"Mossad Launching Missiles In Iran" - Chris Cappy EXPOSES Covert Ops, Israel’s Nukes & CIA Black Ops

All of our allies are funding and helping Russia. >> What's being built? That's just an insane thing DARPA's got that the rest of us don't know about that maybe it's been leaked. >> The B21 bomber. It's probably the thing that scares China the most. >> So, you went on the front lines of Ukraine. >> Everything that I saw in Iraq is nothing like the rules of how it works with Ukraine and Russia. This was probably the worst, most terrifying experience of my life because we're getting shelled by Russian artillery. >> Where are you at with this? >> If China were to invade Taiwan, it might be in their best interest to do it in the next 3 years. >> Really? >> The CIA has a YouTube channel, by the way. I don't know if if you know this. >> The CIA is It's so bad now they become YouTubers. >> Yes, >> that is pretty bad. >> Who is actually an ally of US and who is an enemy of US? My belief is that Israel is 100% our ally. But then there's a lot that Israel does that is against American interests and it it makes you question if are those things worth it at the end of the day. such as [Music] >> Did you ever think you were supposed [Applause] >> Adam? What's your point? The future looks bright. My handshake is better than anything I ever sign. It's right here. >> You are one of my son's rights. [Music] >> Anyways, folks, I got Chris Kappy in the house. 11. Bravo. This is a guy that's got one of the coolest YouTube channels breaking down things with military better than uh I would say he's in the top five of the guys that breaks down military stuff and he's got the moral authority to do it because he was in there and he's extremely fair on what he does and he's a big our guys massive fan of Chris here uh at our studio. Everybody talks about him. So Chris, it's great to have you on the podcast. >> It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. >> Yes. Congrats on your newborn. Just became a dad for the first time a month ago. It's been quite a ride already. Yeah, it's been so a couple of nights of no sleep, but I slammed a couple of Red Bulls before I got here and >> So, you're ready? You look ready for this. Yeah. Okay, good. We were having good great conversations about upbringing and all the other stuff, but um so you you're in the army. You joined after art school cuz somebody you had a conversation with them. Well, you had a little bit uh too much uh what did you drink that night? Apple juice or rotten grape juice or what was it? You know, >> it was fermented. It was uh actually you might some people out there might be familiar with this. It's a game called Edward 40 Hands where what you do is you take two 40s and you take some duct tape and then I think that's a good There you go. And you have somebody duct tape you to the 40s and then you just slam them. >> Is this serious? Is this a real thing? >> Oh yeah. Colt 45s. It was a real thing at art school in Manhattan in 2008 I believe. Yeah. And so we would they they would sell these to us at the bodega across the street and we would go like nine times out of 10. Every once in a while they'd be like, "Are you a cop?" But for whatever reason back then you could just walk in and and get the Colt 45s and um just just get annihilated for the night because that that's how you study at art school at the time. and one it I was like the one ultra-conservative dude that would be saying, "Yeah, it's it's right that we're in Iraq. We should be there. We should be fighting there." And this I remember I'll never forget this. This German foreign exchange student said to me, you know, as he's sipping his 40s, like, "If you really believe that, then why aren't you in Iraq right now fighting?" And it shut me up. >> Wow. And I had one of those moments where I like where I wanted to look in the mirror. I had to look in the mirror and kind of reassess and evaluate the fact that like what I was saying wasn't aligning with what I was doing. And it gave me this kind of cognitive dissonance that was hard to rectify. It was hard to reconcile what that meant at that age of like 18 19 back then. And you know it obviously wasn't just that. There were a number of different reasons that led me to wanting. >> How much after that moment did you join? >> Right after that, I started seriously looking into and asking like questions and getting the business card of different recruiters and putting into action that plan. But already I'd had the thoughts of like, you know, maybe I need service, maybe some maybe I need some discipline in my life instead of uh smoking weed. And >> did you did you drink more in the army or pre? I in the army not not didn't really have a chance to do any of that kind of stuff really because so I I enlisted in the army national guard in the infantry. So I did two weeks uh a year and one weekend a month and volunteered to deploy right away. So most of my service was I did some mobilizations to I went to Latvia, helped train the the troops there who right on the border with Russia and a NATO exercise. I did some mobilizations in New York City for hurricane domestic missions. Learned what what the police kind of have to deal with every day. Got a respect I gained a respect for that and then the deployment to Iraq. So most of my service was um not the I would get drug tested like it was one of the things that kept me sober for a long time my my while I was in the guard was because they would drug test you like every month and I did not you you zero tolerance you're done if you >> Yeah. And by the way you may want to explain to the audience I don't know how they drug tested you. Vinnie and I were talking about today he was in the Air Force. I was in the army. The way they drug tested you, they made sure you didn't use, you know, uh, uh, detergent or you didn't use anything to, they would literally look at your dangling while you're peeing into while you're getting drug tested. >> We call We call that the 92 Zulu. Their job is a meat gazer. >> Meat gazer. >> They they [Laughter] >> What a great job. A meat gazer. Someone who stares at another person's genitals, especially in a way that is considered inappropriate or unwelcome. Well, listen. in a military that was very normal. We had a guy named Jackson. Won't give his first name, but Jackson was always high. Was always smoking weed. And on guard duty like, "Yeah, but David, you know, you can't tell nobody." I'm like, "Listen, you you can't get away with saying it's incense anymore. Everybody's figured it out." So in the army, they would say, "Step to the front. If your last four starts with the number six, Jackson's number starts with number six. Oh, come on, Sarge. Come on, Sarge." And he steps up. Boom. gets tested, goes from E4 to E1, and he gets a what is it? Article 187. Is that what they call it? The 187. Article 187. I think something like when you're getting reprimmened. >> Yeah, I know what you're talking about. When they article 47, I think it was it called uh uh uh article 187. >> I never got referred to >> in a military type. Oh, that's exactly what it is. Article 187 is when you get in trouble and he lost his rank and he dropped and then uh I'll never forget what happened there, but the testing was happen regularly. So, you're living this life, the college life, the weed, the drugs, you know, partying, drinking, all this stuff. Very committed to this uh Edward 40 Hands. I'm impressed. I've never heard of that before. We just did it. We don't need tapes. We're like, "Give it to me. We want more of it." Uh whether it was Mickey's or Old English or whatever the old ghetto cheap beer that we would drink. But then you come out, you intend, you voluntarily go to the front lines uh during the Ukraine war. I believe last year you went there, right? To just kind of learn for yourself. But maybe before we even get into that. So I think we're doing Iraq the right thing and we got to go out there and all this other stuff. Friend challenges you then you go. Did your impression of us doing the right thing changed when you went there or were you like why are we out here? What was your impression? It changed, but not in the way that I think a lot of people might think that it happens where I didn't just turn around and I'm going to throw all my medals and everything over the the fence now and I'm going to burn my uh >> army accommodation medal, army treatment medal. Yeah, >> it wasn't like that. I just gained it was it's almost worse than that. I had a bit of like an ego death where I'm there and I realized that >> it's way more complicated than I thought, which is where I'd almost rather it be black and white and it just be 100% wrong. easier for me to mentally handle. But I came back with this understanding that it's more of a gray area, which is there's nothing worse than you don't know what's true. You don't you no longer really know what to believe because there's some things that I thought that we did that I was proud of. I'm proud of my service, proud of going there. And then there's other things that I saw. we see a lot of innocent people get killed and you start to think like I remember thinking maybe this isn't a positive thing because a lot of these people don't want us here and maybe we're not liberating and bringing democracy and maybe some of these things that I was told are not true. So yeah, that that kind of gray area was what I walked away with and I didn't have like a a intense tour. It wasn't like Fallujah crazy tour like that. It was 2009 solidly in the occupation part of the war. It's I saw a lot of corruption like a lot of our missions. We I would go out one day, my platoon leader got us all together. We got in the striker armored vehicles. We drove out to a town nearby and we gave a local shake $100,000 in cash. And it was basically a kind of payoff in a way. It's like here tell your people not to attack us now. And this was frequent throughout Iraq and and Afghanistan. >> You witness $100,000 being given away to a shake. >> They called it a a micro grant. And you can look up the program. It's like the micro grant program in Iraq. And >> the money is coming from who? The taxpayers. >> It's not even Yes. And it's not even the worst idea. It's kind of a a decent idea. we would give this money away so that because otherwise we went in there and these people Iraqis lost their job. They lost a lot of people in the that used to be in the Iraqi army were disbanded and then if you don't have a job what do you do? You're going to take a couple hundred bucks from an Iranian influence that is trying to kill Americans or take a couple hundred bucks from al-Qaeda to feed your family. I I understand the what the idea was behind the program, but a lot of it went to corrupt local leaders, local shakes. >> So, these micro grants are typically $1,500 to $5,000. The one you did was $100,000. So, that means that's a pretty big micro grant. Who did we kill for us to feel that we needed to give the shake 100 grand? >> They they would give this money out in different in like batches. So 10,000 here, 10,000 there. We It would be that sometimes we would, you know, um like artillery fire from our base. We would fire flares and it would sometimes those flares would come down like burn someone's car down or their house and then we have to go compensate for that. It would those type of missions are not in the commercial. And that's not to say that like I'm not saying that the bad mouthing the army, but just this is things that you kind of learn the reality of the situation, how the sausage is made. >> Are you uh how old are you right now? >> 36. >> Okay. 36. I'm 46. Are you proud? Like when people say thank you for your service, are you proud that you served? >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the whole so big part of the reason why I even served in the first place was because I felt like America gave me so much and so much opportunity the opportunity to go to to art school and to you know I'm so lucky >> and yeah once I got back with the GI Bill like so much opportunity and I'm born into this extremely lucky position in America and then America goes to war and the least I felt like I could do was to this was my way of giving back for the freedoms and and and to the country that I I felt like had given me a lot. >> Okay. So, let's get right into it. You you were at Task and Purpose and you know, if I go on the channel, I you went in a very respectful way. I don't want to kind of make this conversation uncomfortable. Matter of fact, that's like the least of my concerns. I'm not interested in that. But if I go look at Task and Purpose and it's a channel that's got 2 million subscribers and if I go to their videos and if you go to the most popular Rob we can hear the background noise Rob if you go to the most popular videos I think is that first one you the 8.4 million >> so that's 8.4 million you got 7 million views the second one 6.2s two, 5 million, uh, 4.9. You know, you made some content that got millions on top of millions of views. And the most common thing people would say is how fair your analysis is. So, we got a few things I want to go through with you. I want to go through MSAD, CIA, Iran, nuclear, Ukraine, Russia, uh, DARPA, what weapons we haven't seen that's being worked on, uh, and a few other things that I got based on your experience and research that you're doing. But let's start off with Ukraine. So, you went on the front lines of Ukraine. Rob, if you can go back to that one video you just had it on. No, you just had it on, Rob. If you go back to You were literally just there. You you Yeah. So, you go to the front lines of Ukraine. and just go to most popular and uh the invasion into Russia, but that's seven months ago, right? It's still going on. What did you see when you spoke to Russians, when you spoke to Ukrainian military, and then why is it when people from the outside are seeing at first when it happened, they're like, Ukraine's going to get their asses handed to them. Few years later, Ukraine still standing tall going up against Russia. Oh, they died more. Oh no, they Oh no, we're going to do this. Oh no, we're going to do that. What did you learn from being there? >> My journey through Ukraine, my reporting in Ukraine was, I think, a a little bit of an extension of what I've always felt since I was 19, which was I've I want to know the truth about certain things in the world. And Iraq was one of those things where I wanted to know the truth about what was happening there and not just what I was hearing on the radio and on TV. And when I went to Ukraine, I wanted to know the truth of that conflict because you're hearing a lot of very different things. You're hearing that it's democracy versus autocracy. You're hearing all these different narratives about do the Ukrainian people really want to fight for their country or are they just kind of being pressed into service in the service of American interests? I'm hearing all of these different narratives and I wanted I felt like as someone who studies war for a living. I felt like in order to have credibility with myself about what I was talking about, I needed to go and see what a highintensity war actually how it works from the logistics, the nuts and bolts of it from the ground up. And because it's so different from a counterinsurgency war, everything that I saw in Iraq is nothing like the rules of how it works in with Ukraine and Russia. And just even getting to the country, I had to fly into Poland and then take a 18-hour train ride from Warsaw to over the border into Kev. And as I'm getting further and further east, you're I'm starting to see it gets more desolate, start to see the signs of war. As I get closer to Kev, there are defensive positions still there. There's you could see where shrapnel had hit some walls and those signs of war start to show up. And once I got there, I was very it wasn't certain that I was going to even get to go to the front because when they get a lot of people that go there and they don't know if they can trust them or if they are going to be the type of person that has their head on straight or get someone killed cuz even going to the front is very dangerous and you could you're a huge liability. I'm unarmed. All I've got is a patch that says press on it. And so I spend a day in Kev first speaking to some politicians there, doing some interviews, talking to people that are in because Kev's not as dangerous of a place. It's like the green zone almost. And I'm really glad that I spent that day there because I ended up getting drinks that night with some people in Ukrainian media, which is all media there is at least half stateowned. And they have contacts in met with some people in the Ukrainian intelligence and I get get annihilated with them. We have some like special Ukrainian drink that they drink that is all jazzed up with vodka and I wish I had gotten the name. I asked them a uh it was some name in Ukrainian and then and then that whole night I'm just asking them like what different ways to say curse words in Ukrainian are. It's a great way to bond with people just like going back and forth and sharing different translations on curses for some reason in Iraq and in Ukraine. People just they love that. I love that. But it yeah, it might have been that. But it was it was a it was the type of drink where you start you get to talking and they're like, "What would you like to do when you're here?" And I said, "Well, I'd really like to go to Kursk in Russia." Thinking that there's no way because they don't let Western journalists go there. This is the part of Russia that at the time Ukraine had in their control because they had invaded into Russia and taken over a small part of Kursk. And to my surprise, the guy was like, you know what, I like you. I happen to be very good friends with the guy who runs that whole area of operations and I can get you in. And so it's in that moment that I think to myself, oops, what have I gotten myself into? Uh, I've never been so scared in my life as the moment when we start heading further east. Because once you start going further east from >> Bob, is that your phone? Trying to see where that sound is coming from. It's not mine. >> Okay. So you start going to Kursk. So we start going further east along from Kev to to the border with Russia. And the further and further you go along, you start to see even more of the signs of war, which one of the most striking ones is that just about every 20 kilometers there's a there's a checkpoint and there's Ukrainian SBU agents looking for deserters, looking for checking IDs, looking for Russian saboturs and buildings are blown to smitherines even that far east. And so we get closer and closer to the front line. And it's a part of the war when I was there was right when it was becoming for the first time it had become almost impossible to even get to the positions because there's drones everywhere. And it's to me it reminded me a lot of Iraq in the sense that it's like IEDs but with wings. And it's difficult for both sides now to even get to the trenches to get into and out of the trenches. And that's one of the things that the logistics of the war that a lot of times people don't think about is squads need to get rotated. Can't be at the trench 247. They have them go for a week and then rotate out. But now that puts a huge pressure on the logistics of it because you have to worry more about getting to getting into and out of the position more than you really have to worry sometimes about once you're once you're in the trench. So it was very difficult to coordinate with the units on timing so they could get us basically you're running the gauntlet from where it's safe to where it's dangerous. Kursk was the last part of the trip for me. Before that, I did several other missions and there's the videos are are up there. But one of the more terrifying ones was the drone mission that I went on where in >> Ukraine. >> Yes. Where we went I went with a vampire drone unit and we were uh Yeah, that's the one. This was probably probably the worst most terrifying experience of my life because we're getting shelled by Russian artillery and Russian mortars and I wasn't aware how close I was to the front until they took me there cuz I don't speak the language. I'm there with a fixer and I this guy was an amazing fixer. Kept me alive there. And he's telling me cuz I he's like, "Hey, get into this car and we're going to go." I'm like, okay. Thinking if I were going with a drone unit, we're going to be 20, 30 kilometers from the actual zero line where the Russians are. Not realizing that they go to 5 km, I believe it was, to the zero line. So, you're within artillery range. You're well within drone range. And it's this terrifying experience of being in a a jeep that's just flying through the night through these fields and I'm seeing artillery go off to the left and right and slowly realizing how close we're going. And yeah, that was the journey. And at one part we get a radio call right here where they let us know that they got intelligence that a Russian drone was tracking us and is overhead and is looking for us. And so they had to go hide the vehicle for a couple of minutes until that they could get information back to them that the drone was gone. So we waited till the drone left and then we went to the positions. And you you see on there's these live update maps that show you exactly where everyone's positions are. And we're I'm looking at these live update maps and seeing that we're so far forward that there are Russian positions surrounding the entire area. And it's unlike anything in Iraq. Having a front is so bizarre because you'll be at the front for a couple days and then they go back and you go and you get dinner, you get a gourmet dinner at a at a beautiful town and it's this kind of like uh bipolar existence that they have there. >> So one minute things you can go have a beautiful dinner and then few miles down the street there's a war going on. >> Yeah. >> Okay. So from the outside looking in and you you you seeing this the story about Russia versus Ukraine, why is it that Ukraine's been able to stand up to Russia for as long as they have? How much of it is themselves? How much of is NATO? How much of it is, you know, us sending them weapons? Why are they looking strong against a behemoth like Russia? >> That was one of the things that I wanted to find out. And I thought one of the best ways to do it would be to talk to your average Joe. talk to your average soldier and find out their motivation, >> their reason for for fighting, just to really pick their brain. And in during that car ride, I was able to ask them questions. And when you're under that kind of stress, people are very, very honest with you. One of the guys was telling me that he had been basically signed a contract six years ago, thinking it'd be three years, and then he's been forced into service since then. But and so he's like obviously hates being in the military, doesn't want to be there, wants to go home for Ukraine, but still even this dude was like, "Fuck Russia. They're crazy. This is our country and we're not giving it up." So I thought, okay, even if this guy who's basically forced into service for over three years now and is doing this ride every single day, if even he is like, screw Russia and it's good that we're fighting this war, that obviously isn't everyone's opinion, right? But it tells you something about what some of the Ukrainian soldiers think. That was very telling for me. I think that a large part of why Ukraine is able to defend themselves is because of their will to fight, which is something that fascinates me about conflict and militaries. The most fascinating thing I think is that how much of it comes down to just your regular Joe and their willingness to pull the trigger on a small armed weapon, on an M16, on an AK-47. We tend to think that it's all about air power. It's all about these big missile systems and stuff. And obviously those are huge impact on the battlefield, but it means nothing without you having your regular Joe be able to face those kinds of pressures of being willing to kill somebody and be killed for something is you can't just write it off as like they're being forced to do it. It's not that simple. I think evidence of that what happened in Afghanistan when we left and pulled out we gave them billions of dollars billions of dollars in training and funding equipment all this and what did they do they were like see you later bye >> because they didn't have a will to fight doesn't matter how much weapon systems and training you pump into a place or how much you tell them that >> the importance of the will to fight. >> Yeah. >> And you're saying Ukraine has more of it than Russia? No, I think they both have a will to fight. I think that it'd be dishonest to say that like the Russians themselves don't have and obviously this is very this is more complicated maybe than I'm making it sound, but I think that this helps explain a good amount of it. There's a lot of Russians that also are willing to fight and that's why you have a situation where they're unable to reach a peace agreement because they're not ready to stop fighting. How how do you think this ends? >> I think that it ends in not a very sexy or cool movie ending. I think it's really I could be wrong. I think what I should say one way that it ends is that it fizzles out and the front lines kind of end in a just the intensity of the warfare dies down a lot and we have these frozen front lines wherever they might be. That's one possible way that it ends. Another way is that Russia starts making more and more gains and they continue pushing forward as they are because the Russians I assess that they're taking ground right now. They're winning in the sense that they're taking more territory and then what I think you would very likely see is push back from Europe and United States at that point because there's no way they're going to let Russia reach Kev or cross the neoro. No way. I mean, what happened when when uh America was pushing forward in in Korea during the Korean War and they got close to the border with China? China poured troops in. They weren't going to let Americans close to their border. I don't think these European countries are going to let that happen. They'll deploy troops in. So, it it'll be we'll see. It's be it'll be slow ramp up of there's escalation steps that happen. And so if Russia starts to make too much gains, you'll see the UK, France, and other countries in Europe start to deploy troops into Western Ukraine. Just their trainers, their advisers, but these these type of escalatory steps would happen. >> Okay. So let's go to another issue when it comes on to Iran and Israel and the nuclear sites. you know, today, uh, I don't know if you saw the clip, Rob, if you want to play the clip of the, uh, uh, the leader of Iran that's being interviewed by, uh, Brett Bayer, and he's asked, "So, what happened to the nuclear sites? Are they damaged? Were they hit hard?" And he says, "Were you able to save some of the uranium?" I don't know if you've seen this clip or not with Brett Baron while he's looking for it. Um, what do you know about what happened there? And how did how did we get into it without anybody knowing about it? I mean, it was so low-key. You hear about Missouri, we go the opposite way to throw everybody off. How did we succeed in this whole Iran and Israel attack that we had? >> There's a couple of different theories about what happened with the bombing of the nuclear sites in Iran. I tend to think that they were very destructive against the Fordo nuclear site. There were are different assessments that have come out of the in the intelligence community. There's several different ones that you have to look at. The the CIA puts out their own assessment. Each part of the intel community assesses how much damage they think happened based on different sources of information. They intercepted communications from some of Iran's soldiers who went and actually looked at the site and it they made it sound like it wasn't so bad. But this is where it gets complicated because you could think, well, maybe they just don't want to report bad news or they're purposefully reporting information that they know will be disinformation for Americans listening. So, other assessments have said that it did a uh set the program back two years. The B2 bombers tried to >> You called a part of this, right? You called the bunker buster like several months ago. They said most likely the I think it was six or seven months ago when you called it. Oh, I did a whole video rundown on basically one of the airtasking order camp one way that they might do an airtasking order on Iran. They the funny thing is they ended up doing a very similar strike to what I had predicted, but it's not really hard to predict that they would do it that way. It is funny. It was almost the exact same. The B2s dropped several bombs and they did the dig the dig tactic that we thought that they might do, which is they dropped several bombs in the exact same spot. kind of like trying to shovel deeper and deeper with the bombs. And but what no one saw that they would do was that the the um deception tactic where they flew to the west making them think that they were going to go to Diego Garcia base just south of Iran and in to bomb them from there but instead they flew straight east all the way to Iran um to deceive them into thinking that they weren't going to attack. >> Got it. So here's uh if you want to play this Rob, this is the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Here's what he had to say about it. Go for it, Rob. >> Mr. Foreign Minister, what what is the extent of the damage to the nuclear enrichment program after these attacks? >> Well, our facilities have been damaged, seriously damaged. Uh the extent of which is now under under evaluation by our atomic energy organization, but as far as I know, they are seriously damaged. Did you did the already enriched material survive? Is it accessible? >> Well, I have no detailed information. As I said, our uh atomic energy organization is now is responsible for that. They are now trying to uh you know evaluate what has exactly happened to our uh uh to our nuclear material to our enriched material. >> How close do you think they got to building a nuclear weapon? >> We assessed that they were within two weeks a month. But I think that that's a very misleading way of thinking about it because people will hear that and then they'll think, well, I've been being told for the last 10 years that they're two weeks away from building a bomb and then it makes you think they're lying to me. Why? If if they've been two weeks away from building a nuclear bomb for 10 years, are they really that close? But the distinction that I think is easily missed is that you Iran could build a nuclear weapon in let's it was assessed to be 2 weeks to a month or two months if they chose to but they had not chosen to make that leap was the was the big distinction. So yeah, they've been two weeks a month away from it for a long time, but they didn't want to make that next step, which um >> what do you mean by that? >> Which mean basically they'd have to pull the trigger and they decide, okay, we're going to enrich to weapons grade and then from there they would need another 6 months to build the actual warhead and then they could just put it they could put that on one of their ballistic missiles. But from if they decided we want to go nuclear it would take them 7 months let's say >> what do they need for that to get finalized and how for example the the biggest distinction is like you know there's a community how many nuclear bombs does Israel have >> we don't know they don't they have strategic ambiguity >> they have strategic amb ambiguity how different is their ambiguity versus Iran >> well we know we assess that Israel has nuclear weapons and Iran, we believe they don't have them yet. Is that is that the question that you're asking? >> Well, no. We've been, you know, moderate estimate Israel places them at 90, right? They've never really confirmed that they have it. The rumor on the streets is the word on the street says they have it and most people are putting them as they have it. How do we not know? How do we know that Iran doesn't have it? What do they need to, you know, what do they need to officially have one? I we don't know a h 100,000% but we know based on they do allow weapons inspectors into the country. We know where their main nuclear sites are at. So if they've been able to do this in secret, it would be very difficult. >> How why would it be difficult? >> Well, for instance, Israel knows where each and every of their nuclear scientists live and they just merckked like 15 of them. So, think of how deeply embedded Israel and the American intelligence community is in Iran to know where these people live and to systematically for the last 10 years be killing them with like remote machine guns, killing them with uh Israel's killed nuclear scientists there frequently. Bless you. >> Excuse me. >> God bless. >> Yes. Thank you. >> Um >> yeah, they they just caught like what 500 of them, 450 of them. like uh a month ago. I don't know if you saw that report, the MSAD uh helpers that Iran just caught. Uh they didn't say MSAD agents. It was MSAD. What's the word they used? >> It's either 450 or 550 that Okay, there the 700 right there, Rob. >> They brought the hammer down. >> Mass arrest. Iran has announced the arrest of over 700 individuals since the beginning of Okay. Multiple s indicate that they have significant number individual suspicion ties to Israeli msad intelligence agency. So they're starting to realize that how are you catching us, right? Okay. But so you're saying in order for them to have one, they would really have to be extremely tactical for Mossad to not know where the scientists are developing it and to hide. >> Yeah. Because MSA, that'd be the first thing Israel would love to release that information. They would love to put out a report that hey look they're secretly at this site X Y and Z. >> So it's interesting your analysis on why you're certain that Iran doesn't have nuclear weapon is because Israel would have known through MSAD. So your trust is in the fact that Msad's doing such a great job with intel that they'd be the first to know. I would I'd say that it's unlikely that they have a nuclear weapon. I it's possible that they do but for a number Yeah. One of the reasons being we've seen other ways in which they've infiltrated and how deep they've infiltrated their networks. They seem to know everything that's going on in Iran. They even have MSAD agents on the ground launching missiles at their air defense and missile launcher sites. They've penetrated so deeply into Iran that it would I I'd be very surprised if they didn't know. I it's it seems unlikely to me because it it's in their interest to make that information public. Why wouldn't they make it public? >> How deep and again I don't know how much research you've done. How deep do you think MSAD is in Iran? >> I think the best evidence of knowing how deep their intelligence agencies are are based on the operations that they've pulled off successfully already. the the ones in 2010 where they killed a number of their I think it was 2010 they killed a number of their nuclear scientists and the way that they track that that is a level of it suggests how deeply they've per just penetrated into their nuclear program that they have an understanding that Israel themselves have been the ones that have said that they're two weeks away from building a bomb if they had a bomb or they were closer than that. >> But Israel's been saying that for many years, >> right? >> They're two weeks away. So, so it's either So, it's it's it's a few different things. Either they have it, which you're saying very small percentage Iran has a nuclear weapon because Mossad would be the first to know. Number two, they're two weeks away, which has been two weeks for about 10 years, >> but they have chosen not to because Iran, for a number of reasons, they're they themselves have said that because of their religion, they don't want a nuclear weapon. They have for years they've insisted that their nuclear program is peaceful, that they're doing it for medical purposes and peaceful purposes. So publicly, they've said that they're not pursuing a nuclear weapon. Sham sham building nuclear weapons for peaceful reasons. >> No. No. Uh enrichment. They're enriching nuclear material for peaceful purposes because there are peaceful benefits to nuclear technology. You could have nuclear power and you can have um there's different cancer treatments. >> What you don't need is you don't need to enrich past I think 4%. >> Who believes that? Who's buying that? Well, I think I buy it because if they wanted if they were they to them what it is is it's a deterrent for from their perspective. If we put ourselves in their shoes and if I were to game theory out like what's Iran thinking, what's in their head from a strategic point of view, it's a deterrent cuz they probably look at what happened to Iraq when Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons or wasn't even close to having nuclear weapons enough to be a threat. people will invade your country and steamroll you and and do regime change right quick if they think they can. That's just what happened in Libya. It's what happened in Iraq. Regime change was was something that we got a little bit uh carried away with for a period of time there. So, if I'm Iran, I'd be sitting there thinking, "Okay, I need to have the I need to be close enough to to a nuclear weapon that no one thinks of enacting some kind of regime change in my country. I need to be able to push a button and tell someone to go and all right, let's go nuclear. start start the process in a short enough time frame that it would make someone think twice about messing with me, especially if I had really shitty air defense and um not a let's say squared away military, not a great conventional power, >> Iran, >> right? If you don't have great conventional power and you also maybe have a tenuous hold on the people and your your government isn't popular, let's say, then having the threat of a credible threat of being able to produce a nuclear weapon in a short time frame would serve as a deterrent. >> Okay. So, um, intel, Israel has a couple thousand people in Iran. That's the number you hear about. Apparently, if they caught 700, say they got 1300 people there right now. What kind of presence do we or MI6 have in Iran? We definitely have a strong presence because of several programs that we've run like stuck stuts which was one of the first one of the first cyber weapons attacks ever conducted where the United States and Israel used a computer virus to destroy one of their a large part of one of their nuclear programs. I definitely think we have uh a strong presence. MI6 and the CIA. >> What did you call it? Stutnix. >> Yeah. Is that how it's pronounced? Stux. >> Stux. >> Net. Stuckset. >> Oh, stuckset. Got it. And this is CIA working with MI working with >> MSAD. Yeah. But do we have >> join up >> foot on do we have like CIA agents actually in Iran physically? >> I'm sure we have assets. Yeah, without a doubt. We have their That's I would very much hope so. That's their their mandate is to know what's going on in Iran and to know what they're thinking that helps us build out a policy of how we act there. how much of the intel we have we get from MSAD versus actually our agents, our assets that are in Iran. Are we relying on Mossad to get a lot of the intel or we getting it first? That's a good question. I don't I don't know the I Israel definitely has more information there. I would I would say we're probably acting off of them. Like for instance in China, a lot of the CIA agents that we had there officers sorry a lot of the CIA officers in China were killed in I think it was 2011 when uh the MSS which is China's version of the CIA just cleaned house and caught something like 200 uh CIA officers there >> in China, >> right? And so that gives us an idea of, okay, if we had that many CIA assets or officers in China, I'm sure we had a network in Iran. And so far, Iran hasn't been a there's hasn't been a big release of public information about how Iran rounded up and caught a bunch of American officers there. >> Yeah. Apparently, Iran caught 17 CIA officers in 2019. Rob, if you want to pull it up. >> And sometimes I I So, are they verified or did they just say that it's >> 2019? Iran claimed to have arrested 17 individuals alleging they were CI spies working on gather information on Iran's nuclear and military facilities. The Iranian government stated that some of the accused have been sentenced to death. The US, however, denies these claims. President Trump calling them totally false. Iran intelligence ministry presented the arrest as a major counter espionage operation. Who knows? How do we know if this is the truth or if it's just BS? >> For instance, with the with the what happened in China, the CIA admitted it. They were like, "Yeah, they wrecked our network. We have no idea. We're blind there right now." >> Are we still blind in in China? >> That happened over a decade ago. And the last things that the last reports that I was reading was that they're still having difficulty getting intel out of they the CIA has a YouTube channel by the way. I don't know if if you know this, but they put out basically >> so the CIA is it's so bad now they become YouTubers. >> Yes, >> that is pretty bad. But what the type of content that they make, this is where I like to get my content strategy cues from. Uh, so they put out videos periodically of they're essentially we're trying to recruit assets in Russia and in China. I don't think they have one in Iran actually. So maybe maybe that is evidence that they have a pretty good thing. >> Going to China one. Going to China one from two months ago. >> Have we played this rap or >> fascinating to me because it's like >> Okay, put put some audio. I'm actually curious to know >> Wait, they're making this to talk Chinese. >> Yeah. Yeah. So, so if you're living in If you're living in China, >> turn off the audio, Rob. I don't want to translate for everybody right now. I'm not in the mood. Just press mute and play the video. Just press mute and play the video. Please go for it. >> Great cinematography. Really excellent. This is >> And if you notice, they don't show a single face. everything is away >> cuz you're supposed to, I think, picture yourself. You're you're in China. You you happen upon this. I don't know how you get access to this, but you see this and you're like, "Yeah, yeah, I don't like that they they threw a bag over my uncle's head and he disappeared and disappeared to some some underground facility in Beijing. You know what? Maybe I'll call up and become an asset for the CIA." >> I wonder how effective this is. I want what's the other one? Is there a Russian one, Rob, or what's the other one that they did? >> There is a Russian one that they did, funnily enough, they did it right around the time I think when the coup happened there with pergo. >> Press a little bit audio for Russian. [Music] Same approach. >> Can you press pause and translate what it's saying? Are we able to see what it's saying in English or no? >> Uh, yes. Hang on one second. >> I I'm just curious to know what approach they're taking. Auto translate to English right there. Endless thoughts on my head. I smile at my wife's son, but inside I wonder if I have enough courage to resist this. What does it say? This >> betrayal of my father was a practical man. believed in Russia, talked about cosminauts and scientific achievements that the whole world admired, was a paratrooper. When I was 15, my mother took me to Moscow for my first victory parade on Red Square. Wow. And suddenly I saw their blue berets, my future destiny. I was proud of my service in the airborne forces. If it weren't for the accident, I would still be holding a machine gun. >> Then I found a new way to serve at least what I done. So it's interesting the the true enemy of what is the true >> the true enemy of Russia is within itself the top brass. >> Boom. Okay. So, they're using emotional words, emotional triggers for me in Russia to watch this and say, "Okay, I'm willing to release some information to you." >> And I'm doing and it doesn't make me a traitor. I'm doing it because I love Russia. Because >> because I love my father, because I love my mother. Because >> so my affinity is for what it was, not who it is today. >> Uh, okay. So, so we're weak right now in China. >> Hi, I'm Chris Cappy. You probably know me from the YouTube channel Cappy Army. I'm now on Minct. You can find me there and you can ask me any questions about war corresponding. If you're interested how to get into that geopolitics, defense industry, entrepreneurialism, anything you want to chat about, I'm on there. If you ever want to know some stories about CIA operations in Ukraine, that is some wild stuff. If you if you've been read in on some of that that it it only came out recently. >> Give me one of them. >> There's a giant story in the New York Times. The New York Times is one of the favorite places of the CIA to go and drop information about some of their successes. >> They have a relationship with them for whatever reason, but they go and they're they I think a lot of times we only find out about what the CIA does when they fail, but they sometimes like to leak some of their successes. And it's for a lot of times it's for policy purposes. They want people in Congress and the Senate to know about, hey, this is what we're doing. This is uh this is where the this mission ended up going. So for instance, I believe that's the one about the the 12 bases that they had on the front line. 12 CIA and they they openly publish this information themselves. They want the Russians to know this that yeah they had 12 spy it's um >> secret spy bases >> from the times article. This is the Euromaiden press. That's the the original article is from the times. outstanding outstanding piece of journalism. It got the journalist spoke to something like 300 CIA officers and got and got all of this information together. Basically, the story is that in 2014 when Russia invaded into Ukraine kind of in the first time and took over Crimea, that's when the CIA started putting officers on the ground, ground branch guys, training Ukrainians on how to use drones, training them how to use Javelin anti-tank missiles, training them how to defend their country, and training them on signals interceptions. So these 12 bases around the front, they were sucking up all of this Russian signals information and it was they credit as one of the reasons why they were able to stop Russia's initial push into the country. And it's just a crazy story of how they trained the Ukrainian HUR, which is like, if I'm not mistaken, it's like their version of the CIA. The SBU is like their FBI and it takes you through just this crazy story of how they trained these HER officers, HUR guys, and they were like, "Hey, but don't use any of this to kill Russians." And then they immediately went and killed a bunch of Russian generals and a bunch of um a bunch of Russian troops with this training that we gave them. This is all in the article, but and then there this attaches very specifically to another story about how we gave them targeting information. So we used our sat satellites to send them what were called points of interest which were Russian troop positions which crossed a red sort of might have crossed into a a gray area of whether or not that was what was going to be considered a red line for Russia. I mean, I'm sure Putin's not going to be happy about the fact that you told them how they did it and then Ukraine goes and uses it to kill off the generals. Putin's not going Putin's going to sit there and say, "America, you did this intentionally." And there are two way there are ways to look at it where you could read it in the way that Putin was provoked or you could look at it like we were trying to help Ukraine defend their sovereignty and Russia was the ones that were first arming and backing separatist movements inside of eastern Ukraine. >> When was this article written, Rob? >> Uh this was >> it was something 24. So is it June? Is it >> May 29th of 2025? March 29. But that's not it. That's not the one. The one about the 12 bases. That's the one. That was I think in in something 2024. >> Yeah. >> Um >> Oh, one second. I can pull that back up >> right there. So, what's the date on that? >> That is February 28th, 2024. >> Okay. So, that's under Biden. So, the CIA is releasing that under Biden. Huh. What? I I I don't I don't understand the the benefit of of leaking this. >> There's a number of reasons. I think one of them is you want the Russians to to know what you're doing and you might even want to embellish it a little bit and make them think, "Oh, they know where we are. They know everything. The Americans are everywhere and they're having this huge influence. >> Make them paranoid on the inside and see who's on the inside." That's too too >> That's one option. Another option is that there could have been at the time maybe funding was going to get taken away from the CIA or they were going to reappropriate away from operations in in Europe and this was a way to tell Congress like, "Hey, no, >> we still need it. We still have a >> I don't like it at all to be honest with you. I I don't like I don't like it at all." My opinion, >> uh I don't like it at all with what's going by the way >> it's uncomfortable. I I would say the counterargument is we also wouldn't like it if Russia steamrolled through and they were at the border with Poland. That's another kind of I think I would be uncomfortable with you. >> The way I would the way I would do the story is the way they dropped it. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. >> I would drop it in a very different way than the way they did it. I wouldn't drop it this way. >> I 100% agree that this I think they ended up putting something out that >> What a dumb move >> it. Yeah. because it can um a lot of people interpret it like like Russia used this as >> this is the dumbest way of releasing it. Let somebody like leak it. >> A a anonymous source told us at New York Times da da da da da >> that this is what happened. >> Yeah, cuz this ended up being used as >> this is the dumbest way to release it. >> Kremlin propaganda. They were like they pointed to this article and they said, "Hey, look. Yeah, >> we were right all along." I I I I I don't know if this makes the institution look uh you know I think this is a report you bring to the president and a leadership team and say is I just want to let you guys know here's what we did. >> Yeah. >> Let us give you a full report. Okay. This is still a valid reason why we need to be there. Do uh Yeah. So if if Iran how much have you looked at when when we want spies or agents in China or or Iran, how much of it is flipping people internally that become assets? How much of it is us sending people from here to there to know that they're 100% believers of us? Because say you're recruiting and somebody calls you. I I I got a very weird message from somebody in China. We went back and forth and he tells me who he's with, okay? And sends me a bunch of messages. Here's what you need to know. Here's what you need to know. This is who I am. This is who I'm connected to. This is why I'm real. Here's my ID. Okay. If somebody from Iran's like, "Yeah, yeah, I I definitely want to be a spy. I'll tell you everything." How the hell do you know that they're not home team? Like if I was Russia, you know what I would do? I would actually have 200 people to respond to you and give you intel and act like they're supporters of you to confuse the hell out of you. Like you know those Chinese ads, >> we would respond to it. I would intentionally get a thousand of my guys if I'm China and I would say guys respond to it >> and let's tell them these 28 different stories and confuse the [ __ ] out of America and then let's control them and see what wrong information they're leaking and then be like, "Okay, well this guy, we told this story through this guy to this guy. Now they're saying this person's got cancer. Okay, so now I know how to control this source that I have when I talk to them. That person I know this. But what I'm trying to ask you is if you're CIA, um, how do you send people from here that are true believers in Iran to infiltrate versus converting people that are Iranians? >> So the it's actually interesting because for a long time they did it. It was easier to do because you could send people to Iran and it would be very difficult to figure out what your background was or where you come from or if you ever had any contact with the CIA. But things have changed tremendously where now in the digital age they can look up instantly your whole history, who you are, where you've been, and if you're lying about any it doesn't match up. If you have Facebook friends that were, you know, said, "Hey, you you were interested in joining the the CIA in in high school, you're done." So, it's very difficult to send assets to another country. I think it's easier now for them to flip somebody that's already there. The thing that I think is the most interesting thing happening in the intelligence community right now is that that switch from for over 20 20 years we became professionals at counterinsurgency at the Middle East and now they're having to change and prepare for nearper prepare for doing um missions against Russia and China again. And it's it's been a major adjustment for them. >> Yeah. So, so I had the founder of this company here on the podcast four years ago, Clear View AI. I don't know if you've ever heard of it or not. Founder's name is Hone Tone Tat. Rob, if you want to pull up Clearview.ai, founder and um you're somewhat there, but yeah, that's better way of doing it. Uh so we had him on. Okay. Matter of fact, I just spoke to him a week ago. It's interesting. And he's doing big things. You know what technology he created that they used in Ukraine? He created a software, if you can go to their website, that they released this technology. Matter of fact, can you do me a favor? Type in Clear View AI Ukraine. Type in Clear View AI Ukraine. Uh Ukraine secret weaponers in Russia's clear. Right there. Click on that. That's right. It was in Time magazine. >> Oh, so Ukraine. He's this guy. Ukraine's secret weapon against Russia is a controversial tech company. So the way they would do is whenever they would catch somebody and they would say, "I'm Ukrainian." They would use this camera, put it on their face, take a picture, and the technology would tell you, "No, no, no. This person's Russian, vice versa." But Ukrainians got access to this technology. So, so in a way this makes it very difficult to send CIA agents from America abroad to infiltrate because your facial recognition is going to bring you back. So you you almost have to get assets internally. So how do you filter them out to know who to trust and who not to trust? >> It's a very my understanding is a very difficult process to become an asset. I think it's got to be a how do you trust them as well I think is the biggest issue there. How are you going to trust someone who's already in the country? Sending your own assets probably always >> there's one step. >> Yeah. >> You know what the first step is? >> What's that? >> Um okay. So I mean I don't want to give it to you because I I don't want to say it publicly but one of the ways is you know I say okay so why are you feeling the way you feel about this I hate tell me why well because why what part of it upsets you okay how is it directly emotionally do you know what they did to me they killed my dad and they killed this and they killed that okay if I'm not getting a feeling that it's emotion attached to real pain and suffering that you're sick of it that we share a common enemy. I would have given a complete different angle just the basic one and I have to believe it. So then how do I validate it that that is true? Do I do I ask the question to get the intel from you to show pictures? How do I find that that's actually happened to you? Because my level of paranoia would be the the country is using it against me, especially when I'm putting public ads for China and Russia. What a weird way to negotiate uh tariffs with what a weird way of negotiating a deal with Russia versus Ukraine. Hey, I want a peace deal. Hey, you want a peace deal? Yeah. Can I ask you why the [ __ ] on your, you know, CIA YouTube channel, Mr. YouTuber, you're putting an ad on how to get my people to tell you intel about me. What kind of a relationship is that? It's a very interesting world to be in. >> I'm curious how how do you see the peace deal uh in Ukraine and Russia? How the negotiations how they've kind of unfolded so far? You feel like it's going in a good direction? Well, I mean, it was supposed to happen a day after election, right? It was supposed to happen January 21st. >> I'm s I'm surprised even this much headway has been made or even an attempt. I mean, it's >> You think progress has been made? >> I think that they've tried progress. I think that before they weren't even trying. So, it's interesting to see them trying. And I think even through that process of trying, we've learned a lot now that we didn't maybe know before for certain. I think we've at least learned that. It's funny because their their strategy was exactly what they said it was going to be where they said we're going to come in, we're going to put pressure on Ukraine first and use all the leverage we have, all of it, to strongarm them into agreeing to go to the peace negotiating table. And then in all these these um like think piece documents about what Trump was going to do, they said if that doesn't work, we'll turn around and we'll put maximum pressure pressure on Russia with all the leverage that we possibly can, which I think we're now in that step of it. >> Yeah. So, you know, Trump's losing his uh patience with Putin. He's threatening heavy sanctions, right? We saw this very significant Russia sanctions bashes all talk Putin there will be very very powerful and very bad for the country involved and uh he also publicly in an interview said that we have to give Ukraine more weapons. We have to help them out. Wait a minute. We're not giving Ukraine weapons. He said that in an interview openly. I think this was a week and a half ago, two weeks ago. So I don't know if the relationship with Putin is as good as it was on the first administration. first administration conditions were a little bit different. Is this the one, Ram? >> Uh, this is where he announces uh more weapons for Ukraine. >> Go for it. >> Are you planning to send more weapons to Ukraine? >> Uh, we're going to send some more weapons. We have to. They They have to be able to defend themselves. They're getting hit very hard now. They're getting hit very hard. We're going to have to send more weapons. Yeah. Defensive weapons primarily. Uh, but they're getting hit very, very hard. >> So many people are dying in that mess. Hey, you see Hexets look is good, but the the his buddy sitting next to him is kind of like, "Oh my god, what are we talking about? I was not aware of this." But um where are you at with this? >> I think the secondary tariffs are the real weapon there because the the Patriot missile systems won't really change the equation too much. They'll give more air defense capabilities to Ukraine and that'll help them shoot down some ballistic missiles. But the real threat that's embedded in there is the secondary tariff, which is you can almost think of it more like a a sanction, the nuclear option of sanctions against Russia. I if they actually end up going through with it in that 50-day deadline, it would be they would be basically putting it would be putting a lot of pressure on China and India and anyone who buys oil from Russia, which is really what would put pain on them if if it really does go through. >> What do you think Russian want Russia wants here? >> I think that they're looking at the battlefield and assessing we could do this for another year or two. Why would we stop now? We're we're going to be in a better position tactically speaking on the battlefield a year or two from now than Ukraine. >> Why? >> Because just the momentum of the battle is they're gaining territory. Like that place that I was in in Kursk where I was reporting from there, Russian soldiers stand there today. They've captured that territory. Same with that other drone mission. All most of the places along the front, Russia is standing where I was when I was there. And a number of the people that I spoke to and interviewed in those videos, I've gotten word now that they're missing an action or killed. And Russia is they have the battlefield momentum. So from their perspective, why settle for peace agreement now? Wait until the battlefield conditions are not in their favor or it looks like they can no longer fight it. It to them it doesn't make sense to stop now. >> You've been in it for how long now? Four years. What's the timeline? Three years. How long has it been now, Rob? >> Since we invaded Russia. 2022. >> No, we didn't invade Russia. >> I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Russia invaded Ukraine. >> Start a war online. The US invaded Russia. >> Underground war. It's It's been about three and a half, four years. >> February 24th of 2022. >> Okay. So almost three and a half years. Soon to be Yeah. Three and a half years. Okay. So three and a half years there. You're playing poker. You know, you have $10,000. You're in $9,000 of your chips. 90%. What are you going to do? Say, "Ah, okay. You know what? I'll throw him. >> What do I got to lose? >> What do I got to lose? You got to go and see what's going to be, you know, happening and what the opponent has. So, you're saying this thing's going to continue with Russia for a while >> unless we unless the leverage is successful in in ending it." I if I were them, I wouldn't stop unless pressure was being put on me. I don't know how realistic it is or not whether that pressure works. I don't I don't know if Trump is going to actually go through with those 100% tariffs is is the threat currently, which would be I mean it would it would threaten to in a way make the war more global than it is. Like we know North Korean troops are fighting now for Russia. That was kind of shocking and a little bit concerning. And then if these sanctions put pressure and really hurt China because of what's happening in Ukraine, that makes this thing global in a way that it kind of wasn't before. Like we know China is providing a lot of aid to Russia. The Chinese Communist Party is sending machine tooling parts, uh, microchips for their drones. They're propping Russia up in their their main ally in this war. Everything short of munitions, but they're sending the the nitrate that you need in order to make artillery shells, which is extremely important. And so if we now start putting pressure on China, I think it makes this war, it adds a different dynamic to the war that wasn't there before. It almost puts the United States in confrontation with China. I I think it would be I don't know. I I'm very curious to see what happens in less than 50 days. >> 50 days. Who Who are you noticing, Chris, that's advancing in military the most? I mean when we look at budgets right Rob if you can go back to that one that you had you know because we see this budget here right ours 877 you got China Russia India Saudi UK Germany France South Korea Japan Ukraine combined is not 877 they're 849 right >> I think that this is it tells a story an interesting story >> two years old >> it's also yes and this ratio has similar to this for a long time. I would say it doesn't tell the full story because I think China's actually spending a lot more than that because there's so many different ways that you can determine what's military spending and not. There's so many different ways that it's almost an accountant game where China for instance there's large parts of their what we include in our military budget like things like the coast guard and the national guard for instance the national guard budget China does not include their what you would call their national guard is not included in their budget it's a separate thing that they include as part of their accounting for police force because so much of what China does is policing their own people. And so it's called the people's armed police. Huge budget. And this is the people's armed police, by the way, have flamethrowers and rocket launchers and infantry fighting vehicles. Like it's not a regular police force. It's essentially another part of their military, but they just don't do the accounting that way. So that's one and there's a a bunch of line items that are like that. That's just one example there. >> And also with our 800 something billion dollars, I wonder how much of it is maintaining our 780 military bases. Imagine the the the maintenance of that the keeping, you know, that afloat. That's got to be a big cost. >> I I would love to see the breakdown of how much the the overseas bases are. I I would I would make the argument that those bases are a net benefit to us, but the they they certainly do cost a lot of money. A lot of times though, the countries themselves pay for a lot of the stationing of our bases. They want us there. Um the in in China for instance, that budget is much larger also because of something called purchasing power parody. So if you account for and this is not a perfect example of of how it works, but goods in the United States cost a lot more. So buying an M16 here is different than what China would pay. So if you if you account for that discrepancy, basically there are there's a a firm an actual economics firm that ran the numbers and they assessed that China's budget is probably closer to twice as high as they as >> claim it is. Yeah. Or more so. >> So, it's still not at the levels we are, >> right? >> Are they what type of advancement are they making? You you see the drone war, right? If you if you see this other chart that we all see, and again, you're you're getting me to not question the drone part. The country set to dominate drone warfare by 2028. See where we are. Okay. And then you got this is by the Guardian. You got China. We're at thousand. China 68, Russia, India, Australia, Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia, Israel. Okay. And how are they calculating those numbers, Rob? Is there a number to it or what is the thousand mean? Do you see it on the bottom or No, >> it doesn't say at the bottom. I can find out. >> Brandon, can you send us what that thousand means in calculation? But when you're seeing, you know, drone warfare, future way of going to war, who is advancing in a more modern warfare than others? Are we still ahead of everybody? >> I think with the drones is probably the especially the organic to the squad that level of smaller drone. I think we were caught off guard a little bit by the FPV drones, the first person view drones that are just for like the size of one soldier can use because we were for a long time and still are the leaders at the most high-tech and sophisticated drones. But so much of what's happening, so much of the innovation is those lower level drones. So I think we're now catching up. For instance, we are basically right now what's happening in the US military is the largest transformation of how our forces fight since the 1980s. like there in the 1980s the military went through a giant overhaul in the cold war when we got the Bradley's the Apaches we got the big five systems the the highars or the ML RS rockets the these systems changed our entire military doctrine of how we fight and we went and we were able to defeat Iraq in in several days using these these new systems and now we're doing this was the land sea battle doctrine. We're now doing multi- multi- uh domain task force fighting which we're seeing were less focus and emphasis on Abrams tanks and heavy tanks. More focus on these light jeeps called infantry squad vehicles. It's kind of like going back basically to the Humvey of the of the 80s and we're going to send troops out in these unarmored Humvees with >> Yeah. Yeah. those. And then all those dudes are going to have drones with them. So, this is the new meta, you could say, of how we're going to fight wars. >> It's fascinating to see. It's it's so crazy to see some an organization like the army that's so opposed to change and you really got to twist their arm to get them to make any kind an institution like that is very traditional and rooted in what works. So they're making massive radical changes that they more changes in the time span of two years than usually they make in 20 years. >> Yeah. So drones by the way that thousand that we saw that was a thousand times a thousand. So we would be essentially uh at uh it's a thousand individual military drones dollars monetary. So a thousand times a thousand which means a million that military drone warfare that's being built. By the way, when you look at um did you see the Russia drones that came out just released two or three days ago? Did you see these black drones that were shown? Rob, I don't know if you have this or not. Russia drones were just released I think three days ago. Two days ago. Okay. Two days ago. And Russia appears to be launching. Go a little bit lower. Uh be launching. Get >> Oh, from the pickup truck. The Ford pickup trucks. Is that what you're talking about? >> This is not the one. Rob the If you go on X, type in the same phrase you put on there and just put it on X and see what comes up. Russia drones and X and see what it what shows us. You'll see the way >> right here. Black B drone group. >> July 22nd. Is that the one? I don't know if that's the one. Go a little bit lower, Rob, to see what we see. There were these drones that were just absolutely I mean, you can see the Go a little bit lower, Rob. Yeah, I have I have to find it. Oh, is that is that the one? What is that right there, Rob? The third one. Russia flaunts its massive drone. That's the one right there. July 22nd. Russia flaunts its massive uh drone war machine on state TV unveiling. Yeah, this is the one. Press play on this one if you can. >> It's giving you a hard time. Yeah, but hang on one second. I can download it and play it. >> These Russians never want us to see these videos. Look at this. >> This is it. >> So they they want to play ball. >> Yeah, they're not joking around. And it's funny cuz they got those Shahed drones are from Iran. They're Iranian technology. >> These drones? >> Yeah. >> Are Iranian technology? >> Oh yeah. Yeah. Iran were the ones that the very famously shahed drone is Iran basically set up the the these production facilities in Russia. They sent Cuds Force um operatives to help train them on how to use cuz cuz Russia has a lot of very sophistic it's kind of like the United States where we they have sophisticated weapon systems but they had this gap in drone technology and Iran happened to have the capability and the knowhow for for these type of explosive drones and they provided that to Russia. Russia's now since run with it. >> Yeah. So the these guys right here, pull it, zoom a little bit. Yeah. Iran. So place of origin, Iran. Interesting. >> Iran, North Korea, ch communist China, Chinese party, all of our allies are funding and helping Russia. They're all getting together and doing everything they can to help Russia. Which is part of the reason why I am kind of the mind that I'm like m maybe it's not such a bad idea for us in the West if all of our enemies and I consider them our enemies. I think they they don't want us to do well. If they're all be backing Russia, putting resources in, like I would say that's a pretty good argument and evidence for why or what I would say is a strong evidence for why we should support Ukraine to the degree that it's in American interests. [Music] That's interesting. What What else is Iran known for building outside of this? What what else is their specialty? Oh, they get everything from from like old Soviet Russian equipment, Chinese equipment. They get everything from them. >> And what do they produce though? >> Not as far as I know, the drone is their big like claim to >> That's the one that they claim to fame. >> Yeah. >> Manufacturing military weapons including various types of missiles, armor vehicles, aircraft, and naval vessels. >> They do also, I should say, actually that's that's maybe it's not accurate. They do a lot for the Houthis. So all of the ballistic missiles that the Houthis use, their anti-ship missiles that they fire in the Red Sea for instance, all of that is Iranian technology that the Iranians ship to the Houthis. So So I guess here's a question. Whenever I'm doing any kind of a business deal or if I'm talking to my kids, wife, friends, investor, enemy, whoever it is, I go through five things that I'll try to answer. What are their concerns? What are their fears? What are their motives? What are their assumptions? And what's their ask? Very simple. So, I want to know where you're at. Concerns, fears, you know, uh uh asks, uh assumptions and motives. Okay. Very simple. At the end, you're going to give me your ask. Last three years, we're watching Israel, Iran. You got a lot of people in US all of a sudden. Israel's the enemy. Israel is the enemy. No, no, no. It's Iran. You know, Houthis, you know, Hezbollah, what they've done. No, no, it's Israel. BB is this and you know Hamas, you know, they're just trying to protect themselves. Palestine. Palestine. You've been there. Okay. And not Palestine, but you've been to, you know, the Middle East. What is your impression of who is actually an ally of US and who is an enemy of US? Your impression? >> My belief is that Israel is 100% our ally. They have the same strategic goals that we have. their adversaries are often the same adversaries that the United States has. Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, Iran. That's why I think Israel aligns very closely with American interests. They make it very difficult for us to call them an ally a lot of times. And I think they do a lot of things that I would say are reprehensible and again make it very difficult for me to say that I am someone who supports Israel. But I do think when you talk about it like you're talking about it was strategically and where interests align definitely Israel. >> What what do they do that makes you say what's what's the matter with you? Oh my like boy if I could just give billions of dollars to some country and say hey can you delete our enemies in Hezbollah and in Hamas and then by the way can you also destroy Iran's um air defense systems like I that type of strategic victory that you almost couldn't put a price tag on that but then there's a lot that Israel does that is against American interests and it it makes you question if are those things worth it at the end of the day >> such as >> I think the way that they've conducted the war in Gaza is is is awful. It's it's awful to especially now as a new father. I look at some of the images coming out of Gaza and it's hard I think as a human being to look at that type of stuff and not be affected by it. And yeah, so I think those are things that Americans would look at that and be like that's not someone I want to call my ally. But then you look at the other the other side of who their enemies are and the stuff that they've done and it's it's awful dirty. It's such a it's such a mess. >> What have they done that's dirtier? >> October 7th was uh terrible to watch and observe. Being in when I was in the Middle East, I I thought that the way life is treated there is kind of different in a way. At least when I was in Iraq, like people, the Iraqi police officers, we lived on this small combat outpost like the size of a football field and a concrete wall around it. And they mainly mostly targeted the Iraqi police officers that we lived alongside of. the insurgents would kill them on like a weekly basis. And it's just was shocking to me at 19 to see people regularly killed and losing their life and that after I went back home once my tour was over, like that was their life. That's just their day in and day out existence. Even though I was no longer there, that's still how things are there. And and it's, I think, difficult for us in America to to think in that in those terms and to think about what it might be like to live in a in a environment where you're under threat like that for both for both whoever is there. It's just that whole region. Life is almost a different value. And yeah, it's it's really it's a it's a mess. It is. Um, none of those videos are easy to watch on both ends as you go through it. Um, and and the part about war is just war is such a freaking nasty game. It's so nasty. It's so ugly. I think a lot of people in the US, we see wars happening over there and we think especially when when there are things happening here where we especially when there are safety and security concerns happening in our own hemisphere, it those type of conflicts, it's it's much easier to then say, what are we doing? What are we doing with 800 something bases around the world when we've got a a cartel operating on our border bringing in boatloads of fentanyl killing hundreds of thousands of Americans every year, it becomes a lot more difficult to justify those 800 something bases. So I think and when we see wars in the Middle East, it becomes more difficult. So one of the things more recently I've been looking into are those sec national security concerns in the western hemisphere that that I think a lot of times gets gets overlooked. >> Yeah. Well, listen, it's when this whole thing ends and we learn more about everything that happened. I am so curious to know where the consensus will be on what really happened between Israel, Hamas, Iran, all of it, Palestine, and uh a lot of people in in today's world, you can give your opinions, you can give your thoughts, and then there's guys that are on the inside. It's like I remember my my friend was a Delta Force guy for many years. We were in the army together. He took my orders and my orders ended up becoming Delta. And at the end one time I met him. Uh I'm doing a Zoom with him late at night. I'm looking at him. He's emotional. I said, "What's up?" He says, "Man, I'm having a hard time." Said, "What kind of a hard time?" Like really hard time. I said, "I'm having a really hard time." I said, "I'm going to come visit you. I want to visited him in Europe." And I was with him. We went to a uh did we go to an eláical game? I went to an classical game. I think Messi was playing Ronaldo or whatever it was. And then we hung out and he started telling me I said so let me ask you like he was in on many of the bigger projects that happened the last 20 years starting six years ago that's when he got out give or take. So go back 2019 go back 20 years 1997 was when I joined and I met him in 97. So I said who gets it right politically? He said nobody. So what do you mean nobody gets it right? Everybody gets bits and pieces of it but nobody gets a fully right. Both sides are full of [ __ ] and both sides get some parts right. So this the part when jumping to conclusion when it's like well here's what here's what the truth is this versus here's what I think you know a lot of people talking with certainties today throwing a lot of people off. Um what's the one war you're worried about that could potentially happen? What's the one that could get very nasty? Is there anything out there that you hear about Taiwan, China, you hear the chips, you hear all these other things. What's the one as you're doing your due diligence and research on this, you're like, "Oh [ __ ] when that one takes off, that's going to be ugly." The NATO secretary general just brought up, I think, what was exactly on point, which is the possibility that China invades Taiwan and at the same time Russia does some kind of military action against one of the Baltic states and it's a coordinated attack and that would seek to stretch American resources and personnel thin because how do you respond to situations in both parts of the world. That I think is the the something that they believe could happen in the next 3 years, which is when the intelligence community assesses that China will be basically at its most at its probably its peak of its power. So if it were to if China were to invade Taiwan, it might be in their best interest to do it in the next 3 years, sometime in that window. really >> they believe that is when they'll have the the most favorable demographic conditions, economic conditions, and their investment in their military power will be at a point where they're ready to invade. Will they do it? Maybe, maybe not. But >> is that just another war or is that a is that a big war? >> You and if they're saying some Baltic, like where are they talking about? Estonia, Russia would invade mass mass forces on the border with Estonia, Lapia or Lithuania and try basically they're very small countries with small standing forces well trained and well motivated but there are tripwire forces there essentially. So the idea would be if Russia were to push in there really wouldn't be much you could do short of nuclear weapons. But something I think that we're learning more and more in the last 3 4 years is that our tolerance and threshold for war below nuclear weapons is a lot higher than we originally thought. So Russia for instance has taken a beating and at one point they were retreating fullon and Ukraine was during their first counter offensive they were capturing a lot of territory back and it looked like the Russian forces you might recall looked like they might fully crumble at one point and they assessed it was a 50-50 chance that they were going to use tactical nuclear weapons. They were planting the seeds saying that Ukraine was going to do some kind of dirty bomb. It looked very likely, but it didn't happen. India and Pakistan just had war recently and attacked each other's nuclear uh India sent missiles at Pakistan's nuclear sites and no nuclear warfare happened. I think it wouldn't be unlikely to believe that the United States and China could have some kind of battle over Taiwan and not it not be nuclear weapons, which I think is almost scary because it makes it more likely that they might assess that it it wouldn't be the worst thing to do. >> Pakistan and India are top six, top seven most uh nuclear weapons if I'm not mistaken. Both of them have a few hundred. One, one's got 40 or 50 more than the other one. Whatever the number is, Rob, if you want to pull it up. I don't know what the number is, but it's got to be right. >> 180 and 170. >> Okay. 180 and 170. 10 away from each other. So, six and seven. Um, but would it be smart for China to try to do it when Trump's president, or you got to wait to see until Newsome, Pritsker, Vance, or somebody else's president? >> I don't know how much the administration goes into their thinking. You think so? in China. It It might under any president in America, the policy towards Taiwan has surprisingly been very steadfast. It's been this consistent form of strategic ambiguity here that we have. And a lot of times people wonder like what is the United States even doing in Taiwan? We used to have 30,000 soldiers stationed in Taiwan. We used to have a huge military presence there and going back like we've had forces there since World War II when we helped China defeat Japan and we've had interests there in the South China Sea that we've been China's been aggressive to a lot of the internationally recognized borders and so ever since then we've consistently sent aid and defensive weapons to Taiwan. So whether it's Trump, Biden, Obama, I think they would face a very similar response under any of the American presidents. It's one of the things that kind of crosses uh the political divide. I think a part of it is also you you you think the president with strong hardline negotiation could tip off a war if you negotiate too strongly if you are too aggressive with your tariffs if you're you think that could prompt it or no that's not going to do it because on the flip side it's kind of like if you negotiate if you do attack Taiwan now while we're doing negotiation. Kind of like what the president said right now. I don't know whether agree or not. He said, you know, if the Washington commanders don't go back to the Redskins, I we won't be funding whatever. What do they need from him? Rob, I I think there's something that they need. He says, "What's his position with the commanders and um so Trump's effort to squash DC's NFL Trump that the Washington commander would the Redkins the progressive activists who want to kill the plan to build a franchise and shiny new stadium? I didn't believe it first that he would do something that stupid. Uh they're destroying the chance of bringing a stadium and that's fine with me because I don't want a stadium." Oh, so he's saying if you don't go back to the Redskins, we're not going to bring a stadium to you. Okay. and we're not going to approve the city to build a stadium. All right. So, is this a war he wants to pick or not? Who knows? He gets himself himself in a lot of weird things, right? Um, to me, I still don't look at the Washington as Washington commanders. I look at them as the Redskins. I look at it as Mark Ripen. That's who I look at. Curtis Martin, I think they had a running back. Was Curt Curtis Martin ever with the Redskins at one point? He used to be with the Patriots, but I think he was also with the Redskins at some point. I may be wrong. I don't know why I'm saying Redskins. I think he was >> New York Jets and the Patriots. >> Okay. So, who was the running back with the Redskins? They had a real good running back with the Redskins. Whoever he was. Anyways, you know, well, he gets in and he says, "Well, listen. If you do XYZ to Taiwan, guess what? We're going to do such and such to you." Oh, Peterson, Clinton Poris, that's his name that was there. We're going to do XYZ to you. Right. Do you think President Trump could be a guy that could prevent China from attacking Taiwan purely with the leverage on uh negotiations. >> Yeah, absolutely. And funnily enough, it would come a lot I think from the cooperation between the two countries. So very recently we saw they relaxed the restrictions on H20 Nvidia cards I believe it was or maybe it was H10 a a high-powered card that is used for AI and the theory is hey maybe if we get them hooked on our AI chips there'll be less likelihood of war. So Biden was going the exact opposite direction. he was cutting basically trying to decouple. So I would be of the mind that possibly if you can find a way to avoid decoupling I think it makes war it it pushes it back a little bit makes it less likely from happening. I think Trump Trump's has a certainly has a position right now where he could push the war kick kick it further down. >> I think so. I think it's dumb for China to be able to do anything right now with the war. Last question before we wrap up. DARPA. Okay. You know, a lot of times we the weapons that we have, you know, timeline wise, 30 years, you know, you kind of see something like, whoa, and you typically see it first in a movie, right? And you say that looks a little too realistic, right? What was a movie that Will Smith did with the robots? I Robot. >> I Robot. >> Yeah. You look, uh, was Musk the executive producer I Robot? Obviously, no. But iRoot came out when? >> 20. >> 21 years ago. Holy [ __ ] >> 20 years later, Musk is talking about that they're going to be deploying robots and making 10 million, 20 million, 30 million at $30,000, right? With the robots. What's uh what what is in store? What's being built that's just an insane thing DARPA's got that the rest of us don't know about that? Maybe it's been leaked. There's a couple there's a couple really cool toys that they're working on. One of them, it almost doesn't look cool, but it's probably the thing that scares China the most, which is the Typhon launcher. It It looks not cool at all. It looks like a It looks like a like a a truck from Walmart going down the street, but this thing fires a freaking Tomahawk cruise missile, and you can basically bring it wherever. It's terrifying because you can just roll up a truck somewhere in the Philippines, which by the way, they've now stationed these they have a range of over a,000 kilometers and >> they have a range of 1,000 kilometers. >> Yeah, they can hit China. They've stationed them in in the Philippines. It's the first time this has happened. This is a brand new weapon system and they're long range missile systems and they're now within range of China. China's absolutely livid about it. How do you know that? >> They they put out their foreign minister puts out all these press releases being like, "Stop doing that. Stop putting missiles within range of our country. You're destabilizing the whole region." Is their words. That's what they're saying. >> But these things are freaking crazy. You just >> They remind me of how there was those container attacks in both Iran and in Russia where those drones came out and attacked. It's like weaponization of containers are terrifying. The other piece of equipment that I think is really, really cool is the B-21 bomber, which is going to replace the B2. The amount of billions of dollars that they're pumping into this is >> what's what's special about this guy? >> It's like a B2, but longer range and stealthier. It's going to basically be able to drop those bunker busters over China and uh avoid enemy air defense. Looks pretty cool. It's like you you want one of those in our hanger, Rob, with that hanger we have in the back. Wouldn't it be kind of cool we put in the hanger? How much are these? Are can I go to Walmart and buy one of these or is there like a Amazon? Do they sell these? How much would something like this go for? What do they put into this? Oh, that's a good question. >> Can you find out what they put into dollars? >> 700 million per aircraft. >> Oh my god. Per. Wow. 700 including procurement operation fleet. At least a hundred bombers is estimated to be around $23 billion over 30 years according to the Air Force. So, we're building a we're spending $23 billion on a hundred of these. Why do you need a hundred of them? >> They need to be able to make sure that the enemy has thinks that there's no chance in hell that they could beat us. >> That's it. >> It's a deterrent. >> How do you feel about it? >> Military tech. It gets me going. Yeah. Yeah. I feel I feel good about it. >> Okay. All right. So, are you pretty optimistic about the future? >> I actually am. Yeah, I I'm hopeful for the future. I think I'm hopeful that all of these conflicts that we talked about today will be resolved in a peaceful fashion. I'm I'm hopeful that, you know, we've we've been doing it since the end of World War II. We've we've found a way to not blow ourselves and each other up. So, I'm I'm confident that the next generation will do the same. You know what's the number one way to show optimism to the world? >> How's that? >> By having babies. >> I I I completely understand what you're saying. >> If you're not optimistic, don't have any kids, man. Because if you're having a kid, you're saying, "Hey, man. The future better look bright for my kids for me to be having kids, right? If you don't, >> you know, it's a very different way of looking at it." Anyways, uh Chris is on the connect. if you have any questions for him. I know we got a big military audience on the neck with uh Andy um Stumpf, we have DJ Shipley, Cole Factor, a bunch of those guys and Matt Sapalo, Marine, I can list you a bunch of them. And now Chris is on there as well. Uh you can connect him any questions you may have. And then also Rob, if we can put his channel below as well for people to go subscribe. Is there any project you're working on that you would like to drive the audience to? Anything you're working on right now? If if you guys want to check me out, happy army on Instagram and on YouTube. I put out a video every week at least. And yeah, that's that's all I've got. I really I really appreciate it. >> You have a loyal audience. Is that really only 22 videos? >> Yeah, we've only been up for three months now. I think it's been a blur. >> You've gone in three months to 541,000 subscribers. >> Yeah. Yep. And I g I grew I I grew that last channel from zero to 2 million. So from going >> freaking love it. >> Thank you. >> Good for you, bro. For 22 videos goes to 541. There's a reason for it, my man. Again, thank you for your service. Congrats on your baby. And uh I'm sure we'll do this again in the future. Take care everybody. God bless. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hi, I'm Chris Cappy. You probably know me from the YouTube channel Cappy Army. I'm now on Minct. You can find me there and you can ask me any questions about war corresponding if you're interested how to get into that geopolitics, the defense industry, entrepreneurialism, anything you want to chat about, I'm on there.