Kind: captions
Language: en
massage will do anything mossad has
no qualms doing what it takes to ensure
the survival of every israeli citizen
around the world
most other countries will stop at some
point
but mossad doesn't do that
the following is a conversation with
andrew bustamante
former cia covert intelligence officer
and u.s air force combat veteran
including the job of operational
targeting encrypted communications and
launch operations for 200 nuclear
intercontinental ballistic missiles
andrews over seven years as a cia spy
have given him a skill set and a
perspective on the world that is
fascinating to explore
this is the lex friedman podcast to
support it please check out our sponsors
in the description and now dear friends
here's andrew bustamante
the central intelligence agency was
formed almost 75 years ago
what is the mission of the cia how does
it work the mission of the cia is to
collect intelligence from around the
world that supports a national security
mission and be the central repository
for all other intelligence agencies so
that it's one collective source where
all intelligence can be synthesized and
then passed forward to the decision
makers that doesn't include domestic
intelligence is primarily looking
outward outside the united states
correct cia is the foreign intelligence
collection
kingspoke if you will
fbi does domestic and then department of
homeland security does domestic law
enforcement essentially handles all
things domestic
intelligence is not law enforcement so
we technically cannot work inside the
united states is there clear lines to be
drawn between like you just said the fbi
cia fbi and the other u.s intelligence
agencies like the dia defense
intelligence agency department of
homeland security
nsa national security agency and and
there's a list there's a list of about
33 different intelligence organizations
yeah so the army the navy has
all the different organizations have
their own intelligence groups so is
there is there clear lines here to be
drawn or is the cia the the giant
integrator of all of these uh it's a
little bit of both to be honest so yes
there are absolutely lines and
more so than the lines there are lines
that divide what our primary mission is
everything's got to be prioritized
that's one of the benefits and the
superpowers of the united states is we
prioritize everything
so different intelligence organizations
are prioritized to collect certain types
of intelligence and then
within the confines of how they collect
they're also given unique authorities
authorities are a term that's directed
by the executive branch different
agencies have different authorities to
execute missions in different ways
fbi can't execute the same way cia
executes and cia can't execute the same
way nga
executes but then at the end excuse me
when it's all collected then yes cia
still acts as a final synthesizing
repository to create what's known as the
president's daily brief the pdb the only
way cia can create the pdb is by being
the single source of all source
intelligence from around the ic the
intern the intelligence community which
are those
30 some odd and always changing
organizations that are sponsored for
intelligence operations what does the
pdb the president's daily brief look
like how long is it what does it contain
so first of all it looks like the most
expensive book report you can ever
imagine it's got its own binder it's all
very high-end it feels important it
looks important it's not like a cheap
trapper keeper
um it's somewhere between i would give
it probably between 50 and 125 pages a
day is produced every day around two
o'clock in the morning by a dedicated
group of analysts
and uh and each
page is essentially
a short paragraph to a few paragraphs
about a priority happening that affects
national security from around the world
the president rarely gets to the entire
briefing in a day he relies on a briefer
instead to prioritize
what inside the briefing needs to be
shared with the president because some
days the pdb will get briefed in
10 minutes and some days it'll be
briefed over the course of two hours it
depends on the president's schedule
how much competition is there for the
first page
and uh so
how much jockeying there is for
attention
for
i imagine for all the different
intelligence agencies
and within the cia there's probably
different groups that are modular and
they're all care about different
nations or different uh
cases and
is there do you understand
how much competition there is for the
attention for the limited attention of
the president you're 100 correct in
how the agency and how
officers and managers of the agency
handle the pdb there's a ton of
competition everybody wants to be the
first on the radar everybody wants to be
on the first page the thing that we're
not baking into the equation is the
president's interests
the president dictates what's on the
first page of his pdb and he will tell
them usually the day before i want to
see this on the first page tomorrow
bring this to me in the beginning i
don't want to hear about what's
happening in mozambique i don't really
care about what's happening in saudi
arabia i want to see one two three and
regardless of whether or not those are
the three biggest things in the world
the president's the executive
he's the one he's the ultimate customer
so we do what the cus the customer says
that has backfired in the past if you
haven't already started seeing how that
could go wrong
that is backfired in the past but that
is essentially what happens when you
serve in the executive branch you serve
the executive
so what's the role the director of the
cia versus the president
what's that dance like so the the
president really leads
the focus of the cia the president is
the commander-in-chief for the military
but the the executive the president is
also the executive for
the entirety of the intelligence
community so he's the the ultimate
customer
if you look at it like a business
the customer the person spending the
money is the president and the director
is the ceo
so if the director doesn't create what
the president wants there's going to be
a new director that's why the director
of cia is a presidential appointed
position sometimes they're extremely
qualified intelligence professionals
sometimes they're just professional
politicians or soldiers that get put
into that seat because the president
trusts them to do what he wants them to
do
another a
gaping
area that causes problems but that's
still the way it is
so you think this is a
problematic configuration of the whole
system massive flaw in the system it is
a massive flaw in the system because
if you're essentially appointing a
director to do what you want them to do
then you're
assigning a crony and that's what we
define corruption as within the united
states and inside the united states we
say if you pick somebody outside of
merit for any other reason other than
merit then it's cronyism or it's
nepotism
here that's exactly what our structure
is built on all presidential appointees
are appointed on something other than
merit so for an intelligence agency to
be effective it has to
discover the truth and communicate that
truth and maybe if you're appointing the
director of that agency you're not
they're less likely to communicate the
truth to you unless the truth aligns
perfectly with your desired worldview
well not necessarily perfectly because
there are other steps right they have to
be they have to go in front of congress
and they have to have the support of of
multiple legislatures uh or legislators
but they
they're
the challenge is that the short list of
people who even get the opportunity
aren't a meritorious list it's a short
list based off of who the president is
picking or who the would-be president is
picking now i think we've proven
that an intelligence organization can be
an intelligence organization can be
extremely effective even within the
flawed system yeah the challenge is how
much more effective could we be if we
improved and that's
i think that's the challenge that faces
a lot of the us government i think
that's a challenge that has resulted in
what we see today when it comes to the
decline of american power and american
influence the rise of foreign influence
attack
authoritarian powers
and a shrinking u.s economy a growing
chinese economy and it's just
we have questions hard questions we need
to ask ourselves about how we're going
to handle the future what aspect of that
communication between the president and
the cia could be fixed to
to help
fix the problems that you're referring
to in terms of the decline of american
power so
when you talk about the president
wanting to prioritize what the president
cares about
that immediately shows a break between
what actually matters to the long-term
success of the united states versus what
happened what benefits the short-term
success of the current president because
any
president
is just a human being and has a very
narrow focus and narrow focus is not a
long-term calculation exactly what's the
maximum amount of years a president can
be president
eight yeah he has to be he or she in the
united states in the united states
according to our current constitution
yeah
but they they're very limited
uh in terms of what they have to
prioritize and then if you look at a
four-year cycle two years of that is
essentially preparing for the next
election cycle so what's only two years
of really quality attention you get from
the president who's the chief executive
of all the intelligence community so the
most important thing to them is not
always the most important thing to the
long-term survival of the united states
what do you make of the hostile
relationship that to me at least stands
out of the presidents between donald
trump and the cia
was that a very kind of
personal
bickering i mean is there something
interesting to you about the dynamics
between that particular president and
that particular instantiation of the
intelligence agency man there were lots
of things fascinating to me about that
that relationship so first what's the
good and the bad sorry gentry so let me
start with the good first because
there's a lot of people who don't think
there was any good
so the good thing is we saw
that
the president who's the chief
customer the executive to the cia
when the president doesn't want to hear
what cia has to say he's not going to
listen
i think that's an important lesson for
everyone to
take home
if the president doesn't
care what you have to say he's going to
take funding away or she will take
funding away they're going to take
attention away they're going they're
going to
shut down your operations your missions
they're going to kill the careers of the
people working there think about that
for the four years that president trump
was the president
basically everybody at cia their career
was put on pause some people's careers
were ended some people voluntarily left
their career there
because they found themselves working
for a single customer that didn't want
what they had to produce so for people
who don't know
donald trump did not display significant
deep interest in the output
uh he did not trust it yeah he was a
disinterested customer exactly right
the information and then what do
disinterested customers do
they go find someone else to create
their product and that's exactly what
donald trump did he did it through the
private intelligence world funding
private intelligence companies to run
their own operations that brought him
the information he cared about when cia
wouldn't it also didn't help that cia
stepped outside of their confines right
cia is supposed to collect foreign
intelligence and not comment on domestic
matters they went way outside of that
when they started challenging the
president when they started questioning
the results when they started
publicly
claiming russian influence that's all
something the fbi could have handled by
itself the justice department could have
handled by itself cia had no place
to contribute to that conversation and
when they did all they did was undermine
the relationship they had with their
primary customer
let me
sort of focus in on this relationship
between the president
or the leader and the intelligence
agency and look outside the united
states
it seems like authoritarian regimes or
regimes throughout history if you look
at stalin and hitler if you look at
today with vladimir putin
the negative effects of power corrupting
the mind of a leader
manifest itself is that they start to
get bad information from the
intelligence agencies so the this kind
of thing that you're talking about over
time
they start hearing information they want
to they want to hear the agency starts
producing only
um the kind of information they want to
hear and their the leaders world view
starts becoming distorted
to where
the propaganda they generate
is also the thing that the intelligence
agencies provide to them and so they
start getting this they start believing
their own propaganda and they start
getting a distorted view of the world
sorry for the sort of uh
walking through in a weird way but i
guess i want to ask do you think
let's look at vladimir putin
specifically
do you think he's
getting accurate information about the
world do you think he knows the truth of
the world whether that's the war in
ukraine whether that's the behavior of
the other nations in nato the united
states in general what do you think
it's rare that i'll talk about just
thinking it's i prefer to share
my assessment why i assess things a
certain way rather than just what's my
random opinion
in my assessment vladimir putin is
winning
russia is winning they're winning in
ukraine but they're also winning the
battle of influence against the west
they're winning in the face of economic
sanctions they're winning
empirically when you look at the math
they're winning
so when you ask me whether or not putin
is getting good information from
intelligence services when i look at my
overall assessment of multiple data
points he must be getting good
information do i know how or why i do
not i don't know how or why it works
there i don't know how such
deep cronyism such deep corruption
can possibly yield true real results and
yet somehow there are real results
happening so it's either excessive waste
and an accidental win or there really is
a system and a process there that's
functioning so this winning idea is very
interesting in what way short term and
long term is russia winning some people
say there was a miscalculation of the
way the invasion happened
uh there was an assumption that you
would be able to successfully take kiev
you you'd be able to successfully
capture the east the south and the north
of ukraine
and
with
what now appears to be significantly
insufficient troops spread way too thin
across way too large of a front
so that seems to be like an intelligence
failure
and uh and that doesn't seem to be like
winning
in another way it doesn't seem like
winning if we put aside the human cost
of war
it doesn't seem like winning
because the hearts and minds of the west
were completely on the side of ukraine
this particular leader in vladimir
zelinski captured the attention of the
world and the hearts and minds of
europe
the west
and many other nations throughout the
world both financially in terms of
military equipment and in terms of
sort of
social and cultural and emotional
support for the independence fight of
this nation that seems to be like a
miscalculation
so
against that pushback
why do you think there's still kernels
of
uh winning in this on the russian side
what you're laying out isn't incorrect
and
the miscalculations are not
unexpected anybody who's been to a
military college including the army war
college in pennsylvania where so many of
our military leaders
are brought up
when you look at the conflict in ukraine
it fits the exact mold of what an
effective
long-term
military conflict protracted military
conflict would and should look like for
military dominance now did zielinski and
did the did the ukrainians shock the
world absolutely but in that they also
shocked american intelligence which like
you said miscalculated the whole world
miscalculated how the ukrainians would
respond putin did not move in there
accidentally he had an assessment he had
high likelihood of a certain outcome and
that outcome did not happen
why did he have that calculation because
in 2014 it worked
he invaded
he took crimea in 14 days he basically
created
a
an infiltration campaign that turned key
leaders over in the first few days of
the conflict
so essentially there was no conflict it
worked in 2008 when he took georgia
nobody talks about that
he invaded georgia the exact same same
way and it worked so in 2008 it worked
in 2014 it worked there was no reason to
believe it wasn't going to work again
so he just carried out the same campaign
but this time
something was different that was a
miscalculation for sure on the part of
putin and the reason that there was no
support from the west because let's not
forget
there is no support there is nothing
other than the lend lease act
which is putting ukraine in massive debt
right now to the west
that's the only form of support they're
getting from nato or the united states
so
if somebody believed ukraine would win
if somebody believed ukraine had a
chance they would have gotten more
material support than just debt and we
can jump into that anytime you want to
but the whole world miscalculated
everybody thought russia was going to
win in 14 days i i said that they would
win 14 days because that was the
predominant calculation
once the first invasion didn't work then
the military does what professional
militaries do man they they re-evaluate
they re-uh reorganize leaders and then
they they take a new approach you saw
three approaches the first two did not
work the first two campaigns against
ukraine did not work the way they were
supposed to work the third has worked
exactly like it's supposed to work you
don't need kiev to win ukraine you don't
need hearts and minds to win ukraine
what do you need yeah what you need is
control of of natural resources which
they're taking in the east and you need
access to the heart beat the blood flow
of food and money into the country which
they're taking in the south
the fact that ukraine had to go to the
negotiation table
with russia and turkey
in order to get exports
out of the black sea approved again
demonstrates just how much ukraine is
losing
the the aggressor had a seat at the
negotiation table
to allow ukraine the ability to even
export one of its top exports if russia
would have said no then they would not
have had that russia has that's like
someone holding your throat it's like
somebody holding your jugular vein and
saying
if if you don't
do what i tell you to do
then i'm not gonna let you breathe i'm
not gonna let blood flow to your brain
so do you think
it's possible that russia takes the
south
of ukraine
it takes
um
so starting from
mariupol
the herson region
all the way to odessa all the way to
odessa and into
into
moldova
i believe all that will happen before
the fall
fall of this year fall of this year
before winter hits europe nato
wants germany needs to be able to have
sanctions lifted so they can tap into
russian power there's no way they can
have those sanctions lifted unless
russia wins
and russia also knows
that all of europe all of nato is the
true
the true people feeling the pain of the
war outside of ukraine
are the nato countries because they're
so heavily reliant on russia and as
they have supported american sanctions
against russia their people feel the
pain economically
their people feel their pain what are
they going to do in the winter because
without russian gas
their their people are going to freeze
to death ukrainian people people all
over nato
i
ukraine
everybody knows ukraine's at risk
everybody knows ukrainians are dying
the game of war isn't played
just it isn't even played majority by
the people who are fighting the game of
war is played by everyone else it's an
economic game it's not a military game
the flow of resources and energy
attention food exactly right
i was on the front in the hersan region
this very area that you're referring to
and i spoke to a lot of people and those
the morale
is incredibly high
and i don't think
the people in that region
soldiers
volunteer soldiers
civilians
are going
to give up that land without dying i
agree with you
i mean in order to take odessa
would require a
huge amount of artillery
and slaughter of civilians essentially
they're not going to use artillery
odessa because odessa is too important
to
russian culture
it's going to be even uglier than that
it's going to be
clearing up streets clearing of
buildings person by person troop by
troop it'll be a lot like what it was in
marvel
just shooting at civilians because they
can't afford to just do bombing raids
because they're going to destroy
cultural
significant architecture that's just too
important to the russian culture and
that's going to demoralize their own
russian people
i have to do a lot of thinking to try to
understand what i even feel i don't know
but
in terms of information the thing that
the soldiers are saying that the russian
soldiers are saying the thing the
russian soldiers really believe
is that they're freeing they're
liberating
the ukrainian people
from
[Music]
nazis
um and they believe this
because i visited ukraine i spoke to
the over 100
probably a couple hundred ukrainian
people from different walks of life
it feels like the russian
soldiers at least under a cloud of
propaganda
they're not operating on a clear view of
the whole world
and
given all that i just don't see
russia taking the south
without committing
war crimes
and if vladimir putin is aware of what's
happening in terms of the treatment of
civilians
i don't see
him pushing forward all the way to take
the south
because that's not going to be
effective strategy for him
to win the hearts and minds of his
people
autocracies don't need to win hearts and
minds that's a staunchly democratic
point of view
hearts and minds mean very little to
people who understand core
basic
needs and
uh
and
true power
you don't see xi jinping worrying about
hearts and minds in china you don't see
you don't see it in north korea you
don't see it in in congo you don't see
it in most of the world hearts and minds
are a luxury
in reality what people need is food
water power they need
income to be able to secure a lifestyle
it's
it is absolutely sad i am not in any way
shape or form
saying that my
assessment on this is
is enriching or enlightening or or uh
hopeful it's just
fact it's just calculatable empirical
evidence
if
putin loses in ukraine the losses the
influential losses the economic losses
the lives lost the power lost is too
great
so it is better for him
to push and push and push through war
crimes through everything else war
crimes are something defined by the
international court system the
international court system has russia as
part of its board
and the international court system is
largely powerless
outs when it comes to enforcing its own
outcomes so the real risk gain scenario
here for for russia is
is
is significantly in favor of gain over
risk
the other thing that i think is
important to talk about is we
everybody
is trapped in the middle of a gigantic
information war yes there's battlefield
bullets and cannons and tanks but
there's also a massive and from
informational war the same
narrative that you see
these
ground troops in ukraine these russian
ground troops in ukraine believing
they're clearing the land of nazis
that information is being fed to them
from their own home country
i don't know why people seem to think
that the information that they're
reading in english is any more or less
true the enti every piece of news coming
out of the west every piece of
information coming out in the english
language is also a giant narrative
being
shared intentionally to try to undermine
the morale and the faithfulness of
english-speaking russians which somebody
somewhere knows exactly how many of
those there are
so we have to recognize that we're not
getting true information from other side
because there is a strategic value in
making sure that there is just the right
amount of miss or disinformation out
there not because someone's trying to
lie to americans but because someone is
trying to influence the way
english-speaking russians think
and in that world that's exactly why you
see so many news
articles cited to anonymous sources
government officials who do not want to
be named there's no nothing that links
back responsibility there right there's
nothing that can go to court there
but this the information still gets
released and that's that's enough to
make ukrainians believe
that the united states is going to help
them or that the west is going to help
them it's enough to make russians think
that
that they're going to lose and maybe
they should just
they should just give up now and leave
from the battlefield now we have to
understand we are in the middle of a
giant information war
maybe you can correct me but it feels
like in the english-speaking world it's
harder to control
it's harder to fight the information war
because of you know some people say
there's not really a freedom of speech
in this country but i think uh if you
compare there's a lot more freedom of
speech and it's just harder to control
narratives when there's a bunch of
um
guerrilla journalists that are able to
just publish anything they want on
twitter or anything it's just harder to
control narratives so people don't
understand where freedom of speech is
that's the first major problem and it's
it's shameful how many people in the
united states do not understand what
freedom of speech actually protects
so
that aside you're absolutely right
fighting the information war in the west
is extremely difficult because
anyone with a blog anyone with a twitter
account anyone i mean anyone can call
themselves a journalist essentially we
live in a world we live in a country
where people read the headline and they
completely bypass the author line and
they go straight into the content and
then they decide whether the content's
real or not based on how they feel
instead of based on empirical measurable
evidence
so you mentioned the len lease act
and the support of the united states
support of ukraine by the united states
are you skeptical to the level of
support that the united states is
providing and is going to provide
over over time the strategy that the
united states has taken to support
ukraine is similar to the strategy we
took to support great britain during
world war ii
the the enactment of the lend least act
is a perfect example of that the lend
lease act means that we are lending or
leasing equipment to the ukrainian
government
in exchange for future payment
so every time a rocket is launched every
time a drone crashes into a tank that's
that's a bill
that ukraine is
is just racking up it's like when you go
to a restaurant you start drinking shots
sometime the bill will come due this is
exactly what we did when
europe and when great britain was in the
face of uh nazi invasion we signed the
same thing into motion do you know that
that the uk did not pay off the debt
from world war ii until 2020
they've been paying that debt
since the end of world war ii so what
we're doing is we're indebting ukraine
against the promise that perhaps they
will secure their freedom which nobody
seems to want to talk about what freedom
is actually going to look like for
ukrainians right what are the true
handful of outcomes the realistic
outcomes that could come of this and
what which of those outcomes really
looks like freedom to them
especially in the face of the fact that
they're going to be
trillions of dollars in debt to the west
for supplying them with the training and
the weapons and the food and the med
kits and everything else that we're
giving them because none of it's free
it's all coming due it's all we're a
democracy but we're also
a capitalist country we we can't afford
to just give things away for free but we
can give things away at a discount we
can give things away lay away but the
bill will come due and unfortunately
that is not part of the conversation
that's being had with the american
people so debt is a way
to establish some level of control power
is power
that said
having a very
close relationship between ukraine and
the united states does not seem to be
a negative possibility
when ukrainians think about their future
in terms of freedom that's one thing and
uh the other there's some aspect of this
war that i've just noticed that um
one of the people i talked to said
that all
great nations
uh have a
independence war they have to have a war
for their independence in order there's
something it's dark but there's
something about
war just being a catalyst for finding
your own identity as a nation so you can
have
leaders you can have sort of signed
documents you can have all this kind of
stuff but there's something about war
that really brings the country together
and actually tried to figure out what is
at the core of the spirit of the people
that defines this country and
they see this war
as that as the independence wars to
define the heart of what the country is
so there's a there's been before the war
before this invasion
there was a lot of factions in the
country there was
a lot of
influence from oligarchs and corruption
and so on a lot of that
was the factions were brought together
under one umbrella
effectively to become one nation because
of this invasion so they see that as a
positive
direction for
the
defining of what a free
democratic country looks like after the
war at in their perspective after the
wars won
it's a difficult situation because
i'm trying to make sure that that you
and all everybody listening understands
that
what's happening in ukraine among
ukrainians is noble and brave and
courageous and
beyond the expectations of
anyone
the fact is
there is no material support coming from
the outside the american in the american
revolution was won
because of french involvement french
ships french troops french generals
french military might
the
uh independence of
of uh communist china was won
through russian support russian generals
russian troops on the ground fighting
with the communists
that's how revolutions are won that's
how independent countries are born
ukraine doesn't get any of that
no one is stepping into that because
we live in a world right now
where there simply is no economic
benefit to the parties in power
to support ukraine to that level and war
is a game of economics the economic
benefit of ukraine is crystal clear
in favor of russia which is why putin
cannot lose he will not let himself lose
short of something completely unexpected
right i'm talking 60 70 probability
ukraine loses but there's still 20 30
probability of the unimaginable
happening
who knows what that might be and
oligarch assassinates putin or a nuclear
bomb goes off somewhere or who knows
what right
there's still a chance that something
unexpected will happen and change the
tide of the war but when it comes down
to
the core calculus here
ukraine is the agricultural bed to
support a future russia russia knows
they know they have to have ukraine they
know that they have to have it to
protect themselves against military
pressure from the west they have to have
it for agricultural reasons they have
major
oil
and natural gas pipelines that flow
through
eastern ukraine they they cannot let
ukraine fall
outside of their sphere of influence
they cannot
the united states
doesn't really have any economic vested
interest in ukraine ideologics you know
ideological points of view and promises
aside there's no economic benefit and
the same thing goes for nato nato has no
economic investment in ukraine ukrainian
output ukrainian
food goes to the middle east and africa
it doesn't go to europe
so the whole
the sai the west siding with ukraine is
exclusively ideological and it's putting
them in a place where they fight a war
with russia so the whole world can see
russia's capabilities ukraine is a
it's sad as it is to say man ukraine is
a pawn on a table
for superpowers to calculate each
other's capacities
right now we've only talked about russia
and united states we haven't even talked
about iran we haven't even talked about
china
right it is a pawn on a table this is a
chicken fight so that people get to
watch and see what the other trainers
are doing
well a lot of people might have said the
same thing about the united states back
in the independence fight so
there is there is possibilities as
you've said
we're not
uh saying zero percent chance and it
could be a reasonably high percent
chance that this becomes one of the
great democratic nations that the 21st
century is remembered by absolutely and
so uh
you said
american support so ideologically first
of all
you don't assign much
long-term
power to that
that us could support ukraine purely on
ideological grounds
just look in the last four years the
last three years do you remember what
happened in hong kong right before kovid
china swooped into hong kong
violently
beating protesters killing them in the
street imprisoning people without just
without just cause and hong kong was a
democracy
and the whole world stood by and let it
happen
and then what happened in afghanistan
just a year ago
and the whole world stood by and let the
taliban take power again after 20 years
of loss
this we are showing a repeatable
point of view we will talk american
politicians american administrations we
will say a lot of things we will promise
a lot of ideological pro-democracy
rah-rah
statements we will say it
but when it comes down to putting our
own people our own economy our own gdp
at risk
we step away from that fight
america is currently supplying
military equipment to ukraine absolutely
and a lot of that military equipment has
actually been the thing that turned the
tides of war a couple of times already
currently that's the highmar systems
so you mentioned sort of
putin can't afford to lose
but winning can look a different way so
you've kind of defined so on at this
moment
the prediction is that winning looks
like capturing not just the east
but the south of ukraine
but
you could have narratives of winning
that return back to the
uh what was at the beginning of this
year before the invasion correct that
crimea
is still with russia
there's some kind of negotiated thing
about donbass where it still stays with
ukraine but there's some public
government yeah yeah
that's what they have in georgia right
now
and that could still be defined through
mechanisms
as russia winning as russian winning for
russia and then for ukraine as ukraine
winning
uh and
and for the west as uh democracy winning
and you kind of negotiate i mean that
seems to be how
geopolitics works is everybody can walk
away with a win-win story
and then the world progresses
with the lessons learned that's the high
likely that's the most probable outcome
the most probable outcome is that
ukraine remains
in air quotes a sovereign nation
it's not going to be truly sovereign
because it will become
it will
have to have new government put in place
zielinski will it's extremely unlikely
he will be president
because he has gone too far to
demonstrate his
power over the people and his ability to
separate the ukrainian people from the
autocratic power of russia so he would
have to be
unseated whether he goes into exile
or whether he is peacefully left alone
is all going to be part of negotiations
but the thing the thing to keep in mind
also
is that a negotiated peace really just
means a negotiated ceasefire we've seen
this happen all over the world north
korea and south korea are technically
still just in negotiated cease power
what you end up having is
russia will allow
ukraine to call itself ukraine
to operate independently to have their
own debt to the united states russia
doesn't want to take on that debt
and then
in exchange for that they will have
firmer guidelines as to how nato can
engage with ukraine and then that
becomes an example for all the other
former soviet satellite states which are
all required economically
by russia not required economically by
the west
and then you end up seeing how it just
you can see how the whole thing plays
out once you realize
that the keystone
is ukraine
there is something about ukraine
the deep support by the ukrainian people
of america
that
is in contrast with
for example afghanistan
that
it seems like ideologically ukraine
could be a beacon of freedom used in
narratives by the united states
to fight geopolitical wars in that part
of the world that they would be a good
partner
for this idea of democracy of freedom
of all the values that america stands
for they're a good partner and so it's
valuable
if you sort of have a cynical pragmatic
view sort of like henry kissinger type
of view
it's valuable to have them as a partner
so valuable that it makes sense to
support them
in achieving a negotiated ceasefire
that's on the side of ukraine but
because of this particular leader this
particular culture
this particular
dynamics of how the war enrolled
and things like twitter and the way
digital communication currently works it
just seems like this is a powerful
symbol of freedom that's useful for the
united states if we're starting to take
the pragmatic
view don't you think
it it's possible
that uh united states
supports ukraine
financially militarily enough for it to
get an advantage in this war i think
they've already got an advantage in the
war the fact the war is still going on
demonstrates the asymmetrical advantage
the fact that
russia has stepped up to the negotiating
table with them several times
without just
turning to
chechen
i mean remember what happened in
chechnya
without turning to chechnya levels just
mass
blind destruction
which was another putin war
to see that those things have happened
demonstrates the asymmetric advantage
that the west has given i think the
the
true way to look at the benefit of
ukraine as a
shining example of freedom in europe for
the west
isn't to understand whether or not they
could they absolutely could
it's the question of how valuable is
that
in europe how valuable is ukraine which
before
january before february
nobody even thought about ukraine and
the people who did know about ukraine
knew that it was a extremely corrupt
former soviet state
with 20 of its national population
self-identifying as russian
like you there's a reason putin went
into ukraine there's a reason he's been
promising he would go into ukraine for
the better part of a decade
because
the the circumstances were aligned it
was a corrupt country that
self-identified as russian in many ways
it was a it was supposed to be an easier
of multiple marks in terms of the former
soviet satellite states to go after
that's all part of the miscalculation
that the rest of the world saw too
when we thought it would fall quickly
so to think that it could be a shining
shining example of freedom is accurate
but is it as shining a star as germany
is it as shining a star as the uk is it
as shining a star is romania is it as
shiny as star as
uh as france like it's got a lot of
democratic freedom-based countries in
europe to compete against to be
this shining stellar example and in
exchange on counterpoint to that it has
an extreme amount of strategic value to
russia which has no interest in making
it a shining star of the example of of
democracy and freedom outside of
research in terms of the shininess of
the star i would argue yes if you look
at how much you captivated the intention
of the world the attention the world has
made no material difference man that's
what i'm saying that's your estimation
but you know are you sure we can
we can't
um if you can convert that into
political influence
into money don't you think attention is
money
attention is money in democracies in
capitalist countries
yes which serves as a counterweight to
sort of authoritarian regimes so for for
putin resources matter for the united
states also resources matter but the
attention
and uh the belief the people also
matter because that's how you attain and
maintain political power this so going
to that exact example
then i would highlight that our current
administration has the lowest approval
ratings of any president in history
so if people were very fond of the war
going on in ukraine wouldn't that
counterbalance some of our upset some of
the distinct coming from the economy and
some of the dissent coming from from the
the great recession and or the second
great or the great resignation and
whatever is happening with the draw with
the down stock market you would think
that people would feel like they're
sacrificing for something if they really
believed that ukraine mattered that they
would they would stand next to the
president who is who is so staunchly
driving and leading the west against
this conflict well i think the
opposition to this particular president
i personally believe has less to do with
the policies and more to do
with
a lot of the other human factors
and
but again empirically this is i look at
things through a very empirical lens a
very a very cold
fact based lens and there are multiple
data points that suggest that the
american people
ideologically sympathize with ukraine
but they really just want their gas
prices to go down they really just want
to be able to pay less money at the
grocery store for their food and they
most definitely don't want their sons
and daughters
to die in exchange for ukrainian freedom
it does hurt me to see the
politicization of this war as well
i think that has
that's maybe has to do with the kind of
calculation you're referring to
but it seems like it doesn't it seems
like there's a cynical whatever takes
attention of the media for the moment
the the red team chooses one side and
the blue team chooses another
and then um
i think correct me if i'm wrong but i
believe the democrats went into full
like support of ukraine on the ideal
logical side and then i guess
republicans are saying why are we
wasting money the prices are the the gas
prices are going up that's that's a very
crude kind of analysis but they
basically picked whatever argument on
whatever side and now
more and more and more this particular
war in ukraine is becoming
a kind of pawn in the game of politics
that's
first the midterm elections then
building up towards the presidential
elections and stops being about
the philosophical the social the
geopolitical aspects
parameters of this war and more
biologists like whatever the heck
captivates twitter and we're gonna use
that for politics you're right in sense
of the fact that it's i wouldn't say
that the red team and the blue team
picked opposite sides on this what i
would say is that
media
discovered that talking about ukraine
wasn't as profitable as talking about
something else
people simply the american people who
read media or who watch media they
simply became
bored reading about news that didn't
seem to be changing much and
we turned back into wanting to read
about our own economy and we wanted to
hear more about cryptocurrency and we
wanted to hear more about the
kardashians and that's that's what we
care about so that's what media writes
about that's how
a capitalist market driven world works
and that's how the united states works
that's why in both red papers and blue
papers red sources and blue sources you
don't see ukraine being mentioned very
much if anything
i would say that your republicans are
probably more in support of what's
happening in ukraine right now because
we're creating new weapon systems our
military is getting stronger we're
sending these military we get to test
military systems in combat
in ukraine
that's
priceless in the world of the military
the military industrial complex being
able to field test combat test a weapon
without having to sacrifice your own
people
is incredibly valuable you get all the
data you get all the performance metrics
but you don't have to put yourself at
risk that is one of the major benefits
of what we're seeing from supporting
ukraine with weapons and with troops the
long-term benefit to what will come of
this for the united states
practically speaking in the lens of
national security through military
readiness
through
future economic benefits those are super
strong the geopolitical fight is is
essentially moot
because ukraine is not a geopolitical
player it was not for
for 70 years
and after this conflict is over it will
not again just think about what you were
just saying with the american people's
attention span to twitter and whatever
is currently going on if the ukraine
conflict resolved itself today
in either in any direction
how many weeks do you think before no
one talked about ukraine anymore do you
think we would make it two weeks do you
think we'd make it maybe seven days it
would be headline news for one or two
days
and then we'd be on to something else
it's just an unfortunate reality
of how the world works in a capitalist
democracy
yeah
it just breaks my heart how much
you know i know that there's
yemen and syria and
that nobody talks about anymore still
raging conflicts going on
it just it breaks my heart how much
generational hatred is born
i happen to be from
uh my family is from ukraine and from
russia and so for me just personally
it's a part of the world i care about
in terms of its history i because i
speak the language i can appreciate the
beauty of the literature the music the
art the the cultural history of the 20th
century through all the dark times
through all the the hell
of um the dark sides of authoritarian
regimes the destruction of war there's
still just a beauty that i'm able to
appreciate that i can't appreciate about
china
brazil
other countries because i don't speak
their language this one i can appreciate
and so
in that way this is personally really
painful to me to see
so much of that history the beauty in
that history suffocated by the hatred
that is born through this kind of
geopolitical
game
uh fought mostly by
the politicians the leaders people are
beautiful and that's what you're talking
about people are just
people are beautiful creatures
culture
and art
and
science like these are beautiful
beautiful things that come about because
of human beings
and the thing that gives me hope
is that
no matter what conflict the world has
seen and we've seen some devastating
horrible crimes against humanity already
we saw nuclear bombs go off in japan
we saw
we saw genocide happen in rwanda we've
seen horrible things happen
but people persevere
language culture arts science they all
persevere they all shine through
some of the most people don't even
realize how gorgeous the architecture
and the culture is inside iran people
have no idea
chinese people
in the
rural parts of china are some of the
kindest most amazing people you'll ever
meet and korean art and korean dance
korean drumming i know nobody has ever
even heard of korean drumming korean
drumming is this magical beautiful thing
and the north in north korea does it
better than anybody in the world
taekwondo in north korea is just
exceptional to watch north korea in
north korea nobody knows these how do
you know about taekwondo north korea i
have questions
but fascinating that's that's uh like
people don't think about that but the
culture the beauty of the people still
flourishes even in the toughest
absolutely and we always will we always
will because that is what people do
and that is that is just the truth of it
and it breaks my heart to see travesties
that people commit against people
but whether you're looking at a micro
level like what happens with shootings
here in the united states or whether you
look at a macro level like geopolitical
power exchanges and
intra and interstate conflicts like what
you see in syria and what you see in
ukraine
those are disgusting terrible things war
is a terrible thing that is a famous
quote
but people
will persevere people will
come through
i hope so i hope so
and i hope we don't do something
um that i'll probably also ask you about
later on is things that
um destroy the possibility of
perseverance which is things like
nuclear war things things that can do
such tremendous
uh damage that we we will never recover
but yeah i i
amidst your pragmatic pessimism
i think both you and i have a kind of uh
maybe small flame of optimism in there
about the perseverance of the human
species in general
let me ask you about
intelligence agencies outside of the cia
can you illuminate
what is the most powerful intelligence
agency in the world
the cia the fsb formerly the kgb the mi6
mossad
uh i've got a chance to interact with a
lot of israelis while in ukraine just
incredible people yeah in terms of both
training and skill just all
every fr american soldiers too just um
american military is incredible i just
uh the competence and skill of the
military
um the united states israeli i got to
interact in ukrainian as well it's just
it's striking it's beautiful i i just
love people i love carpenters or people
that are just extremely good at their
job and they take pride in their
craftsmanship it's uh it's beautiful to
see and i imagine the same kind of thing
happens inside of intelligence agencies
as well that we don't get to appreciate
because of the secrecy same thing with
like lockheed martin maybe the the cto
of lockheed martin it breaks my heart as
a person who loves
engineering um because of the
cover of secrecy we'll never get to know
some of the incredible engineering that
happens inside vlocky martin and boeing
and raytheon yeah um you know there's
kind of this idea that these are
you know people have conspiracy theories
an