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

We break down the Houthis’ advances toward the Bab al-Mandab, the growing pressure on Saudi oil exports, and new reporting that Houthi forces used Claude to help develop and test ballistic missiles. We also discuss the Haaretz report alleging Netanyahu was warned before October 7, the proposed Trump development in Tbilisi and its Russia ties, and signs that Ukraine may be regaining the initiative around Lyman. Support the show on Patreon:⬇️ https://www.patreon.com/TheTeamHouse Jack's news outlet:⬇️ https://thehighside.substack.com/ Find Jon Hackett here:⬇️ Jon's Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Jon's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Jon's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0C5L659N5?ccs_id=e11a2062-f8d3-498e-bfd7-7d2f3869caf6 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/thejonathanhackett Twitter: https://x.com/jonathanhackett Check out Mick's new podcast here:⬇️ Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/at/podcast/pub-and-porch-applied-stoicism/id1836955475 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1k3QPmkAMwnGJxMLDwUSSd?si=n6piIu8XRcag1Z0K43A3bQ Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCd0Hq6QFk8CoTu5j-VU0Ong Find Mick Mulroy here: Fogbow ⬇️ https://fogbow.com/ Lobo Institute ⬇️ https://www.loboinstitute.org/ Twitter ⬇️ https://x.com/mickmulroy?s=21&t=-Ze3F_Ix2vlJ18KFvORTCA LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-patrick-mulroy-31198b52/ Whitefish security summit ⬇️ https://whitefishsecuritysummit.com Find Marc P here: https://x.com/Mpolymer Find Andy Milburn here: Twitter ⬇️ https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2Fandymilburn8 LinkedIn ⬇️ https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewmilburn2023 Substack ⬇️ https://amilburn.substack.com/ Andy’s book ⬇️ https://www.amazon.com/When-Tempest-Gathers-Mogadishu-Operations 00:00 – Start 05:34 – Houthis Advance Toward the Bab al-Mandab 07:02 – Why the U. S. Isn’t Backing Saudi Arabia the Same Way 09:02 – Hormuz, Oil Exports & Saudi Arabia’s Growing Problems 10:15 – How the Anti-Houthi Coalition Fell Apart 12:30 – Why the Houthis See an Opening Right Now 14:29 – The Houthis Are More Capable Than People Think 17:09 – From 30,000 Fighters to 300,000+ 18:23 – What Control of the Bab al-Mandab Gives the Houthis 19:41 – Who Could Actually Reopen the Strait? 22:35 – Saudi Arabia’s Oil Bypasses Are Being Squeezed 24:16 – Is This a Coordinated Iranian Campaign? 27:11 – Why Airstrikes Alone Won’t Solve the Houthi Problem 30:25 – Are Gulf States Turning Toward Iran Instead of Washington? 31:55 – MBS Asks Trump for U. S. Strikes on the Houthis 35:16 – Is Yemen Heading Toward Permanent Partition? 36:00 – Houthis Used Claude to Develop Ballistic Missiles 38:26 – China’s Role in Arming the Houthis 40:09 – AI Inside the Houthi Missile Development Loop 42:35 – Can AI Make Weapons Proliferation Impossible to Stop? 45:54 – Using AI to Evade Export Controls & Sanctions 46:50 – Haaretz Bombshell: Was Netanyahu Warned Before Oct. 7? 49:02 – Israeli Intelligence Failures Before the Hamas Attack 52:06 – Why This Story Is Exploding Before Israel’s Election 54:51 – Trump Tower Tbilisi & Georgia’s Russia Problem 56:46 – Is There Any Economic Case for the Project? 59:08 – Why Trump’s Georgia Deal Is Politically Explosive 1:00:13 – Ukraine Regains the Initiative Around Lyman 1:02:05 – Closing Thoughts 1:02:35 – Andy’s New Book & Hannibal Directive Chapter 1:03:56 – Best War Movies Next? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rss.

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• 1:01Speaker 06

  All right. Hey, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Eyes on Geopolitics. I'm D. I'm here with Jonathan Hackett and Andy Milburn, my two Marines. Mick Mulroy out today. Congratulations to him. He just became a grandpa. So shout out to our boy Mick. Mark P. I don't even know what's happened to him. It's like I don't even know him anymore, and he's my fellow Greek. But anyway, back to the show. Lot happening over the last week. Dizzying again. We haven't shot as many missiles, I guess, at Iran, so I guess that's a plus. But the big story from a couple of days ago is the Houthis are making advances towards the Strait. I'm gonna butcher this name. I always butcher it. That's why I call it the Red Sea Strait.

• 1:42Speaker 06

  Bob Almandeb. And at the same time, the Saudi pipeline, east to west pipeline, got attacked by most likely Iranian militias in Iraq, taking that offline. So if you see, if you're tracking like the oil price, it's over 100 bucks after hours. I think it's like 105 or getting close to it. We'll see what happens when the markets open, obviously.

• 2:07Speaker 06

  The big crazy story that came out and actually on Anthropic, there's a huge story with AI, where AI is gonna kill us all and stuff like that. That deserves its own podcast on its own. But the little bit, Anthropic put out a report saying that the Houthis were using Claude code for like, and John will explain this better, like missile telemetry, like just getting a ton of information. Supposedly Anthropic thwarted it. That's what they've said. Who knows how they're using it? If they're still using it, most likely they are. And also, the AI, the grander AI story about like, they're gonna, it's gonna kill us all and everyone's freaking out. That's another podcast entirely, because, you know, there's a lot of argument to be made on both sides in terms of that.

• 2:50Speaker 06

  Another big part is, you know, we talk about freedom of navigation, and that's why we have like, you know, 12 aircraft carriers and a huge Navy budget. But the US let, I guess, tanker companies and shipping companies know that there's like certain windows where the, they could pass through the Strait of Hormuz with actual defense coverage. So if that doesn't speak to, you know, our lack of control of the Strait of America, or I mean, the Strait of Hormuz, I don't know what does. You know, obviously, our, our stockpiles are continuously being depleted, because I do feel like, and correct me if I'm wrong, guys, like, shooting SM6s at,

• 3:33Speaker 06

  whether it's drones or ballistic missiles to try and protect tankers, I don't know if that's exactly cost effective for us, because those SM6s are not exactly cheap. Obviously, we have like the C-RAM and stuff like that, or the C-Wiz, sure. But I'm sure that, you know, you have to let a missile or a drone get pretty close for the C-RAM to be effective. So I guess we all have, we have windows now in terms of if you want to transfer the straight. Also, I'll say another thing, because you've seen a lot of talking points over the last couple of weeks about like the straits bringing out 15, 20 million barrels a day. Absolute bullshit. You're either an idiot or you're lying, if you believe that. That's the case.

• 4:14Speaker 06

  So we have a lot going on today. I hopefully will hit everything. Obviously, we saw that Big Harret's article, you know, Israel's election's coming up. There's an October surprise, like I guess in every election, about how the UAE called up, the UAE king or leadership called up Bibi Netanyahu prior to October 7th and warned them about Yahya Sinwar, you know, cooking up something like a big attack, and nothing was done on Bibi's side. And, you know, according, especially according to Andy's research in his book coming out, it seems like on the lower end of the intel poll, like the UN 8200 people in the Shinbad people obviously saw that there was chatter about a big attack happening,

• 4:57Speaker 06

  and it didn't go to the, you know, necessary people for making decisions.

• 5:02Speaker 06

  And October 7th happened. So that's a huge, huge story out of Israel, you know, and it's more or less October 7th, whether you like it or not, has definitely changed the face of the Middle East. Our Middle East policy too. It's not just Israel that's bombing indiscriminately.

• 5:20Speaker 06

  It's us too. So, and we're involved in this just as much as they are. So there's a fuck ton of stuff happening. Sorry for the, like, the long intro, but there is so much stuff. And also, there's a fun little story out of Tbilisi, Georgia, where the Trump Organization is gonna, is planning on building a huge hotel. Georgia, obviously, and the Dream Party, right? Is that what it's called? It's like, you know?

• 5:42Speaker 07

  Dream.

• 5:43Speaker 06

  Yeah, they love, you know, they're, they're aligned with Putin. You know, obviously, there's, I'm sure, a big undercurrent in Georgia about being anti-Russian too, but there is a party there that's pretty aligned with Vladimir Putin, and they're all making nice to try and build a big condo development, hotel development, some 70 stories in Tbilisi. So like the,

• 6:06Speaker 06

  the grifting and the, and the, and the money-making schemes doesn't end when you become president, I guess. So that's, that's basically what's happening in our world. I wish there was a good story, you know, but there isn't. So I don't know where you guys want to start. Let's kick off with the Houthis and like get a general rundown of what went on the last week. Hackett, you go first.

• 6:27Speaker 07

  Yeah, so the Houthis have taken and surrendered territory at various amounts since 2014, 2015, when the initial, most recent hostilities between Saudi Arabia Emirates and Yemen took off. And the most recent stuff we're seeing is the Houthis regaining. So they're in a position of regaining what they had previously lost. They used to control all the way down the Red Sea coast, like, let's say, 2015, 2016, until the, until the summit, sorry, the Saudi and Emirati coalition combined together, pushed them back. And so they took Perim Island, which is right in the middle of the Bab al-Mandab Strait. This is, the Houthis took this island. They took Zughar and Hanish, which are other islands.

• 7:08Speaker 07

  So they're, they're gaining very important pieces of terrain in the water, not just on land, in the Tahoma Peninsula or the Tahoma Plain area. So there's definitely exerting territorial authority further than they had in the past, let's say, six years.

• 7:25Speaker 07

  The change here is that the US was previously directly supporting the Saudis and the Emiratis in this pushback, to push the Houthis back up into the mountains. And this time, it looks like the US is not doing that. And in fact, I believe Trump, it was in Ireland the past few days, and in Ireland, he said that, you know, the Saudis need to basically figure it out themselves, which is a huge difference from how it was in the past. And it's concerning, because the Saudis had probably built their defense against the Houthis with the concept that the US would be there to help them. You know, from a partnership perspective, there's gonna be some offloading of responsibility between the different parties that are involved. So the Saudis were probably thinking that, you know, in some areas of our defense, we can put less effort, because we know the US will be there to fill that gap, and vice versa. The US will know the same thing for the Saudis.

• 8:10Speaker 07

  And it seems that that is not occurring. MBS apparently called Trump and asked for help. Trump said no. And that's kind of an interesting development, especially because we just signed our 123 agreement or have proposed our 123 agreement on nuclear cooperation with the Saudis. So there's some areas where we want to help the Saudis. And one has to wonder, maybe that had something to do, this, this lack of support might have something to do with the fact that Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Turkey signed the Mecca agreement recently. So maybe that's a rebuke of that agreement from the United States. And interestingly, Turkey and Pakistan have not helped the Saudis in this recent development. So this was supposed to be a mutual defense agreement, and the countries that signed it are not helping

• 8:52Speaker 07

  the third partner. So that's also an interesting kind of demonstration of what is this actual agreement supposed to do. And we spoke on previous episodes that everyone who signed that mutual defense pact has a different interest for signing it. The Turks want to expand influence into previously held Ottoman areas, which includes Saudi Arabia. The Pakistanis want to exert sovereignty vis-à-vis India and other interests in the area. And Saudi Arabia has its own interests, and the Houthis are not of interest to the Turks and of not of interest to the Pakistanis, to the degree they are for the Saudis. So it's important to think from that diplomatic perspective of why are these countries not helping the Saudis? But that leaves the Saudis now wondering, what do we do next? Because they have a real threat on their border now, that more than before.

• 9:35Speaker 07

  They also have a threat in the straits. They had to close the east-west pipeline, although that wasn't the Houthis, that was actually Iraqi origin strikes. Now they have two fronts they have to worry about militarily, not just from an economic perspective. You know, there were several million barrels a day of oil moving through that east-west pipeline to Yanbu. Not only that, there are goods besides oil transiting the Red, the Red Sea to and from the Suez Canal. So now that is threatened in a new way that it was not previously to February 28th. And before February 28th, in the Straits of Hormuz, on the other side, there were 20 million barrels a day of oil passing. Now there's about half of that. Zero of that is Iranian oil. The rest of the 10 million that's passing through is Gulf GCC oil.

• 10:21Speaker 07

  And the GCC partners are actually planning to have a meeting with Abbas Aragchi, the Foreign Minister of Iran, this week to talk about the Straits of Hormuz and how to move oil back and forth there in some sort of agreement, which is the first time that Iran and the GCC have actually sat down and attended a meeting in person in Doha since 2024. So there's certain moves on the chessboard that are happening right now and it's interesting to see. I wonder how the Saudis would react to these moves. And it's clear that they're trying to actually bring Iran closer because they see the US is further away. So this would be a point for the US to be probably more involved with helping the Saudis because if they don't, the Saudis would probably turn in a direction that we may not see as in our interest.

• 11:02Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's been years of, I mean, the four years at least of of disintegration among the forces that have opposed Houthis and then Houthi consolidation has has all kind of come to the fore, right? In this last week. I mean, when it, when was it? So back in 2025, I mean, there was really in a, there was a ceasefire, right? The fighting came to a stop and the Houthis used all that time to consolidate Bill power. But then among the opposition, right? And John, help me out here, but the, the, you know, the Saudis

• 11:43Speaker 03

  backed the, or I mean, they still do back the, the N R F, right? Which is the National Resistance. I forget what the F stands for. Someone's going to tell me that.

• 11:55Speaker 07

  Force.

• 11:56Speaker 03

  Force. So the N R F, which is, which is Tariq Salah, you know, the, the previous president of Yemen. I mean, it was essentially his force, right? And, and it was also for a while there was backed by the Saudis and Emiratis. And then the Emiratis back started to back something called the S T C, right? And the Saudis essentially drove the S T C back. Do you remember that? That was just last year. And, and it had to, it was at Hadramat. The Saudis were bombing essentially the Emirati backed opposition to the Houthis. Anyway,

• 12:38Speaker 03

  so what you had was a fragmented force, right? Defending this coastline. And by the way, the coastline that just was taken. I mean, it wasn't, I mean, you know, you see things in the, in the news. It was what 22,400 square kilometers. But the essential thing is it was, it was the last port, Mokka, which was on the B A M, the Banda Al Mendeb. So it now gives Houthis exclusive control of that entire coastline. And because of kind of the bickering between Saudis and Emiratis, there was no real coherent opposition to them.

• 13:18Speaker 07

  Yeah, I think the Houthis are seeing this as a special moment for them as opportunity because the Saudis are distracted elsewhere. They're being attacked in their northern front by Haftar Shabi or Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq, which is significantly, you know, attention gaining for the Saudis. Plus, you've got the Straits of Hormuz as a challenge. You have decreased oil exports, all kinds of problems going on. The Houthis are probably looking at this as not the perfect opportunity, but a better opportunity than they've had in a long time to do, to extend power in their area, especially as you mentioned, Andy, that Southern Transition Council Coalition that the Emiratis backed no longer is aligned with Saudi forces. So that unified front in the domestic unified front.

• 14:00Speaker 03

  Emirati forces, right?

• 14:02Speaker 07

  Right, yeah.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  It was backed by the Emiratis, but then they, they kind of withdrew their backing off the Saudis.

• 14:08Speaker 07

  Right. So that, that left pieces that were kind of unprotected and are still unprotected in the region, both in the south and the north for the Houthis. And if people remember, the Houthis are in the mountains. The place they just took is in the lowlands. The mountains have been the kind of historic stronghold that have been very difficult for external actors to push the Houthis in a direction of influence. But the plain, the Tahoma plain that's inside the Bab al Mendeb, that's a critical area. And as you mentioned, Andy, that is, the last port was just taken. That's the area that actually matters for true control in Yemen. It's not the mountains. The mountains are just a kind of defensive area. It's that lowland area that really matters for who actually controls what goes on in Yemen. And that even in previous history, like before the 1990s, there were two Yemen's. There

• 14:51Speaker 07

  was North and South Yemen. And the reason North and South Yemen was separated like that, not just because of the Cold War, but because of terrain. One part of Yemen is relatively flat. The other part of Yemen is mountainous. The Houthis have since the ninth century controlled the mountainous area. So that's not really up for grabs. What's up for grabs is the flatlands. And the Houthis are looking at that flatlands right now and saying, this is the time to take it.

• 15:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know, and I know we're going to talk about the, the AI driven targeting, but the Houthis, you know, we've got to give them credit, right? I mean, there's a lot of joking about them being flip flop wearing militia and, you know, with the inference that they're not very sophisticated. But actually, they are fairly sophisticated. They're incredibly resilient, you know, what they have done. I mean, they with, you know, I'm not a Houthi fan. I'm just saying, you think about it, they've, they've resisted the best efforts of the three most technologically advanced militaries in the world, arguably the UK, the US and Israel to, you know, to, to defang them, to prevent them interfering

• 16:00Speaker 03

  with the, the B A M. And those efforts have been not only been unsuccessful, plus Saudi Arabia, you know, all the resources behind Saudi Arabia. And, and by the way, the N R F is, yes, I mean, they, they haven't displayed a tremendous amount of fighting ability certainly recently, but it's a sizable force of five divisions. I mean, they, the Saudis were trying to form them into divisions. But I mean, that's the size of the force, 31 or 30 brigades. And, and the, and the Houthis have just steamrolled through that. But getting back to kind of their, their tactics, their intelligence is good. They, they learned, the Saudis were

• 16:43Speaker 03

  trying to, you know, in the wake of the Emiratis pulling out, the Saudis were trying to consolidate these disparate forces into a, a single one and with a single operations center, which was, you know, an ambitious task based in, based in Mokka. And, and the Houthis have been focusing drone and missile attacks on Mokka, on that operations center. And to, you know, obviously to, to good effect. And then, you know, right after they, I, in, in consort with them having this success in Yemen, they've been targeting Saudi Arabia, you've probably seen. I mean, they've, they've hit several cities, airport, Khmisi Shet.

• 17:28Speaker 03

  They've, I actually, the pipeline that was just severed, that was not the Houthis though, right, John? That was.

• 17:35Speaker 07

  Right, those Iraqi forces.

• 17:37Speaker 03

  Yeah, but it, which may be some kind of coordination. But they've been, they've been striking at the Saudi Arabian homeland in addition to causing mayhem in, in Yemen. It's just been a bad, you know, it's been a bad week for the, the coalition.

• 17:56Speaker 07

  And really too, you know, since 2015, when this, this is really, you know, what's happening today is kind of extension of that 2015 conflict that began when the Saudis crossed over into Yemen to start, you know, offensive operations. At that time, the Houthis had around 20 to 30,000 fighters with weapons. Today, 10 years later, they have 300,000 to 350,000 armed fighters. So they've gone up an order of magnitude in the 10 years since this conflict has started, this like localized Yemen Saudi Emirati conflict, which is just kind of an interesting development that, you know, if you're, if you're doing it in a purely numbers measurement of success versus failure as far as operations go, you'd have to question kind of the success of the Saudi led coalition in Yemen, unfortunately. And I think a lot of that has to do with terrain. You know, the, the war in, any war

• 18:41Speaker 07

  in Yemen, the principal challenge is the terrain. And that's the same thing in Iran also, I think, why the US decided not to use ground forces in this recent conflict. Because looking at it, if you look at a terrain map, a topological map, it just looks very forbidding and it's very difficult to invest forces there in a way that you're going to actually have a ground force victory against the, the incumbent, you know, the home team that's got control over that rigid mountainous territory.

• 19:07Speaker 03

  Yeah. So now they, now they've got the, the B A M, right? So I think it's worth talking about what that actually gets them. I mean, it doesn't get them close to the Strait, but, and, you know, arguably a determined naval force could suppress the, you know, the Houthi coastal launch sites and escort traffic through, which has been done before. But, but what it does get them is a sustained, a cheap, close range access to a major shipping lane, right? And they've got anti ship missiles with, with very short flight times. They've

• 19:47Speaker 03

  got drones. They've got small boats. Potentially they have the option of mining. And, and now they own a piece of ground that's, that in order to dislodge them, someone has to physically take it back. As we've seen bombing, doesn't do any good. They don't, you know, they don't need to close the B A M as we, we talked about here. You know, just, just making it dangerous, driving insurance costs up. Or they could say that navigation is safe for everyone except Saudi vessels, you know? Either way, they're in a position to impose a de facto blockade.

• 20:26Speaker 06

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• 22:36Speaker 06

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

• 23:07Speaker 07

  So there's actually a multinational force that's designed specifically for this particular area that's not deployed in the Straits of Hormuz. It's the Combined Maritime Task Force, partly led by the UK, partly led by the United States. There are, I think, around 40 nations. I can't remember the exact number. Including Japan, that are involved in this. And their mission is actually counter piracy off the Somali coast, which is heavily tied into the Yemeni coast. You could argue that it's the same theater of operations. Those deployed forces are actually there for that purpose of securing that strait. So, in a way, it's actually different than the options for security that exist for the Straits of Hormuz.

• 23:50Speaker 07

  Because for those nations that sent their forces there, their domestic buy-in was to protect that one strait, not to protect the Straits of Hormuz, right? It's like the Japanese, for example, would have, the government would have a harder time selling defense of the Straits of Hormuz than it would selling the defense of the Bab al-Mandeb, because that's actually why those ships are there in the first place. And in fact, there are Japanese forces deployed in Djibouti for this maritime task force, which I don't know if people know this. The Japanese have been there for a long time. The Japanese have wooden mine sweeping vessels that are designed to avoid exactly this mining problem that exists with the Houthis, with these sophisticated mines that make it difficult for metallic-held vessels to actually go through and do mine sweeping. The Japanese have a number of these, I think half a dozen in the region, to actually go do this.

• 24:35Speaker 07

  So it's interesting to think about it from that perspective, because there already was a force there for this problem that existed already for the past 10 years. Whereas the Straits of Hormuz is kind of a newer challenge that would be a harder sell for those people sending, especially European partners, sending their vessels there to go help defend the Straits of, Bab al-Mandeb and the Suez Canal transits, which are important to Southeast Asian, East Asian, and European consumers.

• 25:01Speaker 03

  Yeah. You know, and it would help, actually, Di, I'm not directing you to do this now, but to throw up a map or put a map in the chat, because, you know, as we've known, Hormuz has been constricted since, what, late, well, March, right? And then, for a while, traffic, specifically Saudi seaborne crude traffic through the Bab al-Mandeb, increased, I mean hugely, around eight times its 2025 volume. So after March, because the Red Sea was an alternative.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  And then, and then, you know, as we've seen, drones launched out of, was in Myson Province in Iraq. So obviously, the militias there, they hit the east-west. So there were two ways of bypassing Hormuz, right? So there was the Red Sea, and then there was the east-west pipeline out of, it's south of Medina, right? Anyway, it doesn't matter. The point is, there was a seaborne and a landborne means for the Saudis still to export crude, a huge amount, right? So by the pipeline alone, it was a huge, it's a long pipeline, it's 1,200 kilometers, and they were pumping four to five million barrels a day.

• 26:30Speaker 03

  Well, that pipeline was just hit. We don't know whether it can be repaired or not, but clearly by Iraqi militia. And then at the same time, same week, the Houthis seized the coastline along the BAME, now making it really dangerous for the Saudis to use the BAME to export oil. So you've got Hormuz continuing to be squeezed, the Red Sea coastline seized by the Houthis, and the bypass cut, right? So it looks like a, it looks like a coordinated, I mean, if it is, it's well done, coordinated campaign, putting the squeeze on the Saudis.

• 27:11Speaker 07

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

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's a good point. So we don't want to, we don't want to give too much credit to the Iranians, right? I mean, I wrote an article for War on the Rocks where it said, actually, you know, they had been, they had exercised campaign design more so than the United States in this war. But that's a low bar, and that may be true. But then, I think it was the New York Times this week said that the July attacks on shipping, you know, the ones that disrupted early on, the ceasefires, the July attacks by Iran on

• 28:23Speaker 03

  the Straits of Hormuz were launched by a hardline faction without authorization from Pezeshkane, who's the president, or the IRGC commander. And that's what really killed the memorandum of understanding. So, you know, if that's correct, if you believe the New York Times on this, Iranian escalation isn't centrally controlled. But as John points out, it's just, it's unfortunate happenstance that it's all coming.

• 28:53Speaker 07

  And on that point too, you know, the mosaic doctrine is something we've discussed and other analysts have discussed as well about how the IRGC operates with its military forces. So there are 32 IRGC units, led by a one-star general each, and each of those generals is empowered in a way to make decisions without coordinating them with the IRGC leadership or the central government of Iran. And what you just mentioned, Andy, is a type of that behavior where that general decided, I'm going to attack what I think should be attacked, without checking with higher headquarters. And it ended up torpedoing the agreement that we had. But that's actually how they're designed to operate, because their mentality is, even if our senior leadership is completely decimated, we can all operate independently and continue the fight against whatever the adversary is.

• 29:37Speaker 07

  And they've told us for 47 years who their adversary is, it's the United States and Israel. So that's how they're looking at this, like, this is what I'm supposed to do, this is what I was taught, this is my doctrine, I'm going to execute without checking. And that can help them, it can also harm them, as it harmed the leadership generally with that disruption of the memorandum by that lone actor, essentially directing his forces to do what he thought was right.

• 30:03Speaker 03

  You know, on your point, you're talking about, you know, it's just the news just gets worse, right? So we talked about the limits of the air campaign. I mean, the Saudis flew, you know, just talking about what's happened the last week, the Saudis flew over 100 sorties in 48 hours, right? And but the bottom line is this, you know, there's no ground force capable of retaking that coast. The Emiratis are gone, and the Saudis are understandably reluctant to put their, you know, their ground forces into Yemen. They're not going to start now, you know,

• 30:41Speaker 03

  with their own oil infrastructure on fire. So they and the southern factions who are, they'll continue to fight by the south, but they've got no interest in dying to take back the coastline. All right. So what do you do? The naval, the naval task force John was talking about, right? There's actually, there's actually two task forces. You got the combined maritime forces, CMF, right, which is this massive thing, 47 nation naval partnership. And and that's the most was the most coherent, the most powerful task force there. It's actually

• 31:26Speaker 03

  four or five different task forces. And as John pointed out, you know, there's counter piracy, one's focused on the Arabian Gulf, one's focused, CTF 153, I think it is, is focused on the Band, Red Sea, and that was stood up just four years ago. But but here's the problem. Commander Control is out of Bahrain. And Bahrain, as I think, you know, as we know, has taken a has taken a shellacking. So it's not clear, and it's not, you know, in media coverage, what,

• 32:04Speaker 03

  you know, how, what the status is of those forces. And there is an EU task force there to Operation Aspedes or something, which is controlled out of Brussels. But again, not not clear if, you know, the last reports were that they were, they're not what they were before Bahrain took it took its hit. Some of them have been sent home. They're short on hauls. They're short on, yes, they do have some some mine hunters, but they've always been short on mine hunters. And as we talked about here, back in, I mean, last year, before the war even

• 32:45Speaker 03

  started, the US sent sent back all the mine, they decommissioned the mine sweeping vessels in Bahrain. So that is, that's, you know, this is a lengthy way of saying, air campaign is not going to do what it needs to do. There's no, there's no option for a ground force right now, and naval forces are depleted, commander, control, and key assets. So again, the picture is not really very rosy right now.

• 33:16Speaker 07

  I think also, it highlights kind of, you know, the diplomatic, informational, military, economic, the dime concept, where right now, the military instrument is not in a perfect position to achieve success alone. But if we can create a way where, whether it's with allies or partners, or people in the gray area between our allies and our adversaries, we can kind of co-opt them with diplomacy or economic instruments to create space so that we can actually operate militarily again, or create time so that we can, we can, you know, rearm, re-equip, resupply, and then re-engage on the military instrument. But it seems that right now, we're kind of heavily focused on the military instrument from a US policymaking

• 33:57Speaker 07

  perspective, to the detriment of the diplomatic, to the detriment of the economic. And the regional powers, the GCC countries, and Iran, and Turkey, for example, are also thinking diplomatically. That's why they're meeting in Salala this week with the Iranian Foreign Minister, because these GCC countries, like the Bahrain, for example, is saying, we need to end this, and we need to figure out a way. And so they're going to, they're going to talk to the Iranians, of course. I mean, they're, they can see them literally across the water. It makes sense that they would diplomatically engage, which means the US needs to also diplomatically engage on our own, to ensure that these partners are not co-opted in a way that might harm them in the future by engaging with Iran in a way where they feel like they're backed against a wall, and they have to accept some kind of concession that's going to be negative for them in the

• 34:40Speaker 07

  future. So this is an opportunity for the US to act diplomatically and economically to do so.

• 34:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's certainly the the US, the standing of the US in the region, and we've talked about this before, too, has has taken a beating, and it wasn't helped this week by, you know, MBS. I mean, I'm not saying he didn't help it. I'm just saying it wasn't helped when MBS called Trump twice on Thursday, I think, asking for direct American strikes and against the Houthis, and was turned down both times. Now, you know, the US is providing intelligence, targeting,

• 35:27Speaker 03

  you know, if you read media reports, 200 US personnel already in the kingdom. But that's, you know, that's a longstanding agreement, and it's based on kind of FMS projects. It's not combat advising. It's not like we're helping them set up a targeting cell or anything like that. These aren't really useful. It's, they're not, they're not useful, American service personnel here, as far as my perspective, not, no one's said. You know, and they, and of course, CENTCOM Commander is visiting. So, you know, from the US perspective, the stated logic is to keep the force concentrated on Iran and Hormuz, rather than open a second front. But arguably, that

• 36:09Speaker 03

  second front's already been opened, right? On, you know, it's, there's just no, there's just no easy option. I mean, there's no good options right now, it seems. You know, on the other hand, opening, opening a second front without a ground partner to relieve pressure on a coalition that arguably dismantled itself, isn't really a serious plan. I mean, we could, we could do strikes. I don't know. Sometimes, sometimes you just do things to to keep a partner on side. Yes, we may know the strikes may not achieve anything, but maybe that's just the price we

• 36:54Speaker 03

  we pay to, to, you know, to to keep Saudi Arabia on a, on board, as it were. I mean, as John's pointed out, you know, this isn't, the optics aren't good right now. I mean, our regional allies are reaching out to our adversary and saying, hey, let's talk, regardless of

• 37:13Speaker 07

  And same thing's happening with Canada. I don't know if you saw, but Canada's in discussions with the European Union to enter a special trade status where they can begin trading frictionless with the EU, as if they were almost an EU economic component, which I think the US policy against Canada was to force Canada into concessions with the US on trade issues. And Canada said, well, we just won't trade with you then. We're going to trade with Europe instead. And every country has its own interest and can do its own thing, especially if they feel threatened, whether it's economically or militarily. With the Canada situation, it's economic. With Bahrain or Saudi Arabia, it's economic and militarily. And they're saying, okay, well, the US isn't doing what's in our interest, so we need to look somewhere else to achieve our interest. And

• 37:54Speaker 07

  in the short term, to them, it appears that talking across the strait is in their interest.

• 37:59Speaker 03

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

• 38:39Speaker 06

  John, you want to touch on a little bit about the Houthis using Claude code?

• 38:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, so Claude Anthropic just released a recent threat summary about the a group that they identified as, I want to make sure I get the quote right, a cell of threat actors in northern Yemen. Okay, so they didn't say the Houthis, but I don't know who else would be up there doing what we're about to talk about. So the Houthis used Claude to design, simulate and flight test ballistic missiles, multi-stage ballistic missiles, okay, not just regular like V2 rocket style missiles, tactical guided rockets and multi variant missiles of different categories of distance and payload and so on. So they're the, the way that Anthropic categorizes, they said

• 39:27Speaker 07

  that there's three different ways that you could use Claude to design a guided missile, which is kind of crazy that, that this is something that we're talking about. But so they, they use the design phase, simulation phase, and then flight test phase. These are three different ways to do research and development for ballistic missiles, right? But they did it using Claude and they, they got to the point where they actually flight tested and used these missiles in operations. Now Anthropic doesn't say who the targets were, but in the last seven days of news, it's pretty clear who the targets were, right? It's pretty insane. Also, to be hearing this from Anthropic makes me question, you know, the, how much content was actually told to us through Anthropic because it's of course in their interest not to tell everything that would be threatening to their business

• 40:11Speaker 07

  model. So it's pretty amazing that these guys were able to do this. Three different weapons development programs at the same time simultaneously. And remember that the Houthis already had Chinese anti-ship missiles. They already had Iranian drones and missiles and rockets in their inventory. So what's likely going on here is that the Houthis are taking existing weapon stocks and thinking about how to make them better, how to make them faster, more efficient in not only strike capability, but range, fuel economy, all these different things. And they're using Claude to actually optimize their, their arsenal. And the weapons they had, like the ultimate origin of these

• 40:53Speaker 07

  weapons were China. So a company called Norinco, which is a state owned defense company, kind of like, I guess if the US owned Lockheed Martin, that's what China's ownership of Norinco is. These anti-ship missiles that they're modifying are Chinese weapons. So kind of big picture zooming out, you remember last week Scott Besen was saying that there's economic D-Day against Iran, all these sanctions and bad actors and so on, but they're not going to touch China. This is, this is why it's a problem not to touch China because whether the Houthis can use Claude or not is less important than whether the Houthis have the equipment to use through, after talking to Claude, right? And that equipment's coming

• 41:35Speaker 07

  from China. So here is a great opportunity, a, you know, example of why it's important to stop Chinese exports of these weapons to Houthis, to Iraqi forces, like the weapons the Iraqis are using against Saudi Arabia are ultimately Chinese origin via Iran, right? So this is just important to kind of contextualize that we have this whole opportunity here to reduce the arsenal of an adversary and instead we're not touching Chinese activities. We had this company Anthropic allowing it to occur because they were clearly monitoring this while it was happening and only chose to act after the weapons testing phase in

• 42:16Speaker 07

  real life. So the design phase was not stopped, the simulation phase was not stopped. It wasn't until the actual flight testing and operations did Anthropic decide to release to the world that they noticed that ballistic missiles were being developed in Yemen using Claude. So I'll, I'll put it there, but it is kind of shocking.

• 42:34Speaker 03

  So when that, so even if Claude, I mean, even if they ban these accounts, right? They still, the capability is still there. I mean, it sits on, it sits on the Houthis hard drives, right? I mean, you can't, you, you can't take that back.

• 42:53Speaker 07

  And actually on that, so they did a live field test in Yemen and then they brought the field test data back to Claude and they ran a failure analysis within just a couple of hours of launching these missiles. So they're like using it in the loop, their entire R and D loop incorporates Claude in it. And as you said, Andy, now they have that data. They don't have to do that again. They already did it, right? And it wasn't just like we think about ballistic missiles, like launch to target strike, like very simple. They're using hypersonic glide variants and medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles. These are like some of the most advanced missiles that any country has, including the United States, Russia and China. And they're using Claude to do it. This, and it's not just about the Houthis right now. It's also like kind of theoretically how

• 43:35Speaker 07

  dangerous this AI use can be to any, any country, any actor, right? Imagine if the, the Badr Meinhoff gang in the eighties had Claude or, you know, Ruby Ridge guys had Claude. So it's not just about the Houthis, but although this does highlight the danger, I think the danger is a lot deeper than people might expect because they're just using Claude to correct their emails when they're sending them instead of thinking about like, what's the actual full limit of the danger of using this, this tool? And as we see Anthropic's not stopping it when it starts, they're letting it go for a while. Well, what if you let it go for a while and you don't realize like when is the appropriate stopping point and they've already got a nuclear weapon, right? Because that was a big challenge in Iran

• 44:16Speaker 07

  was that Iran had a nuclear energy program. They wanted nuclear weapons, but the weaponization of the nuclear material is very difficult. It's a kind of a leap as far as expertise, but they don't need to worry about that, that chasm between enrichment and weaponization as much anymore because they have a helper named AI that can help bridge that gap in a way that did not exist previously and that we kind of relied on as a safety mechanism that, oh, don't worry, we're, they're, they're a year behind or whatever they're behind because they don't have the technical expertise because we killed all their scientists. Well, you don't have to worry about their scientists anymore because this AI model has the global knowledge of all scientists in it, right? And in some ways they're using gray literature,

• 45:00Speaker 07

  they're using other information that's not actually available to everybody. They're tearing off the bindings of these books and putting them into these AI models. So in some ways, these threat actors have more access to the information than our own scientists do because of the way they're using it. And I think that might be a cause for concern.

• 45:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's not, I mean, and, and all of this is stuff that, that we've been told by, from the company, right? So it could be, conceivable to be worse.

• 45:29Speaker 03

  When we talk about an interdiction of, of these, you know, more sophisticated weapons, right? I mean, it's typically, you know, counter proliferation involves either

• 45:43Speaker 03

  interdicting the, you know, expertise, the, you know, the, the people or the material

• 45:52Speaker 03

  or both, right? But, but here the expertise arrived, I mean, it, it came through a subscription to Claude, right? And, and the Houthis knew to compartmentalize so that they, it became like an engineer delegating compartmentalized tasks and each, each element of Claude working on that task didn't know, didn't know enough of the other task to put two and two together and say, hey, wait a second, we're doing something, you know, bad here, right? So I mean, it could happen again and again.

• 46:29Speaker 03

  And, and the brain, right? The part of this, my understanding, it was based just on a, like a phone grade technology, cell phone grade technology. It wasn't anything incredible.

• 46:43Speaker 07

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

• 47:15Speaker 06

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

• 47:27Speaker 07

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

• 47:46Speaker 06

  Mamma mia. I don't know what to do anymore.

• 47:49Speaker 03

  So potentially, yeah, potentially that improves accuracy, right?

• 47:57Speaker 03

  It improves, they can improve range. I mean, I think one of the programs they're working on was a hypersonic glider, right? Yeah. And, and then we're just talking missiles here. I mean, applying this technology to drones, right? Drone swarms, target acquisition.

• 48:20Speaker 03

  It is, it makes you realize that the concerns about AI are well founded.

• 48:28Speaker 07

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

• 49:11Speaker 07

  to see that. But the, the thing has already occurred. It's already happened. So the question is, you know, what's happening next to stop their next move?

• 49:19Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's scary stuff. Um, all right, let's move on. I mean, it's not like the stories get better. Uh, Harretts had a bombshell that 10 days before October 7th, the, uh, you know, King, King B of UAE called Bibi Netanyahu to warn him about an attack from Hamas and Netanyahu didn't inform his senior intelligence officials.

• 49:50Speaker 06

  The Bibi side is denying it. Obviously Harretts is holding to their story. Obviously it's being right place, right? I mean, it's being dropped at a perfect time because it's, the elections are coming up. What are you guys seeing that? What do you guys thought? What do you guys thoughts?

• 50:09Speaker 03

  I mean, it's right in line with, you know, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. You don't have to theorize that Netanyahu knew seven October was coming and didn't give a shit. But it falls in line with the fact that what we do know that Netanyahu had bolstered Hamas because Hamas, he knew was the unacceptable face of Palestinian nationalism as far as Western countries were concerned. And that as long as Hamas represented the Palestinian people in the eyes of the world, there would be no hope for a two-state solution. That's in a nutshell, right? That's why Netanyahu was allowing the Qataris provide, you know, loads of cash to Hamas

• 50:53Speaker 03

  and why he turned a blind eye to. But, you know, how much, and, and, you know, I've written extensively in this book about all the warning signs that did not register, were not analyzed correctly, were not acted upon. And there are, you know, you don't have to be a conspiracy theorist. You don't have to say, well, the Israelis knew about it. But there was definitely a cultural inclination to read the signals incorrectly. And that may just have been what, no, I'm not justifying what Netanyahu ignoring a straightforward warning. I'm saying that seems to be the most likely explanation.

• 51:31Speaker 07

  You know, I think at that time, a lot of the focus was on the West Bank. And there was this thought that because the, because Hamas had returned to negotiations before that period, that they were in good faith negotiations. So there was some, you know, less deep interest in things in Gaza at that time, because I think the Israeli government was hoping that those negotiations were real. They weren't. They were clearly a cover for what was coming up. And because of that idealism, they were more focused on West Bank and the northern border and trying to focus there and hope and like really using hope as a weapon to try to, you know, make things different than they, they ended up being. Even Yassikow, you know, former Mossad director, said that it was known by some people that this was happening.

• 52:12Speaker 07

  And there were different indications, whether it's Unit 8200 or Shin Bet or Mossad, saying that, yep, there are indicators that this is going to happen. There's, there's troops doing this and that. There's, there's activity going on. There are rehearsals going on. You know, these are all indicators that operate within the spectrum, like within space. And it's, it's really hard to focus on signal versus noise in this situation when at the policy level, policymakers are saying, don't worry about Gaza, worry about West Bank. And when that permeates down, you know, even as an analyst on the, on the ground, maybe you're hearing some discussion over radio or something and you hear the enemy saying, hey, let's do a rehearsal for this attack we're going to do. You're kind of not in the position you normally would be because policy doesn't think that what's happening there is real or is credible or is X, Y, or Z. Instead, they want you to focus somewhere else.

• 52:57Speaker 07

  So it's, it's highly likely that people, some people in different places knew pieces of this larger jigsaw puzzle, but they weren't kind of permitted by policy to put that puzzle together in a way that could have helped stop it before it happened.

• 53:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, there were, it was part of the bigger picture, right? I'm not talking about all the reports that were indeed bubbling up from everything from the spotters to a ham radio guy who was picking up Hamas very, you know, unencrypted Hamas messages about an impending attack.

• 53:35Speaker 03

  You know, there was the, the cellphone thing, the SIM cards. All of these were bottom up pieces of intelligence coming up. At the same time, you got this warning from UAE. You have the Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamal warning Netanyahu around the same pit, around, around the same time, you know, of something unusual, a terrifying operation that, that Hamas was going to cause, I think he used the term, make, make the ground tremble in Gaza or cause an earthquake.

• 54:10Speaker 03

  So even though you could say one of these warnings alone was not enough, substantial enough, the combination of all these things just makes it, and again, I'm not, I'm not suggesting those conspiracy to, to allow Hamas to attack. I'm just saying that it, that it just seems almost incomprehensible, doesn't it? That all these things were ignored and not acted on.

• 54:35Speaker 07

  But of course, as you mentioned, Dee, it's a perfect timing for opposition to Netanyahu for this story to come out because their elections are going to be in about a month. So it's clearly, I mean, this was a few years ago now, almost three years ago. So this information has been known for those three years, but only now is it coming out. So there's clearly a political reason for this to be chosen. And of course, the authors of the Harretts article even said like they're, they're writing their own piece about this. And so they chose to talk about it right now. So perhaps amplify their own authorship, right? So everybody involved has something, has some interest in it. And the interest of these authors, I think, is to call attention to it now at the beginning

• 55:18Speaker 07

  of the election to perhaps push Netanyahu out. And I think there are a lot of people in Israel that don't want him to be the prime minister anymore. You know, and you have people like Gadi Eisenkot, who are very different than Netanyahu, which might be difficult for him because he's, he's a military man, you know, he's not a political actor, right? So I think it'll be kind of challenging to see what happens despite these revelations because Netanyahu has a history of pulling rabbits out of hats around election time. He's done it numerous times and just kind of really shocked and surprised outsiders that he's been able to survive the way he has. So I wouldn't be totally surprised that this story has almost no impact on what happens in October.

• 55:58Speaker 03

  Yeah, although Eisenkot's leading in the polls anyway. It's a narrow, it's a narrow margin, right?

• 56:07Speaker 03

  But there's, there's bubbling, so, so the weird thing is Netanyahu has threatened Harretts with a lawsuit. He's going to say, he says he's going to sue them. Harretts says, go ahead. But the weird thing is Netanyahu seems to be basing his case, his claim on an official call log, the prime minister's call log for those days, right? Between early September and seven October. And he's saying, hey, you can look through the call log. There's no trace of it. And so that means this story was a plant, but, but he's staking it all on this official call log.

• 56:50Speaker 03

  If the, you know, the call could easily have gone through a channel that doesn't appear in, in that log, right? Leader to leader calls don't always go through the, the front door, as it were. I mean, it's, it's bizarre. So he's, so he's made a very narrow, he's staking everything on this very narrow defense. And, and Harretts is saying, you know, quoting them, they, they won't hesitate to expose the truth in court.

• 57:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's going to be an interesting one to see what goes on. Last bit, really fun story, I'd say, you know, story of American ingenuity and, and entrepreneurship. Let me get this right.

• 57:30Speaker 06

  So the Trump organization is gonna, is planning on building a hotel and building in Tbilisi, Georgia. And the, the, it's a 70-story building, I guess, like currently projected. And the big beef is essentially, it's tied to, the land tied, is tied to a foundation connected to a guy named, or a family, Benzina Ivaschvili, Georgia's dominant political figure and sanctioned by the United States. So, and the Georgia Dream Party, which is like closely tied with Vladimir Putin. At a time when, you know, obviously things are very tense between Ukraine and Russia.

• 58:14Speaker 06

  Just today, President Trump made a statement that it's because of Zelensky bombing refineries in Russia is why diesel prices are so expensive and he needs to stop doing that.

• 58:28Speaker 06

  So the graft is alive and well with, in America, I would say, with the Trump family. And the fact that this isn't

• 58:39Speaker 06

  By itself, a story enough to to ruin someone's presidency is, I don't know if it's a sad state of the world or a sad state of America and America's like a news media slash just how how pacified we are as a nation in terms of like, it's just a nonstop endless deluge of corruption and backhanding and stuff like that. And I get it. You need a little bit of corruption and stuff. That's par for the course. But it seems to be at a level that we have not seen before, frankly. John, what do you got?

• 59:11Speaker 07

  Well, first, the image that the architectural firm submitted in their proposal, which was accepted for production, is kind of funny. If you've been to Tbilisi in Georgia, beautiful place, highly recommend people to visit. I love Georgia. I was actually just there last summer. The skyline in Georgia does not look like the skyline in this image. This image has all these tall buildings and skyscrapers in it. Georgia, Tbilisi has one tall building. It's called the Biltmore Hotel. It's 32 stories high. So this building is already proposed to be twice as high as the existing tallest building in the entire country. And kind of interesting because the Biltmore itself is already taller than almost any building in Tbilisi. It's kind of a weird building because no other, there aren't many other tall buildings around to even rival that one. So the question of like economic supply

• 59:55Speaker 07

  and demand, like what, where's the demand for this building? If it's not corruption building it, where's the demand? Because there has, it's either one or the other. It's either there is a significant demand for new commercial construction in Tbilisi, or someone is funding this project for reasons that have nothing to do with economics generally, besides personal economics, like graft. So it's just kind of interesting. And it's kind of sad to see what's going on here because Ivanishvili founded this Georgia Dream Party, which is a Russia-aligned party. If you remember in 2008, Russia invaded Georgia and took over a place called South Ossetia. They're still occupying it now. People who live in South Ossetia are issued Ossetian passports as a breakaway separatist country that's supported

• 1:00:37Speaker 07

  and recognized only by Russia. And it's part of Russia's attempt to reassert post-Soviet authority in these areas. And some analysts have said, and I was at the National Security Agency in 2008 when this happened, that perhaps Russia was rehearsing its invasion of Crimea by invading Georgia in 2008, because they use very similar tactics in the way that they occupied South Ossetia versus Crimea. And people who are interested should go check that out. But this is a problem because Russia and Ivanishvili are closely aligned. For a while, Georgia was gonna join NATO. There's actually a NATO office in downtown Tbilisi that you can still go to now. That was basically a kind of private attempt by

• 1:01:19Speaker 07

  the Georgian government to lobby the West in allowing Georgia to join NATO. Because Georgia saw Russia as a massive threat. Rightly so. Russia's occupying northern Georgia even to this day. Right? And they're also in Abkhazia, which is in the northwest part of Georgia. So there's a lot of this Russia-US stuff going on inside of Georgia. And it's strange that the Trump Organization is finding its alliance with the Russia-backed side, not the Western-backed side of Georgia. And since the last two years, there's been, you know, accusations that the Georgia Dream Party was kind of a sham election. And there's been a lot of protests against it. If you go walk around Tbilisi, especially the old city, there's graffiti everywhere saying like, fuck Russia, Russia, get out of Georgia, like

• 1:02:01Speaker 07

  very, very anti-Russian sentiment. And so this organization, the Trump Organization, chose to work with the group that's opposed. That's a Russian-backed group. So Ivanishvili himself is a billionaire who, you know, in from Russia. He's Russian, Georgian Russian. So within Georgia, this is a very controversial thing, not to mention the US angle of the president's organization purchasing a multimillion-dollar right with this, this unnecessary building in Tbilisi. Right? So there's a lot of question marks that show to me when I look at this.

• 1:02:32Speaker 06

  Melbourne?

• 1:02:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I've got, I've got very little interest. I mean, Tbilisi is a wonderful city. I've got very little interest in what the Trump family is pouring money into. But I will say this, okay, and it's, it's gonna be an interesting topic. I think the next week, and we've, we've been quite rightly obsessed with what's going on in the Middle East here, but back to Ukraine on, I think it was September the 12th was this week. It was in the last couple of days. So ISW, the Institute of Study for the Study of War, which is, you know, the, probably the think tank, along with RUSI, the Royal United Service Institute, which is the British think tank, the two Western think tanks most closely

• 1:03:17Speaker 03

  tracking the war. And Ukraine said that the Ukrainians have seized the operational strategic initiative again by seizing Lyman, which is a town in Donbass and it's kind of a hinge. It was, it was in a key position. It's kind of a hinge of the, the Russian offensive for many ways. So it's an important place to take. And then at the same time, you've got Russian military leaders saying they need 800,000, say that again, 800,000 more troops in order to regain the initiative and do what they need to do when there's

• 1:04:00Speaker 03

  just no way, of course, the Russian mobilization process, and they're, they are due for mobilization in October. There's no way that's going to support that demand. So, you know, I mean, I'm not being overly optimistic, but it is significant that ISW has made that comment. They're quite, they're normally quite reserved about making these judgments.

• 1:04:21Speaker 06

  Yeah. So a lot of shit happening as usual. Nothing good of it. Nothing seems good. I guess unless you're like Donald Trump Jr. And stuff like that, that's pretty good. I guess you got some money. We'll see what goes on. Obviously, we'll keep an eye on it. You know, eyes on geopolitics. Get it? I want everyone to do us a favor. Everyone listening. Check out Andy's new book. It's not out yet, but he's releasing chapters on his Substack. So you can follow it there. The link is in the description. Please check that out.

• 1:04:51Speaker 03

  The latest chapter is on the Hannibal directive. And I, there is information in that chapter that I can tell you is not anywhere else on, on open source, if you're interested in that particular topic.

• 1:05:07Speaker 06

  Yeah. So that link is in the description. Of course, Jonathan Hackett, his books, that link, those links are in the description as well. He's working on a new book. Very exciting. I'm working on a book. It's coming out next month. I'll let you guys know when it comes out. October 20th is the date. It's coming out. There'll be more to that. It's a, it's not exactly a historical or journalistic piece of work like John's or Andy's. It's a little more fiction.

• 1:05:33Speaker 07

  Hopefully it doesn't become historical.

• 1:05:35Speaker 06

  I'm praying to God it doesn't, to be honest. Yeah. As I was writing it and things were unfolding in the news, I was like, Jesus Christ, what am I, the fucking Nostradamus? Uh, yeah. So anyway, look out for that. I'll keep everyone posted. But again, Patreon, the best place to support is patreon.com/TeamHouse. You get both Eyes on and Team House episodes ad-free and early. So two for the price of one, and you help support the show. Guys, a pleasure as always. I want to have one day where we like talk about like movies or books or something like something not frivolous, but something enjoyable, rather than like the world going to shit every single week. I don't know.

• 1:06:12Speaker 07

  Talk about the best war movies of all time.

• 1:06:13Speaker 06

  Yeah, something, bro. We need something like, we need some kind of palate cleanser for, for the love of God. I'll see you guys later. Thank you again.

• 1:06:24Speaker 07

  Thank you, guys.

• 1:06:26Speaker 04

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  911, what's your emergency?

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  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

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  We think they're murder warnings.

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  911 Nashville returns.

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  What's a homicide detective doing here?

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  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

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  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

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  911, what's your emergency?

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  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:10:43Speaker 02

  We think they're murder warnings.

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  911 Nashville returns.

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  What's a homicide detective doing here?

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  Three bodies on the ground.

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  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

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  Hellsend swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:11:01Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

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• 1:12:16Speaker 00

  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

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  We think they're murder warnings.

• 1:12:22Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 1:12:25Speaker 04

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

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  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:12:28Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:12:30Speaker 05

  Hellsend swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:12:37Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:12:49Speaker 04

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  911, what's your emergency?

• 1:13:51Speaker 00

  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:13:55Speaker 02

  We think they're murder warnings.

• 1:13:57Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 1:14:00Speaker 04

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:14:02Speaker 05

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:14:03Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:14:06Speaker 05

  Hellsend swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:14:13Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:14:25Speaker 04

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drink in one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for $10 at spinquest.com.

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• 1:15:28Speaker 00

  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:15:31Speaker 02

  We think they're murder warnings.

• 1:15:33Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 1:15:36Speaker 04

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:15:38Speaker 05

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:15:39Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:15:42Speaker 05

  Hellsend swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:15:49Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:16:01Speaker 00

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• 1:16:26Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:16:31Speaker 02

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

• 1:17:02Speaker 02

  911, what's your emergency?

• 1:17:03Speaker 00

  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:17:07Speaker 02

  We think they're murder warnings.

• 1:17:09Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 1:17:12Speaker 04

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:17:14Speaker 05

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:17:15Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:17:18Speaker 05

  Hellsend swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:17:25Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:17:36Speaker 04

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  911, what's your emergency?

• 1:18:39Speaker 00

  What? Please help us, they're everywhere.

• 1:18:43Speaker 02

  We think they're murder warnings.

• 1:18:45Speaker 01

  911 Nashville returns.

• 1:18:48Speaker 04

  What's a homicide detective doing here?

• 1:18:49Speaker 05

  Three bodies on the ground.

• 1:18:51Speaker 01

  With emergencies of biblical proportions.

• 1:18:53Speaker 05

  Hellsend swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville.

• 1:19:00Speaker 01

  Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:19:13Speaker 04

  Hanging out at the pool is great. Relaxing and playing Vegas-style games on my phone at the same time. Drinking one hand and a blackjack in the other. It's all at Spinquest. Over 1,000 games, including your favorite slots and table games. Be cool with this summer special. New players get $30 coin packs for 10 at spinquest.com.

• 1:19:36Speaker 01

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  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warrants.

• 1:20:22Speaker 05

  911 Nashville returns. What's a homicide detective doing here? Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. Hell, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:20:50Speaker 04

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  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency?

• 1:21:55Speaker 02

  Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warrants.

• 1:21:59Speaker 05

  911 Nashville returns. What's a homicide detective doing here? Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. Hell, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:22:28Speaker 04

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• 1:23:32Speaker 02

  Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warrants.

• 1:23:36Speaker 05

  911 Nashville returns. What's a homicide detective doing here? Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. Hell, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

• 1:24:03Speaker 00

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• 1:24:28Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

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  Cash flow crunch? OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing, and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today at ondeck.com. Funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval. 911, what's your emergency? Please help us, they're everywhere. We think they're murder warrants.

• 1:25:13Speaker 05

  911 Nashville returns. What's a homicide detective doing here? Three bodies on the ground. With emergencies of biblical proportions. Hell, since swarms upon you and upon your people. That's one of the plagues of the Bible. And somebody's unleashing them on Nashville. Brian Phillippe joins 911 Nashville. All new Thursdays on ABC, next day on Hulu.

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• 1:25:39Speaker 00

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• 1:25:57Speaker 01

  Spinquest is a free-to-play social casino. Void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details.

• 1:26:04Speaker 05

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

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