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With violence in Israel and provocations by Russia, China, and Iran, the world is getting crazier. The King of Stuff talks with Rebecca Heinrichs about the main global hotspots and a troubling report that Russia’s GRU might be using directed-energy weapons against US government personnel.
Rebeccah is a senior fellow at Hudson Institute specializing in US national defense policy with a focus on strategic deterrence. She also serves as an adjunct professor at the Institute of World Politics where she teaches nuclear deterrence theory. Rebeccah earned her M.A. from the U.S. Naval War College and her B.A. from Ashland University.
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Interesting podcast.
It starts out talking about these strange “attacks” on American diplomatic personnel. Hmmm. I would tend to believe it except for a couple of things. The 4 year-long Russia Russia Hoax… the false report that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban for American scalps… the outrageous acts and claims by former heads of our Intel agencies from the MSNBC platform. Moreover, the hysterical claims about Covid, along with obvious (by now) cover-ups and the environment of paranoia (and/or lack of push-back) fostered by Democrats and Never Trumpers – to include Jon Gabriel himself. Speaking of whom – the guy who bought into the leftist propaganda surrounding the events on January 6th, lock, stock and barrel and immediately called for the removal of Trump with scant and now largely disproven claims and evidence.
So what real evidence do we have of these attacks? Where are the reports coming from? Diplomats and CIA (but I repeat myself.
They then go on to discuss how the Biden Administration is reverting back to Obama-think on the world stage.
Heinrich gives a fair amount of praise to Trump, couched as always in a negative package with all the appropriate disclaimers. No one ever talks about Reagan or even Bush like that. Of course both had flaws (especially Bush – whichever one) but their weaknesses are never uttered upfront as disclaimers. Trump’s foreign policy background wasn’t very deep or nuanced. Yes, we know, but it didn’t need to be. Biden is supposed to be well-schooled on foreign policy. What good is it?
It’s like having a basketball team with one coach having a grand strategy to lose games to get a high draft-pick the next year, being replaced by a coach who wants to win games, then saying the first coach had better basketball knowledge. Could be true(!)
Many of these experts get so far into analysis and hypotheticals, like a chess-engine that calculates millions of moves – tremendously sophisticated algorithms – and then they are surprised that a lower-rated human player sees the obvious move.
As to Trump’s “flattery” of dictators, it’s too bad more people in our diplomatic corps and our think tanks can’t seem to grasp how personal relationships foster dialogue, and that the guarded praise ( Trump never praised Un’s regime or nefarious actions) shouldn’t be taken as an attack on them as moral crusaders against evil. I’d like to see them as people concerned with achieving diplomatic results. Ironically, less ego, less hubris and arrogance is sometimes called for.
Lastly, it’s a sour-tasting podcast considering we are listening to Jon tacitly lament the blunders and stupidity of the regime he wanted – even if he wanted it as the lesser-evil.
What are the priorities when faced with a binary choice?
Too bad Israel and Middle East peace, we can’t have this mean tweeting…