00:25 - Background on the rise of Vladimir Putin, and the role of our EU allies in the Putin-Ukraine conflict
14:19 - Canadian Truckers: Civil Disobedience and Trudeau's seizure of bank accounts under the Emergencies Act
34:24 - NY Times Discusses "Trauma Creep": When did we start using the clinical language of harm to discuss, well, everything?
51:15 - Matt is joined by former Ambassador to Germany and Director of National Intelligence Ric Grenell to discuss the Putin-Ukraine conflict, the status of US relations with its NATO allies, and potential for outbreak of war
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Calvary Audio. Ladies and gentlemen, February seventeen, two thousand and twenty two, is always your weekly dose of sanity, the prevailing narrative. I am at Bilinsky, and as I say, I am trying to keep things sane for everybody. But guess who's trying to keep things interesting for everybody. That would be Vladimir Putin, always keeping things interesting. Okay, So he has amassed over a hundred thousand Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, and it seems to signal to everybody that we're about to have our largest military confrontation or military conflict in Europe since World War Two pretty much. But it keeps on not happening. This has been going on for about two weeks now. The market keeps on fluctuating in response to this. You keep on getting mixed signals in misdirection from the Kremlin and from Putin. One day he's talking very tough, the next day he's sending out spokespeople to kind of troll the u S and even poke fun at the notion that they would even considered that he would invade the Ukraine. For instance, uh the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakarova. UM. She made a statement that she requests that Western media publish a full schedule for Russia's upcoming invade invasions this year, because she'd liked to plan her vacation. The implication being that it's ridiculous that the US is even trying to read the tea leaves and suggest that Putin would invade. Nevertheless, this is what is on a lot of people's minds. Um. And so today I will be speaking with recent Ambassador to Germany and Director of National Intelligence Rick grannell Um. That was a cabinet level position. Um. As you can imagine, Rick is one of the most informed people on this topic. And not just in terms of Russia and and Vladimir Putin and whatever his plans are for expanding Russian influence in Eastern Europe are but Europe as a whole and be one of the key one of the one of the key elements of this entire situation is Germany and the United States relationship to its European allies. Of Wish Germany at this point is the most powerful um. Because this is all in regards to NATO, We're still part of the North American alliance with all the countries that we formed a coalition with during the Cold War as a counterweight to the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact, and our relationship and keeping and the texture and and the the host the internal conflicts and hostilities of NATO, and Vladimir Putin's desire to test out those hostilities or test the resolve and and the solidarity of NATO is part and parcel to this entire situation in Germany is really key to that, in particular because Germany now has an incredibly intertwined economic relationship with Russia. Um, if you guys are familiar with Nords, dream too. It is a natural gas pipeline that has been authorized to be at least been agreed to be built between Germany and Russia, essentially supplying all of Germany with natural gas from Russia. Obviously a critical economic component for both countries. So you've got an economic relationship between America's most significant European ally in NATO and its most significant UH strategic strategic rival against NATO in Russia and in the United States has to negotiate between those economic concerns and its foreign policy and military concerns with its allies amongst NATO, and so Rick can speak to that in incredible detail. It's a great conversation. I think it's gonna shed a lot of light on this entire episode with Putin and the Ukraine um and even beyond that. I want to go into a little bit just to frame all that a little bit of the background on Vladimir Putin in where I think the view of him in the discussion around him in Western media, at least amongst a lot of people, goes wrong. Because it's a fascinating history. It's just it's you look into the history of Vladimir Putin, how he came to power, it's wild. I mean, the amount of things that fate was working in this guy's favor, because the amount of things that had to line up for him to now be arguably one of the most powerful people on the face of the planet is just freaking bonkers. So let's go back to Russia in the nineteen nineties, Soviet Union falls um Boris Yelson ascends to the position to the presidency, and so what's Russia staring at as with the breakup of the Soviet Union, and essentially at that point, you had. You're going from seventy years of an entirely state run economy where the state owns all the means of production and all the assets, and now you're trying to shift that to a market based economy in a democracy essentially overnight. So how the hell do you do this? Well? The plan that was eventually chosen was implemented by an economist, a young economists only thirty three at the time, named Ygor Gaddars, a thirty three year old economist who had won the trust of Boris Yelson, and he put Gadar in charge of reforming Russia's economy and Gadar's thesis. Gadar's policy for this was called shock therapy, and the thinking behind shock therapy is that it was impossible to do this step by step, that trying to unwind the state control economy from the Soviet Union could not be done in pieces. So you had to essentially create, you know, send the economy into shock to create liquid markets of privately owned property, business, and and currency. In in Russia at the time, UM gonna come as to you was a shocker. But shock therapy did not work. This was an absolute disaster. Uh. It led to a lot of pain and suffering and deprivation in Russia in the nineties, and more importantly, it led to alluding of the most valuable assets of of Russia and the Russian government that should have gone to the Russian people by a small, UH concentrated band of people who were eventually known as the Russian oligarchs. I mean some of the names you might have heard of, Roman Abramovich, Mikhail Kordorkovski, UM, Mikhail Prokarov, who was a gentleman who owned the Brooklyn nets uh in the United States briefly, and another guy who's key to all this named Boris Berezovsky. You cannot tell the story of Vladimir Putin without telling the story of Boris Berezovsky. And there's an incredible book on this called Godfather of the Kremlin Boris Berezovsky in the Looting of Russia. Okay, so Russian in the nineties, as I just mentioned, things are not going well. Um murders in because they had essentially shifted to a UH to a gangster a economy. That's three times the rate of murders in the US. That year was also a record, so crime bridden society um and out of control inflation, the price of eggs increased by percent, soap tobacco thirty scent, and essentially the the immediately post Soviet Russian society could not support the health of its citizens. The male life expectancy in Russia and from nineteen eighty seven to ninete dropped something like ten years over like five six years. It's got the male life expectancy dropped from about sixty sixty seven years old to fifty seven years old. That's how bad it was. So Okay, how does Barzovsky play into all of this? So essentially what happened with these oligarchs is as the Soviet economy shifted to the Russian economy from state owned to private through shock therapy, a handful of either one really well politically connected individuals and or two incredibly violent individuals who were willing to use bankster tactics, violence and street gangs. In Berezovski's case, it was allegiance and and uh collaboration with some checking gangs essentially to go and rob rob these assets. You know, if there's a copper mine or gotten or a television channel that the Soviet state owned. Okay, how do you shift that to private ownership? Who gets to own it? Now? On the one hand, some people came in and just stole it at the at the barrel of a gun and say, hey, I've got I've got fifty you know, guys with machine guns outside. You're signing the you know whoever you are, state representative, who's in charge of this. You're you're signing over the ownership for that that coal mine or that copper mine to me, and I'm now rich and I now get this property. Or in certain cases Russian individuals were well connected, would go raise money from the United States, from investment banks, from private banks, um and essentially through their political connections, by multibillion dollar assets for pennies on the dollar. Essentially you could buy ten billion dollars worth of natural resources for a hundred fifty million dollars. And some people became obscenely rich doing that. One person who didn't, who did that was Boris Berezovsky, and his business was automobiles, automobile manufacturing UM. Then he he essentially took drifted that into automobile dealerships and he was the kingpin of the auto industry in Russia. UM. He was not a quiet guy. He liked to be high profile, and he had an insatiable thirst for power, and so he then uh took over a couple of the major Russian television stations as well. So Vladimir put is a low level KGB officer. He resigns because he's not on board with the shift in government, and then he somehow ends up over the next few years kind of a low level deputy mayor of St. Petersburg. Okay, When he's deputy mayor of St. Petersburg, he intersects with Boris Berezovsky, who's trying to open up auto dealerships in St. Petersburg. Berezovsky just like the guy I don't know, you know, he's like the cut of his jip. He enjoyed Vladimir Putin and they became friendly. Over the rest of the nineties, Boris Berezovsky continues to become more powerful, becomes the you know, zealously supportive of of Boris Yeltson because he believes the opposition to Boris Yeltson is Communist in nature and he's just going to come in and steal all of his assets. And he rises in profile and political power, even becomes a member of the Russian Parliament. So as Vladimir Putin's career, you know, evolves, but it does evolve. I mean, he became an administrator for some agencies in Moscow, but he wasn't a high ranking guy. Nobody that knew who the hell Vladimir Putin was as late as nineteen but uh, but Berezovsky convinces Boris, he introduces him to Boris, Jeltson convinces Yeltson to put him in charge of the f s B, which was the successor to the KGB Security and Intelligence Um. And then when Yeltson, they realized that Yeltson can no longer maintain the position of president. They want to install some sort of puppet, and Berezovsky, uh it starts promoting Putin on his television station, promoting h him, you know, with Yelson and convincing Yeltson to a point Putin deputy to a high level position and essentially as temporary president. And and they installed Putin as president, Berezovsky and Yeltson, and at that point they were they were anticipating that he was going to be a puppet that they were going to be able to control him. They were very quickly, uh, disavowed of that notion, and very quickly Putin showed that he was going to be nobody's puppet. He took extraordinary action right off the bat um to counter a lot of the things that people like Berezovsky and some of the other wealthy Russian oligarchs were doing. And there's apparently a really infamous meeting where Putin, within the first couple of months of his presidency, calls in Berezovsky, Krdakowski, Abramovich and a few other of these oligarchs and says, okay, guys, the party's over. You look you uh, you assumed, and you obtained this wealth through will be gotten means during the nineties, during a period of chaos. So here's the deal. I'm gonna let you keep your money. Politically, there's a new sheriff in town. I'm gonna reform that the political economy of this country, and we're going to run these things differently, um, and so do not challenge my authority at all. Do not do that. That is our deal. Okay. So Abramovich, Pokrov, a bunch of these other guys they play ball, they say, Okay, I'm just gonna take my money and go do my thing. Obramovich goes and buy yachts and and soccer clubs, and Pokrov buys the nets, but Berezovsky and Kordoarkovski don't play ball. Berezovsky gets exiled to London and kind of starts an anti pute Putin resistance in exile from London, which did not work out so well. It ended in Berezovsky as a parent suicide in London in two thousand and thirteen, and Cordakovski gets locked up in a Siberian prison for about a decade. Crazy stuff, right, Um, So that is the story of Vladimir Putin and and Russia, at least part of it. And and nobody ever thinks about things in these terms. When we're trying to discuss him in the US, we just kind of paint him in through the same kind of lazy caricature prison him of villain versus hero that we painted all the Russians during the Cold War, which was legit was a valid prism through which to view them at that time. But the definition of hero or villain from where the you know, an American is standing, you know, compared to where from where a Russian citizen or someone who's not American centric is standing is completely different. Like, you know, yes, Vladimir Putin represents hostile interests to the United States, as we're going to get into with Rick and the Ukraine is in essence an ally, but it's not quite that clear cut in understanding one why the why Putin has the support of the Russian people, why he takes the approach towards the United States and towards you know, a prospective Russian sphere of influence in that region that he does. Um, if you view things through the historical lens, where Vladimir Putin's rise came out of a really terrible period in Russia during the nineties where the state, you know, where civil society essentially fell apart, and he came in. Russians, now, for all his fault, support him, because he put the state and put rush to the Russian society on more stable ground. Things start to look a little different. And you know, if we're gonna try to analyze this, everyone's trying to to understand and interpret Putin's behavior political, particularly because there's a lot of misdirection and a lot of apparent contradictions. But once you start to view it through that historical lens, I think it becomes somewhat more clear. So who know, listen, Um, by by the time you hear this podcast, who knows all this could be completely wrong in Vladimir Putin went ahead and invaded the Ukraine. But I'm I'm finding that unlikely. I don't. I think this was as Rick and I will discuss a negotiating ploy used to kind of signal his seriousness, test out the Americans and and kind of put more pressure on NATO to either find pure alignment or to really stand up to the Russians. And um, and you know that, but listen, it makes Putin an incredibly fascinating character. He's probably the most fascinating geopolitical character so far of the twenty one century. But UM, you know, I hope that history and what I just explained was interesting and informative, and you know, I do think that will really funnel into my discussion with Rick. Um. But first we're gonna go into a couple of other topics and um, then we'll get to Rick a little bit later on. So just to show you that there's no end to how insane things can get in our world these days. Of course, the one place during the pandemic what where things finally reach a boiling point between the people and their government. We turn our attention north to Canada. Canada, the most boring, plan vanilla, bland, anodyne, polite society ever known to man. And of course this is where we finally seem to find some sort of revolution and and authoritarian crackdown from the government. So the Freedom Convoy of truckers who set off across Canada to protest vaccine mandates essentially requiring the truckers be vaccinated in order to pass back and forth over that US Canada border, primarily between Ottawa and Detroit, and the truckers end up parking their trucks on the Ambassador Bridge and Windsor, Ontario, which is apparently one of the busiest commercial border crossings in the world. Apparently four dred and fifty million dollars worth of goods moved between Ontario and Detroit each so it's a critical link for the automotive industry as long as the agricultural and aerospace aerospace industry. So they park all their trucks there um, and they essentially shut off activity and commercial activity crossing that bridge. And this is a problem. But this brings up the question of one civil disobedience and what what truly is a a peaceful protest? Right, because we saw last the summer of two thousand twenty and afterwards with the Black Lives Matter riots, that there was a question of one what constitutes a peaceful peaceful protest? To where does the media get off and what's the reaction to how the media portrays whether or not a protest is peaceful. And then the one that I like to dig into that's a little more traditional and academic, is what is civil disobedience? Because at its core that that's what all of this is, Right, It's supposed to be civil disobedience that you are either one, you know, approaching a break in the law or outright breaking the law, but in some kind of low frequency or low vibration manner in order to protest, you know, unjustifiable government action. So let's look into civil disobedience. Okay, So the Stanford Encyclopedia Philosophy, here's how they describe civil civil disobedience. They referenced the Boston Tea Party, the Lunch Counter sit ins um from Martin Luther King and and a lot of the civil rights movements in the South in the nineteen sixties, Gandhi and the Salt March, and what they mentioned is um. On the most widely accepted account, civil disobedience is a public, non violent, and conscientious breach of law undertaken with the aim of bringing about a change in laws or government policies. On this account, people who engage in civil disobedience operate at the boundary of fidelity of law, have general respect for their regime, and are willing to accept the legal consequences of their actions as evidence of their fidelity to the rule of law. Okay, so part of civil disobedience is that you understand that there will be consequences, right that you're not claiming that you're not going to potentially be subject to arrest. So theoretically, the Black Lives Matter protesters, if they were to claim that they were engaging in civil disobedience or that they were engaging in peaceful protests, are acknowledging that some of things that they may be doing were illegal. Much like these these truckers are acknowledging that some of the things that they're doing, shutting down traffic, parking, deadening their cars and their trucks, and parking their cars, you're technically are illegal, just like not being vaccinated. Not being vaccinated and trying to cross back and forth between the border would also technically be illegal. But the point being, or at least their contention, is, these are unjust laws. Thus we will break other laws in you know, as as light touch of manner as possible, in order to show the invalidity of the government's action and imposing them. So when is that valid and when is that not valid? I think we It's inseparable from from analyzing and observing whether or not protests actually become truly violent or not. Um do these protests, whether or not they originated, Whether once again, whether it's BLM protests or the truck or the freedom convoy. Um do whether or not they originated with intention to be safe and and non violent, do they then become violent? Do they do they drift into violence, looting, intimidation of others. Because here's the thing, I gotta be honest with you. You know, some people might think that, given my views on vaccine mandates, that I'd be incredibly supportive of the truckers, and I gotta be honest, I'm not necessarily was not, at least originally so supportive, because here's the thing. All of the civil disobedience in many respects disrupts the lives of others, right, just like you would see with a lot of the BLM protests where they block off streets or even kind of get up on on people's private property in their cars and impede their impede their transit um and in a lot of ways intimidate them. And then the the the response of messaging was, um, well this is for a greater good, and you you're just gonna have to sit there and take it. And well, no, no, no, you should not be interfering with the lives of other citizens. Okay, if you're protesting against government action, there's ways to secure a permit and go and pro and protest. If you want to get the civic authorities to shut down a series of square blocks, you can go and make make your voice heard. Similarly with the trucker convoy, and they're shutting down a ton of commerce, they're disrupting the lives of a lot of innocent as fellow citizens who are not part of the government, who are not you know, share none of the blame in you know what, in any laws, whether just, are unjust. So from that perspective, I'm I'm not a huge fan of civil disobedience unless the laws being protested against are absolutely just unconscionable. And that was the justification, or at least that was the um that. Those are the foundational arguments of Martin Luther King when he wrote his letter from the Birmingham jail when he was arrested in response to certain acts of civil disobedience. And here's here's MLK. Let me give another explanation. An unjust law as a code inflicted upon a minority which the minority had no part in enacting or creating, because it didn't it did not have the unhampered right to vote. Who can say the legislature of Alabama which set up the segregation laws was democratically elected. Okay, So if we're in you know, the mid sixties in Alabama, and you're you have one group of indivi visuals based purely only on on their demographic characteristics and their skin color, that is being discriminated against. I mean that violates so many aspects of natural law. And if if I'm trying to if you're making the case for civil disobedience and truly being able to make a bright line distinction between just laws and unjust laws and thus to not obey unjust laws, I mean, it's a pretty damn good case right there. That's a pretty damn strong case there, and I think it really aligns with the fundamental precepts of civil disobedience. Then we go onto what was transpiring in regards to the George Floyd incident and a lot of other BLM protests, And here's the problem. They weren't really protesting against any particular law. They were protesting against incidents instance, you know, tragedies and instances of injustice, which in certain regards were perpetuated by actors of the state. But then the question becomes, I mean, acts of of injustice and wrongdoing occur quite often. They're supposed to be punishment for that. So were the people committing the wrongdoing being punished? And the the track record of historically of police officers being punished for police brutality is not great. But during the era during which the Black Lives Matter protests were occurring, the record is actually pretty good for the vast majority of these these police shootings where they where there was a clear cut case, uh, where there was a clear cut case of abusive authority. A lot of cops were being prosecuted, including Derek Chauvin. Right like all these pro all the George Floyd protests went on after it was that he was already arrested and was in the process of being prosecuted. So if I'm looking at a justification for civil disobedience in that regard, okay, you know what are you aiming for here? If you're just lashing out because of an injustice, I'm sorry, I'm not going to see. Uh. I do not believe that's justified. If you're disobeying a certain law which is unjustin you're willing to accept the short term consequences of that to highlight the unjust nous of it. Well, that's the front story. But then once you start diving into once again rioting, looting, vandalism, and intimidation of innocent civilians, I don't believe that's justifiable in any way, shape or form. So was that also going on with this with this trucker convoy um didn't really seem to be any violence, didn't really seem to be any any looting or vandalism or harassment of other citizens. They really just parked their trucks on this bridge, which once again is against the law and is disruptive. And on that alone, I'm highly skeptical. I don't I don't find, in principle agree with that whatsoever beyond temporarily just to make your voice heard. Um. But no, there was no vandalism, and there was no violence, and there was no real civil unrest. It was really just the shutdown of the bridge. Um. Okay, so where does that? Where does that leave us? It was really just shut down of the bridge. So what else was going on there? Okay? So the protest don't really seem to be violent. There's not really any civil unrest or or louding. They really just seemed to be blocking the bridge. And so Barry Weiss had one of her colleagues go ahead, go go up to Ottawa and interview a bunch of individuals involved in the trucker protests. And here's a piece that she wrote. Um, what the truckers want? So b J Dictors, spokesman for the Freedom Convoys vaccinated. Any estimates that many, maybe most, of the truckers at the protest are too. His quote, I'm jury, I'm Jewish, I have family and mass graves in Europe, and apparently I'm a white supremacist. Ostensibly, the truckers are against a new rule mandating that they went when they re enter Canada from the United States, they have to be vaccinated. But that's not really it. The mandate is a moot point. The Americans have a similar requirement in anyways, the vast majority of Canadian truckers, according to the Canadian Trucking Alliance, are actually vaccinated. So this protest is about something else, or many things. A sense that things will never go back to normal, a sense that they are being ganged up on by the government, the media, big tech, in big pharmap and so this seems to be a more generalized protest or objection to government overreach, which has been I mean, Jesus Christ, if you've been following UH Canada throughout this entire episode of the past two years of the pandemic, I mean, regulations and the rules there have been really suffocating, right, and then you add you layer on top the the vaccine mandates. Um, And it just kind of broke people. At some point they said, unless you have an incredibly factually justifiable reason for imposing these rules and regulations, I mean, we no longer believe in the social contract that we entered into, but between the citizens and the government and the government, and we have to take some sort of action to make our voices heard. Um. And another thing, I don't love that argument generally. I don't love Hey, I don't like the government's policy, so I get to go break the law, interfere with the lives of others in order to protest that. However, you know, once again, because they remained peaceful, and because this protest was against a specific government law and mandate, I don't I think there's a little a little more room to find justification here, right because they're saying, hey, we we will leave this bridge. We will we will pack up our trucks in our tents and go home if you simply release this mandate, right, and we know what, I don't need to repeat what I think about vaccine mandates. At this point, there being released from pretty much every territory other than a couple last holdouts, and everyone can agree that they were kind of attempts at permanent solutions to short term conditions. And most people have acknowledged that, other than some of the holdouts such as A Justin Trudeau. Um, so you know, but hey, this can't go on forever. Eventually, this log jam has to be broken. And much like any any other actors around, any other people who are breaking the law, law enforcement authorities do have the right to detain, you, arrestue and unclogged the condition that you were causing, right, And that's to a certain extent. What what they went ahead and did? I believe as of Sunday the bridge was reopened about forty of the truckers were arrested in some of their trucks impounded. And hey, they have they should have all their constitutional rights and be given legal defense and right to a speedy trial, and you know, and and they're going to go through the legal process and they might have to be punished. But look what happened from there. Beyond that, Trudeau went ahead and invoked the emergencies, the Emergencies Act. This has never been done before, Okay, and so what is the Emergencies Act? Apparently it's legislation that can only be invoked if an emergency cannot be addressed by any existing federal law, and if it exceeds the capacity of the provinces to handle it effectively. So the Emergency Act outlines for different types of emergencies public welfare, public order, international and war emergencies, and the criteria here is strict lawful protests do not qualify. So justin Trudeau is expanding the definition and usage of the Emergencies Act and essentially triggering wartime powers. Or this is the type of thing that you would use to to address terrorism, for instance. And so under the Act that government has a number of far reaching powers at its disposal. Government could bar travel to or from specific areas, it could order the evacuation of people at personnel, and it could seize bank accounts. And that's what Trudeau went ahead and did, because here's the thing. A lot of the battleground here is around financial support. Initially, um, a lot the truckers had been running campaigns through go fund me to raise money for financial support for the individuals involved, and they raised a lot of money. Uh. Go fund me has shown itself to not really be a fan of of freedom and have very much left wing left wing leanings and has made no secret that it's not you know, at some point it's going to uh kind of interpret its its community guidelines and its rules to not allow for right supportive right wing causes. Okay, So the Trucker Convoys and their financial support went to a web another crowdfunding website called go send go UM. Worked for a day or two. They raised a bunch of money on ghost end go. But then ghost end go was subject to uh to a hack. All the names of individuals who donated money through ghost end go was released. A lot of these people are being attacked, They're being docked on the internet. Um. Twitter seems to be Twitter seems to be uh ignoring their own standards and saying that they will not allow shared materials, that Twitter will not allow materials that were the result of a hack to be shared on Twitter. But they're allowing the identities of people who donated to the Trucker Convoy through ghost end Go to be spread on Twitter. Um. So it's becoming a real mess. And then Trudeau goes ahead invokes the Emergencies Act and essentially one freezes the bank accoun outs in the financial livelihoods of all the truckers involved, and also is now freezing the bank account of anyone, freezing the funds of anyone who can be seen or has been revealed to been donating any more than twenty five dollars to the to the trucker convoy. Right, this is quite a step, and he essentially has labeled all crowdfunding support to the truckers as quote unquote terrorist financing. I don't think people understand quite how significant a step this is. This is essentially labeling citizens terrorists and saying that we need to have focus certain certain emergency if not war, but war adjacent emergency powers in order to deal with you. And we're going to annoy anyone who who acts in concert with you one whatsoever, including just donating to a crowdfunding site and your support essentially as a terrorist finance. Here, this is really uh first of its kind step at least in the Western world as of recent Okay, so what's the reaction here? I mean, justin true, there's a federal government in Canada. Right, You've got the federal government and then a number of provinces. Well, the provinces don't all seem to be on board here. I mean the premier of Saskatchewan came out against Trudeau's action um Quebec has dropped the vaccine mandate. The Premiere of Alberta, Jason Kenny, has been the most vocal. I mean, Alberta is a major province in Canada and he's come out very forcefully against Trudeau's usage of the Emergency's Act. And I mean this, this is this is kind of put Canada in a bit of a low grade civil war, the provinces against the federal government, Trudeau against the people, and things kind of exploded at a parliamentary hearing today as Trudeau essentially labeled as saying, anyone who stands with the truckers is standing with people who associate themselves with the Confederate flag and the swat and swatstikas. And he said this specifically in regards to a Jewish member of parliament named Melissa Lanceman. Um kind of odd that these people continually label anyone who isn't on board with their policies as Nazis or racist or associated with Confederate flags or Nazi symbolism, right, this seems to be an odd habit of theirs. Seems to also reflect on on their credibility, and so it's a really troubling precedent what Trudeau is doing, invoking the emergency and going extra judicially without going through the judicial process, seizing the bank accounts and essentially unperson ing people based on their political views, and those who simply provide some financial support through crowdfunding for those engaged in hey, civil disobedience and peaceful protests. These protests were not violent. They were clogging a bridge, but there was no violence, there was no looting, there was no vandalism. So a couple of comments on Twitter that put this in perspective. One, don't worry justin Trudeau isn't calling in the military. He is just authorizing banks to unilaterally freeze your accounts on the basis of suspicion alone, no court order required, with legal immunity. I hope everyone realizes how much more dangerous this is than the military. Another one, Canada trying to freeze the bank accounts of Trucker protesters with zero do process and oversight. Calling them terrorists is a precedent that will be used against any and all press, any and all protests. You have to oppose it, regardless of what you think about the substance of the protest. So now is this a breach of the of the basic social contract between sid send in government. I mean this is this is a low grade, non violent act of war by the government against the citizens. Once again, this is distinguishable between distinguishable from going ahead and legally detaining these people like they can be arrested. I have no problem with them being arrested, given a trial with all their constitutional rights, but without judicial authorization, having their bank accounts frozen and freezing those who donate to them, And this is this is a grim step and I don't think Justin Trudeau is not prepared for the consequences of this. And he thinks that he has to be tough and show that he's no one to be trifled with. But he doesn't have the support of other governmental actors, he doesn't have the support of the people, and I don't think that he's built for this type of hostility. And I think it's gonna I think he may win some short term battles, but he's gonna lose the war on this one. But more so, Western society is gonna lose the war. Like, think about how unnecessarily divisive this is I'm sorry at this point, don't sit there and tell me that there's any real health benefit to require that truckers be vaccinated. Okay, let's sit alone in their goddamn trucks all day long. The COVID numbers are plummeting, this thing is over. But Trudeau is gonna tear his country apart just to force them to get vaccinated. It reflects on who he is as a man. It reflects on who he is as a leader. And um, you know, once again, as I started off the segment, it is just so crazy that of all places this is occurring in Canada, two of the countries that have been the most divisive and had the most outlier policies and experiences on COVID of course end up being Canada and Australia. And I've been a bending man. That's not where I would have put my money, uh in February two thousand and twenties. Very odd And we'll see, we'll see how things turn out for Justin Trudeau getting his hands dirty doesn't seem to be the type of guy that he is. We'll see if he's built for it. Um, I'm I'm anticipating it is going to be revealed that he's more bark than bite. Um, but I don't know. Justin proved me wrong. Okay, kids, it's social studies time. And when I say that is that this podcast is in part an ongoing study of the incredibly odd social dynamics and phenomenon that we started to experience, mostly in the second half of the two thousand tents. Everyone seems to forget that social media really didn't get cranking until about two thousand and twelve thirteen, with a lot more of the visual social media Instagram than Snapchat, you know, things in visual and video form before that. Facebook, Um, it's predecessor, my Space, everything in Twitter, we're all in text format. But things really started to crank up let's call it two thousand twelve, two thousand thirteen onwards, and we can kind of track with that. A lot of really strange social dynamics that I mean to me, from two thousand thirteen fourteen on in society is essentially unrecognizable from let's call it two thousand eight. Maybe other people saw it more gradually, or they didn't start seeing the changes until a little bit closer to the end of the decade. But I think at this point, most people can agree we've seen some really strange stuff the last four or five, maybe six to seven years. UM. Some of that, a lot of people like to track back to Tumbler. That's say, like I started seeing all this very strange social phenomenon um gender and race pathology and the way people describe everything in terms of mental health and god knows what or the A lot of the kind of weird dynamics um that we've seen in the social media era first originated on Tumbler. I wasn't on Tumbler at the time, but some people who seem to have some interesting insight here track it back to that either way. Okay, what are we talking about today? It's the trauma industrial complex. I've discussed this before here. UM. I'll get to what it isn't just a second. But it kind of intersects a little bit with that story we talked about a couple of weeks ago about west ELM Caleb and that if you need a refresher on it, Essentially on TikTok a, some girls started referring to getting ghosted on a date by a guy named Caleb who worked at west um Um, and then a bunch of other girls through that post realized that they all had been ghosted in a very similar manner by the same guy. And it was some hipster furniture designer and a Manhattan or maybe Brooklyn Westum named Caleb, and it became west ELM Caleb, and it became the social media phenomenon and the the social dynamic that we were discussing there is how your dating life can now in essence, make you a public figure. The private becomes public, and you can be subject to an Internet pylon essentially in regards to your private dating peccadillos. In your romantic life, you can become subject to an attempt to ruin your life. And this one seemed to flame out because there seemed to be a little bit of pushback a lot of the commentators, who are usually all too willing to go hop on um one of these wagons and go try to smear somebody said, wait a second, maybe this guy was just bad at dating. He's a bit of a dick, but we don't need to ruin his life's interesting data point um. So there was now where that brings us to the trauma industrial complex, as I like to call it, and an interesting piece, and God, I couldn't. I'm very shocked at where this came from, being how good it was. Um The gender editor at the New York Times, Jessica Bennett, had a piece recently called if everything is trauma is anything, and it was phenomenal. And what it discussed is that essentially the way she describes it, So when did we start using the language of harm to describe well, everything, everything is is invoked, everything is described within the prism of trauma. People are always viewing all their what would typically be just your kind of customed, ordinary life experiences through through that, you know, more of a clinical prism that they've labeled or that they've defined as trauma. So what is trauma? At least according to the American Psychological Association, trauma is an emotional response to a terrible event, like an accident, rape, or natural disaster. So accident, rape, or natural disaster, okay, a response to a terrible event. We should not deny trauma, but in measuring trauma or assessing its validity, we're supposed to tie it back to a terrible event. So what constitutes a terrible event that would justify noting, you know, expressing that you have experienced trauma, right, Um? Do you hear how the American Psychological Association termed it? But it seems like there's been um what Jessica Bennett in that piece refers to as trauma creep um when the language of clinical or at least clinical adjacent is used to refer to an increasingly expansive set of everyday experiences, used to refer to an increasingly expansive set of everyday experiences. Everybody's just talking about trauma these days. Every anytime anything bad happens to a person, they now and they now invoke trauma like I that I have experienced trauma from this negative from this unfortunate um or unpleasant event. And that's something that did happen with this West dom Caleb situation. It seems to be the prompt for Bennett to have written this piece. Apparently, a YouTuber named Natalie Win, in response to the West dom Caleb situation um claimed that you know that the women who had been ghosted by west dom Caleb had been experienced trauma because, as she puts it, all pain is harm, All harm is trauma. All trauma comes from someone who is an abuser. Okay, so all pain is harm, and all harm is trauma. Right. That seems to really expand the definition of what trauma is. So it's not so it's not an outlier event that could be judged by its scope and his intensity just how bad it is. It's like anything that is bad, anything that makes you feel bad, that causes pain invoked, it causes trauma. And you can tie the two together invariably in all circumstances. And that seems to be how it's used, particularly amongst let's call it the the you know, the woke and the more those who reflect more progressive social values of the last seven to eight years. Um. And that really they those are the people who dominate media and pop culture. So you're seeing it all over the place. But is it really justifiable? And is this healthy and good? Um? And it's interesting, once again to see some pushback here, some criticism of the expansive definition of trauma from the gender editor of The New York Times, UM Wesley Wesley Yang, once again, one of my favorite commentators, always seems to be able to describe these phenomenon um the way he put it is vox, vice, BuzzFeed and other clickbait factories all followed Taylor. The Rens is leading defend defending West Caleb from a TikTok cancel mob. Now, the New York Times Gender editor joins in an effort to rein in the most cringe parts of the AstroTurf pseudo morality. Rain in the most cringe parts of the AstroTurf pseudo morality. And yeah, let's be honest, this is all cringe. People invoking claiming that they've been traumatized, that they experienced trauma from kind of common, everyday ordinary, you know, unpleasant events like getting ghosted by someone that you just started dating. That's cringe, right, This is like Jesus, this is just a very juvenile way to conduct oneself. And it doesn't reflect well in our society that more people are doing that. Um and so AstroTurf pseudo morality, right, what what are people who invoke trauma doing right there? Trying to gain? You know, they're trying to look more moral, they're trying to look more virtuous. As Bennett says in her Peace, we also know that victims of wrongdoing tend to be perceived as more moral or virtuous than others, and that using medical language tends to give a speaker authority, and does that sound familiar? Does that seem to be what's happening here where a lot of people are invoke trauma and talking about trauma and claiming trauma in response to these ordinary life events in order to look more moral, in order to look like the good guy, put on the get sympathy and have more authority and and pete. The thing is, you know, there's only works if society indulges it, right, But you're seeing society be so much more willing to indulge that these days. Um and. So, what what Yang is saying is like, wait a second, maybe we've hit peak trauma. Maybe we've hit saturation on trauma, and the rest of society that would typically indulge these claims is pushing back a little bit that we've kind of said. I don't know, I think we've expanded the definition of trauma a little too broadly. People are abusing it, they're overusing people's instincts to be very sympathetic. Um and And it's time to brain things in a little bit. Um So, I think that's something we're gonna have to Uh, We're gonna definitely have to be monitoring here. So where does this all come from, um, it's it's kind of interest. In the west Down Caleb situation, the one of the terms that they had used about, you know, because once again, now everything has to be sloganized, Everything has to have a lingo, You have to have a word for everything. And so beyond ghosting, the word that was used for what what west elm Caleb did was love bombing. That someone shows heavy interest in a person romantically and then ghosts them. It's not just back in the day it was I got stood up or this person did me dirty. Now we've got a word for it, love bombing. So where did love bombing come from? Turns out love bombing originated in the discourse around cult leaders and how cults recruit people, okay, and that the way that cults kind of broke down people mentally or kind of manipulated them into the tribe was by engaging in love bombing. And I find that that's fascinating now people once again the issue being that we're clinic sizing and we're making everything clinical. These are normal, These are these are uh normal everyday experiences that we now want to talk about like something a doctor would diagnose or a psychologist would diagnose because I could cologists go and study cult dynamics, how do cults work? How do they lure people in? And interesting that the term love bombing from that area of studying them made its way into the mainstream to describe certain dating dynamics. Um, and you know is it? Obviously social media is severely highlighting this and indulging this because it gives everyone more of an opportunity or platform to engage in this exercise of either one playing the victim or two playing the savior. Right if you if there's more people who are claiming trauma and claiming to be victims, then that gives all these other people the opportunity to try to flaunt their own virtue or character or nobility by coming to their aid. Um. Jessica Bennett. The way she put it is but where the term has really found traction and what she's talking about is love bombing. But where the term has really found traction is on social media, in the various spaces governed by algorithms primed for hyperbole and awash in the language of self care. On TikTok and Instagram especially, there are thousands of self pointed wellness mindset, life or energy coaches, as well as relationship experts in those who describe themselves as therapists to guide you through the process of recognizing quote unquote a covert narcissist, for instance, or even an overt one whose love bombing tactics might include anything from big gestures early on to planning to far into the future. So this is an interesting phenomenon. Think about just the pure expansion and volume of life coaches, mindset coaches, wellness coaches. How many more people think they're qualified to comment on life experiences, emotion, the emotions and mental wiring, um and and health and the mental health of other people. You see this everywhere now, and it's like we've become a society of amateur psychologists, right, And and that's how all this language, like the overuse of trauma or the overuse of love bombing, that's what cultivates it. And it also gives rise to a competition, right. As Bennett says. Part of the context, too, is the age of trauma is unfolding in the age of social media, where everyone is striving on some level to rise above the noise, to be taken seriously and to feel heard quote unquote, and you've got this this competition. It's the like the victimhood Olympics. It's like, who can show themselves to have been more affected by trauma or be speaking more clearly about trauma and listen by all means and certain and when there's actual trauma, I mean, it's a healthy exercise to speak out on it, right, But when that can go way overboard, and it seems like it's gone way overboard when we keep on rewarding it. You don't want a society of people who are too focused on their problems and their trauma. And sometimes these are just things that you have to kind of suck up and and and move on and accept that they're part of the human experience, right, And that maybe where we're seeing this pushback from some of the usual suspects on the West Down Caleb situation, or on from Jessica Bennett, the Gender editor on the overuse of trauma um So, I think it's it's interesting that they're kind that you see these people who are now recognizing this. Nobody is more guilty of this stuff than Demilvada. I thank god, it's unbelievable to watch this kind of like cute fluff, be very vivacious, talented pop star just become the the purveyor of all types of nonsense claims of trauma. Remember when she tried to essentially get the Big Chill a yogurt shop here in l A over on Olympic. Essentially it created a social media pylon because they had like they were promoting fat free yogurt or sugar free yogurt at their cashier register. I mean, this is pathological, this is psychotic. I mean, look at a person who's just you see people who are just trying to find any excuse or their their minds are looking for some evidence of their minds are looking for some catalyst of trauma at every point that they're even find finding it in the display section at a yogurt shop. And that's what happened with Demi. I mean, she made a clown out of herself and people didn't really buy this thing, but it didn't really change her behavior one way or the other. Um the way Bennett puts it, Demi Levado sees that their sugar free cookies or sugar free yogurt being promoted at the cash here, the Big Chill. It's like que that suddenly, Demi Lvado is not just annoyed by having to pass by sugar free cookies and a frozen yogurt shop. The singer is a victim of diet quote quote diet culture is harmful messaging. Okay, so you see it. Everything now is some clinical diagnosis. We're putting these things all in terms, but all in medical terminology, as Bennett describes at TikTok's pseudo psychology. And so that's one interesting perspective to look at it from. Is this trauma creep is how we've clinicalized everything. We've got people looking for negative negativity where they're looking to be offended, they're looking for trauma. Their brain is looking for triggers of trauma every point because they think, okay, wait a second, instead, this is my answer for being annoyed or or feeling uncomfortable in response to this phenomenon or this this catalyst. It's like, okay, if sugar free cookies at the Big Chill make me feel not great, okay, is it better to just not feel great for a second or two or for this to be a problem that I can solve. Maybe some problems just don't need to be solved. Maybe you need to just let the sugar free cookies at the Big Chill go right. But in the age of trauma, where everything is clinicalized, you get what you see with Demilovada. What else is going on with trauma. It's also being used as a rhetorical as a rhetorical weapon. Essentially, people are using it that if I if something, if I can claim to be traumatized by something, I can no longer be criticized. And you're seeing that a lot in the journalist community. Michael Tracy, you know, one of my favorite favorite journalists, he wrote something about this called Traumatized Journalists are now declaring themselves a protected class. What's happening is that now anytime a journey, you know a variety of journalists who indulge in this stuff when they when people come after them for a view that they've stated or a story that they've written, and they're being attacked on the sub substance of their work, they now call that They now claim that the attacks the pylons are traumatic and essentially to put them above reproach. They're just using it as a way to deflect any type of criticism. As Tracy puts it, elite journalists now increasingly rely on therapeutic trauma jargon to make professional demands. Essentially, you cannot criticize me. Anyone who is criticizing this piece or this point of view that I've put out there, um is is an abuser, right, Instead of somebody who disagrees with me or think my thinks my work is not very good, they are an abuser, right because the queen of this is Taylor the Wren. She constantly claims trauma for being attacked online. I was like, Taylor, I'm sorry you you stepped You put yourself in the hot seat. Okay, you want to write about one. She loves criticizing others. She loves controversial material, She likes to poke the beehive, and she expects nobody to criticize her or to to to be critical of her work or push back. I'm like, Taylor, you're not the only one who gets criticized. I'm sorry to break that to you. And there's a big dust up when you know, Tucker Carlson went after her on a segment and she just wind about it for days. I was like, maybe if you why not if you think someone is wrong, if you think that if you stand by your work, then stand by it on substance. Don't just try to deflect, you know, manipulatively deflect any criticism of it by claiming that who people who are attacking you are abusers in calling you trauma. Stand by your work. Another writer who's oh, and she came up during the Kobe Bryant thing, Felicia Somnez of the Washington Post um after Kobe Bryant's death, she just made some grotesque comments about, you know, how those who are morning Kobe Bryant shouldn't became as of the sexual assault allegations which were almost, you know, unconditionally disproven about Kobe Bryant. But Felicia, she's another purveyor of this nonsense. Uh. And that Michael Tracy attacked, you know, criticized some of her work, that she then invoked her trauma, that she had had a doctor's appointment earlier in the day, And how dare Michael Tracy um criticized her work when she had concerns about her health. I mean, this is ridiculous. This is what children do. Yet, you know, this is an acceptable way of responding if you are if you're a mains, if you're a reporter from a mainstream outlet of variety of other outlets. At this point, Um, this seems to be a sanctioned, in an even encouraged way of responding to criticism in this day and age, because once again we've expanded the definition of trauma beyond anything that is even semi reasonable. Um. But hey, Jessica Bennett's Peace, everybody, I highly recommend that you go read it beyond even what I've relayed to you from the from the piece in this in this segment, UM, I think it's really well written. She really captures a lot of this stuff, and I think she gives a fair assessment of of this very peculiar, peculiar social dynamic. Um. And so you know, our ongoing study we will can we will see if trauma continues to expand, if it continues to capture more day to day activities and experiences, or if we kind of contract it and shrink it back to its original intended purpose. As the American Psychological Association UH described it, that truly for things that are not day to day experiences, right, truly traumatic events and to be able to treat people, treat people adequately and and sufficiently in that regard, as opposed to just you know, reckon in distorting the notion in the definition of trauma and tearing its six ways to Sunday so that every person who's has stubbed their toes claiming it. Anyways, that's social studies for today, and we'll have more of the prevailing narrative after the break. Okay, So we stand here today seemingly on the precipice of war in Eastern Europe. Vladimir Putin a couple of weeks ago amassed over a hundred thousand troops on the eastern border of the Ukraine, and given his kind of historical belicocity, everyone's concerned that this might be the largest conflagration of military conflagration in Eastern Europe in quite some time. But nothing has uh, nothing has erupted just quite yet. So today here we are with former Ambassador to Germany and Director of National Intelligence Rick grannell Um, who has been me you know, neck deep in this situation and keenly, keenly you know, involved in matters of foreign policy, particularly as pertains to Eastern Europe for quite some time now. So Rick, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be with you and to share your audience, So thanks absolutely, and an honor to have you, an honor to have Seeming South Bay Royalty here with us today. Um. But enough about the strand onto the Ukraine and Eastern Europe. Um. So um this people, a lot of people who haven't been tracking these issues are kind of seeing it in a silo of what is recently you know, as recently developed over the last few weeks. But really the Ukraine and Putin situation kind of tracks back even you know, historically Putin seems to have a particular view on how the Ukraine does or does not fit into his historical vision of Russia. But this this, uh, you know, the hostilities do track back really to two thousand fourteen, where am a Russia friendly um regime in the Ukraine was overthrown um and Putin reacted by invading Crimea and installing a more friendly regime administration there. Maybe you could tell us a little bit about that situation and and that um that that military the military actions from two thousand fourteen. Yeah, So I think you know, most people look at the situation and they they think, you know, here we go again Putin is on the offense, and how do we stop him or I think a lot of people just expect Putin to always be in the offense. But one thing that's really important to note is that from two thousand sixteen two thousand and twenty, just so happened to be the years that Donald Trump was president, we really didn't see a march towards UH grabbing land in Europe like UH Putin has done in the past. And so something I think needs to be looked at to why was there a four year hiatus and now why are we back to Putin threatening Ukraine, threatening the territorial integrity? And what we mean by that is, you know, Ukraine gets to decide its borders, and Russia clearly after grabbing Crimea and what I would argue rewriting European borders. UH, that is a is a cause for alarm. Since two thousand and fourteen, we've had some diplomatic action, and I think people have probably heard about the Minsk agreement, and then there was Minsk to Men's commuting the capital of Belarus. And so what we need to really understand is that these agreements, the diplomatic reaction to a Russia on the offense really didn't work. I mean when you look at Minsk too, which was an agreement forged by Angela Merkel Um, it didn't even mention Crimea. And so what does that tell you? From Putin's perspective, he keeps taking the next level and then everybody adjusts to him saying, okay, well you've got that now, so now let's make sure that we react here and you can't take anymore, but we're gonna give you what you took. And I think that's what Minsk did, is Minsk solidified the fact that that Crimea was his. Yes, we had some uh, you know, handwringing over what he had done, but really it was looking at the next conflict in the done Boss region and that was his next kind of conquering area. What I believe is that put really um he wants to go back to the glory days of the Soviet Union. There's no question about it. So you think this is imperialist nostalgia primarily, what does he have more practical concerns? I wouldn't say primarily, but I don't think you can discount the fact that that's what he wants. Um. I think primarily, if you really want to talk, the focus of what he's doing, it's to draw a line against NATO. UM, he doesn't like NATO being on his doorstep. He certainly doesn't, UM you know, feel like Ukraine entering NATO would be a good thing. He feels like And by the way, there are a lot of Russians, pro pro Russians, pro Putin living people living in Ukraine. So it's a very diverse uh set of people. But um, you know, make no mistake that the Ukrainian government and the majority of Ukrainians do not want to be overtaken by Putin, and they want a strong relationship with the West, and they want a strong relationship with the United States. And here in lies the problem, because um, I think NATO's reaction to uh TO to Ukraine has been atrocious. I mean, you look at the Germans, and the Germans told the Estonians don't supply weaponry or hardware to the Ukrainians. Then the Germans secretly went to Ukraine and said, you know, if you'll just make a commitment to never join NATO, all of this could go away. And the Biden administration supported that. And whether or not we're going to have Ukraine and NATO. That's a separate issue. But you shouldn't be telling Ukraine to not seek NATO membership, which such a win for Putin and for the Russians to be able to remove one country from saying okay, there we go. At least one will never be in in NATO. And I just think that his goal all along was to break up NATO, get NATO um in fighting, and the Germans complied. I mean, we could do a whole show on on what's happening in Germany. But I'm very concerned as to how the Germans are really peeling away from the Western alliance. And so that's interesting because it seems that Putin is relying on fissures and cracks in NATO itself, as you just mentioned, and that we've kind of the Americans in the West have kind of taking it as an article of faith for the past thirty years since the fall the fall of communism and the Berlin Wall, that you know, NATO would one. Um, there's there's kind of firm solidarity amongst the NATO countries. Um, other than you know, to to send a blip when Donald Trump put some pressure on other NATO countries to increase their defense budgets, but that that NATO kind of stood um as as one, you know, as one force at least against any potential aggressors UM, such a you know, any historical aggressors or new aggressors UM. But that might not necessarily be the case, and that Germany, given its unique role UM in Europe and the European Union, might be kind of the the kind of point of some of those fissures. Is that would that be correct? Yeah? Look, I I I think practically, let's let's give an example of what this really means. If you are in a bad relationship that's not satisfying, and you just let it kind of continue and you don't really confront the problems, I would argue that you really don't care about the relationship, that no matter what happens to it, um, you couldn't care less, and therefore it's not a real relationship and you're not really uh you know, in a in a committed relationship that's gonna do good. And I think that's what's happening with NATO. I mean, we've been adrift for so long. Um. Look at all the members of NATO who don't pay the two uh towards there, it's two of the defense spending of your g d P is supposed to go. And is that the majority, the majority of the NATO countries do not meet that threshold. Is that correct? Correct? Ten out of the thirty are are you know, comfortably meeting the two percent? And we've got a whole bunch of countries that are not meeting the requirements. In Germany, the largest economy in Europe, has a budget surplus. Matt, think about that. Every single year they have more money than they planned and their flashed with cash, but yet they still can't pay their NATO obligation. It's offensive, but but you know, I've been in a meeting with Donald Trump and Chancellor Merkel where President Trump looks at Chancellor Merkel in a very honest and I would say nice but direct way, and says, you know, look, I don't blame you, Chancellor. I don't blame you for getting away with not paying your bill if you're allowed to do it, if you're allowed to have fifty American troops in UH in Germany, if you count all the rotational troops, it's and you're not paying your bill, and you feel really safe. You you you get away with it. I can see, Yeah, if they can continue to free ride off, the just man is Yeah, as America's decided to become the world's police and has what a military budget nine times the size of just about anybody else. I mean, you can't really blame the Europeans for free riding off it to a certain extent, but that seems to conflict with the organizing principles of NATO. And I mean, I guess you could kind of question, um, what is the what is the justification for NATO to exist thirty years on from the Cold War? I mean it was a creature and a creation of the Cold Wars, a counterweight to the Soviet Union in the Warsaw Pact. But as we stand here today, maybe NATO, you know, we need maybe NATO needs to be rethought and maybe Putin knows that it does. And it's me it's members are questioning it's it's uh, it's rationale for existing and he's playing on that. Yeah, that's kind of my point on on the example of a relationship that's a drift and you don't confront it, and that's why are with NATO. Look, um, you know NATO's not doing a very good job of tackling cybersecurity. That is the current threat that we face. Um. I would argue that, um, you know, being prepared for a land war where Russia rolls in. Um. Yes, I mean we're seeing the threat in Ukraine. But at the end of the day, there are a whole bunch of other threats that NATO could be more relevant on. And Yet what Donald Trump said when he came in was can we just get everybody to pay your bill at NATO and not make America pay for everything? And let's how about we start with that? And that was immediately the media attacking by saying you're tearing down NATO. And and I would argue that anyone who tries to reform something, who tries to change it and fix it, really cares about it. I spent eight years at the u N. And it's the same argument at the u N for the United States. If we go in and we try to fix things, then we're accused of trying to imp fload the u N because you're you're confronting these issues. But I would argue that if you care about these international organizations when they're not doing the best that they can do and people aren't supporting them. You've got to go in and fix it and get accused of trying to destroy it, but you're not trying to destroy it. You're trying to fix it. Now, you're trying to make it sustainable. So let's talk about cybersecurity because they're uh, it's it's one that I wrestle with and that there's so much um exaggeration and kind of I don't want to use the term misinformation because I think it's a childish cloud term, but misframing of the of Russia's involvement in cyber attacks or using um digital campaigns to influence elections or screw with their enemies, right, But I don't deny that it happens. They definitely do have a presence, and they do have certain objectives, and you're using the digital space to to further their strategic goals. So can you give us a little insight into truly you know what Putin and the Russians involvement in cyber attacks and the use of that to destabilize some of its call it not enemies, but uh, that's the word I'm looking for. Yeah, Um, I always used the term others anybody else, Yeah, exactly. Um, Look, Russia is a problem. It always has been and always will be in and we used to just call it propaganda, right we everybody knows what Russian propaganda is. It's what we now call misinformation or false flags or whatever. But I think people really understand Russian propaganda. And the Russians have done a good job of kind of hacking and and and getting into our our social sphere, our social media. But but the one thing that is really clear, and remember I was acting Director of National Intelligence, and that the fact is is that when you talk about Russian and disinformation, it is largely, almost exclusively on social media. And what it's designed to do is to get us to fight. If you're on Facebook and you see somebody commenting on guns or abortion or some hot topic that that you've stumbled into, um, if you don't know who that person is, could be a Russian box, it could be somebody who's just trying to inflame the conversation. They want Americans to fight, and they were really successful at it. But um, the intelligence community has done a really poor job in articulating that this propaganda largely on social media. UM was not about changing votes. It was not about attacking our elections. It was attacking our election discussions. It was attacking all of the things that we were trying to do on policy to talk about where we should go. But that's different than attacking our elections when you attack our election discussion. And the media did a terrible job of bifurcating and separating and letting the American people know that. But but going back to the original point, Russia is a problem and they will continue to be a problem. But China is actually a crisis when you look at what the Chinese have done through their consulates and through uh not just misinformation, They've captured um mentally and philosophically, local politicians, state politicians, federal politicians. They have infiltrated into Hollywood, they have infiltrated into academia. You can't really look at any university, any significant, large public university in America without digging just a little bit to find a lot of Chinese connected money. Um. And this is a this is a crisis. The Russians aren't as sophisticated as the Chinese when it comes to this. And I'll just finish with this. Every time you hear some bud he say, Russia, Russia, Russia. That's the Beijing line. China wants you to say, look over there at the Russians, and look over there what the Russians are doing, because meanwhile, you know they're they're infiltrating right into American society of American politicians. The Chinese are playing on our historical suspicions of the Soviet Union and Russians and making us kind of uh construct these narratives, these these Cold War John Lakari Spine novel narratives to to throw the scent off what they're really doing, which is kind of taking over any number of Americans. In case somebody tries to take this clip and immediately tried to say something that we're not saying, I want to make sure that people understand that, of course, Russia, the Russian propaganda, the information campaigns are serious. There's no question we're not trying to minimize that. But when it comes to what our real threat, Russia is a problem. China is a crisis. Fair enough, fair enough off, Okay, So to our current the current circumstances, um Putin mobilized over a hundred thousand troops placed them on the Ukrainian border. He's been talking very tough, but then simultaneously kind of poking fun and almost trolling, and had his foreign has his spokespeople almost trolling the Americans in reacting to his kind of mild provocations. Right, and he seems to be screwing with us in both one speaking as if it's almost imminent that he's going to um to send the troops in, but then simultaneously kind of rolling his eyes at us that we would even consider that there's hostilities and trying to paint us as the aggressors. Um, is this just how he operates? What do you think his objectives are? What is this strategy? I'm smiling because you nailed it. I mean, this is exactly what he does. He he loves to do all of this misinformation and playing direction. Yeah, and he loves, you know, the idea that that he's got these troops on the border and everybody's talking about it, and you know he's in control. He's the one that's causing Official Washington to like literally light their hair on fire saying that there's gonna be an invasion today. UM. A couple of points that I'll say, First of all, let's just remember that intelligence is an estimate. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it wrong. Um. Sometimes we overestimate, sometimes we underestimate. This intelligence estimate UM just simply says that there are Russian troops and hardware on the border. Um, there is not. There is not agreement analyzing What does that mean as to is this going to be a war? Do we know for sure there there is not an intelligence agreement? Remember that our intelligence community giving raw, unverified intelligence. Um, we saw some real high profile mistakes. Putin is reading this and he knows how to playoffs. I'll give you one little side example of how the Russians play this. When I was the presidential envoy for Kosovo Serbian negotiations, we brought the leaders of Coasto and Serbia into the White House. We signed a historic economic normalization agreement. President Bucca, who is the president of Serbia, is a big guy and he's he's got a big presence. And when he was in the office, he was sitting in a smaller looking chair and he was much bigger than the chair. And he was sitting there in front of President Trump in this chair and they were they were talking. There was a picture taken the Russians. The official Foreign Ministry instagram and social media put out a picture. At the top it was President in the chair in the Oval office, and then the bottom it was Sharon Stone in the infamous scene with her legs bread open. This is this is cultural, this is playing into pop culture. Um. But this is what the official Russian narrative does. And you know, we have to be smarter to understand that they're playing us sometimes and we have to be careful on their misinformation that we don't fall for it. And so when I guess the sub question being if they're playing us, what is their objective in playing us right now? Both in terms of trying how it's trying, what they're doing to portray us in one manner um as opposed you know, contrasted with the likelihood that they actually or they're they're gonna get stuff from the Biden administration. Look right after Afghanistan, and and I have to tell you that the Afghanistan debacle was such a fundamental shift, um, it embarrassed the Biden administration. I think that's why they're overly reacting and dramatic about Ukraine is because they can't have another Afghanistan situation. They want to show toughness, so they're like, get out, everybody, get out and evacuate the American embassy. They were the first ones to do it, and we're never the first ones to evacuate an embassy, but they did that. Putin is reading this. He's seen that that Biden's numbers are terrible. He's seen the disaster in Afghanistan. Um he sees remember the j c p O A two which is going on, and the Russians, of course, are are right in there with the Iranians. The Russians are right in there with the Syrians trying to stabilize there. We're working with the Russians in Syria. He sees this all that's complicated foreign policy that's going on, and he thinks, you know what, if I can create some um, some you know, chaos in Ukraine, I'm gonna be able to sit down with this week Biden and maybe do a new uh you know, nuclear treaty. Maybe maybe put a whole bunch of things on the table when it comes to the j C p O A or Syria or the Middle least, or oil or the Russian pipeline. And so in that in saber rattling and threatening some sort of military action or aggression, knowing that the Americans in this case would have to react because after Afghanistan, Biden can't have you can't have another showing of weakness or failure that that would trigger an engagement, require the Biden administrator to administration to engage. And from that place Putin can can now negotiate from a place of strength and exact, Yeah, stronghand because the the Americans care very deeply about UH and I would let me let me back up, the Biden administration cares very deeply about consensus with the Europeans. Now, look, I'm somebody who understands that consensus sounds great. Um, it's like sanctuary cities. Doesn't that sound so great? But sanctuary cities means we're going to ignore the laws that we don't want to. Consensus means we're gonna let the other guy water down our policy. The opposite of America first is consensus. Consensus with people who don't share the same threat assessment. Now, when I was in Germany, I can tell you that the Germans, they don't view the Iranians as a threat necessarily like we do. The Iranians got a nuclear weapon. I can't tell you how many German politicians would say to me They're never gonna bomb Munich, Frankfurt or Berlin. And so they don't. They don't feel that threat. They just want to sell cars in China. They want to sell cars in the Iran. Germany has a Germany first economic model and they they have never been called out on it. And what they clearly are doing in this situation is taking advantage of Biden, because Biden wants the Europeans and the Americans to walk hand in hand, have consensus, have agreement, which means the Europeans get to water down our policy. And it seems that the as you just mentioned Europeans, some of these European countries that are part part of our strategic alliance with NATO and seemingly free riding off the back of our military budget, don't necessarily have the same strategic concerns that we do. You just mentioned. I ran another place and one that I imagine you're you know, keenly aware of is Nord Stream. To the Germans are tied up with the Russians. They've got a big natural gas pipeline called Nord stream to to essentially have all natural German natural gas supplied by Russia and that that is another pressure point here, This is another leverage point, and I imagine that's causing some constern nation amongst the NATO members. Yeah, first of all, let's let's let's say a couple of facts. Um. The Trump administration put sanctions on nord Stream too, which is the Russian pipeline, and the pipeline is not online to this day because of those strong sanctions. The Biden team came in and dropped those sanctions. They dropped. Just ask one question there about the Trump did Were the Trump sanctions intended to prevent nordstream to from ever becoming operational or was it Donald Trump off oftentimes uses UM a negotiating ploy for certain other concessions. Did the Trump administration never want that to get to go on, never wanted it to go online? But here was the problem the pipeline was was was brought into fruition UM under the Obama administration. It could have been knocked off then UM, but it but it wasn't. It was it was envisioned and started and started to take hold. So by the time that Donald Trump got in the pipeline was well under way. Now I will tell you that for four years. Uh. And I gotta be careful with how I I say this, not to reveal intelligence. For four years, I was told that the pipeline was for four years, and I can tell you that it wasn't and it is still not online. So there is still time to sanction this and stop it. Now, when you sanction it, you actually sang the companies that work on the pipeline. Imagine that the people working the companies working on the pipeline, this isn't their only project. They have worldwide projects. They have a lot of work in the Gulf of Mexico. They're not going to risk one project for being under sanctions, uh, for all of their projects that it would shut them down. So you can get individual companies to stop working. And when you talk about lane pipe in in deep water, there are a very few too, I think companies in the world that can do it. So you really we we really had a chance to to stop it, and we did stop it from coming online. The Biden team and the Germans didn't like that. Now, let me just stay why the Germans didn't like that. After the Fukashima disaster, the nuclear um disaster um. The Germans quickly read that as we got to get rid of nuclear energy, and they went on that path to get rid of nuclear energy without having a plan of action of how you're going to replace it. Uh. They've also now because of the rise of the Green Party in Germany, Chancellor Merkel was panicking about her power being lost to the rise of the Green Party, so she announced that they were going to get rid of coal, and that they were going to get rid of it by And so the Germans, by their own policy, really constricted the supply while the demand increased, and they found themselves in a situation where they were desperate to get Russian gas. Now, our position, the European Parliament position, everybody's position around the world with a rational policy says that if you're gonna get energy, get it from a diversified source sources, so that not one country or one company can leverage you into doing whatever you want, doing doing whatever they want because they have this over you. The Germans us read that, and so it's important to note that the U S policy, we are okay with nord Stream one some Russian gas being a part of the diversified energy sources for Europe. We're okay with that. Nord Stream two went too far, especially for the Germans. Now I'll finish. I'll finish with this. Is that Chancellor Merkel. Her reaction to us when we were sanctioning the pipeline was well, we're going to diversify our energy sources. In a matter of fact, we're gonna put two liquid natural gas terminals in Germany to receive l en G, and we will use us um llen G as part of that. As soon as Biden got elected, they canceled those two LLENG terminals. They are no more planning to have LLENG terminals. And then on top of that, Biden gave them a sanction free nord Stream two pipeline. Really a double whammy. And we'll have more of the prevailing narrative after the break. And so what it seems is once again other NATO countries are are are concurrently uh utilizing, you know, and availing themselves the benefits of our military protection, but then working against our strategic interests. Uh that. Yeah, And and so from what what we can see, the the Biden administration seems to not have been taking them to task. For that. Do you think that through this this situation now in Biden, the Biden administration making some some overtures, are at least suggesting that um kind of requiring that Germany canceled Nord's Dream Too would be part one of his negotiating chips with Putin to to prevent the or at least um intimidate him out of the Ukraine invasion. I mean it does does that now come back on the bargaining Does that do they now come back to the bargaining table on that one? Is that? Is it now on the table for the Biden administration to essentially require Germany to top at two opt out of North dream too? Yeah you would think, But no, I mean I just testified before Congress this morning, um for two hours, and you can't believe what politicians and official Washington are saying that Biden is successful. They're saying because the Russians haven't invaded, so they build up this this you know, they're they're about to invade. We're gonna have a war. I mean, I think Jake Sullivan even said Tuesday or Wednesday that there was going to be this war. And um, you know, look, I don't even know where to begin on on all of this. But um, the fact of the matter is that if you really care about diplomacy and not war, and you and if you also believe that there's a bloody war around the corner, which is what Biden said, you know, he talked about you know, thousands of Ukrainians that are going to be uh, you know, impacted by this. If you believe a bloody war is coming soon, why don't you put sanctions on the North Stream to pipeline and shut down the Russians. That's what they care about. That's also funding this war because they have this money coming in from Germany and they're going to have a flow of gas that's going to pay them handsomely. And so I don't understand that that all this talk in Washington about diplomacy, diplomacy used diplomacy with muscle shut down the pipeline and you watch the Russians have a dramatic change in behavior. But the Democrats in the buying An administration and the Germans are lobbying against sanctions on Nordstream too. They want the pipeline to continue. And so that broaches the question more holistic question of what is the true strategic threat from Russia to the United States because some some people could look at this and say, well, okay, this is uh the Ukraine. It's a former Soviet Republican you know, there's there's arguments for it being within a Russian sphere of influence, and if Vladimir Putin in Russia wanted to expand their sphere of influence in that region, and really, what other than the the kind of um kind of trailing nostalgia from just believing that that NATO is the end all be all, what really is the strategic threat to the United States? And also, is Russia actually a powerful enough um? Uh? Is it is Russia powerful enough and country to even get on our radar? Is this truly a threat? Um? They seem to have an economy that's the size of South Korea, you know, a nation that's one their size. UM. Who could say, okay, we pretty much dismiss the strate strategic threat of putting if even if he did take the UKRAINI, what do you think about that? So I definitely think the Russians are a threat and they're a threat to our national security. But I take your point right and we've all always got to ask the questions, is this a threat to the US, because we have an official Washington that just just immediately will respond and make the United States the conversation and the solution to everything, and then our taxpayers have to pay for it, and we struggle for twenty years thinking what is the national security issue that we're facing? So I I encourage you to always ask these questions, um, and I think that you're pushing on the right door. For for one, let's just um, you know, be upfront to say, I don't ever want to just poke the Russians in the eye, but the Russians have in in Eastern Europe and in the Balkans and now moving into UH two more central Europe, are really causing a lot of problems. Not only are they pushing misinformation on election stuff that's a threat to us, but also our allies Ukraine. We we have a great ally in Ukraine, and we should arm the Ukrainians. I don't believe that we should put American boots on the ground there or that we should be moving troops there. To be interesting, what what in your eyes makes the Ukraine a a viable and valuable ally to us? Be on them? Being a counterweight to the Russians. I will first of all, they are a counterweight to the Russians, but they're a Western ally and we have a responsibility to support the Western allies in that region. Otherwise it's a slippery slope effect. We're gonna find ourselves without any Western facing allies and everybody's going to be Switzerland, and that's going to immediately be a problem. But I take your point, and I think it's a really good one to always push on us. For instance, as US ambassador of Germany, I don't think we should have fifty thou troops when you ac count the rotational troops in Germany. I tried to bring troops home or move them into Poland. UM let's lessen that. First of all, we've trained the Germans to not pay their NATO obligations because they are so comfortable with the American troops right there. UM. I always want to rethink these issues and not be stuck into the old ways. UM. Let me just say this about Ukraine. I definitely don't think that under the current situation where we have members of NATO not paying their NATO obligations, that we should be entering into discussions about expanding NATO membership, expanding the umbrella of defense when we currently don't have people countries that are paying their obligations and we need to clean up NATO and strengthen NATO. Before we would have any of those discussions, do you think how how viable is or one how viable and to how necessary would Ukraine's inclusion in NATO be at any time in the next three to five years. Let's say, look, I'm troubled when the Germans go to Ukraine and say you've got to take off you gotta take membership off the table. That's what the Russians want. One surefire way to get me to to support a country's territorial integrity and sovereignty is for another country to tell them what they can't do. And so we should never be in a position of telling Ukraine that they should seek membership and NATO. Why wouldn't they want to? Of course they'd want to, UM, it's up to the NATO members to establish the criteria, and I think the for me, the first thing is is that all members of NATO need to pay their fair share before we have any of those conversations. How viable is that how realistic is that? Is there even a conversation going on about that at this point about Ukraine and NATO know about the other NATO countries meeting the budgetary threshold. I mean, look, it was a priority for the Trump administration. It certainly was a priority for me. In Germany. We did get the Germans to increase they're they're spending. They were at about one point to four and now they're at about one point five. Uh, they're increasing. That is hundreds of millions of dollars and increases, but it's not enough. And with an economy like they have, they should be there. Um, you know, Spain, there are a whole bunch of countries that are not meeting there two percent, and it's shameful. I mean, I just don't think you should have the membership. Let me let me make a little news here. I actually think that if you are not paying your fair share and your NATO obligations, that you shouldn't be able to vote at NATO. We have precedent for this. There were threats to not vote at the u n General Assembly when the Americans were behind on their dues, and so I think if you're not in good standing with an international organization. Because you're not paying your obligations, you shouldn't be able to vote. Yeah, it seems like a kind of cornerstone, a foundational you know, element of any multilateral organization that if you're not abiding by the guidelines and paying your fair share, that there has to be some consequence. You can't avail yourselves of all the benefits of membership, will not not meeting the burdens. UM. So, let's game plan this out a little bit. Since I'm leaning towards UM, this all ending within the next couple of weeks without an invade, with without additional troop movement or or kind of a UM true military engagement between Russian and Ukraine here. Um So, okay, So let's say award does not break out. UM Putin has kind of still tested out the Americans, He's tested out the solidarity of NATO just a little bit. He's trying to use it as a bargaining chip. But there's really no war breaking out. Where where do we go from there? I mean, how how does this playoff? Both in terms of um Putin's continued his desires to continually one test American resolve and to expand his his influence in the region and then on the other side, um, in terms of how the NATO countries look at each other. It's a really good question because I think that plays into Putin's hands, right if he's able to kind of continue to dangle over the international community this threat. Um. You know, I'll just repeat what President Zelensky from Ukraine said to President Biden. I thought it was a very good point, and his point was, we have the worst of all worlds on US policy right now. You're not deterring the Russians. Well, at the same time, you are ruining the Ukrainian economy, and the Ukrainians are our ally and so we we should think about that we are. Our US policy right now is the worst of all worlds. And you just expand briefly on how it's how we're ruining the Ukrainian economy is essentially by tarnishing. They're scared, wants to go to the Ukraine. Nobody with nobody's going to the Ukraine. Business is getting shut down. Uh. You know, commerce has impacted greatly. Um. You know, you think about just everyday deliveries or or if you want to have a contract with the Ukrainian company for anything. A perceived conflict is going to freeze you from doing that and moving forward. And so the panic of what's going on um in the economy is really impacting the Ukrainians and they themselves have said that, and they appealed to Joe Biden to say, you know, you didn't arm us for the longest time. You you canceled so many meetings to Washington. You really sent the message to Putin that you didn't want to be close to the Ukrainians. You left us out here hanging when we're trying to be a close Western ally. The Germans also did that to them, and you know, the Germans were telling the Estonians, don't help the Ukrainians, don't give them hardware, and now you've got this mantra and Germany to say, oh, well, we don't want to give the Ukrainians weapons because they might use them as if they're the aggressor. Uh. You know, so all of this I think is causing chaos. At the same time, the Russians clearly are not deterred. So the U S policy isn't working. Yeah yeah, um, So only seems like Vladimir Putin continues to strengthen his negotiating position regardless of whether or not UH there is an actual invasion. A lot of the chatter right now is somewhat loud of Tory about UM. It's gonna be interesting what the political fallout is here in the US because obviously opponents of Joe Biden want to paint him, paint this as another instance of his weakness. UM. Many of his supporters, UH want are trying to frame this as him staring down Vladimir Putin, But then Putin's response seems to be listened, what who are you staring down? I was never going to invade in the first place, and he's trying to run a little bit of a mind game on the Americans and the Biden administration. So we'll be fascinating to see how it plays out, and well beyond whether or not there's a military confidence confrontation over the next couple of weeks. Rick, I know you gotta go right now, So thank you so much for joining us. UM. We obviously these issues are going nowhere, so we look forward to having you on back again to discuss the many vagaries of American strategic UH, American American foreign policy strategy, and definitely cleaning up this mess we have here politically in California. So look forward to having you back on sometime soon. Thank you so much. And and I just want to give a shout out to these long form conversations because we need more of them, so keep it up. Thanks, thanks so much, Matt. My pleasure everybody. Hope it was enjoyable and informative as always. Uh, this is Matt Bilinsky and this is the Prevailing Narrative. I am at Bolinsky. Once again. You can listen and subscribe to The Prevailing Narrative on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you're listening right now. Make sure to follow me on my socials at Matt Bolinsky m A T T B I L I N s k Y. The Prevailing Narrative is a Cavalry Audio production and association with I Heart Radio, produced by Brandon Morrigan, Executive produced by Dana Burnetti and Kegan Rosenberger for Calvary Audio. I'm Matt Bilinsky