let's start with the chinese view about what's going on uh when the war first
started they were really excited because they had always seen this as a potential template
you know the the russians conquer ukraine quickly the world sucks it up and ukraine ceases to exist
the russians absorb it uh the russians pay no real diplomatic or economic price and we go back
to a multipolar world in which the russians are bigger and everyone has just decided to
accept the done deal and move on yeah that's not happening so number one uh ukraine while they're
massively over performing has really only been preparing for this war for eight years and did
not have a lot of financial resources to do so taiwan has been preparing for war with china for
75 years and they are a wealthy country and there is not a flat land border between china and taiwan
it's an ocean so there's always going to be a much higher level of casualties and much level higher
level difficulty and now the uh the chinese know that uh two the sanctions i gotta admit i'm really
surprised that the world came together especially europe in the way that it did so quickly if those
sanctions were put against china it would destroy the regime say what you will about the russian
economy but it is a large net exporter of energy foodstuffs and the stuff that is necessary to grow
foodstuffs the chinese are huge importers of all of those things so the same exact sanctions put
against china would destroy the place in less than a couple of months but i think the one
issue that has terrified the chinese the most is that the the boycotts everybody's left
russia and that is the development model for china they need that for the market access they need for
that for the technological transfer if they didn't have foreign corporations operating you
know they'd be dead and the most horrifying part is that consumers individual people have been able
to pressure companies to leave russia the chinese don't even admit that that's a force in the world
individuals uh so everything that they thought they knew everything that they thought was a base
assumption that was fine has been ripped apart in the last six weeks and they now have to start
from scratch okay uh the chinese the russians subs are fairly quiet not as quiet as the american subs
and while they're they do have a lot of them most of them are not ballistic missile capable
uh also uh the russian fleet is split into four there's a pacific fleet a baltic fleet a
black sea fleet and an arctic fleet so it's not like these are all in one place that they can
sail together and do a giant armored punch and it's very easy to monitor everything that is
coming out of the black sea because that's going through the bosphorus everything that comes out
of the baltic because it has to go through the danish straits and everything that comes out of um
on the arctic because there's a buoy line in the north atlantic so those three components
of the fleets i don't suggest that they're no challenge whatsoever but it's really easy to
have a force multiplier because of the geography the pacific fleet is different because there's a
trench right off that they can drop down into drop below the thermocline and then maybe be undetected
but the united states has been tracking them there for 60 years and they're pretty good at it
so i'm not too worried about that china has to get through the first island chain
and so no matter where the chinese sail they have to go through a strait that's monitored
uh visually and with sonar uh so i don't mean to suggest that there's no military
threat there at all but it's a very manageable one and it's impossible for the chinese and the
russians to coordinate just because of the geography uh let's move to ukraine
when the uh russians failed to take kiev in the first week they realized that this wasn't going
to be an easy war and they needed to go back to one of their old old school plans that they didn't
in uh excuse me world war ii but then resurrected for grozny and then polished in aleppo and that
is a complete obliteration of all civilian infrastructure the idea being if you destroy
the capacity of people to live in a place they will naturally split themselves into two groups
one becomes refugees and they leave and so you don't have to worry about them and the other
become fighters and so anyone who stays you can shoot on site and we're seeing that being carried
out in mariopol right now where the russians don't just have their better troops they've also brought
in the wagner group and mercenaries from syria and the chechens and they're literally going block to
glock shooting anyone who happens to be left we know that it's already killed at least 50 000
it's probably closer to a hundred and they're just going to go until there's no one left
and that is now the strategy for each and every ukrainian city now that is horrific
from an amoral point of view it's a reasonable war plan when your goal is not necessarily to
take the territory but to get past the territory to get to what you really want the russians are
trying to plug the gaps in the mountains and between the mountains and the seas that have
always been the invasion corridors and there's two of those corridors on the other side of ukraine
one that goes southwest into romania and one that goes uh northwest into poland that's what they're
ultimately after here and if they don't have to occupy a population in ukraine that actually makes
their long-term job easier if they can win the war here's the problem from the american point of view
you guys remember that 40-mile convoy in the first week of the war that was going down from belarus
to kiev well it stalled out in a day because they forgot to bring fuel trucks and two days later the
soldiers had to walk back to belarus because they had run out of food now american defense planners
looked at that and got really excited they're like oh wow the russians aren't as tough as
we thought we can totally take them in a war and then everyone had a nap and thought about it for
a while they're like holy crap the russians are not all that we can totally take a moment of war
since we know that the russians intention is not to stop in ukraine and is to go into multiple
nato countries we know that that fight between american and russian forces is destined to happen
and we now know how it will end the russians will be obliterated and they'll be faced with a simple
choice a strategic retreat across the entire line of contact all the way back to russia maybe
even further or escalate to involve nukes since the russians see this as an existential crisis
that's a fight we have to prevent and so the united states specifically nato in general
is sending any weapon system that we possibly can that can be carried or put in a truck nothing that
requires on-site training nothing that requires a supply chain that involves americans because then
you have an american defense envelope nothing that requires american troops on the ground but
everything else we're sending in because if we can't kill russia in ukraine
nukes come into play uh countries that are closer to europe obviously
even if this war doesn't go nuclear if you're poland and you're romanian you know ultimately
the russians are coming for you that changes your math and that changes the risks you're willing
to take and if you border poland or romania same general thing also the central european countries
have a lot of equipment that dates back to the soviet period that the ukrainians know how to work
so you don't have to worry nearly as much about that logistical supply line
the concern is going to be fuel ukraine used to get all of their fuel from russia
and now we're in a situation where if you're going to supply them with something like a helicopter
that takes a lot of fuel and so there are going to be trucks that have to cross and there has to be
supply chains going back and forth luckily a fuel truck doesn't necessarily require a nato driver
you can just turn that over to ukraine but i totally agree that we are we are moving
into a gray area here bit by bit by bit uh the systems that the americans are providing are
upgraded systems of the things that the ukrainians already know so for example um when we went from
javelins to stingers not a big leap in terms of training when we went from javelins to
switchblades same general thing and once you can operate a switchblade you can operate a switchlet
blade b which is the one with the bigger warhead so bit by bit by bit we're moving
up uh the the opportunity slash concern for the next stage that the americans are considering are
predator and reaper drones that requires a little bit more maintenance because they're not fire and
forget they actually come back and have to land but if we can get predators and reapers into the
ukrainian's hands they can blow up the kirk's the kirch strait bridge and then all of a sudden
the crimea is completely cut off and from a war point of view that would be fantastic because most
of the gains the russians have been made have been out of crimea uh we're in war there are risks uh
keeping the war in ukraine is the best way the u.s has right now to manage that risk
i don't mean to suggest it's perfect there's no negotiation with the putin government on this
uh the russians peop the russians the government and the people
see getting control of those gateways as an existential threat and they know because of
their advanced decrepitude in their demographic structure that this is their last chance if they
don't do it now they it won't happen and then the next time there's a real war the russians will be
unmoored in the eurasian hoardlands and they will have nowhere to hide and nothing aware to regroup
uh there's no defensive position east of the polish and the best arabian gaps the
russians would be completely destroyed in the next war that's why they're doing it
now they are not interested in talking any talk of negotiations is just fluff to distract
from the fact that they are in the first stage of a war that is meant to obliterate two countries
and occupy all or for all or more of five more yeah i would argue that there's nobody in the
west who's doing the appeasement right now there's definitely levels of commitment that are different
um and i think we're only a few weeks away from either the europeans number one
putting a spine in germany and cutting off the energy exports or number two the ukrainians
just saying screw it and blowing up the pipelines themselves because right now you know the russians
are getting almost a billion dollars a day of income from their sales to europe and that is
not a tenable situation uh especially considering what is at stake here for the rest of the
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