 Let's start with the situation in, that's been in the news quite a bit, the situation in Armenia and Azerbaijan. And so I'm going to go through a little bit of the history on this, but it's only going to be the history from the last, what, 30 years, right? Because this region, this history goes back to pre-Roman times. I mean, this history, ancient history, these are some of the most ancient tribes ever. And the conflict there has existed for hundreds, hundreds of years. And I don't know all the details about that. I don't know much about that. But so we're just going to look at the modern time, because God, they hit each other there from before, from a long, long, long, long time ago. So, all right, so let's, I'm going to show you a map in a second. Let's see, let's do the map. Where is the map? All right, so this is a map, Azerbaijan. You can see Azerbaijan on the right is the Caspian Sea. You can see it to the north is Russia and Georgia. I'll be in Georgia in just a few weeks. I'll be in Tbilisi right near this war zone. You can see that to the west is Turkey and to the south is Iran. So, and these Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are considered the southern Caucasus. So the border between Georgia and Russia and between Azerbaijan and Russia are the Caucasus Mountains, really, really beautiful mountains. You can go skiing there. There's some beautiful wine regions in the valleys below those mountains. But so this is a very ancient region. You know, Alexander the Great was here, the Romans were here, of course. This is a region that's been contested. It is the bridge. It's one of the bridges between Europe and Asia. It's not actually clear for Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia are the Asia are the Europe. I think they consider themselves Europe, but geographically, they're right on the border. They could be either one and all of them, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan were all occupied by the Soviet Union. So all were part of the Soviet Union. Also, one more thing important to note. And this is I'm giving you a history from before 30 years ago. But but anyway. Azerbaijan is important and strategically important because Azerbaijan is has a huge reservoirs of oil and natural gas. Indeed, really the first oil that was found, you know, and started to be refined at about the same time as Rockefeller in the 19th century, as Rockefeller is as discoveries are happening in the U.S. and Rockefeller is starting to refine oil in the U.S. Discoveries are made in Azerbaijan and it leads the Russian Empire to occupy this territory and to value it to value it enormously. Azerbaijan is again, wealthy with oil and natural gas. Azerbaijan is ruled by a ruling family. It is ruled by what you will a dictator. And the family rules over the country. A few other aspects are interesting. Azerbaijan is Muslim. It is occupied by Turkish Muslims. So Muslim of a Turkish, one of the Turkish tribes that moved into this area, I don't know, after a thousand A.D., something like that, maybe a little earlier. But what's interesting is that a significant percentage of the Iranian population are Azeri of the same tribe as Azerbaijan, which creates tension constantly between Iran and Azerbaijan, because Iran is always worried that the Azeris have more loyalty to Azerbaijan than they do to Iran. So that creates tension and there's been quite a bit of tension on the Iranian-Azerbaijan border recently for other reasons as well, which we'll get to. So Azerbaijan is a Muslim country, but it is completely secular. The dictators in Azerbaijan are secular and there is no Sharia law. There's no religious law. When I was in Azerbaijan, I've been there once, one of the few Muslim countries in the world that have gone and spoken in, in Baku, you can see Baku on the map there. And you can you can walk in the streets and you can go to the beaches and the women in bikinis and they are women in full-fledged burkas completely covered, but they're almost always tourists coming in from the Gulf states. So Azerbaijan is a secular Muslim country. OK, Armenia. Armenia is, of course, Christian. It's Orthodox Christian. The Turks, many Armenians live in Turkey. The Turks, of course, accused of genocide against Armenians, which has created forever significant tensions between Armenia and Turkey. Armenia is, does not have, as far as I know, natural resources, neither the Georgia, neither of those countries have any oil or the oil is in Azerbaijan. Now, you can see the importance of this area. It sits between Russia and Iran and Turkey, three powers that would like to dominate the region more broadly. Turkey should and has been a natural ally to Azerbaijan. They're both of the same ethnic group, if you will, tribe. But the Israelis are quite independent and they don't want to be under the Turkish thumb. Iran would like to have influence here, but they don't have influences as a Bajan, because Azerbaijan is secular, even though it's Shiite Muslim, the same as the Iranians, and the same as the tribe that is common in Iran. The Azeri tribe, they don't have influence because of its secular nature. And, of course, Armenia feels a little isolated. It's closer to Georgia in many respects than it is to any of its other neighbors. It's not close to Iran. It's not close to Turkey. It's not close to Azerbaijan, but yet they're a different tribe. I when I go there, I ask people, what's that between Georgia and Armenians? And they look at me like I'm insane. Well, you know, this is if you go back X number of hundreds of thousands of years, we are completely different tribes. There's no relation. Anyway, that's the nature of the world in which we live. Anyway, when the Soviet Union broke up, the this stimulated a conflict between between Azerbaijan and Armenia. You know, in 1988, before the Soviet Union broke up, I think Armenians living in an area which is called Nagorno-Karabaka, Kabaka, something like that. Nagorno. We call it Nagorno. Nagorno is this area in red that you see in the middle between Azerbaijan and Armenia. That's the Nagorno area. The Armenians living in this area demanded the transfer from from being part of Azerbaijan under the Soviet Union to being under Armenia under the Soviet Union. So they wanted to switch provinces from the Azeri province to the Armenian province, but all under the Soviet Union, right? The Soviet Union had these particular provinces. Ukraine was one of those so-called, what do you call it? Autonomous or Blast Autonomous Regions. So they demanded this. And as the Soviet Union collapsed, tensions grew into an outright war. A fighting when fighting finally ceased in 1994. The Armenians had captured everything that you see here in in pink and red. So not just the Nagorno area, the Nagorno-Karabaka, but also seven other provinces that had belonged to Azerbaijan. And indeed, a million people, a million Azeris, a million Muslims were displaced from that area, left for Azerbaijan. And several hundred thousand Armenians who lived in Azerbaijani territory moved to Armenia. So this was a status quo in 1994 until 2020. Although during that period, intermittently, there would be clashes on the border. Azerbaijan always claimed the Nagorno area and all that pink area surrounding it as their area. They claimed it as Azeri, Azerbaijani territory. Now, if you go to Azerbaijan, they will tell you the Dominion slaughter Azeris left and right. If you go to Armenia, the Armenians will tell you Azeri's slaughter Armenians left and right. In other words, again, and they can they can list the massacres going back hundreds of years. So, you know, I have no idea who's right, who's wrong in the sense. But I'm just telling you the way it is, right? So I don't actually haven't studied history enough to be able to do a kind of a moral analysis. But just to let you know what's going on, because it's in the news. And, you know, maybe you're curious. Anyway, and so they were repeated skirmishes across the border. In April, 2016, there were four days of intense fighting at the line of separation between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Hundreds were killed on both sides, but the border didn't really change. That all changed in September, 2020. September, 2020, a full full-fledged war was started and on on on the 27th of September, a six weeks of bloody armed conflict in which the Azerbaijanis defeated the Armenians and basically took all the pink areas surrounding Nagoro all became part of Azerbaijan. And then this red area stayed affiliated with Armenia. And there was a corridor that in the peace agreement, they agreed to facilitate, you know, transport between Armenia and this Nagoro region, which is now fully surrounded by Azeri-Azerbaijani territory. The six week war was brutal. Ultimately, the Russians negotiated a ceasefire. We'll talk about the Russians in a minute. And, you know, a lot of people died, thousands and thousands of people died. And this was a status quo until last week. Now, it is worth noting that one of the reasons that Azeri's won the war in 2020 was the fact that they used, used very cleverly and made really good use of Turkish and Israeli drones. It was the first war, really, where drones were used extensively. And you can see, of course, now in Ukraine, how the Ukrainians are using drones and the Russians are using drones extensively in that war. And one has a sense that future was going to be very much drone, driven by drone technology. And that brings us to just one other point, which relates to a question that Maximus asked. Israel is one of the major arms suppliers to Azerbaijan and has very good relations with Azerbaijan, which actually creates tension between Iran and Azerbaijan, because Iran is upset by the relationship between Israel and the Azeris. It is also being rumored that that Israel uses Azerbaijan as if you will, a base for special forces, maybe for drones, maybe even if they attack the nuclear power plants in Iran, they would actually fly planes into Azerbaijan and fly them into Iran from there. So there is a lot of cooperation between Azerbaijan and Iran. Maximus asked in a super chat on the day before yesterday, or yesterday, whenever it was, what I thought of that. And, you know, my view is, look, Israel is strategically isolated. It is surrounded by enemies. It's in peace with many of those countries, but the peace is not a real peace. The peace is a contingent peace. It's a temporary peace, in my view. And it is surrounded and Iran is a major threat. And therefore, to be able to have good relations with and Turkey, of course, is one day this and one day that it used to be a very close ally of Israel under Erdogan, it is distance itself and really was hostile to Israel for a while now it's close again. But Turkey cannot be trusted. Israel needs allies with regard to its basically ongoing war with Iran. Azerbaijan serves that purpose. It has a border with Iran. It is close to Iran. It needs Israeli expertise and weapons systems. It needs Israeli technology for a variety of different things. And there's actually a direct flight, regular direct flight from Baku to Tel Aviv. So, you know, I think, overall, it's good for Israel. I have no problem with it. It's a dictatorship. But look, Israel is not in a position like America is, like a superpower is to decide who its allies and who it's not, choose and pick between. Israel basically has to take what it's given is to take whatever opportunities it has in the region and establish relationship with wherever it can, particularly as long as it's at war with its neighbors and particularly in this case, as long as it's with Iran. So, Azerbaijan is an ally of Israel. Israel needs allies, particularly given that Azerbaijan has this border with Iran and sits to the north of it. Let's see. So that's that's the war in 2020. Anyway, last week, Azerbaijan basically invaded and basically took Nagorno with with little fight. I mean, some fight, there were casualties, but the Nagornos basically realized the people, the militia, they basically realized they couldn't defend it. They gave up. And what is happening right now? And this is this is the kind of ethnic cleansing, if you will, that happens in this region regularly is that the Armenians in Nagorno are basically packing up and leaving. They are exiting the region and they are moving into Armenia, the proper. The Azeris are telling them, please stay. We won't discriminate against you. We're not going to massacre you. We're not going to kill you all. And the Armenians in Nagorno are saying, we don't trust you and they're leaving. So, you know, by we'll see how many leave, but there are suspicions that all 120,000 of them are actually going to leave. This is a very mountainous area. You know, people, these families have probably been living in the same villages in the same buildings for hundreds of years. And because of the fact that another tribe has taken over the territory around the village, they are going to leave their ancestral homes and move to be with other people that are in anyway, that are in the same tribe as they are in Armenia. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous and absurd and stupid. And the similarities between these people far exceed the differences between them, but history, they won't let go of history. They won't let go of tribal identity. They won't let go of all the grievances of the past. And and this is what you get. You get you get mass dislocation of people from their homes, which is sad. Anyway, this will be interesting. It will be interesting to talk to my Georgian friends when I'm in Tbilisi to get their sense of what happened here and what's going on. Notice that Azerbaijan has territory to the west of Armenia because they're more that's a Muslim area. So it's it's it's part of Azerbaijan. And and even though Armenia can kind of cut it off, this is a weird part of the world. It's a Balkanized part of the world. It's just like the Balkans, where every little tribe needs every its own little country for its tribe with nobody else. I mean, it's absurd and ridiculous. This is the sense in which the human race is still very, very young. The human race still has to grow up and discover, I don't know, individualism, the value of the individual, the significance of the visual, the place of the individual and abandon tribalism, as long as as long as we cling to tribalism, we cling to barbarism, we cling to primitivism. We will continuously descend into violence and descend into. Degression, you know, instead of progress, regression, regression.