 Hello and welcome to the war economy and state podcast. This is our foreign policy and international relations podcast here at the Mises Institute This is about monthly almost monthly mostly monthly that we do it here and it's when me and Zack Yoast get together and just keep our readers updated on some important issues going on and foreign policy And this week we feel we should talk about the 2023 Pentagon document leaks, which the media is already mostly ignoring But if you're the sorts of person sort of person who likes this podcast and follows foreign policy as we talk about it here on Mises.org or maybe on friendly websites like anti-war comm places like that It's it's an important issue and should not be ignored But for for those at home who just want the basic details on it You may remember that in April 2023. So last month Started to hear about these leaks of information from documents that were classified at the Pentagon and what did these documents say? they had a lot of information about US-Ukraine relations and The war in general as well as however even some relations between the US and Egypt and South Korea and some other related issues What it turned out though hilariously is that these documents had actually been floating around online for quite some time and That they had been allegedly posted by a person named Jack Texara an airman of The Massachusetts Air National Guard so very low-ranking guy about 21 years old And he had posted them on a discord server. They were being discussed in Twitter telegram and 4chan and That people had been reading them for months They just hadn't been widely discussed outside of these particular groups Online but then they started to get posted other places and then the geniuses at the Pentagon realized that these documents had been leaked and we had been online for quite some time and So the Pentagon's allies in the media The mainstream media got to work trying to find who had leaked these documents and basically did a lot of the The US intelligence state's work for it track down this guy He was arrested. Who knows now how long he'll Rot in jail or prison There hasn't been much news yet about the charges and and when he might be awaiting trial But so that's still there young man whose life is now ruined by this Nevertheless let some information out that Some of it looks pretty darn reliable and tells us a little bit more about how things work at the Pentagon and just how Badly the US mismanages a lot of its relationships with its own allies how it's spying on its own allies how it's shelling out For an aid money to do its allies you were then working with Russia and so on and Zach will cover a lot of those details here And so that's the basic rundown of that So it's been about a month now since it was it was news and there's still a lot more to know about what happens to Jack-tex era But this just leaves a lot of questions about okay Why was he in a position to leak these documents and then what does this tell us about American foreign policy? so Zach I guess Really we could just start off with some of the basics here You've got a list here of what you think are some of the most salient issues So why don't we just get right into it about what you think are some of the most important bits of information learned From these these leaked documents and we can kind of just go from there As you mentioned about us allies this to me is just sort of hilarious in like a dark way like most us foreign policy is full of dark humor so the u.s since 1946 has given Egypt eighty five billion dollars and nowadays it's about one point three billion dollars a year and These leaks and these I have not seen these documents But it's been reported by a whole bunch of other places Because as you said the doc there was not just one leak these this guy was just putting them on discord And then they just disseminated all over the place, but the military dictator of Egypt Basically it's one thing these leaks seem to show is we just have intelligence agents everywhere because we know so much About what's happening in internal? Administrations of all these countries, but basically the military dictator of Egypt was trying to arrange to sell 40,000 rockets to Russia And he's like we have to do this carefully so the US doesn't find out You know we have to route them carefully well Apparently someone sitting in on the meeting is on the US payroll or We have the room tapped or something because we knew Right away, so that's just absurd right right off the bat that You know we're we've provided over a hundred billion dollars to Ukraine and this other country We've given eighty five billion dollars to over the years is actively working against us even though we write them a big check every year although that check is mostly so they can then buy American military equipment so really it's a convoluted rent-seeking scheme, but still that's infuriating another thing is that the United Arab Emirates was going to Open some sort of Russian Military equipment repair facility and I think this would be related to Russian equipment in Syria where Russian and American planes have been like playing chicken recently, so it's just sort of like the UAE We just sold them twenty three billion dollars in military equipment in at the beginning of 2021 So it's just sort of like They're just stuffed with American equipment and we can consider them Oh such an important partner in the region we facilitated there in Saudi Arabia as You know horrible disastrous war in Yemen for so long and it's just like this is This is how our friends repay us friends in quotes You know as I mean, it's it's almost insulting just The way in which the US is being used here and one no one seems to care and two like the government I don't even know what they just I doubt we're not gonna cut Egypt it's check right I mean and that yeah, that should be just some additional context here, right is Just remember every time the US claims to be on the side of democracy and freedom Just remember the US One of its top recipients for decades has been Egypt the military dictatorship Whose economy is heavily dependent on military spending like the military is the number one employer. It's it's a military state Certainly the Christians in Egypt suffer horribly at the hands of the allies of the ruling regime there I mean, it's just An awful awful regime I wouldn't much like to live under the United Arab Emirates either Certainly not exactly a friend to Western civilization, but yeah another paid-off ally of The US so let's let's get over this idea that the US is only friends with with the democracy living regimes not to mention the Saudi regime which at least until recently was firmly in the pocket of the US although they're now working with Iran and China now on the the military base thing with Russia now Russia unlike the United States doesn't have very many bases outside of they're very near abroad, right? They have a refueling. They have a small base really on the coast of Syria And they've been in negotiations trying to do something with Vietnam and that always just seems to get pushed further Into the future. So what what was this plan with UAE? Was it it going to be a place in the Persian Gulf where they would have a base? I wasn't quite sure on that I think it was just the UAE was going to repair Russian equipment like it wasn't going to be like a military base type thing, but it's just like They're facilitating Someone were were literally like playing chicken with with fighter jets right now in Syria I mean Syria is a whole mess. We should leave of course and then I you know Russia and Syria and the UAE can do whatever they want But it's the point is is that where we're being played for suckers here as John Mirsheimer says the US is uncle sucker So it's that it's just Annoying insulting. Well, isn't what really matters that these regimes continue to get money so they can buy American weapons I mean you hinted at that isn't that the real purpose of it all? Yeah, lots of the military aid It's it's not like we just give them a pallet of cash or something. It's basically vouchers to buy You know tanks or whatever that employ people and important Congressional districts in their manufacture and things like that. I mean this is well known forever that the Pentagon Places basically various, you know military factories and all their various subcontractors and all that in Important congressional districts so that they have leverage over Congress like we can't cancel that program You'll lose 500 jobs in your district. I mean, this is why the They the What is it? They see ten Warthog, which is that really cool plane? It has like a giant auto cannon but it It's sort of been agreed now for years and years and years that it's not would not be really feasible in a Modern war it'd be shot down immediately like people have said we should give these to Ukraine and it just sort of like it Would not last five seconds just like this kind of ground attack plane, but it's still there because you know They've just kept a lock on That congressional district and everything and I think the current Representative of the district that they're based in was what was a pilot for them, too You know that'll probably be around for a while too even though I mean of no use Well on that issue of like spreading out military spending across congressional districts and stuff there's actually for those who are interested on how Congress schemes to keep spending going no matter what through that mechanism There's a good book on this called the American warfare state the domestic politics of military spending By Rebecca you Thorpe this came out. I don't know like nine ten years ago It looks like it's basically like an expansion on her PhD Dissertation or something like that But I would recommend it just to just to learn how that mechanism works if you're interested in like the domestic politics side of military spending and just How they keep it going right why no one ever seems to oppose it and no one ever wants to want an actual cut in military spending It's not just ideological. I mean it's like built into the whole congressional spending system so Just for if you're looking for a book to read you want, you know something something deep in the political science files There's a book for you Now one of the other big issues was the the Pentagon's opinions and plans and Assertation of what's going on in the Russo-Ukrainian war. So what's What's been their predictions there? It sounds like it's not nearly as triumphant Internally at the Pentagon as we hear in the media about how how glorious the Ukrainian victory will seem any attention to the news They've probably heard of the looming Ukrainian counter-offensive. This been talking about it for months and months and months Usually in the context of how we're sending them billions of dollars of more weapons so they'll be ready for this counter-offensive and There's all this speculation about what where it will be when it will be like one of the main goals is they want to sever the land bridge between Crimea and The the rest of the area in the Don Vest that Russia captured and then of course Russia itself and So this again is one of the documents I did not see but the Washington Post has its hands on it and it dates from early February and it basically says Yeah, we don't think this counter-offensive is going to accomplish much I It the Washington Post says the It's forced generation and sustainment shortfalls and that quote Basically, they the best they can hope for is will result in quote modest territorial gains And see as you said of course there's all this old Ukrainian military is being built up so much and it's going to you know With all this western aid that we've just been pumping into the country's going to launch this counter-offensive and I've been Even before these leaks. I was like one is this counter-offensive even ever going to happen like one would happen Or will if it does quote happen would just be like an online counter-offensive or that was a counter-offensive has started Nothing actually changes on the ground and It's worth noting the Ukrainian military did take back lots of territory last year but Part of the reason is because the Russian military I don't sort of I have no idea what they're doing they Invaded Ukraine when like the the general rule of thumb is you need a three-to-one ratio of attackers to defenders Well, they had below a one-to-one ratio when they invaded Ukraine And there's speculation that they basically had thought they'd bribed enough people like that's how like Kursan fell Rapidly is like the administration there apparently like was on the Russian side and stuff and in other cases They just paid people who just didn't Follow through it and various other things but still it seemed very crazy. So these sort of that northern sector around Kharkiv or Kharkov There is barely anyone there basically in contrast after that happened Russia began they instituted their call-up of reserves and all that and They've been fortifying. I can't remember for his Reuters or who was just talking about how Russia has been fortifying all over Basically the front lines and also the other thing is the whole front line is mined a heck by both sides So I've read some people speculating Ukraine would have to do mine clearing Before they could even launch their own counter offensive But anyway, so the the US the Pentagon is skeptical that there'll be some great success with this counter offensive and that big part of it is You know generating enough Trained people and enough equipment for the offensive to follow through and this I have seen Documents on so Let's see here the One of the leaked documents So here's a here's sort of the thing the the guy he's the Sam or what was his first name the Texi era whatever Jack Jack right He started by Transcribing all these documents and then he'd post them as text to this discord server And then he's like well, this takes forever and you guys aren't even reading it And so then he just started taking pictures on his phone Which is how I guess the New York Times Sort of got on to him because they found his countertop that was in the background of Some of the pictures anyway, so some of these documents are crinkled and hard to read But but anyway, this is one document that breaks down The western training of the brigades that are supposed to engage in the counter offensive There's supposed to be 12 brigades three of which are going to be trained and equipped by Ukraine The other nine are going to be trained and equipped by the West and it goes through each of the brigades and for each one it has Like a percentage of training complete and a percentage of equipment on hand, so this is from February 28th is is when this leak document was compiled and There are Three whole brigades that no four five five whole brigades are marked at zero percent trained So that's the end of February and they're all supposed to be trained. It has That there's supposed to be nine trained brigades by April 30th So the best case scenario they went from zero percent to a hundred percent trained in two months, which is seems unlikely but also lots of these brigades that none of them as Of February 28th had a hundred percent of their equipment on hand and they just did their Stuff from everywhere American stuff German French British just all this it's sort of as I said before scraping the bottom of the barrel to get this Counter-offensive force together, but here's what to me is really crazy is the US Pentagon doesn't think it's going to really accomplish much of anything So if they don't think it's going to accomplish much of anything and we're you know Throwing together everything we can you know get our hands on for this that's not going to accomplish it What is the point? What is the purpose of this whole? Operation I mean it seems it's just going to get a bunch of people killed and a bunch of you know Gagellians of dollars of equipment destroyed and the war will basically continue on as before So I'm a part of me. I wonder if the counter-offensive will even happen And there are some other logistical things we can get into as well regarding artillery shells and anti-air defense, but it's just It might happen, I mean and who knows the future is radically uncertain It could be a resounding success because of Russian incompetence or something I don't think that's likely though. So it seems there's no plan here other than throwing money and Ukrainians who've been chain ganged or Shanghai'd off the street into the meat grinder with no end goal in sight Well, and of course, it's very much Already there's a online counter offensive if you want to count at that because right most days I go and I just look up Bakhmut, right? Because that's that seems to be where the focus of the war is at the moment is the the war Over the the city and region the ruins of Bakhmut basically at this point And so if you just look at the headlines every day, it's always stuff about oh Ukraine says it's regained a few neighborhoods in Bakhmut or Russia says it it's advanced it has almost surrounded Bakhmut You'll occasionally see videos and it's always just videos of Ukrainians killing Russians You never see of course videos of the reverse Because I guess we're just supposed to believe Ukraine is just going from success to success in the region And then they just throws out these numbers like a hundred thousand Russians killed in Bakhmut alone And I mean I have no idea right Where how just how far off that number is because as even the Pentagon admits in these leak documents is It's what their ascertaining how they ascertain the situation has nothing to do with what's reported in the media in terms of What's likely and what's going on in the region and they are if you look they're already talking about a Ukrainian counter offensive like Happening and I guess some piece of it is happening that the word is being used Ukrainian counter offensive regains parts of Bakhmut And all of that sort of stuff But looking at the reality of it there's so little change because I've been I've been checking in on Bakhmut for a month now and Nothing's going on except just more people being killed and more buildings being leveled in that sort of thing in this document From like the end of February the US military's analysis is like oh Bakhmut is like over Like the the Ukrainians are done for But here we are still two months later, so Yeah, I had thought that It would be over much sooner than now and some people I've read have speculated that they're just a Ukraine is continuing to feed people into Bakhmut basically to prevent They're basically just to hold like that everything there until they launch their counterfeits, but who knows I mean it could also be some sort of just Non-material more like a point of morale of like we can't lose Bakhmut. We've been fighting for it for so long I Don't know. Well, it seems that from the American perspective It's it's win-win in a certain way and that you just keep spending money keep using up arms that have to be replaced and As long as you're not throwing a bunch of Americans into the meat grinder most American voters aren't even going to notice or care I have much interested at all, but you can keep the the money flowing in a big big way and Then it all just works out for the the American warfare state perspective And so I don't see why they would change their policy at all now I mean it would take you I mean look at look at the US supported of Yemen, right? Nobody cared and So just just keep going now. You can already see that Americans just don't even care about the war Anymore yeah on Twitter. There's the people devoted to shouting down anyone who supports the war and there's polls Of course on there's plenty of Eastern Europeans online have strong opinions about it but they don't vote in the US and Ordinary people aren't paying any attention to those people Yes Yeah, just how much influence some of these groups do have managed to have in US think tanks and and tell people certain people to shut up for Opposing the war Too much, but of course you can't take any of these people seriously I mean Poland was one most enthusiastic supporters of the US invasion of Iraq as as was Ukraine and sent plenty of soldiers to go kill Iraqis but now suddenly have discovered their love of national sovereignty and territorial borders But so forgetting about this part of the world right there's stuff in these leaked documents too about Asia and the Pacific is there not some stuff to do with the the South Koreans Yes, yes, this is the five eyes and and all of that interesting so the US has Just a giant caches of military equipment around the world One place is in Israel another place is South Korea and the US has been pulling our American-owned equipment out of these places in order to send to Ukraine but South Korea is sort of like a military manufacturing powerhouse as you might expect given their sort of situation with North Korea and so they have tons and tons apparently of of a 155 millimeter artillery shells Which let me pull up the latest fact sheet here the US has sent Think it's one point. Ah, yes Over one point five million 155 million reader artillery rounds to Ukraine and we can talk about this later Ukraine basically has no artillery shells But so South Korea has this giant stockpile and so we've been trying to pressure the South Korean government to send these shells to Ukraine specifically 330,000 of them and The issue Well, it's my understanding that by law South Korea cannot provide lethal military aid and there's some sort of attempt to Lift that law But so how it works with the military sale, it's not like you just you know I go down and buy a car and then I can do whatever with the car I could sell the car to my neighbor military equipment. There's end end user Inspections and all this stuff I and you might recall way back Sometime last year everyone was like freaking out at Germany because all these countries wanted to send some artillery To Ukraine, but there was German artillery is like East German artillery really and Germany was not granting them Approval to do that and then they did and stuff so There's this it's going back to how we apparently have spies everywhere like the documents list basically everything the entire like breadth of the policy conversation in the South Korean Administration But like this guy says this and this person says this and someone was like we can't be on the phone with the President of the United States until we know what we're gonna do for this and so Basically, there's they were thinking maybe we can just Send this stuff to Poland and Poland can break the rules and we'll just wink wink nod nod and Poland will send the artillery shells to Ukraine and Actually, one of the documents has like this sheet of like like breakdowns of like if South Korea agrees Here's how we can get the shells like by when the shells can get to Ukraine and stuff And this I've not I've not seen anything else on this and it was not like an announcement. It was like a Like a leak of like oh, this is going to happen that South Korea was going to loan the United States half a million a 155 milliriner artillery rounds Not exactly I mean I guess how that would work is is that the US would just then have these on hand and could We could then give another half a million rounds to Ukraine Although going back to our earlier episode Oh Here it is At current production rates This is from that CSIS report We cannot rebuild the inventory because all of the production of artillery shells in the US are Used just for training purposes So it'll be years and years till we could repay that loan to South Korea if that were to actually happen There was also other stuff about China launching a hypersonic missile and stuff like that. I mostly Paid attention to Ukraine related stuff, but yeah, it's just we have Intelligence penetration everywhere. I mean People it's just their job to write up these reports of like what the spies have sent in I guess every day of all the Office gossip in the various White houses or their equivalents around the world. Well, and of course, it's always a funny reminder Americans act outraged whenever they find out some other countries spying on the US As if the United States respects the The the privacy and security of other states, right? And this was another leak that was pretty funny It was it's not in the documents I've seen but it's been reported on that Serbia has actually sent military equipment to Ukraine Which of course would be scandalous there because the Serbian population in general is very pro-Russian But the government is not I mean they're sort of Surrounded by NATO and all that so if true that's just sort of Hilarious and also we've just screwed them over because we probably had to twist some Thumbs Get them to do that and there's also outrage in South Korea over this of like are you spying on? The president and and all that sort of stuff Well, that was always that's always been a point that Lou Rockwell makes is that the government lies about everything But they lie extra about foreign policy You you can rely even less on what they say when it comes to what whatever they're they're telling you They're doing with other regimes or whatever the position is and this is true anywhere in the sense of what the Especially the Serbian regime is just a perfect example of this right what they say one minute to appease the local population could be absolutely the opposite of what they say behind closed doors to leaders of other states and And it's it's just how remember when we saw like Lindsey Graham Fist bumping with the the current vice president over some dumb law that they had joined forces on and so on Right is that when they're when they get together at their cocktail parties and diplomatic meetings It's their club and they're making promises to each other That may or may not have anything to do with what they're telling the public in public places and So it's it's just this is all just a reminder that you cannot believe anything That you get out of the regime in terms of what's going on in Ukraine in terms of what the Pentagon thinks is feasible I mean who knows you you might get a good sense of it ten years after the fact after the historians do their work Or maybe when there's a leak and things like that And so it's just always interesting to see these leaks now I haven't seen quite the same level of hysteria over jack texara that I've seen over say like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange That they're traders and need to be hanged and they're endangering Americans and all of that sort of thing I haven't seen a whole lot of claims here that these leaks endanger the lives of Americans I wonder if that's just progress being made or just that because the public just simply is totally uninterested now I don't I don't know But it is it is interesting to see I think some changes Over time in terms of how people react to these leaks Not that that would not that that helps you any when you're on trial for violating These federal laws about leaking classified documents, but It's most of the the public doesn't even know who these people are after a few years right like reality winner right and there wasn't you know Edward Snowden had like a dramatic escape to Russia and Julian Assange was stuck in the embassy for You know, I don't even know how a long time and he's still in prison and all this stuff whereas Jack One I think he's Somewhat a sympathetic figure. I mean in that He's like a kid basically, I mean it's it The I think it was the Washington Post or as the New York Times interviewed some other people from this discord server and Jack who was 21 was the oldest person on the server. Everyone else is basically teenagers. So He was leaking these classified documents To teenagers basically who were his friends and one of the teenagers that was interviewed by one of the newspapers Said, you know, I'd go to jail. I wouldn't rat on him to the government I'll talk to you though reporters, but he's like I'm gonna and then the reporter asked him why and he's like cuz he was my best friend and That made me feel very sad. It sort of speaks to the alienation and loneliness of Well, everyone was especially youth these days it's like I think some of the people met in person a few times, but it's like basically an online friend and That's your only sort of You know companionship is quite sad I mean, but also it sort of helps him I think in that he didn't do it for principled reasons It doesn't help him at all when it comes to on trial and all that But I guess in the public perception If you do it if you're a principled leaker like I'm leaking these documents because of the government's horrid, you know, whatever it's doing Then people can disagree with those principles But Jack didn't really have any principles behind he was doing it's just oh, here's this dumb young kid doing dumb young kids stuff I mean some kids get drunk and drunk drive and crash and kill someone in their lives are ruined He leaked government documents So I I don't know also at the news cycle is just so fast now that looking back to like the Edward Snowden and Manning and all that stuff like Those that was like top news for like weeks if I'm remembering right, you know now It's just something new. It's just the news cycle so rapid. It drives me nuts Well, and of course if you're 19 now you spent two years of your youth Locked up and unable to go to school and meet people in person depending on which state you lived in so Thanks, and that's right. This discord started during coven. Yeah, so an unintended consequence of Fauci Lockdowns and all that we talked so much about unintended consequences trade-off. Well, you know Kids might get lonely and start leaking classified documents America's alienated youth They're now leaking documents to impress their what few friends they have Yes, and yeah, who wants to see this guy locked up for the next 20 years As you know, right? You don't even have to prove intent though with a lot of this federal law related to this stuff In a sane world You have to prove that he would want to do harm to the US regime and that sort of stuff But they don't really have to prove that on trial to to send this guy away for years and years but that's probably going to be the sad outcome, but If surely that someone's out there printing free jack texara buttons and you should you should buy one Support his legal defense fund if you have the means but on that sad note about the youth alienation We should probably end this episode of war economy and state Thank you for listening and we'll be back about next month or so with a new episode and we'll see you next time