Has Trump Already Lost the War with Iran?

Welcome back to the Radio Rothbart podcast. I'm Ryan McMaken, editor and chief at the Mises Institute. [music] And today we're going to talk about foreign policy a bit. Uh but before that we do that, just uh check us out online mises.org mises.org. And if you like the sort of content, we got lots of articles, podcasts, lectures, all of that sort of stuff. And you can get daily or weekly updates for that if you click on subscribe at the top of the page there at mises.org. But since we are talking about foreign policy today, I have on here Zachary Yoast, who is uh an associate of ours, had him on for a long time. uh has quite a number of uh bylines on our site and he's the one that stays up to date on foreign policy issues. So, I like to go back to him when I want to check out some of the details of what's going on with US [snorts] foreign policy and and especially when it comes to some of the more specific uh strategic and tactical issues related uh to the military and to US military policy right now. And so the reason I wanted to do that now, Zach, is because it seems, for me at least, it seems that things aren't going terribly well for the administration in terms of Well, I don't know how many times we've defeated Iran at this point. About 38 times, maybe 75 times. Uh it seems every other day the US is going to uh just pound Iran into oblivion and then they will beg to surrender to the US. And yet here we are months and months later and that hasn't happened. So yeah, give me your overall characterization, Zach, of how um how the situation's gone for the US with the the it's joint the US's joint sometimes joint operation with the state of Israel against Iran. >> Yeah, I mean I think it's safe to say at this point that it's been a disaster. I'd say that Trump is stuck. There's sort of no way out of this situation that doesn't involve humiliation. Uh in my view, Iran is in a better position strategically than it was before. It is obviously suffered great damage. Uh but you can rebuild stuff and the I mean we can put it this way. Trump was crowing about that Iran can't have a nuclear weapon and that was supposedly the instigation for this misadventure. The nuclear issue has practically fallen by the wayside and now all of the discussion is about the straight of Hormuz because of its effect on the global economy of course oil but other things as well uh natural gas and fertilizers and things like that and despite all of our bombing which we'll talk about at length I'm sure coming up all of our depletion of munitions Iran can still shut down the straight and blow stuff up and uh still maintains the capacity to basically uh wreck destroy all of the Gulf States. If Iran needed to respond to US uh climbing up the escalation ladder, they could just destroy Gulf uh oil refineries of course uh various prochemical facilities. They could also destroy the desalinization plants and these places, these Gulf States would be in immense trouble were that to happen. So despite our massive bombing campaign, Iran still is able to knock out a huge chunk of the global economy. So uh the short answer is it's a disaster and we're stuck unless we accept a humiliating defeat which Trump constitutionally seems unable to do. Well, let's go back to the early days of the conflict because there were stated outcomes and goals sort of from the administration as to what was going to happen and those were not the same goals that are being stated now. And so, correct me if I'm wrong, but the idea of uh launching this attack on Iran was regime change, by which the administration meant a friendly regime to the United States and the state of Israel. Also, Israel was to give up all of its enriched uranium and any remnants of any sort of a nuclear program whether used for energy or for weaponry that was to be gone and basically Iran was simply to well on top of that there were these draconian versail treaty like uh elements where it was like you'll give up any ability to defend yourself from us whatsoever. This is like the demilitarization of the Rhin Land, right? It's like we control it all now. And these were absurd uh demands being placed on Iran. But I think they thought they could impose these by regime change cuz if we just bomb Iran enough. But then what they realized was, and this goes to your explanation of why the US doesn't just keep going up the escalation ladder, is that suddenly Iran showed that it could destroy US allies in the Gulf. And so why not just start bombing all of the infrastructure in Iran? Well, because Iran then would destroy all of the infrastructure in the Gulf States, all of which have decided to double down on being US allies. And so they've basically made themselves adjuncts of the US state. And that's a that is a close-in target for Iran to attack. And their ability to do this has apparently nowhere near being eliminated. So if they keep going up then Iran could actually bomb infrastructure which they have refrained from doing for obvious reasons right because then they still have that ace in the hole if the US decides uh to keep accelerating. But yeah, I mean is there anything I have forgotten in terms of the original stated goals of uh this war and then we can contrast them with what we're being told are the purposes of the US war with Iran now. >> Yeah, that sounds right to me. I mean part of the issue was at the beginning it was very vague and then the White House press secretary just released this huge list of everything in the kitchen sink that they are hoping to accomplish. But yeah, regime change and denuclearization were sort of the two main goals. And I point everyone, there was a sort of very interesting reporting from the New York Times from inside the supposedly super secure situation room where Netanyahu and the head of MSAD gave a huge presentation to Trump saying, "We can achieve regime change." And reportedly the next day, Trump said, "Well, the regime change will be their issue, but we can basically secure denuclearization." And neither neither goal has I mean, both goals are now, I'd say, further away than when the war started. Well, I think that's illustrated by the fact that the stated goals now are completely different from what they were at the beginning of the conflict. It seems the stated goal now was simply the the return of the status quo ante from before the war [snorts] because before the war the straight horm was open and there was general peace in the region when the US's allies in the Gulf states weren't being bombed into oblivion and the US had bases all encircling Iran. Most of the ones on the western side of Iran are now being are have now just been destroyed or rendered unusable. So now Trump's saying, "Oh, I'm going to open the straight." And you're right, he doesn't seem to be mentioning the nuclear issue anymore at all. So is there are there any current goals other than just opening the straight or does Trump still occasionally throw out regime change or something like that? I >> I think really that the ultimate goal now to which everything else is subsumed is for Trump to save face. [laughter] I think that's the overriding goal because he is stuck in this mess and I think he's realized it despite all of his blustering which has made him to me seem more impotent the more he blusters. Uh but I mean I he's like flopping around like a fish out of water just he cannot escape this situation unless he gives in to Iranian demands. And those demands drastically increased from the first ceasefire memorandum of understanding to what Iran's demanding now. And I mean demand Iran has the US over a barrel. Uh, I've seen people say, uh, including some smart people, lots of dumb people, but also some people I respect who are smart and intelligent on these issues, but they point out, well, the we actually achieved a lot of tactical successes against Iran. And actually, gas, I mean, oil didn't go up to $200 a barrel. Gas wasn't $8 a gallon. But if you look at the I mean in my I'm not some sort of oil industry analyst but a lot of that is cushioned by the US draining the strategic reserve which is apparently at its lowest level since 1982. So the ultimate goal right now is for just for Trump to wrigle out of this. And as part of that, he needs to get the straight back open before there is global economic catastrophe, which he will be forever labeled with. Um, yeah. So, I think that's where we're at now. Yeah, that was what one commentator suggested was, uh, Iran basically has stated at this point that they're not going to negotiate with Trump anymore, that there's no point to it. Now, this tells you right off the bat who's losing and who's winning is Trump is the one that wants negotiations. Iran is not. And it's this is hard for Americans to contemplate and that they're like, "Well, their GDP is going to go down if they they don't negotiate." Yeah, they understand that. And I can, you know, obviously I can't speak for the man on the street in Iran who probably would love to see GDP go up. But the regime, which is very much in charge, just as it is in the United States, is going to do what it wants, just as the foreign policy elites in the United States do whatever the hell they want. And they couldn't care less what elections say. And that is we're going to preserve the regime. And how are we going to preserve the regime? Well, we're going to undergo a decline in GDP that's going to be necessary in order to wait out this administration. We're simply not going to uh engage in any sort of uh new negotiations, new summits, all this stuff because as Trump showed, right, this leads nowhere because they were willing to do it. They went to the table a few times and mostly it seemed like a highly highly uh risky situation where you might be bombed out of the sky while you're sending delegates to some sort of negotiation either by Israeli Air Force or US Air Force. >> So now they're like what's the point? >> So they're not involved in that anymore. But one person suggested they don't actually have to wait out Trump on this. They just have to wait out until the US's strategic oil reserve is empty. And once they do that, then the US won't be able to cushion oil prices anymore and you will be facing a major global uh would it be is catastrophe the right word? Well, I guess it depends on how you define catastrophe. It'll be bad. It would be a bad thing. Let's put it that way. And or as they um it would be a downward movement in [laughter] the overall standard of living. Let's put let's put it that way. >> Yeah. And so how long will that strategic reserve last? Unknown. But it's amazing that we're still looking at two and a half years until the Trump administration is out. And what's that going to mean then in terms of the global economy? Uh I'm obviously Trump doesn't want that to happen. And so can we say face? I don't know. As you say and part part of it is it's not just our reserves. It's uh especially Asian reserves. uh they have various Asian states have stockpiled a lot of oil. I was shocked China has an enormous stockpile much larger than I had imagined but China has driven they've pushed a lot for electrification. Um so they have actually weathered this half half halfway decently but places like South Korea, Japan, the Philippines, India, they are not able to just keep waiting this out forever. Um especially if you know one option the US would have would be to go back to our position for many decades which was banning oil exports. uh that would soften the effect here in the US, although it would leave everyone else [laughter] uh high and dry. Um Japan's notably been importing some US oil to sort of soften the blow here. So yeah, the the I would say times on Iran's side and part of this is also because of our weapons situation, the munitions issue which you and I have been talking about for literally years going back to you know when uh Ukraine started and everything uh we have emphasized this situation a lot and now the chickens have come home to roost and it's uh pretty astounding. um just how everything has played out. The war has been going on for months, but roughly there have been like days on which uh combat operations have taken place. There have been about 60 roughly. So I mean it's sort like the US was able to wage sort of highintensity war for two months. That's it. How how how can our military planners be contemplating a you know a war with China or something like that? Uh it's >> well before you go on let's for the people listening at home let's define a little bit what the weapons we're talking about here are right that you've probably seen some headlines right about missile depletion and a lack of arms available. You hear about Trump yelling at Hegsth about it. So what is it that the US is running out of? What is it that it only took two months for the US to basically be in a very critical arm shortage situation? Yeah. So the the biggest uh munitions uh I would say that usually are in the headlines are air defense missiles. So, these are Patriot and THAAD missiles, and there was a shortage of these before we launched this crazy uh misadventure. Uh Ukraine has been constantly begging for more and more and more. And it's uh we've talked about the mismatch here. These cost a few million bucks and they're used against weapon systems that cost $100,000 or less. It's a, you know, just not a workable system and they're extremely slow to produce uh some other system that's launched from naval vessels. We used an entire year's worth of production back in I guess it was 20 24 if I'm remembering correctly when Iran and Israel were exchanging fire after Israel bombed the uh Iranian embassy I think it was in uh Damascus. But at any rate, we we use these up very rapidly. And CSIS has a report out. They estimate that before the war started, we had 2,330 Patriot missiles in the entire planet that were under our control. Notably, this includes stockpiles in East Asia. You know, supposedly we've been pivoting to Asia for like 15 years now without any success. >> Notably in South Korea, right? If I remember correctly, a lot of >> there. Yes. There. And then they also had THAAD THAAD batteries there. And they took them out of Japan in South Korea and redeployed them to the Middle East. So [snorts] we're like weaker in East Asia now than when Trump took office. Uh now it's estimated as of July 27th that we possess 759 to 827 patriots. So this is uh you know quite a drastic drop and we used these this many up in like two months of actual combat. Imagine a China scenario. It's just it's mindboggling. Meanwhile, THAADS we had 452. Now it's believed we have 234 to 278. So th this is like the main one of the main topics of discussion because as we were just discussing before Iran has the ability to pound all the Gulf states and Israel and there was a recent report also that where uh some high level brass person was like we can sort of either defend Israel or the Gulf states. We probably can't do both. >> [laughter] >> I wonder which uh which option will be chose there. But um it's not just our defensive systems though we are also have used up a lot of offensive weapons uh various uh types of ship launched air launched missiles of various types um tomahawk missiles. Uh, and the point is the one thing we're not short on, we're absolutely not short on all are JDAPS, Joint Defense attack munitions, which are basically gravity bombs that have a glide kit slapped on them. We have like 140,000 of those. It's estimated. Uh, and they cost way less. They're like a hundred grand uh compared to these a tomahawk or something like that. But the problem is is that these have to be air launched and they have to be much closer than the standoff munitions we've been using. And despite all of the blustering, it seems Iran still has the ability to defend its airspace. Uh now it seems like ancient history, but it was not that long ago. Listeners might recall that Iran succeeded in shooting down an American uh aircraft and there was a huge scramble to rescue the pilots. There's also video proof that they hit an F-35, which I'm not, you know, I'm no expert, but I think the F-35 is overrated and very expensive and not uh very reliable. But this is supposedly our top-of-the-line aircraft. Well, the Iranians hit it with their ramshackle air defenses after we've been bombing them for weeks straight. So, uh, Trump, you know, casualties are are anathema to the American public. So, Trump is stuck there as well. If Trump was willing to lose dozens of fighters and bombers and whatnot, we could resume bombing with Jans, but uh it was roughly two weeks ago Trump had a big cabinet meeting at Camp David where it was going to be decided, you know, are we going to bomb them back to the stone age? He was blustering as the biggest campaign since World War II. And the decision was made not to do that. And it's pretty clear from leaks that that's because Trump concluded, "We literally can't." And he was berating and fighting with Pete Hegsth over the munitions issue. And this indicates how out of touch Trump is, which I'm sure part of it is the fault of his handlers and toadies and whatnot, but Trump reportedly said to Hexath, "I thought that the munitions issue had been taken care of." This indicates he has absolutely no conception of the production timeline for all of these various munitions, which will take probably two to three years to get back to pre-war levels, let alone build up uh for what is obviously would be needed if the US were to fight an honest to goodness war. And I'd note that we've already ameliorated some of this issue for us by just cutting in line. Uh, you know, all of our allies are always ordering gajillions of dollars of weapons from us. Well, the US has just said, "Well, we're going to take the weapons that were being manufactured for you so we can use them, and we're just going to push your order fulfillment back four or five years, maybe." [laughter] So, the situation is is not surprising to those of us who have been following the issue. I suppose it shouldn't be surprising, but I'm surprised that we're at this critical stage. We've let it get this bad. And you might recall my more optimistic note, well sort of optimistic note back when we talked, we did an episode right after the war started because I thought Trump would try and cut and run way earlier because of the munitions issue, but uh that didn't happen. But the munitions issue did happen. So yeah. Well, and and I should note, right, we were talking about this in the context of Ukraine in 2022, like almost as soon as that conflict started, we saw largely because it was pointed out by guys like Mirshimer that the US doesn't have the ability because Russia was going in, they had all this artillery that they were just pounding eastern Ukraine with, super cheap World War II era sort of artillery. cheap, plentiful, and expending insane numbers of rounds per day. But then the US is only defense uh in the for the the state of Ukraine was was all these ultra expensive defensive missiles uh to use in drone warfare. So is uh this there's this big asymmetry in terms of cost and it was clear that the US was already draining its useful missile its useful weapons quick much more quickly than the Russians were draining theirs. It's a different situation in Iran it seems where they have more high-tech missiles that they're using. Right. Obviously artillery launched from Iran is not going to do much damage except maybe just on like the Iraqi border or something like that. Um, so it is a different situation, but the US's response is always the standoff weapons that are being launched from naval warships or uh it's drone sort of stuff, but the Iranians have a tons of that too, like huge stockpiles. And I don't know if you've seen much on it, but it's it's real sketchy information. It could be that then they are actually even being partially uh restocked in uh cooperation with the Chinese as well at least in terms of some key parts and things like that because why wouldn't you, right? If if I were the Chinese and the Russians, of course I would want the Iranians to win this war. Uh, and so I would be shocked if they weren't doing something to help at least prop up the availability of of high-tech weapons that Iran still has access to. But we should note that as Mir Shiver was talking about this, he was correct. He basically everything he said about Iran has been correct at this point. And I just keep up with him in terms of why, right? He does almost daily interviews now on various podcasts. He seems to be on weekly at least once a week on Npalitano's podcast for example and a number of other places and his message hasn't changed much over time at all. It's simply been time is on Iran's side and closing the straight of Hormuz is a sort of defensive tactic that's almost on the level of nuclear weapons because it can cause major global economic damage. uh that is that is available to Iran on the cheap and that right Iran doesn't have to um invade and occupy foreign countries which of course is very very expensive. All it has to simply do is prevent ships from going in and out of the straight. And I I continued to see some headlines at proTrump uh websites saying, "Oh, look, another ship made it through the straight of Hormuz yesterday morning." As if one vote. [laughter] Overall, traffic's down 99%. But these proTrump people are acting like it's some great victory that a couple of ships made it through. and US policy seems real muddled on it because I think there's still simultaneously a US blockade as well because they want the straight of horm closed on the US's terms and they don't want Iran sending oil to Iran's allies like China. So the whole thing's a mess but everything that Mir Shimemer has said about it has been absolutely correct. He said what they were going to do. I think the one place he's been a little bit wrong, I think he saw more escalation uh at this point than has actually occurred. Although maybe he was more tenuous on that. Also, he's been predicting more horrible escalation in Ukraine and Russia, which thankfully has not yet happened at this point. But the over overall the overall message is Iran just has to wait this out. They just have to wait it out until the global economy is in shambles and then Iran will be uh easy to negot Iran will find it much easier to negotiate with other countries like the US or maybe we'll negotiate separate pieces with different countries outside the US. Uh but yeah, what would you say is is Mir Shimemer coming out looking good at this? I think uh this is I the guy's like 80 years old, but he uh this is kind of his moment to shine, I think, in terms of it's only taken a couple of months for him to look like he's smart and all of the administration people are dumb. >> Yeah, I think he's 76 if I recall correctly, which my knowing that might be an indication I I'm not unbiased. I'm a very big fan [laughter] of Mshimer. I don't agree with him on everything. uh people can read my somewhat critical review of his recent book at the Independent Review. But yeah, I mean I think he has been proven quite quite right. And uh one thing that's sort of shocking really is that as far as I have been able to find uh Trump uh Mirshimer has never once been called to testify before Congress despite his you know quite anyone even his opponents would say he has quite quite a high status. He's never been called in to testify. And I I know for a fact that uh in 2016 he was never at least as of you know midy year of 2016 he was never contacted by the Trump administr uh the Trump campaign despite you know their rhetoric that somewhat you know aligned with his way back in the day. But um yeah, I mean I think he was quite right and uh you know I I have a friend who works in foreign policy in DC and he relayed this story to me where a different realist it was not me or Shimemer but a different realist had made a prediction and that prediction had come true and my friend you know emailed this realist and was like wow you were right about that and the realist who was you know rather humble said well realism's pretty good theory to understand the world. So [laughter] yeah, I I think uh that Mirshimer and other realists emphasize some sort of key fundamentals uh that are useful and Mirshimer says this many times. There's a lot of uh you know this is a slight tangent but there's a lot of misunderstandings about the theory of realism. You know Mirsh it is a theory. Mirshimer says it's a way to simplify the world so that you can understand it and make predictions. And in his words, he said it many times. He thinks it's right about 80% of the time. So anyway, yeah, it's I mean, yeah, we can do a little side piece about realism here, right? If you go through school, you do your inter international relations stuff, they'll teach you about realism that you've got the levels of analysis and so on. Realists just tend to tell you that the the inner workings of the regime don't matter that much. That each regime just simply seeks self-preservation and whether it's democratic, whether it's dictatorial is not a deciding factor a lot of the time and that it's really just the state elites that determine foreign policy. And Rothbart agrees with this wholeheartedly. You can see in in his analysis on war, peace in the state and an anatomy of the state, he says this, right? foreign policy is the domain of these these state elites who make decisions based along what he doesn't he doesn't say this but based along realist lines in terms of they're making decisions based on self-preservation and it fits well together uh with realism very much the Rothbardian uh view of the international system obviously he has some slightly different goals and I think he would tend to be he would be on the the the far end of the realists who want to reduce armaments as much as possible. Right? Some realists are a little bit more supportive of heavily heavily preparing for the next war. Some believe, especially in the US, that they the oceans are sufficient to provide a significant buffer in terms of defense. Obviously, if you're a realist in Poland, that's a very different situation than being a realist in North America. uh we have uh the benefit of just simply send out the navy, alert the uh the guys who man the missile silos and you don't really have to engage in a bunch of international action. Uh beyond that situation is different if uh you're Switzerland in 1936 or you're Poland in basically uh Poland at any time or the last 500 years or so. But you could clearly see that realism in terms of if we're out there looking for an international relations uh system and theory, that's the closest we're going to get, I think, to uh what what currently we would call libertarian or classical liberal sort of thinking in my view. And I was recently reading a chapter from uh Lou Rockwell's book against the state and he's got a chapter in there called the war system. very very long chapter, very extensive where he just talks about foreign policy broadly and yeah and he says look the realists because he's talking about it in the context of the old Iraq war and all of that stuff and he's noting the realists are the only sane people here in I mean they're not really ever in power in Washington but they have some presence there and he was saying these are the only sane people near the US government in terms of foreign policy and they're basically realism um is hated of course by the neoconservative high highly ideological groups that think we'll establish democracy in every country and it'll just be non-stop war until the United States dominates and rules the entire world and creates puppet regimes everywhere. Realists don't see that as worth the the price at all. And so realists just end up being the the group that is in favor of restraint and sanity. I would say from a libertarian point of view. Now I don't agree of course on everything with Mirshimer either uh especially since he's an offensive realist whereas I'm a defensive so we have kind of a different overall view of the international system but I mean who would have been who would have led us to a better more peaceful more prosperous world over the last 12 years if if Mirshimer had been in charge versus Biden and Trump. I bet it would have been like night and day. And so now this is what we're stuck with is just the usual nonsense coming out of the foreign policy blob. And so here we are. He looks great on podcast, but as you note, he's never been really consulted as by by his own words, I think seven or eight years ago. Someone asked him, "Do people in Washington ever ask you about this?" He says, "I've never been consulted by anyone at any high levels of power in Washington whatsoever." So that's just that's just where we are now. Um, and so I just want to know and I've noted this a couple of times on the website is often we get these critics who think that Rothbart was some sort of pacifist or that our editorial line at mises.org is pacifism and absolutely not. Uh Rothbart always viewed defensive warfare as justified especially non-state defensive warfare. Right? his special place in his heart for partisan guerrilla warfare which of course was non-state sort of military action and which in his view won the American Revolution and has won in quite a number of other wars throughout history against major powers. Uh so this idea that yeah just just give up and let the guys with the guns do whatever they want and but we'll read some books and then they'll come around to our point of view and give us freedom that has never been a Rothbartian position but I hear it all the time from people uh who think it is the Rothbartian position. But yeah, if you want just kind of I think a general good introduction to what is just much more sane foreign policy, yeah, you can consult the work of the realists. And I think that just goes a long way towards setting you on a more reasonable road. >> And one one last note on that in terms of the realists literally putting their money where their mouth is. I think I've mentioned it before, but uh I I literally have a copy hanging on my wall. Uh in I think it was uh 2002 uh Mirshimer and a bunch of other realists with a few other people who were not realists paid $50,000 of their own money in in in 2002 money uh to take out a full page ad in the New York Times entitled war with Iraq is not in America's national interest. And uh I have I have the autograph of six of the signators on my copy. It's one of my most prized possessions. And uh for the economists in the audience, Thomas Shelling was actually one of the signators as well. I don't have his autograph, but uh the story is that the day before this was supposed to go to print uh Condisa Rice called Mirshimer, well called the office at the University of Chicago to dissuade him basically to call call it off. And uh the story is that Mir Shimemer told you know the department secretary like just just tell her I'm busy and and to call back tomorrow went to print the next day and uh she never bothered to call back. But uh anyway, yes, enough enough realism uh fanboying I suppose for [laughter] well as a final question for you then is playing off a little bit about what Mshimer is talking about in terms of escalation in Eastern Europe, but also a number of other commentators have noted this as well is that it seems the conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East have merged in terms of right the US is involved in both and weapons can only be used in one theater or the other. They can't be used in both. Resources only go so far. Europe, right? We got German crazy people asking how we can kill more Russians uh in um press junkets and so on. I mean that this whole NATO obsession with Russia and their their desire to increase armaments not for not in a defensive capacity but we want Europe to rearm so it can go to war with Russia seems to be the desire in Europe right now. And then of course you've got the state of Israel never really wants to end uh the constant military action uh in terms of mowing the lawn as they like to say against all of their neighbors. So, we're starting to see uh these blocks form, right? You've got the Israeli Saudi block, which has also brought in Morocco, interestingly enough, uh related to hm that interesting invasion of Spanish territory recently. Uh this block is is is forming up. You've got the Russian, Chinese, Iranian block. You've got the the NATO US block in in Europe. And so, some people are characterizing this as essentially World War III. Now, we always knew when I was a kid in the 80s, we always imagined World War II would begin with a nuclear exchange. Uh if this is World War II, clearly uh that's not beginning that way. Let's hope it doesn't end that way. But it does seem to be slowly congealing into uh one conflict. You can only imagine if the Turks somehow get into it in some way, that would basically create almost a territorial cohesion between all of the uh the belligerent. So, what do you think of this narrative? Do you think that it's heading in that direction of of a of it's already a global conflict, but in some sort of global hot war? Is it moving in that direction or are are the major powers I can't say wise enough because they're not that uh afraid enough, reticent enough, uh unsure enough to avoid getting into that sort of major situation? I don't know. What do you think? >> Yeah. So, there there was this talk of the wars merging, especially after Ukraine struck an Iranian vessel in the Caspian Sea with the claim that it was transporting munitions and stuff. And I viewed that as a attempt for Ukraine to chain gang, as the term goes, uh the US into direct conflict with Russia trying to merge the wars. Uh because Trump can't lose face in the Iran situation. It it's so directly tied to him. whereas he will be able in my opinion to cut the losses in Ukraine were things to go south there which I think they're headed in that way very slowly. Um I I I'm not too concerned about a this huge sort of hot war confflration springing up in part because as we were just discussing this lack of munitions uh if we can't bomb Iran in this way that Trump wants to, how can we then expand the war uh to directly into conflict with Russia? I don't think that that's very possible. I will say to your point about nuclear weapons because of our terrible uh stockpile situation, there is more rumblings of that the US will have to rely on nuclear deterrence in East Asia because we we've literally packed up all of our weapon systems in East Asia, shipped out, you know, there have been periods of time where there's not an aircraft carrier in East Asia, you know this is craziness. If we're literally planning to uh pivot there, I think the Chinese are not foolish enough to try and invade Taiwan right now. Um I think rather the Chinese seem more patient in terms of long-term thinking. They are, I'm sure, looking with glee at this situation though for the most part. Of course, there's economic pain, but I mean, the US has demonstrated how poorly it would perform. I mean, it it can't beat Iran. How can it defeat China a 100 miles away from its coastline? I mean, Iran is able to keep the US Navy quite far away at sea from the Iranian coast. how how would we even get close enough to support Taiwan in this nightmare scenario? I mean, the losses would be catastrophic. So I I hope the Chinese will exercise restraint. And uh I think Mike Michael Brendan Doerty at National Review had a thoughtful piece I think in 2020 20 late 2025 maybe where he basically said that the next president is going to be very constrained by Trump using up US munitions. And this was in the context of the Houthis and the 12-day war. And I recently saw him comment, "Well, I was wrong here because uh Trump has constrained himself now." Uh so it's it's sort of like uh I've been, you know, trying to be more uh [sighs and gasps] reflective on the situation here. Let's end on a slightly positive note here, okay? [laughter] And I would I'd encourage the the listeners to think or to look up the dowist parable of the old man and the lost horse. And in brief, you know, there's this old Chinese man. His horse runs away. The villagers say, "Well, that sucks." And then the old man says, "Well, we'll have to see." The next day, the horse returns with a whole herd of wild horses that decided to follow it home. The villagers say, "Well, that's sure, Lucky. That's great." And he says, "Well, we'll have to see." The next day, his son is uh training some of these wild horses and gets bucked off and breaks his leg and they go, "Oh, that's terrible." And he says, "Well, we'll have to see." And then the next day, the final day, the government ministers come around to draft the young men into the war. And of course, they reject his son who has a broken leg. And uh the moral I mean there's many layers to this story but uh I've been thinking about it in the context of this disastrous war. Total mistake. We should not have done it. But I think we are achieving some silver linings which I suppose I could conclude on. One being the US has constrained its ability to go on adventuring because we're we're literally running out of munitions. So hopefully this will reduce our uh sort of Trump's varying degrees of interest in the Ukraine war. Hopefully he's just like, "Well, that's on the bottom of the the list right now." And our ability to go up the escalation ladder in Iran is greatly limited. And of course, China. Another silver lining to the situation is that the youth that I have talked to which range from both sort of white collar, you know, people in law school, people working at think tanks to, you know, relatives and friends who work literally in like factories here in Pittsburgh. The and of course the exit polling from the Thomas Massie primary also demonstrates this. The youth are so sick of American foreign adventuring, military adventurism, h they've become quite disillusioned with it and disillusioned with Trump as well. So, whoever's going to try and win them over next time, there's any sensible people like JD Vance who can claim at least he's opposed the war and you know there's some record of him doing that. That'll be to his advantage. and other people who might not have opposed the war, they'll have to pretend they did. So I think that's also good. And related to that is that the US opinion of Israel is continues to sink, especially among young people. Uh I mean, I know someone who works at a factory and the factory literally gave everyone a paid half day off so they could go and vote for Trump on election day 2024. And my friend who works at this factory, his assessment of the mood of people on the factory floor after this war started was in their analysis that Trump launched this war because he was being black by black blackmailed by Israel over uh Epstein. Okay, [laughter] so uh these are long-term trends that I think are positive and everything is terrible right now, especially if you have to go fill your gas tank up. many other issues. We might have quite some economic hard times ahead, but in the long term, this can, you know, work out for the good. Hopefully, potentially. That's that's the positive note I'll end on. Yeah, I don't have anything to add to that. I I totally agree. And yeah, I I get a similar vibe from from younger people especially. There's there does seem to be a big difference between the over 65 crowd and the I would say even under 50 crowd in terms of how they're viewing the direction of the US and where things are headed and time is on the younger people's side [laughter] in terms of where things are going to look in 10 years in terms of politics assuming something major doesn't change that affects uh the public's ideology but uh we shall see and I do Thank everyone out there for tuning in this time. Thank you, Zach, for uh joining me this time. Uh we, you know, I don't like to do too much foreign policy stuff week after week u because that but that's just about what's in the news has been in the news so much lately. But this last time I think we had something more to sink our teeth into in terms of just how the policy situation has changed so dramatically from what it was a few months ago. But we'll know more after election day. So, we'll at the yeah, Zach, you and I will have to connect at least uh by November to kind of talk about what the future of foreign policy will be for that. Uh so, thank you everyone out there for listening. Uh we'll be back more in the near future with Radio Rothbard. So, we'll see you then.