Intelligence Scoop: Why Governments Want Us To Stockpile

In the last weeks, we’ve had dire warnings from governments and intelligence agencies across the world, warning of a cyber apocalypse and a global internet meltdown. At the same time, the British government has told people to start storing 72 hours of supplies and the Pentagon in the US has told its bases they need to survive for 90s days without outside support. So this week, David and Gordon are asking: are we doomed and should we start prepping? ------------------- Sign-up for our free newsletter where producer Becki takes you behind the scenes of the show: therestisclassified.com/newsletter ------------------- Join the Declassified Club to go deeper into the world of espionage with exclusive Q&As, interviews with top intelligence insiders, regular livestreams, ad-free listening, early access to episodes and live show tickets, and weekly deep dives into original spy stories. Members also get curated reading lists, special book discounts, prize draws, and access to our private chat community. Just go to ⁠⁠therestisclassified.com⁠ or join on Apple Podcasts. ------------------- Get a 10% discount on business PCs, printers and accessories using the code TRIC10. Visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://HP.com/CLASSIFIED⁠⁠⁠⁠ for more information. T&C's apply. ------------------- Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠ Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@restisclassified⁠ Video Editor: Joe Pettit Social Producer: Emma Jackson Assistant Producer: Alfie Rowe Producer: Becki Hills Head of History: Dom Johnson Exec Producer: Tony Pastor Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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

• 0:03David McCloskey?

  For exclusive interviews, bonus episodes, ad-free listening, early access to series, first look at live show tickets, a weekly newsletter and discounted books, join the Declassified Club at therestisclassified.com.

• 0:25David McCloskey?

  In the last weeks, we've had dire warnings from governments and intelligence agencies across the world, warning of a cyber apocalypse and a global internet meltdown. At the same time, the British government has told people to start storing 72 hours of supplies and the Pentagon in the US has told its bases they need to be able to survive for 90 days without outside support. So this week, we're asking, are we doomed? And should we start prepping? Well, welcome to The Rest Is Classified. I'm David McCloskey.

• 0:55Gordon Corera?

  And I'm Gordon Corera.

• 0:56David McCloskey?

  And we thought we'd do some public service broadcasting this week on The Rest Is Classified and help everyone navigate the various freakouts that have been going on. And I guess the question is, is this episode going to scare them even more?

• 1:10Gordon Corera?

  That's right. Are we doomed? Are we prepping? That's what we're going to look at. Two things, I guess, as you said, in the last few weeks have spurred some of this talk. Firstly, talk of a massive cyber meltdown, which was said to be threatening the internet. We'll get to that. And also, secondly, the very alarming reports here in the UK that some varieties of Heinz and Baxter's soup tins are out of stock at local supermarkets, which is supposedly a result of them being bought by people prepping and taking this government advice. So how far are these two things connected? And how much should we be prepared amidst all this talk of war and meltdown?

• 1:47David McCloskey?

  We're going to get to our own prepping and what we're doing in a minute. But first, a note from our sponsors, HP.

• 1:58Gordon Corera?

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• 2:00David McCloskey?

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• 4:32David McCloskey?

  Let's start with the fact that AI is once again in the news, dooming us. So we had a lot of cyber meltdown talk that really, it seemed to come almost from nowhere the other day, and then it disappears.

• 4:46Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, so we had some pretty apocalyptic talk about cybersecurity last week. Happens periodically. After it emerged, there were multiple vulnerabilities in this thing called PHP, a programming language which is used by something like 70% of websites. Now, lots of websites went down. I mean, bits of the Czech government, Japan's Ministry of Finance, Netherlands-owned cyber defence centre. I notice even the BBC's Doctor Who and Traitors webpages went down, which is a big deal here. And the reason is that there were vulnerabilities in PHP which could be used to take control of the site remotely and steal the data. Now, the headlines were quite dramatic. This week could go down

• 5:28Gordon Corera?

  as the worst in the history of cybersecurity was one. People were talking about us entering the dark ages and the valley of pain for cybersecurity, and that this was just the beginning. I mean, I love this talk. But here's the thing, within a day or two, guess what? It disappeared and the world didn't end. So we're still here.

• 5:48David McCloskey?

  We all got distracted by more short-form videos on other things that just kind of moved on. But the vulnerability or the detection of the vulnerability, I mean, it brings us back to the AI question, right? And the impact that AI is having on cybersecurity more broadly.

• 6:05Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. And so AI is a factor here. And in this case, this vulnerability was found by researchers using some new AI tools. And they were quietly and secretly working with everyone to patch it and close up the vulnerability. But then news of that leaked, and you saw a sudden panic, which was now hackers know that there's this vulnerability, and they could exploit it before it gets patched. And so governments and companies were told by, you know, the cybersecurity agencies, that they needed to take down any sites which weren't patched protectively before the hackers could get into them. So when you talked about all these sites going down, and we heard about whether it's the traitors or, you know, Japanese Ministry of Finance, they're not being taken down

• 6:49Gordon Corera?

  by the hackers, they're being taken down by the people who own it to make them more secure until and when they're ready to go back up.

• 6:57David McCloskey?

  This is an important detail that I feel like was been buried in most of the coverage of this story, right? I mean, when you see the headlines, you think that a malicious AI has taken down websites. But in fact, it's because AI has helped cybersecurity researchers figure out this vulnerability and then alert people so that websites could be fixed, presumably. So it's actually kind of a good news story about cybersecurity.

• 7:23Gordon Corera?

  Exactly. That's what's so interesting about it. And I checked in with the people at Mandiant Cyber Security, they're part of Google, who say there's actually, they've not seen any evidence of successful, wide-scale exploitation of this vulnerability by threat actors, criminals, or nation states. So, you know, the good news, in a sense, is no one died. I mean, it may for some rough days and nights if you worked in cybersecurity, because you had to patch this stuff very quickly. And you're right, it's kind of about the battle between defence and offence in AI. And the truth is, it's a bit more complicated than us all being doomed.

• 7:58David McCloskey?

  That's a relief. That's a relief. But the bad news is, I guess this is going to be happening a lot. I mean, that's the message, because AI is helping people find these vulnerabilities, and then they've got to be dealt with before the hackers find them and they get closed. And the estimate is about twice as many vulnerabilities are being found every month now as there were in the past. But if you talk to people at GCHQ, their cyber arm, the NCSE, you know, their view is, we may go through like a disruptive phase in which, you know, these vulnerabilities are found, hackers try and exploit them. Often hackers are first adopters if they can find these first. And there's going to be a disruptive phase while all these are found, and then they get patched. But then

• 8:42David McCloskey?

  you end up, as you said, with a kind of good news story, because these vulnerabilities existed before, they get closed up, and we end up with a more secure system and a more secure internet. So, you know, once you get through the valley of pain and the dark ages, we might be better off. The dark ages were terrible, I will say. They were, it was unpleasant.

• 9:02Gordon Corera?

  And they went on for quite a long time.

• 9:04David McCloskey?

  The people who lived during that time, very few enjoyed it. And the valley of pain sounds painful. I mean, I do think, though, there is an interesting question which gets to this point on how deep the valley of pain might be, or whether it's actually just a hill of pain that you roll down endlessly. Is this question of, does AI broadly, does it favour the offence? And that could be malicious actors, states, criminals, whoever. Or does it favour defence? And that debate is not, it's almost a kind of theoretical debate at this point, right? Where there's, there's arguments for either side. What's your take? Do you think that it's, do you think the valley of pain is

• 9:48David McCloskey?

  going to be a sort of brief interlude our way to more glorious horizons? Or do you see it as something more troubling?

• 9:55Gordon Corera?

  I think it may be, it could last a couple of years of this kind of thing happening. But I was texting Kieran Martin, who used to run the UK's national cybersecurity last night. And his view is, there is every chance cybersecurity gets worse for a bit, but not in a kind of mass casualty kind of way. And his concern was, you know, people are starting to freak out too much at these things. And that, you know, if these incidents keep coming, like last week's thing, which actually may have been a net good, then how will we cope when something really bad happens? Because we've been kind of inured to it by all this kind of apocalyptic talk. So I think there is something about having to

• 10:36Gordon Corera?

  get a bit of perspective about the fact, it might be bumpy before we get to a more secure internet, but people aren't necessarily dying from these kind of vulnerabilities.

• 10:46David McCloskey?

  So if the truth is that we're in for a bumpy ride in terms of cybersecurity, thanks to AI, with websites going down and data being stolen, but we're not all doomed. Then why should we be prepping?

• 10:58Gordon Corera?

  I guess there is something to be slightly more worried about, but it's not really AI related, because a lot of the risks that we talk about in cyberspace are kind of criminals, you know, hackers trying to steal data, shut down websites. That's obviously kind of problematic. It's problematic if your data gets stolen or if your website goes down, but it doesn't require hiding in a bunker. But the bigger problem, I think, is that this period of dark ages, the vulnerability period, is also arriving.

• 11:30David McCloskey?

  If, by the way, you need to, you need to tell Kieran, when you text him, that he needs to come up with a better, better word for the.

• 11:37Gordon Corera?

  I don't think it's him.

• 11:38David McCloskey?

  No, I know. I'm just saying, because he's, he is not, he's not pessimistic. He and his friend should come up with a better word than dark ages for what we're going to be experiencing. I also think it's worth noting that the presumption on the optimist's side seems to be that the good cybersecurity people will find the vulnerabilities and patch them first, as opposed to the, the threat actors finding it.

• 12:00Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, no, and it is a presumption, but I think the real worry is less about AI and it's more about the fact that we're in this era of geopolitical kind of competition, tension, friction. And so I think the real risk here is not so much AI dooming us, but foreign spies and hackers taking advantage of this and targeting our infrastructure.

• 12:26David McCloskey?

  Yeah, so it's not AI itself, it's Russians using AI to target our infrastructure and Iranians and the Chinese.

• 12:34Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, I think that's the issue really, is that we've talked, I mean, we talked a few weeks ago, didn't we, about Russia's grey zone war, their use of sabotage in Europe to undermine support for Ukraine, things like the drones at Leipzig, arson attacks in the UK, kind of talk about sabotage in lots of other countries. But there's also been activity in cyberspace. And for instance, you saw this really interesting hacking operation against Poland last December, a cyber attack. And I know that this really worried some British intelligence officials, because I saw some soon afterwards and I was like, oh, this seems all kind of quiet in, you know, cybersecurity at the moment, you know, when it comes to foreign states. And they were like, no, Poland, you know, this is, this was serious.

• 13:17Gordon Corera?

  What it seemed to be was hackers, and in this case, thought to be linked to Russia's security service, the FSB, targeting the Polish electricity grid. And they came very close to causing a blackout. Now, that could have cut heating to half a million people in winter if it had worked. And they have done similar things in Ukraine, but I think this was the first time the Western intelligence agencies had seen the Russians target a NATO's country electricity grid to take it down. And it's part of, if you like, that wider Russian strategy of targeting the population to kind of weaken them and make them think, you know, we've got to get out of this conflict, we've got to stop backing Ukraine.

• 13:59Gordon Corera?

  So I think that is where cyber gets interesting when it comes to prepping. And there's been other examples actually in the US, including David, I think in your home state, isn't that right, of Minnesota?

• 14:10David McCloskey?

  That's right, Minnesota, the crucible of the cyber apocalypse, Gordon.

• 14:16David McCloskey?

  The land of 10,000 lakes. This is crazy, because hackers in Minnesota targeted more than 30 municipal water utilities all across the state. And these are places that are probably not operating with the highest end cybersecurity. The hackers get in, they lock the local utility operators out of their own systems and then try to interfere remotely with the pumps and valves. So it's kind of a low-rent version of Stuxnet, which we talked about a while back on the pod, this joint US-Israeli operation to, to mess with the centrifuge cascades at, at Natanz in Iran. And I think this is what's so fascinating, is it takes it from, whether it's the Poland

• 14:59David McCloskey?

  example or Minnesota, it takes it from the sort of digital world and then we're now in the physical world, where actual infrastructure is being messed with. I mean, in Minnesota, it was so bad that the Maple Plain City Council, Maple Plain, a lovely place in the western suburbs of Minneapolis-St. Paul, filled with maple trees, Gordon, this time of year, probably lovely, lovely autumn colors. They convened an emergency meeting, this happened in the summer, by the way, at 4:00 PM on July 27th, in a closed session, a closed session, Gordon, of the Maple Plain City Council, to receive, to receive a security briefing.

• 15:37Gordon Corera?

  Who from? I don't think the NSA, do you think like the director of NSA or FBI flew in?

• 15:43David McCloskey?

  It's a good, it's a good question. If, if any listeners have access to the Maple Plain City Council, we would like, we would like to know. Following consultation with city staff and emergency management personnel, Mayor Julie Maskuski declared a local state of emergency. I mean, so this is, it's crazy, because you would think, okay, so who, who would be doing this? Who is going after Minnesota's water transmission infrastructure? The Iranians. And it's, it's the Iranians. It's, it's wild. It's, it's absolutely mad.

• 16:19Gordon Corera?

  Yeah, it's so interesting, isn't it? That this is where like kind of big geopolitical conflicts meet, you know, local water utilities in Maple Plain City. And I mean, they also targeted the Iranians over the summer, a British power plant, a small one, which reportedly was shut down for something like four days. Those were the reports, but the government has not said much about it. They've been quite secretive about it. They've not, they've said no one lost power. But all of this kind of Iranian activity over the summer looks to be retaliation for those US strikes in Iran and also the UK offering its bases to the Americans eventually.

• 16:56David McCloskey?

  It's just to go back to the Maple Plain example for a moment. Are the Iranians specifically going after Minnesotan water utilities because they found some kind of vulnerability in the software, shared software that might have been used between them? Is it like, because I wouldn't imagine the Iranians are like, where do we target? And, you know.

• 17:16Gordon Corera?

  Let's do Minnesota.

• 17:17David McCloskey?

  A member of the IRGC stabs a knife into a map of the United States at, at Minneapolis-St. Paul, right? It's not, it's not where you would go.

• 17:26Gordon Corera?

  Well, you never know. It could be that IRGC commander had like, had a really bad summer holiday in Minneapolis is like, I'm going to take them out. I think it was a broader campaign than that. And I think they're looking for targets of opportunity. But it, it's, it's going to be smaller places which have not got high-end cybersecurity which get hit. And I think this is where I think it gets interesting and connects with prepping, because suddenly you can see that actually if Iranian hackers, Russian hackers, Russian spies, Iranian spies are basically targeting infrastructure in our countries, and they are targeting it to be able to see if they can take it down. And in which case, you know, there's a problem if you're in these communities.

• 18:07Gordon Corera?

  I mean, that's why I think you can start to see why there might be a need to prepare, to think about what happens if the water or the power goes down.

• 18:15David McCloskey?

  Yeah, because I also think in the, the Maple Plain example, which obviously it didn't end up working, you could imagine a case where, whether it's the Iranians, Chinese, Russians, whomever, get into a system like that and are successful for a long period of time at keeping the operators out, depending on how you could kind of manually override the system. You could, you're talking about a period where is Maple Plain drying up for three or four days while you try to resolve this? Is there no water in the city? I mean, you start to think psychologically about what happens. And I guess that, that could explain a bit of why, why we're getting the prepping guidance.

• 18:57David McCloskey?

  So maybe there we take a break and when we come back, we'll tell you why we should all be prepping and what both Gordon and I are keeping in our basements. We'll see you after the break.

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• 20:13David McCloskey?

  Well, welcome back. The cyber apocalypse is not coming. Although I actually think many people listening to this probably, probably hope it is. So we should say, you know, we're sorry, we're sorry for disappointing you. But it could be, it could be bumpy. We've talked about, you know, the sort of valley of pain that we might go through as cybersecurity deals with the new kind of challenges of AI. But maybe we should start prepping. And I think this gets us to what we were talking about before the break. We have, you know, vulnerable electricity grids, water transmission systems, do risks. Think we'll come to the American view shortly, but the UK, Gordon, has just put out new guidance, which has been mocked in some quarters about how you should get yourself ready for this.

• 20:58Gordon Corera?

  There is a British tradition of mocking things and talking about soup tins running out. But actually, I think it was a kind of good thing to do. I'm going to be honest. It's if you look at the UK advice, it's not primarily around AI dooming us or even just cyber hacking, but a kind of mix of threats. And I think that's one of the things to say. So extreme weather and climate change, flooding or drought. We've seen more of that, also cyber attacks. And of course, some of this could be hostile state activity, including Russia. I mean, all the way up to war and people are talking about war in the way, you know, they haven't in the past here in Britain. I mean, there was an interesting, I think, report a few weeks ago, which said that the UK risk register had been updated, warning that the chance of a catastrophic

• 21:41Gordon Corera?

  loss of water supply for a million people had gone up dramatically. And it was interesting because the reason for that was a combination of climate change, putting strains on the system, underinvestment in the infrastructure, and then the potential for Russia or another state, say Iran, to exploit those problems with cyber attacks. So I thought that was really interesting, the idea that it's the mix of things. So you can have climate change straining a system and not enough money being put into the system. And then a hostile state kind of can tip it over the edge with a cyber attack. I think that is quite a good example of why we're in a new world of risks, where people are thinking about the need to prepare for it in a way they didn't in the past.

• 22:22David McCloskey?

  That's the reason for the UK's be ready checklist or guidance that they, they put out. Would you, you've gone deep into this, haven't you, Gordon, to get yourself ready for the apocalypse?

• 22:34Gordon Corera?

  I've been watching lots of videos, UK urban prepper and others to kind of learn what to do. Three liters per person per day for drinking, more for cooking and washing, food with a long shelf life, and FM radio. So this is old school because there will be no podcasts, David, when the apocalypse comes because we're all digital. It's a slight worry because I don't know how people are going to, we're going to get our public service information.

• 22:59David McCloskey?

  Radio. We should have a radio station. We'll have, we'll have a call in talk show during the, during the apocalypse. People can ask us questions. Yeah.

• 23:08Gordon Corera?

  Because I was listening to these, these serious preppers. I've been spending, I've been going down the rabbit hole. And their view is the only problem with the UK advice is that it's saying you need this for three days. When actually they're like, if it really goes wrong, you need, you probably need more time. If you were, you know, a few weeks worth of stuff. But the result is even with that advice, you know, baked beans, bottled waters, and Heinz and Baxter's, which are varieties of soup, have been running low, David.

• 23:32David McCloskey?

  I looked at the US, like the FEMA guidance, our Federal Emergency Management Agency. And the, the bit of, they have very similar guidance in terms of the supplies, food, gear that you need to the UK. But it's been on the books for a while, years. And the minimum that they recommend stockpiling for is three days. And they, and the FEMA guidance is more like, this should be two weeks, like three days is the absolute bare minimum. Because you do think, I mean, if, if there actually is a real problem and it goes longer than three days. I mean, it just, it seems to, it doesn't seem like nearly long enough for, for any of these risks you've just described.

• 24:17Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. I mean, I, it feels like that's what it would take for a kind of a normal power outage or a flood or something like that to be dealt with. But I think if it's something really more serious, then yeah, it doesn't quite feel like enough. I mean, it's interesting though, because there's a lot more talk about it now than there used to be. So, I mean, maybe here in Europe, I mean, I guess in the US, there's always been prepping. I mean, there's always been that kind of world. And I think maybe it's true that, you know, you've got more kind of, you get tornadoes and floods and hurricanes and things like that in the, in the US as well, more extreme weather events.

• 24:53David McCloskey?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 24:53Gordon Corera?

  Which, which make people prepare for these things, don't they? I mean, that, there's a bit more culture of it generally, as well as the kind of doomsday, the world's ending stuff.

• 25:01David McCloskey?

  Is that less common in the UK than it is here?

• 25:04Gordon Corera?

  Maybe it is. Increasingly less, yeah.

• 25:06David McCloskey?

  It is interesting. I mean, the FEMA guidance is very much targeted toward natural disasters and extreme weather, as you said. It's not at all kind of driven by the threat of a hostile state actor wrecking the Texas power grid or something like that, or taking it offline for a few weeks. It's, it's, it is, it's, you know, it's, it's hurricanes, it's, it's floods. It's like blizzards in places like Texas that are not, that don't have power grids that are really well winterized. Right? And that can wreak havoc on, on the grid here. So it's very much not, I think maybe the difference, some of the difference between the two is the US has had, I think this guidance formally for a bit longer.

• 25:50David McCloskey?

  And it's very much not about the threat of, you know, hybrid war with the Russians.

• 25:55Gordon Corera?

  But it's interesting. I saw the US military is getting slightly into this prepping for its overseas bases and thinking about that a bit more.

• 26:02David McCloskey?

  The Pentagon is preparing US military bases to be able to keep operating for at least 90 days without any kind of outside support as they prepare for the possibility of a major war that could cripple power grids or disrupt supply chains, critical infrastructure. And it's, it's part of something called Fortress, which is a great, great name, all caps, which is a broader military initiative that is aimed at ensuring that American military forces can keep fighting, even if the civilian systems that they depend on are disrupted. And under Fortress, every military installation in the continental US

• 26:46David McCloskey?

  would be expected to sustain essential operations on its own independently for at least 90 days. And that's things like, you know, electricity, water, fuel, telecommunications. I mean, so that feels like a big, a big challenge to overcome. I don't know where most bases are right now on this. I'd imagine that there's a pretty wide range, depending on how critical they are. But for every military installation in the continental US to have essentially a 90 day reservoir of independence to be able to operate, it's a, it's a pretty big deal.

• 27:22Gordon Corera?

  That's quite a big call. Yeah. I mean, it is interesting because I think one of the lessons the military is clearly learning, which is getting transferred into civilian life, is that idea of how long can you last without access, for instance, to the internet? And without some of the, when some of the normal systems go down, how much resilience have you got? And I was, earlier in the year, I was at this military exercise in Estonia, near the Russian border. And I went into one of these, a French called a Jaguar Armed Reconnaissance Vehicle. And it was fascinating because it was a kind of really modern, high tech, you know, looks like a tank. I know it's not technically a tank, but with, you know, full of high tech kit, you know, cameras, sensors everywhere.

• 28:02Gordon Corera?

  But the guy who was showing me around it said, we have it worked out how we can switch to manual if we get jammed. And if basically the internet, if all the sensors go down, if there's electronic warfare against us, we can still run this old school manually. And he even showed me there was like a red rip cord inside the vehicle. And he was like, that can fire the, the gun out the front if we need to. And I think, you know, the point is about that and the bases is the military is having to think, you know, what do we do in the event of cyber attacks, electronic warfare, taking systems down? Can we still do what we need to do?

• 28:40David McCloskey?

  How much of the US basing resilience under Fortress do you think connects back to the way that our bases have been hammered during the war in Iran, in the Middle East? Like, I guess the bigger question is where is this Fortress guidance coming from? Why does it exist now? I mean?

• 28:57Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. I think it probably is about if there was a, let's say there was a major conflict with China. China's had this Volt Typhoon and Salt Typhoon, and particularly the Volt Typhoon, which is like getting into bases and being able to shut down the logistics. So I think the fear is if you got into a major conflict, China or another adversary, particularly China, I think, could try and shut down the logistics chains, you know, the telecoms, the infrastructure around the US military to stop it moving and responding. In which case you kind of want to be able to act independently and still do stuff. So I wonder if that's kind of part of it. But it is, it is the new world of when you're in an increasingly digitally interdependent world, that becomes the target and, and that becomes your vulnerability and your risk.

• 29:43Gordon Corera?

  So I think in a way, what we're seeing is something that the military is thinking about and intelligence agencies thinking about, also now being applied to the civilian world in us having to think about, you know, could we operate a bit like a base, you know, without access to the outside world and for, for how long? So I think it is, it's easy to mock, but I think it is a kind of serious question. I mean, we might not need 90 days, but we might need a few days and to be able to think about it.

• 30:09David McCloskey?

  What do you have in your basement? Gordon, to prepare yourself.

• 30:12Gordon Corera?

  I have a few bottles of wine, some quite nice, couple of nice bottles of French dessert wine.

• 30:19Gordon Corera?

  Because I think there might, so it'll be quite a merry, quite a merry, you know, kind of apocalypse for me.

• 30:27David McCloskey?

  That'll be a good, that'll be a good three or four hours until you get really thirsty after you drink two bottles of French dessert wine.

• 30:33Gordon Corera?

  I'm going to get more though. Sorry, I should say that because having taken the advice seriously, I'm, I am now going to get some water and some, some beans if I can find them in the store.

• 30:41David McCloskey?

  Bunch of beans. You're going to French dessert wine and, and a bunch of

• 30:46Gordon Corera?

  Beans.

• 30:47David McCloskey?

  A bunch of beans. Yeah. No one's going to come within, within 20 yards of that, of that basement.

• 30:53Gordon Corera?

  What's in the McCloskey cellar? Come on.

• 30:56David McCloskey?

  Texas has gone through such extreme weather over the past few years.

• 31:02David McCloskey?

  Some blizzards and ice storms in the winter and then, you know, really, really hot summers that drain the power grid. So we have, we've had issues with, you know, the electricity grid in our neighborhood and, and around the city. So we have a couple of weeks of water and food that, that we've got. And we have, we've been considering getting a generator.

• 31:26Gordon Corera?

  Wow.

• 31:26David McCloskey?

  That would allow us not to run, like not to keep the whole house going, but to keep, you know, refrigerators or fans or space heaters, that kind of thing. Going if we lost power. We have a lot of friends who have purchased, purchased generators. Yeah.

• 31:41Gordon Corera?

  Really?

• 31:42David McCloskey?

  Yeah. Yeah. But it's all

• 31:43Gordon Corera?

  That's really interesting.

• 31:44David McCloskey?

  It's not about the Russians here, you know, it's, it's more about

• 31:48Gordon Corera?

  The weather.

• 31:49David McCloskey?

  The weather. Exactly.

• 31:50Gordon Corera?

  I think here in Europe, it's interesting because different countries have different reactions to it because, I mean, I was at the Finnish embassy recently and the ambassador there was talking about how much resilience is integrated into daily life. And they spend lots of times, I mean, they've got the border with Russia, got this long history of tension. And it's just, you know, part of their daily life is to think, well, what happens to food supply chains if they go down? How do we survive that disruption? But I did note that they have enough bunkers in Finland and shelters for almost all of the population, which we definitely don't have. So my, my cellar is not as good as a Finnish bunker. I don't know. What have you, have you, have you got a bunker or have you just got a cellar?

• 32:29David McCloskey?

  That, I mean, the water table here is so, so high that most people actually don't have, don't have cellars, which is unfortunate.

• 32:36Gordon Corera?

  No bunker.

• 32:36David McCloskey?

  No bunkers, no bunkers. But is there, there's a bunker under, massive bunkers under Lapland in Finland, right?

• 32:43Gordon Corera?

  Yeah. Yeah. They've got these historic ones, which are huge and which loads of people can go in. I was reading, they kind of, they turn them into, some of them have sports pitches, gyms, children's playgrounds, you know, under, which are used during normal times. And then they can be converted into, you know, civilian defense bunkers in times of, times of emergency. So, I guess that's what we do. Goalhanger obviously has a major bunker underneath its office, which is where I could have fled to with, with all the other Goalhanger hosts and staff.

• 33:14David McCloskey?

  Goalhanger Towers is, it's, it's an 80 story building that is, that goes as deep into the ground as it does into the sky.

• 33:22Gordon Corera?

  Exactly.

• 33:23David McCloskey?

  That's right.

• 33:24Gordon Corera?

  So anyway, I think that's probably a good place to finish. Hopefully we've not freaked everyone out. Although maybe there'll be another run on beans and soup at the local supermarkets, but hopefully we've done our public service, David.

• 33:38David McCloskey?

  That's right. I feel like we have, we have done our public service and I think this is, this is the right place to end it. Just a reminder, we've got a series starting on Monday on Watergate, the CIA's role in Watergate, which is a great story of breaking and entering and burglary. We're going to have a great bonus series attached to that. All about the life and times of E. Howard Hunt, one of the most fascinating CIA officers of the 20th century. We'll be interviewing Anthony Scaramucci, the Mooch, who's got some, some

• 34:15Gordon Corera?

  Views.

• 34:15David McCloskey?

  Some, some views on who really did Watergate. And I'm sure that will be a conversation as entertaining as it is maddening for yours truly, but we look forward to that. Do join the club at therestisclassified.com and subscribe to the newsletter at therestisclassified.com as well to get updates from Gordon and I and the team at The Rest is Classified. But thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.

• 34:45Gordon Corera?

  Hopefully next time, if the apocalypse doesn't come first. See ya.

• 34:57Speaker 05

  Hi everyone. It's Catty Kay here from The Rest is Politics US. The midterms are almost here. It's the biggest political moment of the year. And Anthony Scaramucci and I will be right there with you, making sense of

• 35:12Speaker 05

  There we are getting a statement from number 10 on that flight with 350 passengers on board. The great game, strategic struggle between Britain and Russia.

• 35:28Speaker 05

  We assess, Prime Minister, with high confidence it was Russian. Holding the Russians accountable is World War III. They took down a British passenger jet containing 350 people.

• 35:40Speaker 02

  Man in the Kremlin is playing, Alex. Got to ask yourself, you want to play or not? You're the Prime Minister. You've done nothing.

• 35:53Speaker 05

  We would need to understand the policy context.

• 35:55Speaker 02

  All the relevant context will be structured as a framework today and disseminated into an operation order or frago.

• 36:04Speaker 02

  A frago that says to kill the president of Russia. Yes.

• 36:11Gordon Corera?

  New from Goalhanger.

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• 36:37Gordon Corera?

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