Russia's Final Warning?

All right, hello everybody and welcome to Geopolitical Trends, where truth matters. Very excited to be with you as always, but also because we have none other than Larry Johnson with us today in this fascinating conversation. We're going to be talking about a very, very, very, very interesting topic. You all know, guys, about the meeting that just took place in Washington between the Prime Minister of UK and, uh, of course, President Biden. And the conversation was about whether to grant the green light to Ukraine to strike inside Russia. So with Larry today, we're gonna be discussing a whole aspect of not only just this, this one here, but also the other, uh, sort of issues related to all this and what it means for the future of global security. So welcome, Larry. Good to see you as always. Very, very, very excited to have you here, man. And I'm very appreciative of your time as well. So, so I'm gonna start with one question. We're gonna get into it right away, uh, uh, Larry. Uh, the first question I would like to ask you is, uh, should we consider the statement by the Russian president as a final warning?

Oh yeah, no, absolutely. I think we could— if you would have asked a week ago, this today, if the West was likely to give the green light to Ukraine, I would have said most likely yes. And then Thursday last week, Vladimir Putin happened, and he came out and very directly, very, uh, he was very serious. Very tired. I call it being tight-jawed. And, uh, he laid it out that any, any of these missile attacks, he said, are like drones. These missiles require intelligence input, geocoordinates that are encrypted. It can only be done with the assistance of either U.S. or other NATO personnel. And so he said this would be viewed as an act of war, a direct attack on Russia, and Russia would retaliate accordingly. And then that was followed up with, uh, Ambassador Nebenzia, uh, the Russia's ambassador to the UN, reiterating that. And then the, uh, Russia's ambassador to the United States doubled down on it. And then Russia turned around and tossed out 6 British intelligence personnel from Britain's embassy in the UK. So sent a very, very clear message: don't cross this red line. The problem is, you know, well, let me first say, uh, so the key people in the Biden administration got the message and they backed away. On Wednesday, as I said, they were leaking information to people like Congressman McCaul Texas. The Brits were leaking to the Financial Times of London, yeah, we're going to do it, yeah, it's going to green light for Ukraine. Friday there was an entirely different set of leaks and nope, nope, we're going to stay with the status quo. So I think they understood. Now that said, you have a problem with a lot of these pundits in the United States in particular, people like Ben Hodges, David Petraeus, uh, you know, these people are a disgrace because they go around saying— John Bolton, speaking of a big disgrace, uh, they, they keep saying that, oh, Russia's just bluffing. Putin doesn't mean— he's just bluffing. You know, I, I never played Russian roulette, you know, where you get a revolver full cartridge in and you spin the chamber and then press the trigger while holding the gun against your head or against your crotch, and just to see if you'd be lucky and it won't go off. That's what these guys are trying to— in the West, are trying to play a form of Russian roulette and just hope that Russia doesn't respond and fire like they've promised that they would.

So, so if we are to think, Larry, and I'm— I usually, as I just came back from Eastern Europe and, and the conversation there is completely the opposite of what NATO is saying. In other words, the locals, at least the ones I had a conversation with, those are not high officials in the government and so forth, but still you get a sentiment that they don't want their country to get dragged into what NATO is planning on doing. Yeah, because they fully understand what Russia is going to do.

Yeah.

And my question is, Larry, should we at least— not at least, but Can we consider that the possibility of Ukraine being given the green light to go ahead and strike? Is there any possibility to that?

Well, yeah, I mean, there's the possibility that Ukraine may try to do it on its own or that the Brits may decide to just try to go it alone. But I think now that's very remote. The situation in Ukraine is really— it's getting more desperate by the day., and the West now doesn't know what to do. Yeah, this is like, uh, this, uh, I guess is akin to being on the Titanic right after it was hit by the iceberg, or it struck the iceberg, that, you know, they didn't realize how bad the damage was. They didn't realize how quickly the ship could sink, and there was some confusion in the decision-making, you know, hesitation. Because if they're thinking properly, they would have evacuated the, you know, the passengers as quickly as possible into the lifeboats to get away instead of waiting until it was too late to do much to save themselves. Well, that's exactly the situation the West and Ukraine find themselves in. All of the objective signs of the collapse are there, and each day this, you know, this force that went into Kursk is being not just decimated but destroyed. They're going to be— let's put this way— General Custer's troops there had a better chance of getting out than these guys do. Okay, it is— it's that bad. And you know, the Russians are just— they're encircling, they're closing in, and they've got the one thing that the Ukrainians don't have, which is a reliable line of communication, supply lines, so they can be resupplied with everything they need to continue to press an attack, whereas the Ukrainians don't have that. And they're running out of vehicles, and they're running out of fuel, and they're running out of ammunition. So, you know, like I said, this is coming to a catastrophic end for Ukraine. And while there may have been a point 2 or 3 months ago where the West might have thought about using, um, you know, nuclear weapons or long-range missiles to go in, uh, they're moving away from that now and fast. And as you pointed out, the complete lack of unity and consensus in NATO about what to do You got different voices, and, and the key voices on the front lines, those in Poland, those in Romania, those in Germany, they're going, uh, and then Czech Republic, they're, they're, they're the ones most likely to get hit, and they're the ones, uh, least likely to encourage more aggressive action.

Yeah, well, this is why, at least, uh, in, in Poland, when I stopped by near the Baltic Sea and the conversation with people there, it was kind of like, you know, we don't understand why the government is dragging our country into a war with Russia that we don't even— we don't need, we don't want, and why the Americans are pushing us into. That to me explains why the statement by the MP, the Polish MP Gregory Braun, when Tony Blinken landed there and he said straightforward, go home, man. We don't need you here. I know, rightly so, rightly so. Now, how this can coordinate with the statement by Medvedev? I had a chance to read an article in a foreign language. It was in Anatolia, and I translated that stuff into English. The, the translation somehow might be like— but the gist of it is that Medvedev, who's, by the way, he's— for those who do not know, uh, Dmitry Medvedev is the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council. So he said that Russia could destroy Kyiv with new advanced technological weapons. Is he referring here to tactical nukes here?

No, I don't think so. You know, I think that— I think there are some capabilities that the Russians have not yet revealed. You know, it's fascinating watching the— a lot of the military pundits in the West since the start of this operation sit back and they are both ridiculing and highly critical of what Russia's doing. Now, I'm not suggesting that Russia's approach has been perfect from the outset and that they haven't made mistakes and they haven't adjusted, but The Western military should be the last one after 60, 70 years of debacle after debacle to speak up and try to instruct other people. I mean, we're like, we're like the football coach who's lost every game and we're trying to tell Bill Belichick, who's won 3 Super Bowls or 4 Super Bowls, what he needs to do to coach better. You know, Shut up. You're really in no position to talk. Okay. The fact of the matter is, I believe that the most powerful, most competent military force in the world today is Russia. If for no other reason that they've been out on the field playing and they've been winning on the field. It's not like we're not watching them pull out of Afghanistan. The Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, but at least even there, compare and contrast the, you know, the sort of the goat rope that was the United States approach. It got Marines killed, had people killed, you know, utter panic with the Russians did it over about a 9, 10 month period. They got, they were being waved at as they crossed the bridge. They weren't being shot at. And the government they left behind stayed in power another 3 years. So again, even on something as basic as how to, okay, we're going to pull out of this. We're going to withdraw, extricate ourselves from this combat environment and move on. The Russians even knew how to do that. We can't even do that. So it's like this nonsense about the military prowess of the West. Yeah, do we have some great personnel that are highly capable? Sure, sure. But again, even when you go back and you look at the war in Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, our guys were not going up against trained fighters. You know, when you— the— I don't want to minimize the accomplishments of SEAL Team 6 and Delta Force, but still, guys, you know, you're going against civilians. True. And, and people who are trying to defend their homes. So, you know, there may have been some genuine, quote, terrorist bad guys in those groups, but you also just think of it, what would it be like if you know, a bunch of Russians or Chinese were here in the United States doing what we did in Afghanistan or Iraq, we'd be shooting at them too. We'd be blowing them up. We'd be killing them because they'd be invaders as we were. And we never quite see ourselves in that role. And yet we're quick to, you know, accuse Russia of, uh, they're invading Ukraine. Well, let's at least deal with the history. Uh, the Russia— Russia was founded basically in Kiev more than 1,000 years ago. So it's not like Russia— this was some, you know, completely separate entity that had no relationship whatsoever.

Yeah, a lot of people in the West here, Larry, they don't know the history of, uh— I had a chance to stop at the cemetery in, uh, in one of the cities called Me'ov. In, in Poland. And what I noticed was— I wish I could have— I have the picture somewhere on my phone, but, uh, I saw the, the graves of the Russian soldiers who fought in World War II with no names. It's just because they could not be identified. A massive amount of the graves of the Russian soldiers. And a lot of people of us here in the West have no understanding that if it weren't for Russians or Soviet Union back then, they won't be able to defeat the Nazis, right? So it wasn't the Americans that defeat— that won World War II, it was the Russians.

Yeah, well, you know, we've got our problem is we get the Hollywood treatment, you know. Oh yeah. And, you know, with Hollywood, it is, uh, the, you know, D-Day, uh, Battle of the Bulge, uh, well, A Bridge Too Far. Um, uh, you know, maybe El Alamein got a, you know, a pretty good movie out of it. And then a lot of the Pacific, uh, you know, The Sands of Iwo Jima with John Wayne back in the day. But we, as far as the war in Europe goes, we get us— we have, uh, a perspective that really was constructed in the aftermath of World War II with the assistance of former German generals. This one cat by the name of Gellin, he was, he basically was brought into the CIA early on and they painted this picture of the Soviets that was completely inaccurate. And what we only learned about years later that Gellin, he was, he claimed that he had this inside source inside the Soviet Union that was giving the intelligence to the Germans. And turned out he was being run— he didn't realize it, but his source was, was a Jew. And I think it was Bulgaria or former Yugoslavia, that what was known as Yugoslavia back then, that was under the control of the NKVD, of the secret police inside the Soviet Union. So the Soviets were actually feeding the Germans misinformation, disinformation as part of the intelligence. Well, that guy came in and helped shape our perceptions. And so the, you know, average American doesn't even realize both the scale and scope of the battles that the Russians fought on, you know, by just by comparison The Germans— I mean, the Soviets in the Battle of Stalingrad, they suffered over 700,000 killed in action, I believe. The United States in the entirety of World War II, including both what happened in European, African theaters, and Japan, lost as much as 470,000. So think about that. Just in one battle alone, the Soviets lost twice as many soldiers as we did in the entirety of the war. And that was, that was just that one battle. I mean, so we have no sense of the scale of loss. And, and that goes back to what we talked about at the beginning with this misperception on the, in the, this failure in the West to believe that Vladimir Putin and the other members of his government mean exactly what they say.

Yeah, so that's— I, I have this gut feeling, Larry, about this time around, uh, if, if, if, if, if the West moves forward with allowing Ukraine, uh, Russia is not going to hold back. And, and I hope it never gets to that because I kind of, uh, have an understanding of what, what, what the massive amount of destruction that's gonna results from that.

You know, we're sort of like that kid that's always been told not to touch the hot stove, but every time we go out and touch the stove, it's turned off and it's not hot. So you're like, ah, see, I can do it, there's no problem. Well, the West, and particularly the United States, the only war we fought in the last let's say 200 years that has really left a mark where it was a caution against continued war like this. It was the Civil War.

Civil War. Yeah, you're right.

Other than that, you know, you're right. We do it. Go Google sometime US losses in World War II. Good luck with that, particularly in the European theater. And I was shocked, I was shocked by this when I did it because I thought it would be pretty straightforward. You know, you think everybody had a dog tag, they could add up the number of dog tags that came home and the number that were missing. And you know, there's your number. I, the numbers range anywhere from 270,000 to 470,000. So still here we are 60, 70 years late, 80 years later. Yeah. We still have no sense. Of what was the actual loss of life on our side, but it was nothing in comparison to what the Soviets and the Russian people endured. Yeah, the same thing in Vietnam. You know, I'm not in any way dismissing the sacrifice of those who died, but there's 58,000. That's, that's how many we lose in automobile accidents in a year. We don't care. I mean, we lose 58,000 people in automobile accidents. We're not out in the streets protesting saying, "Stop the cars, lock up the car." You know, we don't do that. Hell, we'll happily accept 100,000 people a year dying from fentanyl overdose. Okay, you know, live free or die. You know, we just don't, we don't care. Here are the Russians, where almost every family, everybody who's alive in Russia today will have a relative who died in the Great Patriotic War, as they call it. They remember, it left a mark. And that's because we haven't gone through that. I think we're so damn bellicose because we don't really see it as a risk. We have no idea about the price that could be imposed upon us if we keep pursuing this, uh, this type of policy.

And I think this is why I believe, uh, Larry, and correct me if I'm wrong, why in the parade, the, the Russian, in, in their culture, the parade day, I think May 9th, where they will have March, March of the Immortals, they call it. Yeah, they'll have the pictures of the old members of families that passed away, whatever, just to keep the memory alive. And, uh, if I'm not mistaken, was not over 20 million people died The Russians?

Well, actually, about, uh, I think it was more like 27 million. Wow. And, and now I just saw one of the, one of the, uh, viewers, uh, asked, well, what about Asia? And they make a fair point. Yeah, the, the two peoples in World War II that suffered the greatest loss were the Russians and the Chinese. Chinese. I mean, the Japanese slaughtered incredible numbers. I mean, There's over a million in Nanking, I believe. I mean, just horrific stuff. And again, the United States didn't punish some of those people. We let them go at the end of the war. So yeah, it is, it's really reprehensible that, and the irony is right now the West continues to portray the Russians and the Chinese as the two biggest imperialist aggressors in the world. And yet both of those countries have been, have been the least active in projecting military force into other countries. All the NATO countries have been into Iraq and been into Afghanistan over the last 20 years. As an example, and you know, the, the list of countries where, you know, the United States is meddling day after day, politically, militarily, it's, it's a lengthy, lengthy list.

Yeah, well, it seems to be coming to an end at some point because we start to see now, uh, uh, the, the world already has been shifting to a different direction, multipolar, that is. This leads me to you, since you mentioned China, uh, uh, Larry, and I was going to ask you a question regarding the recent statements by, uh, uh, the Chinese, uh, uh, stating that they will come to Russia's aid or support militarily in case NATO attacks Russia. So my question, Larry, is, uh, in your opinion, how do you view the Russian-Chinese new era of this strategic partnership? How do you place it within the global order?

Kissinger's nightmare come true, you know that.

Oh, he wasn't, he wasn't hoping for it, right?

No, but look, the foundation of U.S. policy vis-à-vis Russia and China going back to 1972 when Nixon made his trip to China was to keep the Chinese and the Russians apart. To drive a wedge, to provoke a conflict between the two if we could. Yeah. You remember in Ghostbusters, the first movie, where Sigourney Weaver, she becomes possessed of one spirit, and Rick Moranis, he's possessed of another spirit. And I think it's Harold Ramis goes, oh, we got to keep those two apart. Don't let them get together. It could be the end of the world. Well, maybe that was sort of a film allegory metaphor for Russia and China because US policy was to keep them apart. And now give Joe Biden credit, brought them together as a result of US sanctions after the, in the immediate aftermath of the start of the special military operation, Russia and China come together, and it's a— it's an economic partnership, it's a political partnership, and it's a military partnership. You know, they've been— it was— this didn't just develop overnight because we know that, uh, 5 years ago now, Russia and China were conducting joint naval military exercises with Iran. So it's not like they've just started cooperating. But the difference is, at least the public statement now by China, is again telling the West exactly, you get in a fight with Russia, you're in a fight with us. And the West has got to, you know, particularly the United States, we can't even fight the damn Houthis, okay? That's true. You know, we walking around, yeah, we're bad. We're bad. Yeah, we're bad. Bad in the traditional sense of the word bad. We can't do what we think we could do. And it is, you know, to think that we can't contain the Houthis, but somehow we're going to contain Russia and China. Good luck with that.

And the recent naval drills that the Russians and the Chinese conducted You know, to me, I've been always observing this kind of exercises, but this one, this one was, was slightly different in, in terms of the size. Yeah, size of the— and that's to me was a writing on the wall as to, okay, I think it's not— I think it's most likely Russia and China moving forward now to the next phase of that strategic relationship.

Well, so let's, let's run the timeline. It was roughly in February, January of 2023 that Xi Jinping went to Moscow, correct? I think, I think that was when he went around that time.

Yes.

Okay. And they had lots of, uh, talks and discussions. Well, in my experience in scripting military exercises, the planning process for it usually starts 18 months out. So let's run the timeline. 11 months in, uh, 2023, and here we are coming up on 9 months. That's a total of 20 months. So the planning for this exercise that we saw over the last couple of weeks started, I would tell you, back then. It was one of the direct results out of that meeting, the side conversations between the respective defense ministers, is we agreed that we're going to conduct a major joint naval operation in the Arctic, in the Pacific, and in the East Indian Ocean. We're going to show our capability to work together on a global basis. So this, you know, just a reminder, this wasn't something developed in the last 2 or 3 weeks. And it is, I think, when you look at the timing of the meeting between Xi Jinping and Putin in Moscow, and then that's when, you know, the planning for this would start. That means the planning staffs, what, you know, in the US military, as you know, we call it the J5. And the planning goes on within, uh, that— the planning units in both the Chinese and Russian military.

Interesting. Yeah, well, it just, uh, to me became clear as to where this is headed as far as their partnership moving forward. And, and it's a reflection of the changing, uh, geopolitical landscape, because in Washington still holding to that notion of the world is still unipolar. Reality suggests otherwise, and we're not willing to accept this reality. While talking about China, I, I like to get your insights about, uh, the statement by Turkey. I'm sure you've heard that Turkey is interested in applying for BRICS.

Yeah, yeah.

Now, how do you make a NATO member— so it's almost, if I feel comfortable saying, is BRICS open to NATO members?

Uh, at least, uh, member Turkey, actually, uh, you know, NATO members probably could join BRICS, but when they join BRICS, they are essentially rejecting NATO, uh, because they, they are going to align themselves with Russia and China. And it's a rejection of the US dollar as being the reserve currency.

Currency.

And right now, one of the key ways that the United States exerts control over other countries is by using, you know, the power of the dollar. And as long as we keep printing money and these countries keep using that money as the principal means of exchange, yeah, we've got some power and influence over them. But, you know, for Turkey's standpoint, they've spent over 30 years trying to join the European Union, and the European Union keeps telling them to go pound sand, screw off, we don't want you here. You know, imagine what it would be like if you moved to a town and there was only one country club, and you tried to keep joining the country club, and they tell you, you couldn't join for whatever reason, usually a racist reason. They didn't like your religion or they didn't like your ethnic background. And you know, but you, for some reason, you kept applying every year hoping that they'd change their mind, see the light. And you kept, hey, we're the second largest army in NATO, doesn't that count for something? I think finally the Turks woke up and said, It's ridiculous. Screw these people. We're gonna— this other club's forming and they're newer, they're bigger, uh, they're better. And, uh, so yeah, Turkey I think will get in there. And it's, uh, it's— that's why I started talking about this more than a year ago, that the, the rise of BRICS represented one of the most fundamental changes in international order since the end of World War or two. And there are many I know here in this, in the United States, oh, that's ridiculous, they're gonna always need the dollar. You know what, I bet that's what those Romans said about their currency back in around, uh, 70 AD. Oh, we'll always be here, we're— nobody's gonna live without us Romans. Well, history teaches otherwise. You, you History moves on. There was a time when the British pound sterling ruled the waves, ruled the world. Yeah, gone.

Yeah, well, that would be very interesting, especially when it comes down to, uh, the— not only the expansion of the BRICS itself, but also tied to that with the Chinese BRI and this, this strategic partnership between Russia and China. Because one of, one of the areas that I've been paying attention to has to do with the Arctic. This, to me, it's very, very crucial that both the Chinese and the Russians are joining their efforts in securing the access to the energy market over there. And the West, the US, is very thinking into ways of how they're going to get involved into all this.

Look, I mean, we can't even— we can't even launch a rocket to the space station. Okay. We got two astronauts stranded up there because of NASA. So does it shock anybody that we've sunk to this kind of level of incompetence? All we're good at is, you know, producing porn, pedophilia, and theme parks, and maybe financial instruments. That, that's, you know, United States has become the perverted social media creator of the world.

Yeah. Sad to see. Sad to see. It is literally still our country, but it's sad to see. And what gets to me, Larry, you know what gets to me the most is when you speak like this, all of a sudden you become anti-America. You become this person who hates America, whatever. And to me, it was like always a weak argument.

Right.

You know, You— we presenting the facts as we see them. You go into the streets and you see the crumbling infrastructure, you see the education system broken, you see the healthcare and so forth, the tax system broken and so forth, corruption in the government. And when you speak as a citizen because it's your duty to do so, all of a sudden you are labeled as anti-American, anti-this, anti-that.

Right.

Always looks at it like weak arguments anyway. So Uh, I want to shift to one particular, uh, uh, uh, event that just took place, and this one has to do with the Houthis. As you know, they launched the missile into Tel Aviv. That changing the dynamics, but that's not what I want to focus on. I want to focus on one specific aspect, Larry. I like to get your insights also to see whether I was thinking in the right way or not. When the missile was launched About 24 hours or 26 hours later, the United States issued the order for the USS Roosevelt to move out of the area. Is there any link between these two?

Yeah, potentially, potentially, yes, because what they launched, what the Houthis launched, yeah, is a rocket that traveled, uh, about Mach 7. So we're talking— that's correct, uh, it was actually closer to Mach 9, 6,666 miles an hour at least. Yeah, uh, people remember the speed of sound is roughly 751 at sea level, 51 miles per hour. So, you know, that's fast. Um, and, um this, when the Houthis fired it, it sort of shocked the Israelis and shocked the United States because none of our air defense systems could stop it. Now, see, one of the, one of the challenges that there's always been with these hypersonic missiles is, you know, when they're traveling that fast, when they're traveling at 7,000, 8,000 miles per hour,, it generates the friction. And the lower they are in the atmosphere, the more frictions that's generated off of the metal parts, the ceramic parts on that, uh, aircraft, on the projectile. And, you know, we saw this back in the day when our American— the capsules with like Apollo 13, they would come back into the atmosphere butt first, and as they're going down that's flaming out around them because of the friction with the atmosphere. And during that time, it cuts communication because we could not communicate with the astronauts. We had to wait, you know, remember all the different movies, the drama of waiting. Hello, Apollo 13, are you there? Over. Oh, and then the voice goes, yeah, we're here. And the audience breaks into, you know, it's always one of those dramatic moments. Well, Why is that relevant to this? If you've got a guided missile that functions off of GPS and it's traveling that fast and it's quick, creates this plasma around it that ends up blocking communication signals, that means that the faster it's going, the least— less control you may have over it. The Russians, however, to my understanding, are the only ones that have solved that problem. So what that means is with these missiles, one of the things is as they're getting approaching target, they would have to slow down to a speed so that they could then reestablish communication and the GPS signals could be used to guide it in. Well, Clearly, the Houthis didn't build, you know, they didn't make this, they didn't engineer this. This is beyond their scientific and engineering capability. They may have some smart people there, but the United States hasn't even been able to produce that kind of missile yet. Uh, so this means only one of two sources. This was either by the Iranians because the Iranians do have a hypersonic missile called the Fattah. And then the Russians got at least 3 variants, uh, Kinzhal, Iskander, um, did— we don't know what kind of missile it was, but it was either given to the Houthis by the Iranians or by the Russians.

What I know, Larry, is when I look at the distance, uh, right on the map, the bottom of Yemen, right here. Oh, actually was launched from the north all the way to Israel. Now, throughout the Red Sea here in the location, uh, the, the, the US and even French or you or British, whatever, they couldn't even, uh, uh, deal with that because that's how fast, as you mentioned, for the speed for it to cross those 2,000 The key to this was the timing. The timing was 11:02, 11 minutes and 02 seconds. And that tells me the reason why the US might end up making that decision to move a USS aircraft out of the area for fear of being attacked.

Yeah, I'm not sure. I don't recall the timing. Rely upon you for that. I— yeah, but if, if they gave the order to move the day after that missile was fired, then that would tell you everything you need to know.

Yeah, yeah, that's why I wasn't— I reached that conclusion, but I said, well, I'll, I'll— I thought of you because I was thinking about talking to you about it. So now I'll run it by, uh, by, uh, by Larry as well. So now, how this one changed now the, the calculus for all parties involved?

Well, let's break that into sort of two different questions. Yeah, in terms of will it change and should it change. So on the should, yes, I would argue this should change both Israel and the United States approach. They should now recognize that the previous assumption that their various air defense systems could stop missile attack is now no longer viable. And so they say, okay, we've got to rethink what our military strategy is here. Now, that's what they should do. Now, will they do that? I'm not sure. Uh, you know, what is— we've seen Israel over the last week speak increasingly of that they're going to launch this major Lebanon operation. And, you know, sort of one other indicator of that was this— the decision to detonate all of these pagers yesterday. Yeah, let's call it a cyber warfare type of attack. I mean, in launching that kind of preemptive strike using pagers, Israel completely completely exposed, compromised an intelligence, you know, what we call TTPs, you know, tactic, technique, procedure. And once you expose it, you can't go back and use it again usually, you know. It's gonna, it's gonna force it. It will change what Hezbollah does as far as procuring pagers or cell phones or other communication devices. They will only go with assured supply chains. They, you know, up to this point they may have assumed that what they had was safe and secure. It turns out it wasn't. But Israel is insisting on going into Lebanon. Yeah. And what's fascinating today is the stories are out that this was— Israel planned to do this when it launched its invasion into Lebanon as a way to disrupt the communications but— and this is the quote from Israeli sources— but they were afraid it had been compromised, so they were in a use-it-or-lose-it situation, so they went ahead and used it. Now, from— again, I'm looking at this from the standpoint of an intelligence operation, and you gotta do some cost-benefit analysis. The— this was an expensive operation to put together. And I'd be like, boy, I give the Israelis credit for— it was incredibly creative, highly technical. But it means that they had to come up with a system to both purchase, you know, an amount of these devices and then get them into a place where they could be disassembled and an explosive charge could be put inside. Nice. And placed in such a way that you would have full control over, uh, what command would be sent that would trigger that device to go off. Because even if you've got an explosive inside, you're still going to need something to initiate that explosion. And you then— again, again, in terms of putting an explosive inside a device like that, you've got to make sure that it's sturdy enough that it's not going to explode if you drop it. You know, there are some explosives such as what's called TATP, triacetate triperoxide. That was what the ISIS folks love to use, and Al-Qaeda. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, that was what was in his shoes. And it's the kind of thing, if you walk hard enough on it, it will explode. But, but, you know, they put this all together and I could You know, I can make the case that, all right, they, they're going to disrupt Hezbollah's intelligence network on the eve, but that's not what they did. These devices are circulating in Lebanon. You— and once they're out, you have no control over who has it. So you don't know if it's a soldier or a civilian. And inevitably, they killed civilians. They they killed a 10-year-old girl. So this was Israel, instead of launching a preemptive military strike that was targeted, you know, I could see getting, you know, inserting the phones into, uh, 10 Hezbollah leaders, you know, to pull that off. Okay, that would be dramatic. Israel has assassinated a Hezbollah type before. Yeah, but, um, what they did in this case is nothing but terrorism. It is, it's, it's no different than Hezbollah packing a car full of explosives, driving it into a street next to a cafe where there are, you know, 5 Israeli soldiers sitting, detonating it, killing those 5 soldiers, but also killing and wounding some of the other civilians. Absolutely no different. So, you know, now Israel has certified its status as a terrorist state. Wow.

Well, guys, by the way, just prepare your questions because I'm going to address one last one here. Just in the meantime, just prepare some of your questions and we'll take a few questions for Larry as we come in closer to concluding here. So I want to take one last topic I want to address with you, Larry. And I know I didn't— it just crossed my mind quickly because Uh, I intend to do some speaking engagements regarding this area. Uh, I've— someone reached out to ask me about, can you talk about this topic? So Central Asia, why is Central Asia so crucial geopolitically, economically, and, and, and for, for the rest of the world?

And so what constitutes Central Asia for you? India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan.

I'm talking in the area of Kazakhstan. Yeah, mainly for that area, that part of the world.

Well, it— in terms of natural resources, in terms of being a critical supply of either essential minerals, rare earth minerals, or oil or gas, It's not, you know, it's not, it's not critical. It is, it's, it's important only from the standpoint of that the West wants to have influence there in order to be able to attack Russia and attack China. That's it. This is, this is now all about, uh, being able to again try to control Russia and China. That's the obsession of You know, the West has become this hegemon, this imperialist power, and that's, that's, that's the only way we can approach life anymore is use countries in Central Asia as a springboard to go after Russia and China. And I know that a buddy of mine was just, uh, he just came back from that area doing training for the U.S. State Department's Anti-Terrorism Assistance Training Program. I used to be the deputy director of that program in terms of the policy side. And, you know, the United States, he was out, he was out there for 3 months doing sniper training and other, you know, let's call it paramilitary training or security training for police and security forces. And again, that's one of the things the United States is doing to try to build up relationships with these countries so that they'll do what we want them to do instead of falling under the, uh, spell of Soviet influence or Russian influence.

Wow, very, very, very fascinating. Very interesting, Larry. Uh, by the way, guys, for those who wants to, uh, check out Larry's, uh, links on other social media, I'm gonna provide it for you right here. Just check out the screen. And I have it also on the, uh, on the description part. So go back to the video, the descriptions for the video, and I put all Larry's links over there. So, so let me, let's take some questions from the audience here and, uh, we'll just go from there. So first of all, I want to say thank you to Robo. Thank you for your Super Sticker. And you wrote, thanks for bringing Mr. Johnson on today. You're most welcome. You are most welcome. So, uh, Taroman, I want to say thank you also for your Super Sticker. Taroman is an avid supporter of the channel behind the scenes, so appreciate it. And, uh, I hope I pronounced it correctly. Thank you so much for your Super Sticker. Truly appreciate you for that. And the last person here is Darren Arnie. Thank you for becoming a channel member. So thank you all. All right, let me see a question here from you guys for Larry, and I'm gonna scroll down. Uh, we got over, over 1,000 live, Larry.

Oh, okay.

Just what it shows here. Uh, usually there would be more than that, but, uh, so it's hard to scroll through all this. And I'm gonna— if you typed your question earlier, please retype it again. Because I'm gonna start from the bottom here, uh, since the chat is so long here. So I'll start with Matt Backey. Good to see you, Matt. Uh, question: could that missile have been a message to the West from the Russians in retaliation, message regarding the permission for the long-range missile into Russia?

Yes. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, that's— there are two possibilities, is either Russia or Iran. And maybe Russia and Iran collaborated with the Houthis. I mean, let's remember that you've had Shoigu and the Defense Minister Shoigu, he just made his second visit to Iran in the last 2 months. And so we've seen a large amount of Russian military airlift flying in and out of Tehran and other airports in the country. So very well could be.

Yeah, and I was aware of the delegation that the Houthi delegation that went to Moscow visited over there. So that does to me make perfect sense. So, uh, question, uh, this is from Speaking the Truth. Question: Dr. O, is Larry's YouTube channel still banned?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was— YouTube completely erased my channel. Claimed I was involved with hate speech.

No, that's not right.

Which is just ridiculous. But yeah, you know, it'd be one thing if they could identify what the hateful material was.

Yeah.

And then say, hey, take this down or we'll ban you. That'd be one thing. But they don't even do that. It's just not even— no chance for a warning. But again, this was just— this is pure pure attempts to suppress free speech.

And you don't— I've known you now, Larry, and I've been aware of you for quite a while, and I never, never crossed my mind you would be that type of person to speak in that kind of terms or language, because that's just not who you are. So, and to me, it was like, this is what I said earlier about when we start speaking the truth, become labeled as, you know, that's not right because that's not right.

I can imagine they may, you know, I've made a couple of comments where I've likened, you know, one of the problems with the West is we're delusional, we're out of touch with reality, and I cite as one piece of evidence of that our obsession with the transgender movement. Now, that doesn't mean I hate transgender people, and I certainly don't advocate any kind of violence or persecution. Towards transgender people. But I use, you know, it's the same way as denying that the sun rises in the east and going out and saying that, hey, I can stand out in the middle of a lightning storm with a one iron and will not be struck by light. Actually, if you had a one iron, you probably wouldn't be struck by lightning because they say not even God could hit the one iron. That's true.

So, well, all right, I can't thank you enough, man, for really carving out time for us here, for the whole community to learn new insights from you, as always. And on behalf of the entire community, I say thank you for your, uh, time. Thank you for being so generous, uh, in sharing the knowledge with us all.

So, pleasure. Thank you for your patience.

You're welcome. So All right, uh, guys, I hope you enjoyed this conversation with Larry here. As always, there's always something to learn from Larry, uh, because that's, that's the reason why, uh, I always like to have Larry here on and off when he is available. He was kind enough, just when I sent the email, he emailed me back, and, and I'm very grateful to that. So, uh, remember to join me on Friday. I will be talking about the Turkey and BRICS for that, and, uh, uh, we just go from there. Uh, of course I'll answer some of your questions. So as always, remember, geopolitics impacts your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, guys.

Bye-bye.