Ukraine/NATO/West: Negotiating with Russia is Inevitable! Conversation w/Larry Johnson!

All right, hello everybody and welcome to Geopolitical Trends, where truth matters. Very, very, very excited to be with you on this April 5th. Uh, I'm excited because I have great guests for you guys. As I told you, I will have Larry Johnson here, so he is here and you, you are in for an interesting discussion here because we're going to be talking about really what's going on not just in Europe, NATO, Russia, but a whole global stage given the, the chaos and tensions that's going on. So, but briefly, I want to say hi to everybody. Taiwan still, John Smith and Willie Holman, thank you all for being here. So I'm not gonna waste too much time here, so I'm gonna get in right away, bringing in my guest. And hello, Larry.

Hi there, how are you? I am well. Thanks for having me.

Great, great. It is a pleasure to have you, and I am very, very grateful. Uh, my audience here is very, very excited to have you here. So, well, to those who do not know who Larry Johnson is, and by the way, I did put a full link for a bio and a link to Larry's Upstock in the description. You can look it up later on. So, because we don't want to waste too much time because there is a lot to cover But I will provide you a brief, uh, some sort of intro here about Larry being a former CIA officer and was also at the State Department at the Counterterrorism Center there. So, and he is currently the managing partner of Burke Associates. So, and you'll find all the details on this one in, in the description. So let's get into the first question, Larry. It's not a question of sort. What do you make out of the Antony Blinken statement recently that he's saying that, and I quote here, Ukraine will become a member of NATO? How crazy is this?

Yeah, well, it's like someone saying, okay, we're going to take the— we're a track and field club and we get together and we run and do all this workout together. So we're gonna let a guy with no arms and no legs join us. Okay, that's Ukraine. No arms, no legs. Now, maybe you can put on some prosthetics, but they're still not going to be able to move like everybody else. This is, this is one of these desperate gestures on the eve of Ukraine's collapse. The United States doesn't have any, you know, offering up to bring Ukraine into NATO would start would expand the war into NATO. And NATO is not in a position to be able to fight Russia, despite all their tough talk. They don't have the industrial base. They don't have the military base. They don't have the, you know, look at the US military, US Army right now is calling back retirees, because they can't fill the ranks. They're not recruiting enough. And the reason they're not recruiting enough is they, their primary recruiting base, which are conservative families that live in the South that are predominantly Caucasian. I don't like to use the term white because, you know, last time I checked my skin color, you know, white is, you know, it's not white, it's pink, you know, some other color. But that's the, you know, that whole racial DEI, diversity, equity, inequality, has penetrated it. And the guys aren't signing up. So, you know, this is, this is such a dumb move by Blinken, but he hasn't distinguished himself as being a particularly bright fellow anyway.

Yeah, I was kind of very, very shocked and surprised that someone holding that position of a Secretary of State, you will think there will be some well-measured statements and but A guy doesn't know right from wrong anyway. But what also triggers my mind, Larry, is about also the statement by Jens Stoltenberg, by stating that NATO now is going to have to allocate $100 billion for the next 5 years. Is this an indication for the extension of the conflict?

No. Well, NATO is not dictating how long this conflict is going to go on. Yeah, NATO, they can go ahead and allocate $100 billion for 5, you know, half a trillion dollars over the next 5 years. Good. But, you know, the war is going to be over by then. It may be over by the end of the summer at the latest. Ukraine is in the process of collapsing militarily and they don't have an answer for it. So there's, unless Russia blows itself up, This is, you know, this is heading towards a predetermined end. It's like if you drive your car off a cliff, and once you're off that cliff and you're falling towards the bottom, you can come up with all sorts of plans. Oh, I'm going to steer left. I'm going to steer right. Oh no, I'm, I'm going to jump out. I'm— you're going to crash. Okay. It doesn't matter what you decide. Once you're off that cliff, gravity's taken over. You're going to crash. That's what— that's the situation that Ukraine is in right now. They're off the cliff.

So, and this is why now— is this why Russia sort of, uh, I'm sure you are aware of the recent call by the Russian President Vladimir Putin when he sort of called up about 150,000 Russian troops for recruitment. Is this an indication No, I'm just thinking outside the box, Larry.

No, no, I think that's disinformation that's been put out.

Really?

Yeah, the reality is last year, Russians were volunteering without call-up, were volunteering at the rate of 42,000 a month. So by the end of the year, you know, I'm not great at math, but that's almost half a million men, right? 480,000, 490,000 plus. Same things happened this year. In fact, the day after the Crocus City Hall, city center terrorist attack, they had an additional large number of people immediately sign up. So, you know, Russia, Russia is putting out a lot of different information, in part to deceive the West. Deceive Ukraine. Nobody's really clear what Russia is going to ultimately do, but all I can do is look at what they are doing. And so what they have done, particularly in the last 3 months, once they took the city center of Avdiivka, so that, that is south of, if I recall correctly, south of Bakhmut. But Bakhmut that they took, uh, last May, and then with the fall of Avdiivka, these were like two anchor points in the Donbas. Once you break loose of those, there's no real good defensive line past that. Russia then stepped up its use of what are called glide bombs. These were conventional large bombs, 1,500 kilograms, 3,000 kilograms. For the math challenged out there, that's a 6,000-plus-pound bomb, 3 tons of explosives. And they've attached wings to them, like, like airplane wings, and they can drop them off of planes from 30, 40 miles away from the target, and they will glide in. But they've also got some steering mechanisms on it where they can actually accurately guide it to a particular target. So with that, they've been blowing up the thermal power plants, the hydroelectric power plants. They're shutting off the lights in, in much of western Donbas. And so Ukraine, the Ukrainians that are living east of the Dnieper River are without electricity. And the second largest city in Ukraine, Kharkiv, the people are emptying that city because there is no electricity. So, Russia stepped that up. They've stepped up the artillery and they're pushing all along this 600-700 mile front. They're not just hitting in one location and Ukraine doesn't have, they don't have concentrations of reserves, of troop reserves that they can put them here, put them there. They don't, they're like a guy that's been drunk in a bar that's got into a fight. He's been hit so many times, He doesn't know where the next punch is coming from, and the Russians are just tattooing him.

Yeah, because I was surprised, I admit I was surprised when I read the article and I was like, what the heck? Why will Russia be calling up knowing the size of their army?

Right.

And it didn't dawn on me that, you know, that's just— but speaking of Kharkiv, I'm just thinking out loud here. Could it be the next step for Russia to take over?

Yeah, well, I think, you know, Russia's got lots of options. They can either attack the cities directly. I don't think they're going to do that. I think they're probably calculating. All they need to do is surround the city, cut it off from resupply, and they'll ultimately— it will surrender. It doesn't have some of the advantages that, say, Leningrad did during World War II when it was surrounded by the Germans. They at least had the lake they could drive back and forth across to resupply, limited supplies, but they nonetheless kept them supplied. You cut off Kharkiv, they don't have that as an option. Russia very well could use those 3,000-kilogram bombs we talked about to blow up the bridges over the Dnieper River. If they take down all the bridges, or at least 90% of the bridges, they are suddenly going to destroy Ukraine's ability to resupply its troops. You know, food, ammunition. They don't have stockpiles of that sitting in the east of the River Dnieper. That needs to be trucked in or brought in via railway. And if Russia decides to, you know, cut them off and destroy those bridges, The line of communications are down and Ukrainians are completely in the toilet then.

Now, is this means Kiev will be sort of on the sights for the Russians to take over?

Yeah, no, I think, I think, yeah, I think ultimately Russia will capture Kiev because, because it's a Russian city. You know how we know it's a Russian city? Because Victoria Newland, I think she's describing one of her relatives who fled, fled Russia. Russia. Fled Russia. This was like in the early 1900s. Fled Russia. Well, they asked, well, what city did he leave from? Kiev.

So it was a Russian.

He wasn't fleeing Ukraine. He was fleeing Russia. Russia. You know, so Same with, same with Antony Blinken's relatives. Now, they all came out of, quote, what we now look at as Ukraine, but they always refer to it as Russia.

Interesting, interesting. I'd like to get your input, Larry, about for us here domestically at home. We all know how things are with the current administration. Hypothetically, and this is just a hypothetical, let's say Donald Trump Wins the elections, which is a hypothetical here. What would you expect his move to be towards Russia?

I think he would try to reopen dialogue with Russia. I don't know if he'll be able to though. Not so much because the Russians would refuse, but because of the political opposition that he's going to catch from all of these Democrats and some RINOs. There's a heavy investment in going to war with Russia. And these people don't want to let up. They don't want to have normal relationships with, you know, the— Russia is oftentimes portrayed in the U.S. media as an authoritarian communist state. It's not.

Yeah.

Uh, as undemocratic, it's not. Uh, as godless, to the contrary, it's a very religious country with the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith. Being the dominant faith, but with, uh, they, they do demonstrate actual respect towards other religions— Judaism, Islam. So, uh, you know, Russia, Russia's got something that the United States doesn't. So in the United States, we like to think of ourselves as a melting pot, except, you know, people talk about themselves, oh, I'm Iranian American, I'm Mexican American, I'm African American. I'm Asian American or Japanese American. You're always this other thing before you're an American. Russia, they have 190 different ethnic groups, but, uh, you don't hear them going around saying, I'm Georgian Russian, I'm, I'm Ossetian Russian, I'm English Russian. The Russian first. The reason for that is that the losses that the Russians suffered, the Russian people suffered during World War II, were so great. And it affect— didn't affect just Russian, you know, the, the Caucasians. It affected all of these other ethnic groups as well. And that because they bled for that country, they put that country first and foremost. So they're not Chechen Russian, They're Russians who happen to be Chechens. So that's the difference between the United States and there, and the U.S. just doesn't appreciate that. Wow.

I'm just sort of trying to figure out, literally, out of all the years that I've been in Washington and after I left, I'm thinking, what's wrong with our establishment? Why are they sort of fomenting these tensions with Russia and now China also? And now we're seeing the conflicts in the Middle East. Why are we just going about fomenting tensions in other parts of the world instead of focusing domestically where we have serious issues right here at home? What's driving that, Larry?

Are you familiar with the story of the elephant and the rope. So someone came to this— to— they show up in India and there's this gigantic elephant and there's just this one skinny thin rope tied around his leg and he's not moving. And the visitor says, how can that be? That elephant's strong enough to break the rope. Well, the person who controlled the elephant explained, when that elephant was little, we chained it. We had a strong chain, and they— it kept that chain around its foot the entire time growing up. It could never move anywhere without us releasing that chain. So it came to associate not so much the chain, but the fact that something was around its leg. That's what kept it. It believed now that that skinny rope was that chain. That's how we do Russia. We've grown up with a vision of Russia as something that it is not. And yet, educated people, people who go to college and major in Russian studies, they continue to create a mythical picture of Russia that, oh, they're authoritarian. Oh, Putin's a bad guy. Do you know that Putin kills his enemies? So I looked into that. There are 7 people that are listed as having been, quote, killed. Not by Putin, he didn't strangle them with his hands, but that he apparently ordered their deaths. So Putin is a bad guy. 7 people. All right, how many people died at the orders of George W. Bush in Iraq? Hundreds of thousands. How many died in Afghanistan at the orders of George W. Bush? Tens of thousands. How many died in Syria at the orders of Barack Obama? Tens of thousands. So if we're going to use body counts, because Vladimir Putin doesn't have body counts like that, he hasn't ordered his soldiers anywhere other than into Ukraine, and there's a good reason why he did that, because we provoked it, the West did, not, not Russia. Um, and yet what is— what's driving our hatred? One of the things currently is the United States hates Russia, hates Putin in particular, because Putin stopped the West from raping Russia of its resources. As soon as Putin was named as the president and then Within 2 years, he called in all the oligarchs, the Russian oligarchs, and basically read them the riot act. Said, hey, you guys are done ripping off this country. You're done using your interfering politically and then cutting these deals with all your foreign partners. It's over. Either you're going to do it my way or going to jail. Some of them went to jail. A guy, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, is one. I actually was hired, uh, in the late, uh, early 2000s by one of the lobbying firms in Washington to try to work on the Khodorkovsky case back then. So, I mean, it was one example. But once Putin did that, he cut off the West from oil, gas, uranium, gold, precious metal, other precious metals, rare earth minerals. Nickel, aluminum. I mean, Russia's the most resource-rich country in the world, and the United States and the West wanted it for themselves. And they— and when they lost out on that, that was problem number one. Problem number two, it is cultural, it is religious. They're against the Eastern Orthodox Christian faith, maintains that God created man and woman, that there's not transgender, that homosexuality is not blessed and ordained by God, and that a heterosexual family is how God ordained man and woman to live together. The Russians are very upfront about that. Well, you can imagine how that goes over in the woke West. He's anti-homo, he's homophobic, he's transphobic. And you know what? The Russians don't care. And so I think that's another thing driving the propaganda narrative against Russia here.

Yeah, very, very interesting. Well, speaking of the resources, Larry, you know, we all saw what happened with the— back then, I mean, back then, I'm talking about after 1994, '97, somewhere around that time, how, for example, Germany was benefiting from getting cheap Russian gas.

Yeah.

And that translated to an increase because anytime we think about the European Union, who we think about? Germany basically is the engine of the European economy. And we kind of saw— I was still in Washington at that time. We used to have conversations and we kind of started to think, wow, they're getting closer, which is the economy of Europe is getting better. And some voices inside Washington at that time said this has to stop. And by any means, I'm sure you're aware of the leaked cable from the back then, the ambassador of the US to Moscow, or what he— Bill Burns.

Bill Burns. Yeah. Yeah.

Current CIA director, by which he mentioned about you're going to have to destabilize the Russian regions, which didn't work anyway. My question is, did the European understood what are they getting to when they embark on this so-called sanctions against Russia? Because now you look at where the economy is, Europe is faltering.

Oh yeah, no, the UK is already in recession. Germany is in recession. And Germany, they did it to themselves. But again, they're the blind hatred they have for Russia. This is not something that's just developed in the last 20 years.

No.

And this is not something that just developed and emerged during the Russian Revolution that led to the establishment of the Soviet communist regime. I mean, good God, you know, Napoleon was invading Russia back in 1812. In 1853, '54, you had French, Brits, along with the Turks, invade Russia over the Crimea and to try and succeeded in preventing Russia for a while from using the Black Sea as having any access to it. So there's been this longstanding Western obsession with Russia and attacking it and trying to control it. And, but But now we're at a stage where Russia is independent and it's actually militarily stronger than the West. West just doesn't want to come to grips with that.

Yeah, apparently it appears that the sanctions have backfired. It's not appears, the sanctions have backfired.

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Yeah, I mean, I looked at the numbers for GDP for Russia. I looked at their gold stocks. I looked at some other aspects of their economy, it's, it's doing fairly better prior, in comparison prior to the sanctions. Yeah, this leads me, Larry, to talk about, uh, uh, uh, Russia and China. It's because I am seeing where the trends are vis-à-vis the multipolarity, you know. Of course, what we doing to Russians is the same thing we are doing to the Chinese vis-à-vis the the Taiwan Strait. Where do you see this is moving forward regarding the bilateral relations between China and Russia and how that's going to counter any, any approach by the West?

Well, go back, go back 52 years when Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing and first met with Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong and what they, they agreed upon at that time, the One China policy. And what was the One China— what was the One China policy? The United States accepted that Taiwan is part of China. Okay, that's what we agreed to 52 years ago. Our policy from that point forward was to divide China and Russia, to keep them as more enemies or adversaries, and to split them. That was our policy goal. Well, now what did we do with this, our reaction to Russia and its, uh, you know, invading, uh, invasion of Ukraine after 10 years of provocation by NATO and Western countries? Well, it'd be— we tried to isolate Russia, except Russia has everything it needs to survive, but more importantly, it has minerals and resources that China needs. And so all of a sudden, we succeeded in bringing China and Russia together in a partnership that is economic, that is social, and that I believe is also military. And we've united them in a way that they've never been united. Now, it's— I'm always fascinated by the West's discussion of China and Russia. They're both imperial powers. They're seeking to take over the world. Really? Okay, name me one country that China has invaded since 1979. Sort of a trick question. Well, there is one country. That was Vietnam. And the reason they invaded Vietnam in '79 was because Vietnam had invaded Cambodia. Yeah, Chinese were coming in to fight on behalf of the Cambodian people, and the Vietnamese kicked their ass. Okay, so that's not exactly what you'd call a sterling record of imperial power. Yeah, well, how about Russia? Look at all of the colonies that Russia had in Africa. Oh, that's right, they didn't have any. Well, what about those colonies in, in Central and South America? Oh, you know, ditto there, none. No. So all of a sudden, the only country that since 1991 until you could— the Ukraine invasion, the only other country where Russia had been engaged militarily without the permission of the host government— key difference— was the 2008 when they were attacked by the Georgians at our behest, and they beat them. Uh, the Russians have been in Syria, but they were invited in by the Syrians. And that pissed us off too, because the United States, United Kingdom were trying their best to overthrow the government of Bashar al-Assad. And we were arming radical Salafis, radical Muslims in the process to do that. And Russia, who's always fought against Muslim extremism, they've never made deals. They're not like the West. We'll hop into bed with anybody. I mean, my God, remember back in, you know, how Ronald Reagan and we're fighting those terrorists in Iran? Well, from 1981 until like the whole Iran-Contra business blew up, for 7 years, even though Iran was considered a terrorist state, even though Iran had carried out terrorist activities against the United States, The United States was supplying weapons to Iran. We're also supplying weapons to Iraq. In fact, we encouraged both those countries to kill each other. We were masters of mayhem. And that's, I mean, it's not just the '80s. We can go back to the beginning of the CIA in 1948. The United States has probably been the most pernicious, malevolent influence in the world, in my opinion. When it comes to promoting regime change, creating chaos, and costing the lives of foreign people? Yeah, well, I—

how can I forget, for example, what the CIA did back in 1949 for the Italian elections? Yeah, we rigged them. And the argument was, what if we didn't do it, there will never be elections again? No, you don't rig another country's elections. Let people choose. Whatever they want. So, so you're absolutely correct, Larry. The, the, the record and the history is not, uh, sort of good on that aspect. I want to go back quickly to your point about Georgia, because I remember when I wrote my book about Russia, The Dynamics of Russia: Geopolitics Remaking the Global Order, I argued this particular point.

Why?

It's because the West was telling Saakashvili at that time Mikhail Saakashvili, just go ahead and fight the Russians.

Yeah.

And we will come and support you. And he was dumb enough to go ahead and send the troops and went right to Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And what Russia ended up doing, sending his troops, he took over within a week and a half. And Saakashvili reached out to NATO by saying, hey guys, are you coming to help me out? Once the first shot was fired, NATO said, what are you, out of your mind? Do you want us to fight a nuclear Russia? And this is the reason I'm bringing this up, Larry, is to highlight how come Europeans didn't learn from this part of history? How come Ukraine itself didn't learn from this?

Yeah, well, you know, I spent 23 years scripting terrorism exercises for US military special operations forces., and they're called O-300, O-400 exercises. And at the end of each exercise, you always have a hot wash, lessons learned, where you're supposed to learn lessons. Nobody ever learned a damn thing. There was never any learning going on. And this same applies to these countries. They don't, they don't pay attention. They just, it's almost like they're watching an episode of some HBO series. And they just keep jumping from without remembering necessarily what happened the previous season. So this is, you know, the fact that the United States and NATO got themselves in a position where they literally thought that they had trained the Ukrainian military up to a point that it was an adequate proxy that had a likely chance of defeating the Russians. The Russians. That it would defeat them. That the Russian military was so weak, so poorly led, filled with, you know, convicts. And it's all a lie. And it's all— example, you know how many tanks the United States can build a year right now? M1 Abrams? 12. Oh, excuse me, 125. Take that back. So it comes out about 10 a month.

That's it.

You know, yeah. Do you know how many Russia's producing per month? 100 plus. Okay, they outpace us by a factor of 10 when it comes to producing tanks. Hey, how many hypersonic missiles do we have? Zero. None that are workable anyway. How many does Russia have? 3 at least. So, you know, just run, run down the capabilities list. Uh, the, the, the Russians last year— the current strength of the U.S. Army is about 475,000. Last year, the Russians recruited 500,000 new recruits. So they've already— there's the new recruits, they're larger than our army. What are we thinking about? This is— our history is replete going back to the formation of the CIA where you did not have people that actually knew Russia, that spoke Russian, that knew the culture. And we decided right off the bat, right, you know, Soviets are our enemy, they're communists. We had worked with them during World War II with no problem. And what the United States did was this quick pivot where the intelligence organization started— it started with Army intelligence, but then they, you know, dumped it off on the CIA— was recruiting former Nazi SS, uh, people as U.S. spies. And then we wonder why the— why the Soviets, who lost over 20 million people in that war, looked with suspicion on the West and They're trying to do it to us again.

Yeah.

And the West, oh no, no, no, we're, you know, we're a peaceful organization. That's why we put together NATO. You know, you know, we say it's a defensive organization, except it was an organization designed to militarily, intended militarily to defeat the Soviet Union.

Yeah. Well, that's why most, most of us in the West, they don't understand. They don't know about— since we are poor, and I say it, I never shy away from saying this. Some of us, of course, I cannot generalize because it won't be right and fair, but majority of us are poor readers of history. We don't read much about history. And this is one thing that I believe, Larry, a majority, if you ask an average Joe, average Jane here, you know, who won the World War II, they will tell you right away, America. Well, it wasn't the US, it was the Soviet Union because it got involved. If the Soviet didn't get involved, we would have not got involved too. And we changed history by manipulating it, and we became the victorious after World War II.

So that's just, uh, yeah, we certainly on the European front. Now we can make the case that the, the one war the United States did fight and win was, uh, in the Pacific theater, because that was basically U.S. Against the Japanese with some minimal help from the Brits. Yeah, but, but what happened against defeating Nazi Germany? The Soviets carried— they did all the heavy lifting there.

Yeah, I had a chance when I was in Poland a few months ago, I went to a cemetery where I saw just the, the graves of the Russians. There were no flags, there were no names, just the Russians. And I was told This section is for the Russian soldiers who fought to defend Poland at that time. So it was very, very— now that I see how even what's his name, the Prime Minister of Poland, Donald Tusk. Yeah, his arguments are so— I mean, it's pathetic for how the Western leaders now articulating the arguments that doesn't have any base to it, right? Kind of like You know, why would Russia be thinking about taking over Europe? Russia has no interest in that. So it just, to me, it's just like, I don't know, it's just for domestic consumption and so forth. You mentioned the Pacific theater. I'd like to get your assessment, Larry, as to why NATO now is considering opening an office in Tokyo, in Japan.

Well, we got the World of Freedom. We're the 3-year-old kid with a hammer. Everything looks like a nail. That's all we know how to do is hammer stuff. And so we've, you know, we are convinced. We've convinced ourselves that China is our greatest threat, the greatest. And I was listening to John, I like John Mearsheimer, but I was listening to him last night and he was talking about, oh God, China is trying to be dominant in that part of the Pacific and we can't allow that. And I'm going, What in the name of God are you talking about? Of course, that's their neighborhood, the same as North America is our neighborhood. We want to be dominant in our neighborhood, but our rule is this: we're the only ones that can be dominant. We're the only ones that can rule the world. Everybody else has to bend the knee and kiss our ass. And you know what? Rest of the world's going, I didn't bring enough ChapStick for that. I'm not doing that. I'm not doing that. I've done genuflecting before the United States. And when you run down the list of the countries where the United States has been involved with regime change, whether, you know, we're talking about Iran with Mossadegh, Guatemala with Arbenz, you know, go through Venezuela, through Argentina, through Brazil, through Greece, through Italy, throughout the world. And it's been this— Tim Weiner wrote a book appropriately titled Legacy of Ashes, and it really details the first 60 years of the CIA. And it was like one botched covert action after another, all for the purpose of regime change. 1964, we help overthrow the the king and install the Ba'athists. Oh, and who's one of the young officers in that Ba'athist crowd? A guy by the name of Saddam Hussein. Yeah, so ultimately we paved the way for putting Saddam Hussein in power. And in fact, in 1980, '81, it was the United States supplying weapons and technology to Iraq specifically to Saddam Hussein that was being used to develop chemical weapons used against the Iranians. You got the picture of Don Rumsfeld standing there with his smiling with Saddam. Yeah, yeah. Then all of a sudden Saddam's our enemy. I, I mean, the rest of the world has awakened. They're sick and tired of America's hypocrisy. Yeah. And that's what it is.

And I think also, Larry, we have abused this power that we've been granted after World War II. We have not used it wisely, per se. So I agree, sanctioning— because that's, to me, it comes with that responsibility. Just because you have power doesn't mean you have it all if you don't use it wisely. Uh, you mentioned Iran, and I'd like to get your input, of course, Larry, if that's okay with you, about where do you see the Middle East moving forward And I want this from the perspective of what do you see the role of Russia into all this, given the partnership on a military level and of course on other aspects as well, strategic one that is between Iran and Russia.

Yeah, there are— Iran's current goal right now is avoid a direct military confrontation with the West, and the West is doing everything in its power to try to provoke it. But I think both the Russians and the Chinese working with the Iranians are taking the long view. So they both, they both have strong relations with Iran. They have conducted now, this is year 4, I believe, of annual joint naval military exercises there in the Persian Gulf. And they've also conducted some joint ground military operations. So that's sending a clear message to the West that if they attack, the West attacks Iran, Russia and China are going to have its back. And so the West is looking at more than just having to deal with Iran. That's number one. The Iranians have suffered. You know, the popular Western meme is that Iran is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world. No, it's not. The United States is. The United States is the number one sponsor of terrorism in the world. Just these terrorist attacks that took place overnight, last 24, 36 hours in Iran out of Balochistan.

Yeah, the border.

The Balochis down there have had a long-standing relationship with the CIA. I know that personally, not from my days at CIA, But one of my good friends who was in a top-secret military unit that was involved with doing spying overseas, he was involved with trying to rescue American hostages in Iran in 1980. And he was on the ground in Tehran for that. But in the lead-up to that, as they were collecting intelligence about what to do, they used Uh, he was used in a rug store in Bethesda, Maryland, uh, just on, on Wisconsin Avenue called Parvani, is it, or Parzani, I think it is. And why? Because they are Baluchis and they have Baluchi family members, and information was being passed in rugs, notes put in rugs that were being passed, and it was getting passed to U.S. intelligence. So that's how I know that there is longstanding relationships. So, here is Iran getting terrorist attacks. They have had, you know, going back 14 years, scientists, Iranian scientists assassinated by intelligence operatives linked to the United States and to Israel. So, oh, and then, you know, the killing of Soleimani, the killing of this general the other day, the two generals at the Iranian consulate there in Damascus. With all of that, Iran is not lighting off mass waves of terrorist attacks. They're acting with moderation and restraint. And, you know, I think they're going on more that we're going to give the West enough rope to hang itself and let it hang itself. Because United States has already demonstrated, yeah, we can talk tough about what we're going to do to Iran. Hell, we can't even stop the Houthis. Okay.

That's true.

I mean, that's true. We've been bombing the Houthis back to the Stone Age for 4 months, going on 5 months. And the Houthis, like the Energizer Bunny, man, keeps on going, not stopping.

Yeah, well, actually, we did ask Iran to intervene by talking to them to please make them stop. Please, can you help us out? Yeah, which is very embarrassing in a way that, uh, here's you dealing with the group that's using a $2,000 drone versus us launching a million-dollar missile, which is just, just the optics of it on the international stage is very, very, very bad for—

right.

But could it be, could it be, Larry, that the reason why Iran is holding off, uh, on retaliating against Israel is because they didn't want the conflict to become a regional one. Is there a reason for why?

Well, I think that they're not going to just do something in a moment of emotion and outrage. Yeah. They're going to find a way to really hurt Israel and really hurt the United States. I believe that. And it's not like we haven't asked for it. You know, but, um, there, you know, I guess 6 months ago I worried that the United States was going to get embroiled militarily beyond what it is in the Middle East. I don't think that's a concern now. Yeah, we talk about it, but the election year has created such a dynamic in the United States that it would be absolute— it's already hurting Biden. And to go into actual war with Iran, just like with the Houthis, you come out looking weak. You talk, yeah, we're going to punch you in the nose and stop you. Well, you're not stopping them. So I think the immediate move for Iran will be, they had exercised some restraint over the last, since that attack on that one US base., in, uh, in Syria, just across the border from Jordan. Or they actually, they hit, they hit the base in Jordan.

Excuse me, is that the Tanif?

Tanif is in Syria, the base that said the two— I think it was called Two Towers.

Well, there are some, uh, I found out that there are some, uh, actually part of it is also on the Jordanian territory. Yeah, yeah, government didn't want to disclose that because they didn't want the Jordanian people to find out that there is a U.S. presence on their soil without their consent.

Well, right. And that base, its primary reason was to— it was just a logistics hub for U.S. forces that were moving in and out of Syria. They would— because it's good into Syria, how are you going to get them there? It's not like you can fly into Damascus and then, hi, to the Syrian officials, you know, here's our passport. Yeah, we're going to go out here and we're going to be fighting against you. That doesn't work that way. So they go in, they go into Jordan, and then Jordan sneaks them across the border, then they get into those bases. I see Iran moving to shut all those bases down and make the US pay a pretty high price if they decide to stay.

Because already, to my knowledge, which I got some info this morning, that Israel is already shutting down or evacuating some of its embassy people, right, from around the world.

So they are getting up into some So, yeah, I, I, I, the, the odd thing here is I don't think Iran is going to retaliate by hitting embassies and consulates. It was, if you watched the UN Security Council meeting the other day, they convened on this. It was, it was like watching upside down world. Here you had the Iranian representative to the United Nations complaining about the violation of Iranian sovereignty by this attack, which is true, on a diplomatic facility. And at the same time, you had the U.S. representative saying, well, it's no big deal, this is, you know, they're overreacting, the, the, you know, basically it doesn't matter if you attack a diplomatic facility. Well, I remember 1979, and back then when the Iranian students took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, You can be sure that the United States gave a damn about the sanctity of a diplomatic facility. Absolutely. And it was the Iranians who didn't care. So now we just watched, you know, they swapped roles. The United States is basically sanctioning attacks on diplomatic facilities.

Wow.

Wow.

It'll be very interesting to see how this develops. So I want to touch on Africa. Since we are doing a tour around the world. This is why you guys, uh, someone like Larry, you ain't gonna find this information elsewhere. So that's why I was very excited when Larry responded to my email, said, sure, I will come on your show. And so, uh, for Africa, there is now a military joint exercise between Russia and Eritrea, to my knowledge, but this one also has to do with Niger and Russia, where Russia is providing now some military training to Niger. Is this fait accompli that the West's presence in the Sahel region is over permanently?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the United States has treated these African countries like you know, plantation slaves. The best way to look at it. Yeah, pat them on the head, you know, throw them some trinkets, and, you know, just hope that they're obedient. Well, they've awakened. They're sick and tired of the colonial influence, not just in the United States, but of the French, the Germans, the Belgians, the Brits. The, the, the entire continent of Africa, when you think about it, it was carved up by every nation in Europe. And then the United States helped sort of enable that. The only country, two countries that did not establish colonies and take and, you know, kill the locals and take the resources were Russia and China in terms of major world powers. Yeah, so, um, the— and, and, and in fact, during the entire Soviet Union, the Soviets were regularly bringing Africans, uh, into, uh, Moscow State University, Patrice Lumumba University, the schools in Moscow, where they were— they received first-class educations, not indoctrinations, but actual educations. And they went back with, you know, good feelings It's particularly the case since 2000 because Russia has been transformed. And, you know, the Russians don't have a history of racism. Europe does, United States does. It wasn't Russia. The word slave comes out of Slav because of how the Slavs were treated. They, they got the first slave treatment. And yeah, I think that, that element resonates with several of the different African countries there, particularly in the Sahel.

Yeah, well, especially now that Russia has forgiven some of the debt for about $20 billion to some African nations.

Right, right.

You would think the IMF or the World Bank would do this. Yeah, I don't think so. So hey guys, before I forget, just prepare your questions because we're gonna I still have to tackle one particular topic with Larry here, and I'll open the floor for a few questions from you for Larry, and we just go from there. My last point, Larry, I want to talk about— it has to do with two. They are somehow separately, but we can see the link of them. Well, one of them has to do with the— with the— I'll go back to Ukraine and so forth. When Russia now is issuing an ultimatum to Ukraine, either negotiations or the ruin of Ukraine completely? No.

No.

Is there a possibility? And I wanted to ask this question based on the rumor. I couldn't confirm this yet. And if you know the info, please share with us here that the US has evacuated comedian Zelensky out of Kiev.

No, I have not heard that.

Um, uh, I, I am— I just—

that just— you picked that up? You picked that up today?

Yes, this morning. And usually I don't go full speed with something until I confirm and check. So to me, put the two things in perspective. The Russians asking— they're not asking, but rather it was an article in a newspaper It was reported by the Russian newspaper Gazeta. It says likely the Russian-Ukrainian war over the next few months will lead to significant destruction in Ukraine as Ukrainians raid, you know, as you know, the fuel and energy complex, uh, inside the European parts of Russia. And this is what I'm saying, if this is true that, uh, the US was able to evac Comedian Z, is this why Russia is saying you either negotiations or you risk the full destruction?

Well, um, you had a conversation 2 days ago between Shoigu, Minister of Defense, and remember Shoigu, again, he's one of these ethnic minorities that comes out of one of the republics of Russia that is considered the most dangerous Republic in terms of, you know, crime in the streets and such. Here he is, he's risen, you know, sort of another Horatio Alger story, risen to the top. So he was on the phone with the French defense minister, and the French said, hey, you know, any chance we can reopen those talks we had going 2 years ago in Turkey? And where, you know, you and the Ukrainians had like worked out a deal, can we go back there? Shoigu said no, no, that, that deal came and went. That's done. So Russia is willing to talk, but not to Ukraine. It'll talk to the United States and Germany and the United Kingdom. But the terms of surrender are going to be dictated by Russia to them, not the other way around.

Not the other way.

And until the United States, United Kingdom, and France decide that they can't stand the pain anymore or that they're going to have to find a way out, you know, there won't be a negotiated settlement. Russia, Russia is going to win this on the battlefield, I think.

Yeah, and it looks like going that direction to me. That's the way I see it. So yeah, yeah, and it makes more sense because Russia did submit their security concerns back then. They were never taken into consideration. They did sit down with the Ukrainians. It was still, uh, what's his name, the former Prime Minister of England, the idiot Boris Johnson, won over.

Oh yeah.

And forced Ukraine not to enter into that agreement.

Well, it wasn't just— it wasn't just Boris, you know. The testimony that came out when— that's like 4 months ago, where you had 2 of the Ukrainian negotiators, uh, the Naftali Bennett, I think, the Israeli who was involved, contributed to it. And these two German, uh, uh, officers, diplomats, wrote, uh, wrote it up. And the initial pressure was coming from Biden and Lloyd Austin. And then they called Johnson and enlisted him as being sort of a message carrier, water carrier. So it was a concerted US-UK effort to shut it down. And the, the evidence that the agreement had been reached was, if you recall, this was the end of March of 2022. The Russians had a 20, at least, there were various reports. It was either a 24-mile column or a 40-mile column of tanks, armored vehicles north of Kiev, poised there. And the story, the way the West told the story afterwards is that because of Russia's Ukraine's counteroffensive, the Russians were forced to retreat. Well, that's just bullshit. That's a lie. It was that Putin ordered the withdrawal of those units as a sign of good faith that, okay, these negotiations that we have with Ukraine are moving ahead. And as soon as he withdrew those forces, Ukraine withdrew from the deal. Wow. Wow.

So you can't trust them.

You can't trust them. No. And Russia's learned that. They don't trust the West. Yeah. They've got too many examples of the West lying to it. You know, whether— you know, and you go back and look at the different provocations by the West. It wasn't Russia that broke out from the treaty that prevented the development of anti-ballistic, the ABM, Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty defense. That was the United States unilaterally doing that.

Yeah, and I did the research because I was doing, when I was writing that book about Russia, it was during also the same time when, and I noticed how Washington was blaming Moscow for that, which I was like, no, that is not true, that is not right, because it wasn't that way. So the Russians were concerned as to what the US was doing, and that is the reason why. So I disclosed it that way with the sources of where I get my information that it was the US that withdrew from it.

First, right.

Last thing I want to address, Larry, with you has to do with the Arctic. And when I say Arctic, I am also going to be touching on Finland, given that Finland now it's been sucked in. Into NATO, digging its own graveyard, if I may use the term? Because for those whom I, I'm sure you've read in history that Finland and the Soviet Union back then and Russian Federation have been living in peace for over 50 years, right? 50 years till they got sucked in into NATO. Where do you see that development given what just happened about a week ago when a US bomber got closer to the Russian border and he was chased out by an Su-57.

Yeah, no, the Russia has a clear advantage with, uh, both using territory, taking control of territory in the Arctic. If nothing else, they're the only one with the icebreakers that can actually operate up there and open up channels for ships that the West certainly doesn't have anything comparable to compete with them. And, you know, these, these air incidents, air intercepts, that's been pretty routine over the last several years. That's about all the West can do is try to tweak the nose of the Russians on that. But, you know, Finland, I get, I don't understand what they're thinking. They're making just a really colossal error with respect to— because Russia is on— it's reestablishing itself as actually a more capable, competent superpower than it was during the height of the Cold War.

Very, very interesting. Is this mean, Larry— I mean, please correct me if I'm wrong— is this means that the new multipolarity or the new multipolar order will be managed by China and Russia?

No, they'll, they'll be the leading forces in it for sure. But that's what's interesting is, uh, and, and Putin, you know, he's not paying just lip service to this. He genuinely believes that every country ought to come to the table and have an equal voice and an equal say, that it shouldn't matter how wealthy you are or if you have nuclear weapons or not. Um, that both China and Russia are strongly advocating that the revamping the UN Security Council that permanent members— there's no reason why the UK or France should be permanent members of that Security Council anymore. There should be one. There should be North America, there should be Europe, there should be Russia, there should be China, there should be Africa, there should be South America. Make those permanent. All those have a permanent member. Out of all of those. So, uh, probably the, uh, you know, you'd have a— the biggest problem is Africa, because gets to argue who's the dominant country. Is it Egypt? Is it Nigeria? Is it South Africa? Those are— or, you know, those would be the big three. And, you know, who gets to— who gets to sit at the table? Uh, India, obviously should be accommodated. China, Malaysia, and Indonesia could make an argument from the size of their populations. Yeah, but, but, uh, you know, pipsqueaks are now into economic pipsqueaks as well, like the UK and France. Yeah, they have no business sitting there as the final arbiters of deals.

Yeah, but for NDLRA, I have a question mark on India's role because to me India is playing both sides. Yeah, it's, uh, I won't trust, uh, what Modi's government is doing, but especially now that we're going to be opening a naval logistical hub in India. Well, why the heck are we going there for?

Remains, remains to be seen if that's going to come off now since the West, we already attacked Modi for his— how dare you lock up an opposition political candidate? And the Indians are going What the hell are you doing to Donald Trump? Don't lecture us. Worry about your own house. Okay, we'll worry about ours, you worry about yours.

To me, just the issue with India is it's both sides. India is part of the BRICS, but also India is part of the QUAD. Okay, which side of the fence you stand on? But again, that's just how politics is, I guess. All right guys, I'm gonna open these questions for Larry. Just few questions here. I'll start with the first one here from Matt. Becky, Doc, Dr. Oh, and Mr. Johnson, imagine if China has— imagine if China had retaliated against the US 25 years ago. Could China be today what it is, in your opinion?

Yeah, what do you mean 25 years ago? What retaliated for what?

Meaning if we have sort of reacted to the provocations of the US back then? Could we see the still tensions exist today?

Uh, well, back then, the United States might have been in a position to cause more damage, uh, to China.

China.

But, but right now, the, the, the, the reality is, if, if it comes to war, the United States will lose. I mean, because attacking The only option would be to try to attack China with nuclear weapons. And that's going to lead to the— if we hit China with nuclear weapons, Russia will hit us with nukes. So there's no— and, you know, the United States is going to be entirely dependent upon aircraft carrier task force. And those aircraft carriers are extremely vulnerable to hypersonic missiles. And drone swarms, which China has ample supplies of both.

So the aircraft carrier will make it in that part of the world.

And so how are, how are the US troops supposed to get there? You know, we don't, we don't have a Star Trek transporter, you know, beam them up, Scotty, beam them down. That's true.

Uh, hi Boone, this is question from Boone. Boone is an avid supporter of the channel here, so Question: I recently heard, uh, heard we, uh, war are results of miscalculations. How bad are the main powers today at miscalculation?

They are— that, that's the only thing they're good at, miscalculating in a terrible way. Um, they, they they seriously thought that you'd impose the economic sanctions on Russia, you'd cripple it. And what's shocking is they had even analysts telling them that. You know, I, yeah, I have a PhD field in international economics. So I do understand something about it.

Yeah.

But I was saying from the outset, but you know, this is, this is ridiculous. Because Russia's self-sufficient. They're not, okay, they're not going to have a McDonald's anymore. Great. They're going to have less cholesterol, fewer among their population. But, you know, this— these kinds of miscalculations, the same with on the military front. So yeah, these, these gross miscalculations can lead to a war that the West is not capable of winning. Wow.

One more or two more questions. One, one from Francis Tango, another avid supporter supporter of the channel. What does NATO actually want? They can't win against Russia. Just sending weapons with that will not win Ukraine. So why still challenge Russia?

Well, they actually, they still believe that they can defeat Russia. That's the thing. And, and this whole aid package, you know, the money that's being pumped out, it's not like they're delivering bags of cash to Zelensky. And then he's, you know, taking it out to buy new property and more cocaine. Yeah, some of that happens. But the bulk of the money is going to these defense corporations. Most of them are US defense corporations to commission them to build, to replenish what has been used up, whether it's HIMARS, Patriot missile batteries, and the actual units used to be fired from those systems. So, uh, there's a lot of it's the money, but there's also this fervent belief that they can break up and destroy Russia, which would never happen.

Yeah. So, uh, Larry, where can my viewers find you?

So just come— I'm at sonar21.com, and there I have links also to Patreon or Substack if people prefer those. Here is the link. There's the Substack.

Yes, guys, check it out because Larry writes over there and I've read some stuff. So, and, uh, YouTube too, Larry, you do have your YouTube?

Yeah, there's— I've got both YouTube, BitChute, and Rumble channels as well.

Yeah, you guys check out Larry's YouTube channel and check out his Rumble, uh, the R that is. Did you know, did you know, Larry, that YouTube now doesn't like that word anymore? The R?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

If you, if you mention that one, they'll reduce your viewership, which is sad. It's very, very sad. So, well, Larry, I can't thank you enough. Truly, truly appreciate you being here and carving out time for us here to learn a different perspective, because we all know how Western media is, is manipulating the masses. Yeah, intellectually speaking. So it's nice to hear a different perspective, uh, and, and the facts and the truth. So I'm, I'm very grateful on behalf of the entire community. I say thank you for being here. I truly appreciate you.

Thank you so much.

You take care.

All right.

Yeah. All right, guys. I hope you'll find, you know, once again, and, and, and this is not something you'll find anywhere. And, and trust me when I say this because I've known Larry, I know his background, I've learned a lot. Uh, you know, you need to hear a different perspective than the main narrative here because the main narrative is not going to provide you the accurate information you need to have so for you to sort of form your own conclusion. Well, what I do here in this channel, guys, I am not reaching a conclusion for you. You reach it yourself. You are now intellectually capable enough to know how to read between the lines and you reach your conclusion. So, so I hope you find this very informative. Thank you all for the support for the channel, and I look forward to seeing you next time. As always, remember, geopolitics impacts your daily life in more ways than one. Till next time, guys, bye-bye.