 All right, let's talk about Russia. God. Russia now faces, is facing two challenges. One in Ukraine, we've talked about that. Russia is amassing troops on the border of Ukraine. They've got over 100,000 troops on the border. There's a lot of saber-rattling and a lot of indications, a lot of threats from the Russians to invade Ukraine, a lot of threats from the West that if they do really, really bad things will happen, a lot of fighting, a lot of meanings, a lot of negotiating, which doesn't seem to make any difference because Russia has only one real condition that it is setting and the West won't meet that condition. On its south-eastern front, one of its allies, the dictator whose name when we try to pronounce of Kazakhstan, has faced significant challenges. People went out into the street because of energy prices increases. Remember, Kazakhstan is a massive producer of energy. It has vast oil fields. It also has a lot of thermo. It has relatively cheap energy prices. It's why a lot of crypto is mined in Kazakhstan. A lot of Bitcoin is mined in Kazakhstan because energy prices are low. And it's why when the unrest in Kazakhstan happened, crypto prices kind of went a little nuts. Bitcoin went down quite a bit because there was a lot of uncertainty about what would happen. Anyway, there were demonstrations in the streets, rioting, there was fear of a revolution, fear of trying to overturn the existing government, an authoritarian government that existed since the independence of Kazakhstan 30-something years ago after the dissolution, the dismantling of the old Soviet Union. And of course, Kazakhstan is a strong ally of the Russians. If you remember, Putin, Putin has said, is on record that the greatest disaster of the 20th century was the dissolution of the Soviet Union. He would like to see Russia grow. He would like to see Russia have influence over its former states, satellite states, its former members of the Soviet Union. Kazakhstan is one of those. Kazakhstan is also a bridge, kind of a territory that lies between Russia and China, between Russia and ultimately Afghanistan, Pakistan. And it provides a strategic buffer for the Russians against the radical Islamist. Kazakhstan is a nominally Muslim but secular state that is very good at oppressing the radical Islamists and therefore is an ally of the Russians in fighting the Muslims. So Russia, of course, sent troops into Kazakhstan in order to try to suppress the people, the West, of course, as usual, objected, no, freedom and so on, as if the West cares that much about freedom, but a lot of diplomatic noise was made, nothing in reality. Nothing surprising here, Russia's doing, Russia's got what it would like to have as its fear of influence. Russia is a bad actor in the world. Russia is authoritarian. Putin is a thug. I actually said this in Russia once and people said, be careful, what you say about Putin because you have to be careful. I still went back to Russia. I'm not sure if I'll go back again. We'll see, maybe if I'm invited, I'll go back again. But anyway, Putin is a thug. He's anti-everything I and many of you believe in. He is a bad actor on the world stage. He is a bad actor towards his own people. There are no individual rights in Russia. There's no free speech in Russia. There's no economic liberty in Russia. Russia is not a free or good place. But it is, but then the question is, so what should America do about that? And my answer to that is nothing. It's none of our business in a sense. I mean, we should speak up against it. We should use the bully pulpit against it. To the extent that Russia in the general terms is acting against American interests, we should withdraw ambassador and shut down our embassy in Russia. But other than that, we're not gonna invade Russia. They have nukes. So stop all the saber rattling and the loud voices and the waving a big stick. We don't have one. We're not gonna use it. We're not gonna do anything. So leave them alone. Let the Russian people, if they want freedom, get rid of Putin. So America is not gonna come to the fence of the people of Kazakhstan. Again, moral support, right? Moral support, ideological support, yes, absolutely. We should stand up and call Putin a thug, call Putin's policy anti-human and support the uprising to the extent that we think it's good in Kazakhstan against those people. Cook says, can we get the UN to issue a skating ladder? That would do a lot of good. We could get the secretary general of the UN to wiggle his, to wag his finger. We probably could get a skating ladder. I don't think we could get the security council to vote on it because we've given the Russians a veto. So Russia could veto anything security council says. Why are we even in the UN? Why isn't the UN in Karakas or Moscow or somewhere like that where they belong? Why are they in New York City? Why are we even members? I don't know, I don't know. Now, I like Ukraine. I support freedom for Ukraine. I think the Ukrainian government is probably on the right track towards greater freedom for Ukrainian citizens. I think the current president of Ukraine is probably as good as they're gonna get and he's probably on the right path and he's probably doing a good job and I hate the idea, I hate the idea that Russia is using force to bring Ukraine under its dominance, under Putin's dominance to support the power of Putin, like he has in place like Belarus where Putin basically now has a puppet government or has had a puppet government for a long time in Belarus. I would hate because I like the Ukrainian people. I would hate for the Ukrainian people to suffer that consequences. I would hate just like I hate for the Russian people to suffer the consequence of Putin. It would be terrible for that kind of thuggery, that kind of government to expand its influence in other places across Europe. You know, remember Ukraine is a place where Atlas Shrug was the best selling book in the entire country. I think it was 2015 and 2016. They brought it up in three editions, three volumes so every time the volume came out it was the best selling book in the entire country. It's a place where I've given some great talks. It's a place that has put on Iron Man's play anthem and I think they put on some other Iron Man's plays on stage. It's generally a place that's moving, I think it's intellectually ideological in the right direction. And here comes Putin threatening it. I think that's terrible. Am I gonna send my kids to die in the battlefields of Ukraine to save them from the Russians? No. Should America send troops to Ukraine to defend it? No. Then stop it. Stop intervening. The whole issue around Ukraine is that Russia does not want Ukraine to be a member of NATO because it doesn't want NATO on the Russian border. NATO's already on Russia's border in the Baltics. They don't want Ukraine to be, that's a big border with Russia. They don't want Ukraine to be, Baltics are pretty small, so it's not a real threat to Russia. But Ukraine is a big border. It complicates things for them. NATO could bring forces theoretically into that border region. Now, I don't wanna support anything the Russians support. But, but I don't believe NATO, America should be part of NATO. I don't believe the United States should be a NATO. I believe we should close most of our bases in Germany and in the rest of Europe. We should sell the missile defense system or we should employ missile defense system if it protects the United States. If they wanna buy missile defense systems from us and their allies of us, sure, they can have the missile defense system. But Americans do not, should not be willing to send their kids to die for the sake of Ukrainians or Germans or French or Italian, Spanish, Greeks, whatever, you know, you get the point. So I don't think the U.S. should be involved. The U.S. should leave NATO and let the Europeans decide. And if I were the Europeans, I would say, you know what, let's kinda deal with Putin. Where Ukraine basically becomes a non-intervention zone. We all make it part of NATO. He won't enforce his will on them. You can't really even force Putin to abide by this agreement, but at least you get it on paper. And do we really wanna go to war with us? Do we really wanna put German kids on the front lines to defend Ukraine? Probably not. So let's just come to an agreement that Ukraine is a no-man. The Russians won't put troops in it. The NATO won't put troops in it. Let's just encourage Ukraine to be as independent as it can be. But the United States has to dabble. It has to intervene in ways that make no sense. It's not protecting its interests. Not if it's interest mean the individual rights of its citizens. It's not protecting the rights and property of Americans. It doesn't need to intervene in Europe. It doesn't need to intervene in Asia. It doesn't need to be everywhere in the world. It shouldn't be the world's policemen. It shouldn't be sacrificing the lives and treasure of Americans for the sake of protecting every little dinky country in the world. Let them protect themselves. Let them form unions to protect themselves. I mean, remember, I ran during the Cold War was against NATO. Her view was if the Europeans don't wanna defend themselves against the Soviet Union, then they deserve the Soviet Union. I mean, the ideal position of the United States should be, send us the best people and the rest, you know, we won't intervene and we don't care. That's wrong. We care, but we don't intervene. I care when freedom is a bridge. I care when people are oppressed. I care when people are not free. But to fight one only fights to use force. One only uses force in the face of force. One only uses force for self-defense. Terror should never be used. Sanctions should only be used when it's an embargo, when it's all out, we're not trading with you. If some particular person in the foreign country is a criminal, then if he leaves that country arrest him or if he comes to your country arrest him, try him. But all the sanctions and all these programs, ridiculous. Mike, thanks for the support, I appreciate it. Let the United States cut its defense budget, focus on weapons that protect us and annihilate the enemy. Bring our troops home. We should be building missile defense systems that are the most sophisticated and best in the world. We should make sure that no weapon, the Chinese or the North Koreans or the Russians or the Iranians or anybody else deploys, will ever reach our shores. We should redesign the American military to be able to strike anywhere in the world super fast, ruthlessly, effectively, destroy the threat and come home. We should dismantle all the parts of the US military that are focused on nation building, that are focused on appeasing the enemy, that are focused on bribing the enemy. We should build the most ruthless, potent, destructive, military force in human history that can be deployed quickly and ruthlessly as quickly as possible. We don't build the best missile defense systems. The Israelis build the best missile defense systems. We unfortunately fund them, I don't think we should fund them unless we're buying them from Israel. But the Israelis developed the best missile defense systems. We could learn from them. And we need even more sophisticated with these missile defense systems than the Israelis because the Israelis are defending relatively small borders. The United States is defending big borders against big enemies. Not difficult to demonstrate the ruthlessness of our weapon systems. Just take a lousy country like Iran and destroy every single remnant of a hint of a capability to develop nuclear weapons. You could destroy that in a couple of afternoons and then we could go back to telling the world, don't mess with us, just don't mess with us. Leave us alone. So I hate Putin. I hate what he's doing to Russia and I hate what he's the threatening around the world. But you know, Senator Cruz, Ted Cruz, this whole let's intervene in Russia, let's intervene in Europe, let's micromanage what's going on in Europe is a bipartisan phenomenon. So Ted Cruz has this bill that he's trying to get passed that would sanction any country that buys gas, natural gas from Russia through this new pipeline that the Russians have built around Ukraine, through the sea, to the German shore. I hate Putin, you should hate Putin. If you don't hate Putin, something wrong with you I think. He's bad for human life and you should hate that which is bad for human life. Why are we intervening? Yes, it bolsters, it makes Russia stronger vis-a-vis Europe. Yes, it makes Ukraine's bargaining position more difficult because they don't control the gas lines and go from Russia to Europe. None of that is good and none of that is America's business. The Germans want to become dependent on Russia, then the Germans will come dependent on Russia. Ted Cruz should butt out, butt out. Alex says, you often complain about the amount of the budget spent on military but then you say how we need the best military systems. Is this a contradiction? How much money should the military get? I don't know, I'm not an expert on that. But I can guarantee less than what they get right now. In my view, America's military is corrupt, soft, massive amounts of money going to things we don't need like big bases in Germany, South Korea and other places. Building the wrong type of weapons systems, I think it's the F-22, just go back and read about the F-22, that line the pockets of former military personnel who then become consultants to the, I mean, this military industrial complex, there is a lot of truth to that, to Eisenhower's warning about it. It's got some woke elements. I'm not too worried about the military being woke. I'm worried about the military being rules of engagement. What before woke became popular? The rules of engagement in the F-35, sorry, not the F-22, the F-35. The rules of engagement, I did a whole show in the, oh, I did a segment of a show in the F-35 a while back and how just badly thought out, designed, strategic thinking, it was bad on it, really bad, the F-35. Just the planning, the thinking, and then the amount of money spent on it was. There's a real problem with our new aircraft carriers. It's like overload of technology rather than thinking about what's the most effective, efficient way to produce a killing machine. As I said, I'm less worried about woke. Woke is just an extension now of what's been going on in the military for, since Vietnam, since before Vietnam, which is rules of engagement, just war theory, which has been taught at West Point for years and years and years, I mean, woke is just an extension of that. Instead of viewing the military as a ruthless killing machine, it is a mechanism to build nations, to make the world a better place, and to fix social injustice. So there's a lot of work that needs to be done to trim the military from all the fat, the nonsense, the inefficiencies, to figure out a way to procure military equipment that is not corrupting, and is not as cost inefficient as it is today. There's a lot of work, thinking, strategy that needs to be applied to the military. And then you need to think about, okay, which kind of military systems do we need to build? Do we need, for example, massive amounts of tanks? Now, again, I don't know the numbers right now, but do we need massive amounts of tanks and artillery? Who we can engage in on a conventional surface war? You know, so the kind of military equipment we want, the numbers we want, the kind of deployment mechanisms we want, and then it has to be the most advanced technologically in the world. And look, we spend, I said last time, we spend more in the military, we spend more in the military than the next 11 countries in the world, that includes China and Russia and Israel and Saudi Arabia that spends a lot, and all these countries, we spend more than 11 countries combined. We spend, what is it, three or four times more than the Chinese do, maybe even more than that, than the Chinese do. What we need to do is become more efficient, more focused, and again, more technologically advanced than anybody else, and that would be easy to do even with a much smaller budget. If we focus the military on what it's supposed to do, what it's supposed to be, right? And it's not easy. The whole issue of military procurement, how to procure military equipment is not a simple one. It's not a simple one given that you're never gonna have many suppliers, so how do you make it efficient, cost-effective, how do you create competition, all that stuff is not simple, but necessary, and that needs to be worked out, somebody needs to do the work, and that's not easy, and that's what we need people thinking about rather than this, you know. And look, I'm all for selling weapons to Ukraine, I'm all for selling sophisticated weapons to Ukraine. They're much smaller than Russia, so they're what they need is sophistication. And at the same time, I'm all for telling the Russians we won't add Ukraine to NATO, or the United States won't support that, and to back off. And yes, Russia will view that as a sign of weakness, but Soviet, we've put ourselves into this position where we have to flex our muscles over insignificant things instead of flexing our muscles over things that are important, like winning the wars we start. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran Book Show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me, you get value from listening, you get value from watching, show your appreciation. You can do that by going to iranbookshow.com slash support, by going to Patreon, subscribe star, locals, and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. 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