, right? Some cases rightfully so, and some of it's just ignorance, they don't understand.

• 47:51Anthony Pompliano?

  On kind of the first part of this, like tactically, they just shoot one, right? Do they, is it like, hey, let's cover the whole country? Like, how do you think, do they actually go just after Crimea and the Donbass region? Like, I guess if you had to say like, okay, cool. We get to the point where they're like, yes, this is the line. You breach the line. We are going to use these weapons. What does that look like from a tactical standpoint?

• 48:16Speaker 02

  Well, conventional deployment, yeah, they could put on a rocket or, you know, or a plane, drop a bomb or something like that. I think a very Russian thing to do, and by the way, Ukrainians and Russians have been both accusing each other of getting ready to deploy a dirty bomb. And so a very Russian thing to do would be to deploy a dirty bomb and blame it on the Ukrainians.

• 48:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Explain what a dirty bomb is.

• 48:36Speaker 02

  Oh, just a radiological device where, you know, it's not actually a nuclear weapon, but it's an explosive with, with nuclear chemicals in there and you just, and you get all the radiological elements dispersed. And it's not like a big atomic bomb, but like it kills people and not only kills people, that area has to be uninhabited. You cannot live there anymore. And I think the strategy would be deploy one and say, all right, yeah, Ukraine, you want to, you want to keep talking? You want to keep coming into Crimea, telling us how you're going to come into Crimea? That's fine. We'll set another one off. So I would hope it's, I hope it's zero, but after that, I hope it's, it's one and done.

• 49:17Speaker 02

  But this is how, you know, this is kind of a, it's very escalatory, but this is, this may be how Russia tries to break Ukraine.

• 49:27Anthony Pompliano?

  When that occurs, what do you think the response is? Like the tactical component of, sure, they could drop a bomb or rocket, whatever. I think actually if I asked the average person on the street in America, they'd say that's how it's going to happen, right? Like they're going to shoot a rocket over and, and we've got some defense or we're going to do something or whatever. I have no clue. But let's say that there is some escalatory, kind of dirty bomb, nuclear weapon, whatever used by Russia. What is the reaction from NATO and the US? Is that fuck it, game on? We're bringing every, you know, all hell and fury with us and like, we're going to just take down Putin and Russia and just not even in the Donbass Crimea region, but like now we're coming after the whole country? Or do you think it's more measured than that?

• 50:09Speaker 02

  Maybe it depends on delivery. You know, I said rocket, but they could put on like a short range ballistic missile or something like that.

• 50:14Anthony Pompliano?

  That's the same thing to the people in the street.

• 50:20Speaker 02

  The you know, you have like General Petraeus come out and say, we're going to wipe the Russians out of Ukraine. We're going to hit every single Russian military facility in Ukraine if Russia does go nuclear. And I don't know if Petraeus is the talking head for the White House, or if he's, or if that's more like, you know, his opinion and kind of bravado. I don't know that the, I don't know that the US military frankly, other than maybe an aerial campaign. I just, you know, honestly, I keep going back to the nuclear thing. If, you know, they wanted to start this this no-fly zone over Ukraine, which by the way, I still think is potentially an option here.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  That may be one US or potential course of action is to establish a no-fly zone and say, well, if it's violated, then you're going to have to literally fight everybody now. So it probably depends on, on delivery and maybe where it is too. I mean, if it's in like some industrial facility, maybe, you know, I mean, that's bad. It's not as bad as setting one off in downtown Kiev.

• 51:23Anthony Pompliano?

  Yep.

• 51:24Speaker 02

  So maybe it depends. I don't have any insight into, you know, what the four stars at the Pentagon are thinking, but my bet would be that the worst, the scenario, probably the higher, the greater the US response would be.

• 51:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. One of the things that fascinates me after having, you know, been in a war zone is there's the war you see, and then there's the war that you don't see. And the war that you don't see, and I've talked about it before with other guests, in some ways, almost crazier, right? And people would expect it to be, okay, there's a lot of stuff that's happening, you know, in the cover of dark, or the tactics, or whatever. But this specific scenario, to me, seems the perfect setup, because you do have some pretty immense threats. The US is, I guess on a technicality, not involved. But it's, I'd be shocked if we weren't very well aware of as

• 52:21Anthony Pompliano?

  much as possible, and in a position to step in if needed. And so if that

• 52:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Is the case. My guess is that the Russians know that and the Ukrainians know that. Uh, and so does NATO and, and you get into this almost like there's a, uh, uh, kind of in front of the curtain, behind the curtain and what's going on behind the curtain. Um, feels more like chess. And what's going on in front of the curtain feels more like checkers of just like, you know, hey, okay, I move here. What are you going to do? Right? And, and at the same time, people are behind the curtain. And, you know, uh, they're, they're waiting to see what the, what everyone else on the chessboard does before they go ahead and they make their decisions.

• 52:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is bigger than Ukraine. I mean, for Putin, Ukraine's probably a first step. And for the United States, um, I, I think honestly, I just, I think they want a regime change Putin. And so if, if the United States, the West is successful in defeating the Russians in Ukraine and, uh, turning, turning dispute, turning Crimea and, and Donbass back into kind of disputed territory like 2017. I think they'll go after Putin.

• 53:26Anthony Pompliano?

  What does that look like?

• 53:27Speaker 02

  And that's the, I mean, that's the chess. You know, they tried to do it through sanctions, going after the oligarchs and getting the oligarchs to turn on Putin. It didn't work.

• 53:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm actually shocked as to how little it seems to have impacted a whole bunch of things, but it's like, you see the sanctions, they're pissed, right? Obviously, uh, they're trying to distance themselves. I mean, you know, all the things you would expect from like an individual incentive mechanism. But unless you guys have some information or done some work that I'm unaware of, it doesn't seem like it really had that much of an impact, uh, within the country of Russia. Maybe there were some uprising, but, but nothing that really seems material.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  I think when you're in a position where you, you lose your yacht or you lose your life, things get a lot simpler at decision wise. And so, um, yeah, I,

• 54:15Speaker 02

  yeah, you, you do, you look at the individual oligarchs who were sanctioned and yeah, they lost a lot of money. I don't, I don't see how they can think like maybe they'll ever get that back. And so, um, I, also I don't know, you know, we, I mean, we'd have to sit down and kind of, you know, think, think this through. But there are undoubtedly ways in which the United States and the, and the West could turn the heat up on, on Putin. As for how, how they regime change him, I, I don't know. I, I really honestly, well, I, let me say this. I'm not going to answer that right now. And not because I don't have inside information, but I tell you, I really want to give you like well thought out answers. And I clearly have not thought this through, but there are ways.

• 54:58Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. When, when we think about the United States fight abroad, what's fascinating to me,

• 55:07Anthony Pompliano?

  I think I said on an interview or something, I said, you know, we're sending billions of dollars to many other conflicts around the world, not just the Russia Ukraine situation. But then you look in, you know, Jackson, Mississippi, they don't have clean water or Flint, Michigan, and some of these other things. Forget this exact moment in time, forget these exact conflicts. Just from an intel perspective, how does the United States think about when to help abroad versus when to help domestically? And I know you guys have done a lot of work on some domestic stuff as well, but like, what does that framework look like? And does it change? And I think that's like a really key piece of this is like, does it change with administrations? Does it change with various threats? Or is there a pretty rigid, hey, these people are focused on domestic, these people are focused internationally?

• 55:49Speaker 02

  Well, there are different organizations you're dealing with and different objectives. I don't, I don't even know the calculus on, on how the US government decides to help domestically. But yeah, it is, it's a shame. It's a shame that we see so much going to Ukraine while there are veterans who are still trying to get access to the VA and there are still homeless, you know, Americans and kids who are not eating in this country. I'm not saying those things are necessarily the government's job. I'm just saying it's, it's interesting where we send our money.

• 56:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, there's a lot of problems in the world in general, but also there's a lot of problems here domestically as well. Some of the, I think when I first started coming across some of your work, 2020, you guys seemed to become very popular in a lot of circles because you were tracking a lot of the domestic activities, political extremism, a lot of the, everything from protests to riots to violence to threats, kind of just, it seemed like you were trying to build the, the board game, right? And you're trying to understand it. And I think what I and many other people appreciated who follow you on Twitter and stuff like this is, It seemed like there was, we are not on any one's side. We are trying to understand what's happening here and almost have kind of taken a step to the sideline and we're

• 57:05Anthony Pompliano?

  watching the field, right? And to talk a little bit about kind of through 2020 into 2021, what you guys were seeing, kind of what was that like in terms of trying to actually get that information and ensure accuracy, I think to some degree in a time where there's just a lot of movement and kind of things changing on a day to day basis?

• 57:22Speaker 02

  This goes back to 2016 and one of the reasons why I started for Observer is because there's a lot, I mean, there's just a lot of institutional money, a lot of focus on tracking far right groups and they really gloss over far left groups. And I'm not talking about your, you know, run of the mill Bernie bros. There are a lot of actual revolutionaries out there. And so, you know, even when you look at the, the quote unquote anti fascist movement, you know, they're, they're, they won't be happy if Trump's gone, right? It'll be on to the next domino, on to the next thing. People who are not fascists and not, I don't even think Trump was a fascist. And why is that? Because they're revolutionaries. They

• 58:04Speaker 02

  want to, they want to topple the capitalist system. And in many cases, there, you know, also various flavors of anarchists and they want to, they want to live in a state free society. So wait, hang on. If you're the US government here, how should, you know, how are you not giving more, you know, more due diligence to these groups? Because you read their, the zines and the pamphlets and the flyers and stuff they pass out and you read their blogs and see what they're posting on social media. They, they're not talking about, hey, guys, let's go organize a protest. I mean, they do that too. They're, I mean, they're sharing like Carlos Mariella and all these leftist insurgent literature and,

• 58:43Speaker 02

  you know, the manuals about how these communist insurgents and revolutionaries carried out their own, their own revolutions abroad. And so this is not just like a run of the mill protest group. So, so when we look at that, we go to direct sources. I mean, we just, we go read what they say, watch the videos, do all those things.

• 59:04Anthony Pompliano?

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• 59:49Anthony Pompliano?

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• 1:00:32Anthony Pompliano?

  The US government does not look the way it is, does not have the power it has, all this stuff.

• 1:00:36Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:36Anthony Pompliano?

  Where they drastically diverge is what happens next? Kind of what does that world look like? Whether it is kind of more right leaning and kind of all things that generally get assigned to that group versus a left-leaning world that is stateless or kind of less of the US government. Is that fair? That there is commonality of like destruction of the system? But really the divergence is maybe on the tactics in which to do it, but then also on like what the system looks like on the other side of that event?

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  Yes, I mean, there are some commonalities. I would say the biggest divergence in, especially in how the US government looks at these groups, is there are a lot of people in institutions, left-wing institutions in the United States, and I would include the US government in there. As they look at the extreme left and they say, eh, yeah, that's not a great look, but they're useful. And I, I think, I mean, near as I can tell, that, that's probably the number one reason why those far left groups don't get the same look as the far right groups. And, you know, also too, and the right, the right in general is just much better armed. The US government is not in a position where they can allow those groups to organize and coordinate.

• 1:01:45Anthony Pompliano?

  Do you think that, um, when you say they're useful, what does that mean?

• 1:01:51Speaker 02

  I think ideologically, they're useful. In, you know, trying in 2016, you know, trying to beat back on Trumpism, trying to, you know, beat back on, you know, it's always amazing, the, the anti fascist groups, Antifa, they, they never go after like the hardcore skinheads and big biker gangs who will like literally kill them. You know, they, they go after, you know, the, the more milquetoast right wing groups, you know, out, out in the street. But who's, I don't know, who's the bigger fascist, maybe? The, the white, what supremacist or white nationalist skinhead biker gang, or the kids out in the street?

• 1:02:29Anthony Pompliano?

  So you think that it's almost like, uh, I don't know, biological, like human nature shit, where it's like, who, who's the, who's the fucking alpha on the street when, you know, there's no police, there's no anything. And so like, pick on what is perceived as the weaker group. And so that's where like the focus goes?

• 1:02:48Speaker 02

  I don't think it's necessarily, well, that, I mean, you know, you look at, at those groups and they are much weaker compared to like, you know, a, a white nationalist biker gang, like, you know, the one percenter clubs or whatever. Um, I, I, they, one of the things that the, these left wing people chant is who streets our streets?

• 1:03:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Who streets our streets?

• 1:03:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. And so they, you know, these groups see themselves as, well, we cannot allow them to proselytize, to talk about their, you know, their issues and grievances. You can't allow them to hold a demonstration on the street. You have to go out and counter it. And, you know, maybe it's the case of, that, you know, it's not those biker gangs who are out there demonstrating. But yeah, you know, I think this is really a case of, you know, the younger right wing activist groups are out there and they have to be countered because they, you cannot allow them to grow. But, you know, I'd even say a lot of those groups, I mean, they're just, they're like milquetoast right wing. They're not fascist.

• 1:03:43Anthony Pompliano?

  What does that mean? Milquetoast? I never heard that before.

• 1:03:45Speaker 02

  I mean, they're like conservative plus, you know, they're, they, a lot of-

• 1:03:48Anthony Pompliano?

  They're the watered down version.

• 1:03:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't even want to say they're the watered down version. I mean, there, there is a fascist movement in this country. It's so small. Most of them, you know.

• 1:03:57Anthony Pompliano?

  Tell me more about that. Cause I, cause I think, and, and, you know, already I can see people are freaking out. They're like, holy shit, what are you guys talking about? Whatever, right? But, but I think what's fascinating about your perspective is your, is you don't come at this from what I can tell. Uh, one side is good, the other side is bad, right? Similar to how we're talking about Russia, Ukraine, like, look, this shit's messy and there's a lot of different groups and they're all got their own fucking angles. And, and frankly, some of the perception of what those groups stand for may not actually be what they stand for. If you go and you look at the source materials and, and so you all spend your time trying to figure that out, right? Which I appreciate because it's frankly more educated than most people here talk about it. But when you say, um, let's maybe just go kind of group by group. You said there is a fascist movement, movement in the country. What, what does that look like? How do you guys evaluate how big it

• 1:04:41Anthony Pompliano?

  is, how serious it is, what the threat is? Just kind of walk me through that.

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Well, when, when the mainstream talks about fascist, what they're really talking about is those on the right who want to use government in the same way that, that the left wing wants to use the government.

• 1:04:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 1:04:56Speaker 02

  Okay. The same way they want to weaponize government against, which, which is exactly what the, I mean, I think so there's probably some element of both Democrats and Republicans doing this. But you look at conservatism and they say, no, that, we, we don't need to use government power. It's a dangerous weapon. You know, it's a cudgel. We, we don't want to use it. And then you see Democrats, and I'm not trying to be partisan, this is just my observation. And Democrats get in there and they do weaponize. They weaponize the IRS against the Tea Party. They weaponize DHS. They weaponize all these groups. Like how many, just as an example, how many murders do you think are attributed to white supremacists per year in the United States? Just ballpark it.

• 1:05:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Oh, man. Um.

• 1:05:38Anthony Pompliano?

  Say less than a thousand, maybe less than 200, something like that. Like I'm assuming it's a small number.

• 1:05:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, sure. Yeah. According even to the most liberal sources, like 30, about 30 a year.

• 1:05:48Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay.

• 1:05:48Speaker 02

  So the domestic violent extremism is about diminishing 30 murder. Now, of course, there's, there's other forms of.

• 1:05:56Anthony Pompliano?

  Murders bad, right?

• 1:05:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, but, but just murders in general, about 30 a year. You know, more people will die due to gang crime in Chicago in one month or in one year than you get white supremacist murders in 10 years. So, you know, again, this is just like misplaced priorities. And I do wonder a lot, why is the emphasis so, why is this so great an emphasis on a movement that's so small?

• 1:06:21Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. Do you have a theory as to what that is?

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  Well, uh, yeah.

• 1:06:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, that sounds like yes.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. I, yeah, I, so I, I, I do see many Democrats publicly issue violence, but I think they, they enjoy seeing people in, in 2016 through 2020. I think they, they enjoyed seeing Trump supporters get beaten and, and get death threats and, you know, have various, you know, forms of, of protests, getting fired, economic dislocation, like they really wanted to punish Trump supporters. And it just so happened that you have the, these left wing groups do that. And so I think it's a case of, yeah, violence bad, but, but don't stop.

• 1:07:07Anthony Pompliano?

  So when you point that out, that is what I would call the, the pro right, critical view of the left, right? It's, it's kind of the, the way to look at it. If we then turn and flip that the other way, and we say, okay, what is like the pro-left, critical of the right view? Is, you said already, hey, there is this fascist group, it's small, but, but it exists. Are there other things that you think have some kind of seriousness or accuracy to them from that angle of critique?

• 1:07:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would even say like your, your average American, you know, fascist has nothing on 1930s, absolutely nothing. But I do think the move, it's small, but it is growing. And I think they're trying to be proactive.

• 1:07:58Anthony Pompliano?

  They being the kind of fascist.

• 1:07:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, like the left, the anti fascist are trying to be proactive. And they say, well, one is one too many. Because if they're, if you let one go, then there's going to be two. And if there's two, then there's 10. And if there's 10, there's 1,000. And, but I would just say, on the other hand, if you look at the, the common gripes, the, the actual complaints among these right wing groups, it is because the, the country is changing so fast. They're very uncomfortable with the rate at which society is changing. And, you know, you look at Biden even, and, you know, he said, oh, you know, I'm, I'm going to bring two groups together. And what did he do? I mean, he turned around and just is very, very divisive. And I look at the things that the government is doing.

• 1:08:40Speaker 02

  So I'll give you an example, right? Biden could come out and, and he could say to conservatives, I understand your complaints about border security. And if Biden replaced Mayorka, because he's obviously not interested in doing it. If Biden replaced him with someone who could seal up the border as well as it was from 2016 to 2020, that would go a long way in bridging the gap and turning down the temperature on a lot of anti-government extremism or protests or sentiment. But we don't see government doing that. We see government doing the opposite, the absolute opposite of that, going after border patrol agents who are trying to secure the border. And so I look at it as a way, it's like a self licking ice cream cone. I mean, you just get this thing spinning and, you know,

• 1:09:25Speaker 02

  government does, does things to, to make more people angry, more people anger. They say, okay, well, we have to, we have to organize. And then you have the other side saying, well, look, these people are organizing now. And The process could be stopped, I think, but I don't think either side would be happy with where we're going to go if it doesn't stop.

• 1:09:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Are you familiar with the Mike Glover situation? Have you seen this?

• 1:09:48Speaker 02

  Somewhat, yes.

• 1:09:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay. I'm not, but I saw him post online. And my takeaway, which hopefully you can correct me if I'm wrong on this, was he's an organization, very focused on veterans and this stuff. At some point, there was a very small number, I think, single-digit number of people who kind of lost their way, right? It sounded like, frankly, they got, went crazy and they started taking their view of what the organization should be to the extreme. And again, just like classic radicalization, extremism, like, all this stuff. And we've seen that, like, psychologists have studied this for centuries, right, and decades, and understand that, like, you can have a group that is net good and majority of people are good, and there's a radicalization, and like, that isn't necessarily the entire group,

• 1:10:32Anthony Pompliano?

  but still, it's a problem, right? And so, what I think I understood from what he was saying is like, hey, there was these people, and like, once we identified that this was it, we kicked them out, we were super cooperative, and like, well, that's not what we're about. And then it feels like, he then said, hey, but our organization has now been identified as one of these extremism groups and kind of all this stuff. And in that scenario, again, I'm not an expert on it. But it highlighted to me the complexity of this, where you could have a group and a leadership team that says, hey, we want to go do good things and kind of supportive of all these causes, which I think most Americans are like, hey, we should take care of veterans, we should like, do these things. There's a radicalization within the group, which we see on both sides, right?

• 1:11:15Anthony Pompliano?

  But there's a radicalization within the group. The organization tries to do what they perceive to be the right thing. It seems like most people from the outside are like, yeah, that was the right thing, was to, was to kind of separate yourself from the radicalization. But then you also ask yourself, like, what should the government do? And like, you get into this like weird game where it's like, it's very unclear what is the right answer as to how the various market participants in that scenario should act? Is that one example of many on both sides of the aisle that you see, kind of as you guys do your work, in terms of like, again, you said you can't label good and bad and, you know, geopolitical conflict. Is it possible to label good and bad in the domestic issues as well?

• 1:11:55Speaker 02

  Well, yeah, I mean, you.

• 1:11:58Anthony Pompliano?

  And you're and you're free to tell me that I'm an absolute idiot and got the whole situation wrong with Glover.

• 1:12:01Speaker 02

  No, no, you can. I mean, labeling good and bad is easy. It just depends on your perspective. I just want to say, you know, let's consider the alternative that both are bad in in many instances. So.

• 1:12:16Anthony Pompliano?

  Which is not a story that you hear in the mainstream media many times, right?

• 1:12:19Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 1:12:19Anthony Pompliano?

  Good and bad is the divisive thing that can allow you to have people pick sides and argue and all the stuff. But like, both are bad. You know, that seems a little bit turning the temperature down a little bit, actually, by saying, no, both sides are bad.

• 1:12:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, yeah, it's really tough when, yeah, it's really tough when the both sides are, the sides that are capable of stopping it are both bad and don't want it to stop. I would say, you know, for the Glover thing, you know, I'm not, I don't know exactly. But yeah, I think your your understanding is, I think, is probably accurate. The the problem is, if you go back to the the radical parts of that group, who maybe misconstrued, they thought American contingency was something that it was not. You know, it's not a vehicle for for violent revolution or anything like that. But I would go back and really try to

• 1:13:15Speaker 02

  understand the the concerns and what is driving the radicalism among those people. The first step in solving the problem is is understanding it. Unfortunately, there's just a lot of journalists are lazy. And they'll say, oh, yeah, my buddy over at whatever, he said, oh, this group was fascist. So yeah, okay, I'm gonna call this group fascist. And you actually go back and you look at some of these groups, and they're not really espoused. You may not like what they espouse, but they're legitimately not fascist groups. And so, you know, I would try to understand the problem. And in many cases, what the federal government is doing, like, okay, the whole Epstein, Maxwell thing, right? Okay, why, why do we not know? I mean,

• 1:13:57Speaker 02

  why is the government not going after those people? But they will go after a PTA, the FBI will go conduct surveillance on a PTA group because some parents are angry at what their children are learning in school. You know, so if we want to turn down.

• 1:14:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Which sounds crazy, but like, that is. An actual real example?

• 1:14:11Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And it's just like, uh, there were some anti-abortion activists, like, like 70-year-old people. And this one woman, she, she sat down in front of a, a front door of an abortion clinic. And so that's a federal crime. And now she was arrested, and I think 11 people are actually being charged now by the federal government for obstruction of something, some law that was passed in the 90s. And I'm not saying she will get this, but she's facing 10 years in federal prison. Um, you know, how, how is she facing 10 years and someone who burnt down a building in Minneapolis not? How are they going after thousands of hours of, of tape and man-hours and millions, multi-millions of dollars to drag down somebody who is standing

• 1:14:52Speaker 02

  outside the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and they're not going after the same people who burnt down buildings and literally murdered people during the summer of 2020? It's the misapplication of justice. It's really selective application of justice that makes people angry.

• 1:15:07Anthony Pompliano?

  So, a- a- and I see, I think on both sides, that the belief that, uh, the other side is, uh, not getting enough attention and, and the whole thing. But one of the things, uh, that you're highlighting here, so let's take, um, January 6th, and let's take summer of 2020, uh, Minneapolis, I think is the one that I personally remember watching and being like, oh shit, shit just got ratcheted it up, right? And, and, uh, my recollection of the events, which somebody will correct me if I'm wrong, uh, there was, uh, protests and it seemed relatively peaceful and, and kind of all the stuff during the day. At least the, the coverage of it was, uh, this is no different than protests that were happening all over the country and, and many cities. And then at one

• 1:15:52Anthony Pompliano?

  point, I don't know if I frankly just went and ate dinner or something and came back or, or what, but all of a sudden it was like, there's a police station on fire. And, uh, that's when it was like, oh shit, this now is a, a different level. And, and who knows who did it, why they did it, like any of this, it was unclear at the moment. It was just like, that isn't the situation. And then I think there was, uh, uh, in Tennessee, somebody tried to set like a courtroom on fire and, and it started to just kind of spread as like, hey, this got ratcheted up. So we take these two events.

• 1:16:21Anthony Pompliano?

  The left attacks the right on January 6th and says, uh, uh, insurrection and there's the photos and January 6th committee, all that kind of stuff. The right attacks left and says, yeah, but there is a police station on fire and, and kind of all this stuff. When we look at these, what you're essentially arguing is like, they're taking different approaches. They have different views of the world, but both sides are actually unhappy in those scenarios. And they believe the system is not working for them. They believe that the, uh, the government is not serving what their need is, which is not the story that I hear publicly or see in the media. It's, you know, one side's good, one side's bad, the whole thing. But like, actually, if you kind of, just everyone take a deep breath for a second and say, hey, both of these sides are saying this is not working for them.

• 1:17:06Anthony Pompliano?

  What is the release valve? What is, what is the like, kind of escape hatch? Or is there not one? Is it just literally this keeps getting ratcheted up and you have two sides that are just more and more divisive? And then we get, you know, some sort of bad situation that, you know, is even worse than things that we've seen in the past? Or is there a release valve where, to your point, you know, is it the president, uh, whoever the next president is or the current one who, who can kind of provide, uh, this escape route? Is there other things that can happen? Like, what is that release valve? Cause it doesn't feel like that's obvious today.

• 1:17:37Speaker 02

  This is, I mean, we are locked in a spiral right now because you have these far left groups, they have, they've been kind of, you know, mostly dormant since, uh, since, you know, probably February 2021 or so. We're probably in a position where if, uh, if Republicans do end up taking the House and the Senate, I think a lot of those groups will probably reignite. Getting closer to 2024, that becomes, I mean, it's, it's a certainty they will. And so really the next two years, I think are going to be very difficult. And the right will look at that and say, oh, look, they're, they're organizing again. The communists are back at it. Like now we have to organize. And the far left will say, oh, look, the far right's organizing now.

• 1:18:22Speaker 02

  Like we have to really get on the ball. And, you know, it's that self-licking ice cream cone problem. That's, that's what we're locked in. The best we can hope for, I don't Think this is gonna happen, but the best we can hope for is that in 2024, there is a candidate who wins outright with with minimal accusations of voter fraud, maximum trust in the outcome that yes, this was a free and fair election. The problem is, we have not had one of those in some time. And I think this is probably the case where the longer you go without a legitimate, all around legitimate victor, the more likely it becomes that you still won't. The best case scenario is that, yeah, someone gets elected and everyone accepts it. I don't think that's gonna happen.

• 1:19:04Anthony Pompliano?

  So this is interesting because when you say it hasn't happened in a long time,

• 1:19:10Anthony Pompliano?

  my mind immediately jumped, whether good or bad, right or wrong, Chad, right, in Florida and like for those that are too young to understand, like literally go watch documentaries or or watch the news segments or whatever, like literally they were arguing over like, did the paper get punched or not? And like pretty fucking crazy stuff to determine who ultimately became the President of the United States, right?

• 1:19:29Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:19:30Anthony Pompliano?

  And so like, that is very different than the accusations and kind of both sides of the 2016 situation, but like, that still was a contentious, multi-day affair that like, people kind of forgot about or were too young that that maybe paying attention now. Barack Obama doesn't seem like there was as much contention. Maybe you disagree, but that seems like maybe one election where it was like, okay, he wins. Transition, from my recollection, wasn't anything that that necessarily sticks out of of issue. You get Trump, who I don't think most people said, oh, you know, the election

• 1:20:13Anthony Pompliano?

  was rigged or anything like that, but it was definitely, once I was very happy, once I was not very happy. And so kind of, in some way, that's almost like what politics have been for a long time, but it felt like it was ratcheted up for a whole bunch of reasons. 2020 happens, now it's the accusations of actually rigging and all the stuff. Right now in Brazil, right, which I'm not an expert, I don't think you are either. There's an election and I've already seen people saying it's real, it's not real like, and it almost feels like, okay, now there is a playbook that has been established that when an election occurs, we're gonna just see these accusations over and over and over again. That scares the shit out of me.

• 1:20:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:20:52Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? Because that feels like, uh, damn, the United States was above this, right? Like, to some degree, like, this is what you see in developing nations and in areas where, like, there's politician, a politician and a warlord. And like, maybe the warlord just says, hey, now I'm the president.

• 1:21:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:21:08Anthony Pompliano?

  What, how do you evaluate this? Like, how do you think about it?

• 1:21:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's tough. So, you know, if we go back to 2016 and after that election, you have, I don't know, 25, 30, I don't know the exact number, but somewhere around there, maybe a third, maybe more, of the country saying Trump's illegitimate, the Russians got him elected. Okay. And then 2020, you say, well, you've got the overnight, hey, it's 3 a.m. And all of a sudden, you get this massive dump of votes for Biden in a handful of key states and it tips them over the top. And now, you know, a third of the, I don't, again, I don't know the exact numbers, but let's just call it a third of the country says Biden's illegitimate. Well, you know, I look at 2024 and I say, well, we've seen some violence from the right, we've seen capability, we've seen the right organizing,

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  we've seen violence from the left, they've been organizing. Is 2024 going to be the trigger that sets off increased violence? And, you know, that's one of my concerns is, you know, you get into a situation where like, you have an Argentina, Argentina scenario, like, kind of a dirty civil war, where one side or the other gets elected and they say, oh, the left are doing this, or the right are doing this, like, we have to go after them. They're terrorists, they're domestic insurgents, they're all the things that, you know, that conservatives have been called, Trump supporters have been called. And, you know, and then, and there is some legitimate organized political violence, not just, not just opportunistic violence, but like, team death match, you know, like, hey, we're a

• 1:22:37Speaker 02

  group, we're gonna go out and conduct political violence, which is the, you know, really one of the worst. Worst case scenario.

• 1:22:43Anthony Pompliano?

  You're saying that that is a possibility or that's happening in the United States?

• 1:22:46Speaker 02

  I think that is a possibility. So far, we've ma- I think it's mainly been kind of ad hoc opportunistic violence, like mob violence, for instance.

• 1:22:54Anthony Pompliano?

  I- is it bad? I almost call that stupidity, right? Like, there's people who mob mentality happens, they're out, they're doing stuff, whatever, and like, opportunistically, something, a situation shows itself and somebody is either too emotional, too stupid, too whatever, and like, something occurs, and all hell breaks loose, right? But what you're talking about is, I don't know, much more organized than that and much more intentional, like, we are going to go affect change in a way with violence?

• 1:23:25Speaker 02

  Yep, effects-based. Yep. I think that's, that's the worst-case scenario that can, if, if the 2024 election, the contested election accusations, is a trigger for that type of violence. And, yeah, we've seen like Proud Boys and Antifa get into it, and I, I would not call that organized political violence. You know, this is, this would be more of like, you know, a, a group of people going out and saying, "Hey, this is it. We're, we're gonna kick off the civil war." And, and that's, this is something that, if it were to get going, just very, you know, decentralized, distributed groups saying, "Okay, well, they're doing it over there. I guess, like, it's our turn over here now."

• 1:24:03Anthony Pompliano?

  That scares the shit out of me.

• 1:24:04Speaker 02

  It's bad. I mean, it could be very, very bad. It's not, it could be very, very bad. It could be so bad that the government may not, in fact, be able to stop it. And the, the situation you would run into is the government actually making matters worse. I'm not sure that that's something that you can just let die out, but it's also very tricky. I mean, you saw in Iraq and Afghanistan, too. I mean, one slight misstep, you know, you're gonna make some other people angry and, and you're, you're gonna trigger another, another round over here.

• 1:24:35Anthony Pompliano?

  Sons of Iraq.

• 1:24:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 1:24:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I, I, I, I've told a story before to people, I don't know if I ever talked about on the podcast, and again, my memory over a decade ago, so, uh, uh, we'll fuck things up, so no one hold against me. But basically, the United States was engaged in combat in Iraq. Uh, we pretty handily took the country from the invasion perspective and then went into nation building mode and we had a hard time and it was pretty obvious fairly early, we're not built to do this. Um, and, uh, the United States was susceptible to kind of the insurgent attacks. Uh, and one of the turning points, uh, or at least in, in kind of a momentum shift was going to a young military men in Iraq and saying, uh, this is your fucking country, right? And like,

• 1:25:19Anthony Pompliano?

  you need to have national pride and you need to stand up because we can't do it. Right? And, and, uh, in some way, um, it's crazy to hear the United States military saying, hey, we can't do this. Right? Uh, but they essentially, uh, armed, trained, and then helped to staff, uh, what essentially checkpoints, right? I mean, I remember we'd go do night route clearance and we'd drive by and then, you know, like we'd give them shit because they're sleeping and stuff, right? But like, they were out there and, uh, and they had their weapons and, um, they knew, they knew it better than we did, right? Talk about intel, like, right? You've been here for 18, 20, 25, 30 years. Like you understand who, who's a good guy, who's a bad guy, who should be in your town, who should not be in your town. And it changed the battlefield. Now people argue

• 1:26:02Anthony Pompliano?

  how effective was it? How long did it last? Whatever. But like, that was a form of what we're talking about, uh, where there was ultimately, yes, it was a US-led effort, but there was a group of nationals in Iraq who are military age who basically got together and said, we gotta put an end to some of this shit. I don't think the United States, it's very unclear to me that that would be a good situation, nor, uh, it would be allowed. Like, I mean, just like, there's so much different, we are not in an active combat zone, right? You know, like, like, we live in a country that I like to think is, uh, is safe and people can speak their mind and do all these things. You're talking about a world that is very different than, you know, the world maybe that I want to live in and it appears that we live in at the moment without a trigger to head somewhere else.

• 1:26:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, the kind of the ironic thing is, yeah, Sons of Iraq was a was Petraeus's answer to and and other people, their answer to Al Qaeda in Iraq. You know, you had the whole political party forming in Anbar province, you know, before it became Sons of Iraq proper. But that didn't stop the killing. You know, they yeah, they went out and, you know, grabbed a bunch of Al Qaeda in Iraq guys and shot them dead in the street and called us, hey, by the way, you come pick this guy up like he's gone now. But yeah, I mean, it didn't

• 1:27:17Anthony Pompliano?

  That guy on your playing cards.

• 1:27:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right.

• 1:27:20Anthony Pompliano?

  Right. For those that don't know, go, the United States literally had 52 deck playing cards with faces of Iraqis on it, which, you know, tells you exactly what the mission was.

• 1:27:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, that was a, I mean, that was a roughly organic movement, at least at the very beginning, the Sahawal Iraq movement. And but yeah, you know, the thing was, okay, you have a bunch of these Sunni fighters and, you know, middle aged or military age males. Yeah, let's let's form up into a militia so they can they can protect their. Oh, yeah. So I, yeah. So let's let's form a bunch of these middle aged or military age males up and put them into a militia and they can go protect their country. Well, it didn't stop ethnic violence. I mean, it didn't.

• 1:28:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Did it did it inflame it? Did it make it worse? Or was it just kind of the baseline is the baseline and the players are different?

• 1:28:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, in some areas, yeah, because these were these were Sunnis and Maliki Shia was president. And at the same time, you know, Maliki was trying to sideline Sunni Sunnis in the Iraq army. And so, you know, this and we see the same thing in Afghanistan. Oh, you go help this tribe. Well, guess what? This tribe's been an enemy of this other tribe for 1,000 years. And now this other tribe thinks you're against them. And so they're going to start attacking you now. I don't know that there is a way to win. But but you bring up, you know, good point. Sons of Iraq was meant to stabilize Iraq, and it did. It mostly it did, especially in Anbar province.

• 1:28:50Anthony Pompliano?

  But, but what you, you know, one of the things you really did was enable militias to go after she is, you know, in some instances. This episode is brought to you by Exodus. Accessing Web3 across multiple networks just got a hell of a lot easier. Exodus is one of the most popular crypto wallets for mobile and desktop, and they just added Chrome and Brave web browsers to the lineup. The new Exodus Web3 wallet is a multi-chain browser extension that lets you safely navigate Web3 and DeFi apps on Ethereum, Solana, and Algorand from one wallet. Manage, mint, and sell NFTs on multiple networks in one wallet. You can swap Solana and ETH tokens natively right within the extension. And if you ever hit a snag, world-class customer

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• 1:30:10Anthony Pompliano?

  This idea of a release valve. You mentioned 2024, whichever side wins, they win emphatically, right? It is clear to everyone, hey, that is the winner, and there's acceptance of that winner.

• 1:30:26Anthony Pompliano?

  When that occurs, and I'm saying when because I'm hoping that happens, what is kind of the second and third order effects? Do we, is it possible to wind back the clock, kind of go, go back to pre all of the, the pressure that's built up and all of the, the just, I'm going to call it nonsense because frankly, I think there's a lot of people in the country who are just like, look, I don't want to live in a world like this. But is it possible to return? Or is there now kind of this idea of like, you advanced so far and like, that's the new battleground, or that's kind of the new boundary?

• 1:31:03Speaker 02

  I think the real problem is social cohesion.

• 1:31:06Anthony Pompliano?

  Okay, explain that.

• 1:31:07Speaker 02

  Well, I'm social cohesion. I mean, people, people getting along. They have shared values, shared language, shared culture, shared, you know, outlook. And unfortunately, you know, you go back and you read Sir John Glub's Fate of Empires. And he talks about empires follow a specific cycle. And he says last about 250 years, you know, roughly 10 generations. And it starts with the outbreak of an empire. You have a new leader or new idea. And, and it catches on like you win a big victory over someone. You take their land and okay, now you're you start your empire and you get into the age of pioneers and they're, you know, they're settling and expanding the empire.

• 1:31:51Speaker 02

  And then you have the age of commerce. Well, guess what? More commercial interests you have, the more military you need to protect it. And so you start military expansion. And then later on in the cycle, you get to the age of intellect. And the people who are living then are so far removed from the initial spark that's actually birthed that empire. They're so far removed, they don't get it. They don't share those values anymore. They don't share the same outlook. And, you know, Glub talks about all the, the role, all the factors at play. And, you know, he said, the Assyrian Empire lasted for about 247 years, roughly. British Empire, 250 years. Pax Romana lasted 270 years. So we're all, you know, according to him, we're about in a 250 year ballpark.

• 1:32:33Speaker 02

  And one of the things that happens at the end of empire is you lose social cohesion, which is exactly what's happening in the United States. And at first I said, well, this is a single source information. Let me go look. And there are other researchers, someone completely, and I don't remember his name, and I probably can't even announce, pronounce it if I could remember it. But he calculated up his own like 30 some odd empires. And he found this like 260, 270 years, which is very darned close to Glub's 250 years. So I actually think there's quite a bit of, of the math is right at least.

• 1:33:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah. What's interesting is there's a number of generations there, right? And one of the things that in the investment world or in the finance world. There's some paraphrase of it, but basically, you know, the first generation makes the money. Second generation does a pretty good job of holding on to it. By the third generation, it's gone. Right? You know, and, and, and this is obviously expanded in the 250, you know, year range, but like sure damn sounds pretty similar, right? Of kind of the, there's people who create a, a empire or a, a country. There's people who kind of take care of it and then there's people who, who fuck it up essentially. And, you know, I, I think we hope that doesn't happen. But let's say that, let's play this out, right? And say, okay, that, that's where we're headed.

• 1:33:47Anthony Pompliano?

  What do you do? Do you just, hey, where's the next empire going to be built? And let me go, you know, where it's prosperous and safe and, and kind of on the rise. And it's the equivalent of somebody who's worked at a big tech company for, you know, 10 years saying, fuck it, I'm going to a startup that's the next great tech company. Or do you stay and try to change it lately? What, what happens?

• 1:34:05Speaker 02

  Yeah. So Peter Turkson has a, he's a, or was a professor and he's studied the rise and fall of, of states. And one of the things he says is, if I recall correctly, two things end, end up happening is, is a civilization or an empire is either conquered by a neighboring empire or it falls from within. And, and it's brought down internally and it is at some point replaced by something else. So, you know, you look at the British Empire, I mean, the United Kingdom, Britain still exists as a country. It's just no longer an empire. And maybe this is what happens to the United States is, I think, I think there are probably several things that, that could happen.

• 1:34:49Speaker 02

  But, you know, maybe it's just the United States doesn't go away. It doesn't cease to exist. Like we just don't have a carrier strike group stationed in Japan anymore.

• 1:34:58Speaker 02

  And, and, and the dollar is no longer the, the world reserve currency. And, you know, in terms of what can you do, you have to get to a state that I think is fiscally responsible. And a state with a leadership that is going to look out for for its its residents, a state that has good industry, you produce something, you make something, you export something of value. And I think that's probably the best place you can be in because the the political establishment you have at the governor and the state legislature may well be the one that you keep that becomes your new government. I'm just saying, you know, falling into logical conclusions here. Get you got to get to a good state now.

• 1:35:40Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:41Speaker 02

  If you think that's gonna happen.

• 1:35:44Anthony Pompliano?

  How do you learn so much about this stuff? Like, what you guys do at the business, you essentially look around the world and you try to come up with intel quality, what I call like military quality intel. And my

• 1:35:56Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, I don't know. The military.

• 1:35:59Anthony Pompliano?

  I said that I knew I was gonna get them.

• 1:36:00Speaker 02

  That's a very low bar. Yeah, that's a very low bar.

• 1:36:03Anthony Pompliano?

  All right. Explain my joke that many of you may have missed there. Military grade intel.

• 1:36:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:36:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Explain.

• 1:36:09Speaker 02

  Well, you know, it's just like I had a meeting with someone the other day and I was explaining what they do. And they oh, you're like, you're military grade. So like, anything military grade is is made by the lowest bidder. It is not the quality you think it is. So yeah, military grade. And plus, there's the joke, you know, about, yeah, whatever the joke is about in my there's many of them.

• 1:36:28Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, the military folks will get that one. But you guys, obviously, you take a lot of the stuff that you learned military and implemented there contractor work. Now you're doing it in the private sector. But the folks who are consuming this are everyone from who's just interested in events around the world, trying to learn and educate themselves to professionals who are making decisions, whether they're corporations, investment firms, whatever. How do you kind of like go through the event? So maybe a great way to think about this is like, you wake up in the morning, what do you check? Are you checking the news? Are you checking internal proprietary dashboards? Are you just jumping on Twitter like the rest of us where you're taking a shit? And you're like, you know, what are people tweeting about? What is the kind of the first couple of things that you do in the morning from a professional kind of intel standpoint?

• 1:37:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, we, we spend a lot of money on on access to information, various databases. And so, yeah, you know, I wake up, I'm, I'm sitting on my computer, 5:30 most, most mornings, really checking what happened overnight, making sure China hasn't, you know, nuke Taiwan or whatever, you know. Just looking at what really what happened overnight, checking, you know, kind of the first thing domestically off the presses, what's what's domestic media reporting. And, you know, I have my feed set up and keywords and topics that I'm looking at. And so, you know, yeah, I mean, from from the get go, we just we catch up on what happened overnight, and then we kind of add it to to our expectations. And, you know, a lot like financial people

• 1:37:56Speaker 02

  do, you know, you wake up and you check Asian markets.

• 1:37:59Anthony Pompliano?

  Twitter, how important is it for for the intel world?

• 1:38:03Speaker 02

  Well, for the intel world is, I mean, is very important. You're, I mean, there's citizen journalists, they're, you know, basically, I mean, they can, if something's happening in in Japan or in Egypt, a lot of the times, yeah, you might learn about it first on Twitter, you know, and, you know, you've even seen, you know, print media and other people cite Twitter sources like, oh, we saw this on Twitter. And so

• 1:38:29Anthony Pompliano?

  My favorite is when it's like a pseudonymous account, and they're like, fuck it, they don't know who it is. They just say like, you know, the cat.

• 1:38:34Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, Twitter makes, you know, Twitter, in a lot of cases, is the first place where you'll find it. And I would say even more importantly, that than that Twitter's where you'll find alternative sources sources of information. And even if it's, you know, and it's not the the journalistic narrative or the the state backed narrative that you're reading, and in some newspaper somewhere, you know, it's someone that said, oh, yeah, I was there. This is, this is actually what happened, or this is my perspective, or here's the non state sanctioned version of what happened.

• 1:39:07Anthony Pompliano?

  We've talked a lot about geopolitics, about domestic issues, kind of, you know, social, all these different things. It's not all you all do, right? So there's things like fuel shortages and other components. Talk a little bit about that part of the work, and like, why is that important? And kind of what are the decisions people are making once they actually are able to kind of get their hands on this type of reporting?

• 1:39:28Speaker 02

  So, you know, we, I mean, we exist to produce early warning.

• 1:39:34Speaker 02

  A lot, you know, a lot of, a lot of times, the information's there and just only a few people have put it together. A hedge fund has put it together and they're acting on it. They're not telling anybody because they want the advantage. So, we try to act as like kind of a hedge fund with, with the quality of information that, that we can source and then, you know, we draw logical conclusions. And really, our goal is to do that before it hits the news, right? I mean, you can read it in our report. I mean, and this is, it happens very frequently. You're reading our report that goes out every morning at 8:00 AM Central Time and you hear about it on the news a day or two from now. And so, our, our whole goal is to say, hey, this is happening or this is going to happen or

• 1:40:19Speaker 02

  this, there's a good, there's a good chance this will happen over the next X number of days. And then, yeah, people can act on it and they can make decisions based off of that. I mean, really, that's what any good intelligence does.

• 1:40:33Anthony Pompliano?

  I'm fascinated by the private privatization of various things in the defense industry. I think the, probably the most famous initial one was Blackwater and kind of the contractors and all of that. You now have examples on the technology side and kind of aspiration to be the next great prime and a company like Anduril and a lot of the great work that they're doing there. Is it possible to privatize the intel work and is there a world where the private sources end up maybe not being in competition with the military sources, but, but private sources are relied on by military leaders?

• 1:41:08Speaker 02

  Absolutely. Look at Maxar Technologies and what they're doing right now in Ukraine. You know, it's a private company.

• 1:41:15Anthony Pompliano?

  Explain a little bit more about that.

• 1:41:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, Maxar, I mean, they take satellite imagery. So they're imagery intelligence firm. And, you know, they're providing that to the Ukrainian government and you have the Ukrainian MOD making decisions based off of those satellites. So, yes, we are probably getting, I mean, just like Blackwater and the other places where military action's been outsourced, that probably is the future of intelligence. There's a lot of, you know, in the, in the military and the government, there's a lot of institutional inertia and bureaucracy. And some of those things will have, some of those state sanctioned things will probably have to continue to be carried out by military or civilian groups. But, the use of contractors has proliferated even for intelligence gathering and that probably is the future.

• 1:42:03Anthony Pompliano?

  Contractors for intelligence gathering, net positive, net negative? What have you, what's kind of your evaluation of it so far?

• 1:42:13Speaker 02

  You know, I would say net positive. I mean, like I look at, I spent, my last tour to Afghanistan was 18 months. I was doing roughly a similar job that I would have done as, as a sergeant, as an E5. But I was getting paid a lot more to do it. I also didn't have, I mean, there's no morning formation. You know, I don't have, I don't have, you know, a section sergeant or NCO, you know, double, you know, double checking up on me. And so, you know, I think there's less, kind of less red, red tape as a contractor. That's why I really enjoyed being a contractor. It's like, wake up, go do your job and, and just do it to the best of your ability. Now, not everyone did that.

• 1:42:55Speaker 02

  But I think a lot of the, it's tough to say. I just, they threw so much money at getting contractors and I think a lot of that money was wasted. I would say net positive because you, you, you get people who have experience who want to be over there doing the job, just not in the military anymore because there's just so much BS in the military.

• 1:43:18Anthony Pompliano?

  If I remember the numbers correctly, if you were combat engineer, infantryman, et cetera, in 2008, 2009 in Iraq with hazard pay and kind of all the different, you know, ancillary payments, I think you probably made, I don't know, probably somewhere 70, 80K, something like that, 65, 70, whatever the number was, it was below the $87,000 threshold that basically you weren't taxed. And I remember on the way out of Iraq, we went to Kuwait for two weeks or 10 days, whatever it was. And essentially I have like a job fair, right? Set up there and it was all the contracting companies. And it was like, listen, you turn your ass right back, you know, you go home, but like basically go right back to the country, do exactly what you were just doing.

• 1:44:02Anthony Pompliano?

  Sometimes even a less dangerous job will pay you $90,000 for a six month contract. If you don't go home in those six months, we'll pay you 10K, so it's 100K total. Stay for a year and don't go home is 200K.

• 1:44:14Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:44:14Anthony Pompliano?

  And a lot of guys is like, well, fuck, I was just willing to do it for way less money, right, and a lot more bureaucracy. And usually I was actually put in more danger.

• 1:44:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:44:22Anthony Pompliano?

  Why would I not go back? And it always, you know, it's just like, look, what is the value, right? If you think from a business mindset, like, what is the value of the person in that country doing something? Private sector had a lot more value assigned to it than the kind of defense industry or military. And so it's just fascinating how you can use money and what they're willing to pay as a proxy for a lot of other things.

• 1:44:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Unfortunately, you know, I think a lot of that's probably waste, fraud and abuse, you know. But, you know, going to big defense contractors and, you know, we

• 1:44:55Anthony Pompliano?

  Yeah, if you're getting paid 200K, what are they getting paid?

• 1:44:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, they're making way. So, yeah, so I, you know, I'm just saying, you know, I'm speaking from my, my position and my role, what I was doing as a contractor in Afghanistan. However, yeah, it's, it's a different time. You and I both learned a lot since we enlisted and, you know, when I enlisted, I was super gung ho and I get over there and I start realizing like, this is not, this is not what the average, you know, flag waving, you know, American thinks it is, which is, you know, very unfortunate. But, you know, to your point, yeah, contracting, you get a lot higher tier. You're not just taking volunteers off the street, you know? It's like, if you come to work for our company, you know, a company like Blackwater or some

• 1:45:40Speaker 02

  of the other kind of top tier firms, like you, you're going to be worth your salt. We're not just going to hire anybody just because they show up and fill out an application.

• 1:45:48Anthony Pompliano?

  War is fucking nasty business, man. Right?

• 1:45:51Speaker 02

  It's a moneymaker. Yeah.

• 1:45:53Anthony Pompliano?

  Well, it's a business, but it's also just a nasty situation where I think one of the things that has really bothered me frankly, is there's been a lot of critiques of the Navy SEAL training, right? And I've actually never said this story before, but on the way to Iraq, we went to Fort Polk in Louisiana about the absolute shittiest place in the world because it was the middle of the summer and the fucking insects and just, it was horrible, right? I hated it. And I remember we were doing these training exercises in preparation and on one of them, basically they were like, all right, y'all going to go up here and you're going to pull security. Okay, whatever, go up there, pull security.

• 1:46:36Anthony Pompliano?

  I was around like a fake village that they had built or whatever. And next thing I know, I see some dudes who just look cool.

• 1:46:44Anthony Pompliano?

  Come out of the woods, right? And they're fucking doing their thing, whatever. And they're pretty quick. And then everyone said, all right, let's get out of here. We go back to where we're staying. And, you know, there's a bunch of guys here, just like, what the fuck was that? Right? So they started asking around, whatever. It was Navy SEALs, who supposedly, they did an exercise where they dropped off in the ocean, they swim, they got to fucking, you know, navigate their way or whatever. And that was kind of the conclusion of it. And so, whatever, fine. We're there. And these dudes are staying in a barracks that is, you know, within eyesight. I'm fucking exhausted. So is every other guy I'm with. They're talking about, what are they going to go eat, whatever. And we see these SEALs, and they're now working out. And these dudes are

• 1:47:27Anthony Pompliano?

  pulling tires and do, I mean, just the whole thing, like, literally out of a movie, right?

• 1:47:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:47:31Anthony Pompliano?

  And I remember sitting there staring at them, just being like, I'm so glad those motherfuckers are on our side. Like, and that was the only experience I had, seeing the training and like, all the stuff and everything. But there's not very many people who would have done that. Because my understanding of what they had just done was grueling already. And then they still, hey, I gotta get my workout in. And it feels like there's a disconnect between the public conversation, and then when you see the reality. And it's like, by the way, some of those guys, just do the math, like, they didn't come home. Right? They, even though all the preparation still wasn't enough. And so I think that, to your point about social cohesion, cohesion, there's also like, an education, information standpoint, the more people can understand

• 1:48:13Anthony Pompliano?

  about some of the stuff they realize, it's not necessarily good and bad. It's not necessarily, you know, clean cut, hey, I want this streamed on national television, or written in the New York Times. Because it's nasty.

• 1:48:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah, it's very unfortunate that, I think there is, I'm going to tread lightly here, because I'm not one of those dudes, you know, obviously. But yeah, you know, I think there is, like, when that, when that SEAL murdered one of the Green Berets, and I forget where it was, you know, there's a lot, I think there are things that happen that, you know, people call it toxic. And, you know, just from reading the news, you can get that. But those, you know, those guys, I think most of them are, are like top tier quality, the best dudes you could possibly want on your team. And it's very, and again, I don't

• 1:49:05Speaker 02

  have a dog in this fight, but unfortunately, when you see the politicization of training, like non, non soft dudes making decisions for how those guys are going to go through their own pipeline and go through their own selection progress, process, like, don't mess with that. Let them run that shit. Cause they've got to deploy with those people, right? They have to choose who they want, you know, to join their brotherhood. And so I think that's a travesty. What's happening right now is people is civilians, people who really are in no, probably have no business making those types of decisions, making those types of decisions, saying, well, we're going to cut this, this phase and we're going to allow this to happen over here. And

• 1:49:49Anthony Pompliano?

  Is what are you optimizing for? Right? Like, you know, look, I meet a lot of founders, a lot of people who want to work at various companies. I even talked to, you know, their investors, whatever. I always like to ask, what are you optimizing for? And some people, what they're optimizing for today may not be what it is tomorrow or whatever. I think most of those processes, they're not perfect. They'd be first to say that. Most of the training processes, most of the selection processes, et cetera, is they are optimizing for the best absolute warfighters we can put on the battlefield. So we can be successful. Right? And that's how they were designed. And that's how they've been run. And again, they fuck up, they make mistakes, whatever. They go too far. All that stuff is true. But that is what they're optimizing for. It does seem to your point, there's a lot of people now who, you know, they have interest, whether it's intellectual interest or some

• 1:50:31Anthony Pompliano?

  other interest that they're trying to figure out how they can, you know, kind of meddle in this. That's not what they're optimizing for. They're optimizing for other things. And again, maybe they're right, maybe they're not, whatever. But that is a shift in, in the target, right? That's a shift in what we're optimizing for. And like, we should be aware of that. We should understand that the goal is now shifting and we should have a conversation around, is that a better goal to go after? Or actually, are we losing kind of sight of what these people are going to have to go do? And I don't have the answers, right? And I don't think you claim to have the answers either, but you can see it happen. And it's kind of crazy to watch in real time.

• 1:51:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm afraid this is maybe one of those, you know, end of empire indicators where, you know, we're, we're no longer optimizing for lethality, you know, like the, the Mattis school of, should we do this with the military? Does it help us kill more people faster? If it does, yeah, let's look at it. If it doesn't, then no, let's not do that. And yeah, just, you know, the things you've seen.

• 1:51:29Anthony Pompliano?

  Cancelled, cancelled.

• 1:51:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I know. Yeah.

• 1:51:32Anthony Pompliano?

  Right? The military killing people like that is, that is not good.

• 1:51:35Speaker 02

  Right. Well, you know, you just, the marine, you know, the Marines have that new ad campaign out now, right? And it's not the, the pink haired, you know, person joining the Marine Corps. It's like Marines going out and conducting operations and killing people, you know, and I mean, not literally in, in the ad, but that's a very, that's a very important shift from what we saw just a few years ago, where, you know, it's like a softer, softer, gentler Marine Corps.

• 1:51:58Anthony Pompliano?

  The, the, the pendulum swings, I think, in both directions, as we've seen, right? And it does feel that it has swung. But I also think that there's recruiting issues that they're having, like there, there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes into it. I, I'll leave you with this, I think you'll appreciate it. A friend of mine was saying, you know, what do you think about all the, the Russia, Ukraine stuff or whatever? And I just said to myself, I said, I wonder, eh, let me go Google this. And when I Googled something, I came back to him, I said, Hey, man, there's a lot of people advocating for World War III. Military's paying $50,000 signing bonus for somebody to sign up if they're so interested in it.

• 1:52:33Speaker 02

  Right. Yeah.

• 1:52:34Anthony Pompliano?

  They pay, they pay you to sign up, right? I'll see a line out the door. They're paying 50K because they can't get a lot of people to sign up. And so I think that, you know, again, I just like looking at the market. And if they're having to pay these huge signing bonuses, it means that they can't get enough people to sign up, can't get enough people to sign up. But there's a hell of a lot of people on Twitter talking about, you know, I, I think in the last four years, four or five years, I'm pretty sure that World War III has trended on Twitter at least three times. There was the Iran situation, the North Korea situation, and then the Ukraine situation. So that's just a crazy world, right? And, and again, maybe that's just what's always happened. And now it's just on social media or whatever, but they're paying that much and there's a lot of people talking about it. It just seems like there's a disconnect.

• 1:53:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. There's a very big disconnect. And I'm afraid that, that politicians are going to want to fight the next war, which may be a world war. And there are like empire indicate, empire ending implications if we lose.

• 1:53:31Anthony Pompliano?

  Let's hope that doesn't happen.

• 1:53:33Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:53:33Anthony Pompliano?

  Where can we send people to find you on the internet or sign up for all the great work you guys do?

• 1:53:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, thanks. Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity. It's been a great discussion. You can, our website, you can find us at forwardobserver.com. And we do a daily YouTube livestream for about 15 minutes every morning, talk about global issues. That's just the Forward Observer channel over on YouTube. And I'm on Twitter and Instagram and a bunch of other places under GrayZoneWarlord. It's gray with an A.

• 1:54:01Anthony Pompliano?

  GrayZoneWarlord, what a great name. All right, thank you so much. I appreciate it. We definitely will do this again.

• 1:54:05Speaker 02

  All right. Yeah, thank you.

• 1:54:08Anthony Pompliano?

  Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. I really hope you enjoyed this one. Make sure you're subscribed on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast player. And if you're looking to transition into a brand new job in the Bitcoin or crypto industry, we've got you covered. Head over to thecryptoacademy.io. My team and I have been working with the top HR teams in the industry to develop an intensive three-week training program with over 50 live events. We teach you exactly what you need to know to break into the industry, including live interview prep and resume review. Our students have been hired at over 75 of the world's best Bitcoin and crypto companies. Go to thecryptoacademy.io to learn more. Again, that's thecryptoacademy.io. If you enjoyed today's episode, make sure you share it with your friends and I'll see you all for the next episode.