Podcasts about militarily

President Donald Trump has initiated a full court press against Iran. Militarily, economically and, considering the message came from Scott Bessent, gaily. Nothing less than total surrender? We'll see. The murder trial of Lindsay Clancy is exposing something about women and reigniting the war of the sexes. Most of these takes have gotten out of hand. Here's what women are saying about the woman who admitted to strangling her three children. Class act Hasan Piker took to the stage at the Fear & Live Tour to mock Charlie Kirk. Mocking a man murdered for his political viewpoints isn't a great look, but we're sure Hasan has some winning personality traits, right? GUEST: Josh Firestine | Metatron Link to today's sources: https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/sources-august-24-2026 Let my sponsor American Financing help you regain control of your finances. NMLS #182334 nmlsconsumeraccess.org. APR for rates in the 5s start at 6.327% for well qualified borrowers. Call 800-974-6500 for details about credit, costs and terms. Visit http://www.AmericanFinancing.net/Crowder. Average savings based on borrowers who save over $199.99 Tip creators, not the platform with Rumble Wallet. Get started with Rumble Wallet and use the code CROWDER5 to claim $5 in US Stablecoin (USA₮)! Download now: http://wallet.rumble.com/crowder Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. Offer available to US residents only. Offer not available in New York State. Must be 18+. Offer is available for a limited time and for the first 1000 wallets activated and funded. Restrictions apply. Details and full official rules available at http://rumble.com/promoofficialrules. This is a paid advertisement for Rumble Wallet. Rumble is compensating me for this ad. Foundation Daily is made up of premium ingredients to reduce inflammation and stress and promote clean energy and mental clarity. Subscribe now and receive 40% off for life. https://foundationdaily.com/ Share clips from the show! Where to get clips: Telegram: http://t.me/LWCClips Discord: https://discord.gg/nfRAZxEbAV Join Rumble Premium to watch this show every day! http://louderwithcrowder.com/Premium Want to be informed? Check out the 3-in-3 podcast. Here's the best path to victory on the most debated topics: https://threekeyfacts.com/ Get your favorite LWC gear: https://crowdershop.com/ Bite-Sized Content: https://rumble.com/c/CrowderBits Subscribe to my podcast: https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/podcast FOLLOW ME: Website: https://louderwithcrowder.com/ X: https://x.com/scrowder Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/louderwithcrowder Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stevencrowderofficial Music by @Pogo

Last time we spoke about the ending of the Second Battle of Changsha. In late September and early October 1941, Chinese commander Chen Cheng planned an operation to retake Yichang, a strategic Yangtze River city whose control was essential for protecting the approach to Chongqing. Japanese forces were pulling back from Changsha, weakened by supply problems and casualties, which created an opportunity for Chen to intensify his campaign. Yichang had been captured by Japan in 1940, a defeat that Chen carried as a personal and political burden. He therefore moved to encircle the Japanese 13th Division inside Yichang and drive it to collapse. Although the Chinese held a clear manpower advantage—fourteen divisions against the encircled Japanese—progress was slowed by stubborn fighting from prepared, entrenched positions. The battle inside the city produced desperate close-quarters combat and heavy casualties, showing how the fate of Yichang and the wider defense of Chongqing were tightly linked.    #214 War hits the Pacific Welcome to the Fall and Rise of China Podcast, I am your dutiful host Craig Watson. But, before we start I want to also remind you this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Perhaps you want to learn more about the history of Asia? Kings and Generals have an assortment of episodes on history of asia and much more  so go give them a look over on Youtube. So please subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry for some more history related content, over on my channel, the Pacific War Channel where I cover the history of China and Japan from the 19th century until the end of the Pacific War.   The guns fell silent on October 9, 1941, as the Ninth War Zone's forces restored their pre-battle positions, marking the end of the Second Battle of Changsha. The balance sheet was grim on both sides, but it was China that bore the heavier cost. The Ninth Military Front suffered 70,672 killed, wounded, or missing. The concurrent Yichang offensive added a further 21,368 casualties to the Sixth Military Front, a force that outnumbered its Japanese opponents ten to one yet still failed to retake the city. By the time the dust settled, the Chinese army had lost nearly 100,000 men across both theatres. The Chinese command was frank, at least in private, about what had gone wrong. The Japanese had moved with a speed that recalled Blitzkrieg, advancing 130 kilometres in eleven days and withdrawing at twelve kilometres a day, catching the defenders perpetually off-balance. The 26th, 37th, 10th, and 74th Corps had been picked apart piecemeal rather than fighting in concert, the original plan to destroy the Japanese south of the Miluo River coming to nothing. Elite formations had paid a disproportionate price: the 74th Corps suffered 14,521 casualties, the 37th Corps 14,015, and the 58th Division alone lost 6,192 of its 11,907 men, nearly its entire fighting strength.   Yet none of this was the story the public would hear. On October 10th, China's National Day, radio stations announced the "Second Great Victory in Northern Hunan", the annihilation of over 40,000 enemy troops. Newspapers rushed out special editions. Congratulatory telegrams flooded in from government ministries and civic organizations. Senior officials seized on the moment: Sun Ke, Premier of the Executive Yuan, declared that the victory "laid the foundation for the counter-offensive and the recapture of Hankou and Guangzhou," while General Bai Chongxi called it "the pivotal moment for us to turn defeat into victory." Chiang Kai-shek, reading through the pages of triumphant commentary produced overnight by his propagandists, was reportedly impressed by their industry, if not convinced by their content. He had not wanted to call it a victory at all, but the political calculus was unavoidable: after four years of war, an exhausted nation needed the psychological sustenance that only "victory" could provide.   The gap between public performance and private reality was nowhere more visible than in the arrival of a twenty-two-member international press delegation on October 13th. Journalists from Britain, the United States, France, the Netherlands, Portugal, Hong Kong, and major Chinese newspapers were flown to Changsha and carefully guided through selected battlefields, where they inspected mountains of war trophies and heard testimony from soldiers and civilians. They left satisfied, presenting their war souvenirs—swords, binoculars, Japanese military flags—to their audiences back home as proof of Chinese heroism and Japanese defeat. Both China and Japan were claiming victory simultaneously. The only conclusion the foreign press could draw was that one side was lying, and it was not the side that had shown them the evidence.   Chiang Kai-shek's real verdict came at the Third Nanyue Military Conference, held from October 16 to 21. His anger was withering. He condemned his generals for their obsession with defending sprawling outer perimeter lines while leaving city centres barely fortified, a mentality so rigid, he said, that the Japanese could announce the exact time of their advance and withdrawal in advance and still execute it on schedule without interference. "Generals, what a disgrace this is!" On the failure to capture prisoners, only 263 prisoners were claimed across the entire front, of whom only 16 names were actually published, he was almost incredulous: "We can definitely defeat the enemy, capture many enemy prisoners, and seize countless enemy weapons! Even if we cannot capture ten thousand prisoners, we should at least capture a thousand! If not a thousand, then at least a hundred! But now, you don't even have ten!" The conference handed down punishments to match the rhetoric. Liao Lingqi, commander of the shattered 58th Division, was sentenced to death for desertion and shot on October 22nd. His men were so outraged that three regimental commanders resigned in protest; the division was pulled from the order of battle entirely and given three months to rebuild. Li Yutang, commander of the 10th Corps, was dismissed—though the Third Battle of Changsha would begin before his replacement could take post, and he would be reinstated to play a key role in the city's defence.   On the Japanese side, the 11th Army acknowledged 1,670 killed, 5,184 wounded, and 14 missing, far fewer than Chinese claims, though post-war regimental histories suggest the true figure was higher. Lieutenant General Anami, who had championed the operation, found himself stung by the charge that the battle had served mainly as material for Chinese propaganda. On November 23rd, he reportedly reacted with visible displeasure when someone in his headquarters said as much aloud.  Anami's annoyance was easy enough to understand, but the accusation carried a troubling degree of accuracy. The Second Battle of Changsha had yielded no decisive strategic gain and no substantial alteration in the military balance. What it did generate, rather effectively, was a story and by the autumn of 1941, stories were one of the few things China still had in plentiful supply. The most consequential struggles were taking place not along the Miluo River, but in foreign ministries and embassies, in Washington and Moscow, in the messages passing between Chongqing and London, and in the increasingly strained calculations of statesmen trying to determine, amid rapidly changing circumstances, whom to support and for how long.   For Chiang Kai-shek, the challenge was never merely military. It was structural, and had been so from the outset. He had always seen clearly, precisely because he understood China's weakness, that Japan could not be defeated by China alone. The country lacked the industrial base, the logistical reach, and after four years of relentless attrition more and more the manpower needed to force a decisive result on the battlefield. China's survival depended on making its war inseparable from the wars of other powers. Since 1937, Chiang's diplomacy had pursued that single objective: convincing enough great powers that their interests were aligned with China's, and holding that coalition together long enough for Japan to be subdued. That effort turned out to be vastly more difficult than it ought to have been.   The problem started with the international order in which the war emerged. Chiang had hoped to assemble a concert of allies willing to help defend China against Japanese aggression. He was blocked not just by the reluctance of neutral states to aid China, but by the speed with which alliances shifted in the opening years of the Second World War. He had never welcomed the prospect of a general European conflict, correctly fearing that it would push China even further to the margins of world attention. Even so, he recognized that once the lines had hardened between the imperial democracies and fascism, new alignments might become possible. From his perspective, the growing amity between Berlin and Moscow was therefore disastrous. He had been eager to draw the USSR into war against Japan. Instead, the Soviets were now effectively aligned with the Nazis, who were themselves allied with Tokyo.   The world created after Versailles had already enraged many Chinese. After all, the May Fourth demonstrations of 1919 had arisen directly from the settlement reached at the Paris Peace Conference. Yet that older order had at least possessed recognizable anchors, especially the dominance of the two great European empires and the United States. Now those empires were weakening, and no one could say with confidence what the new geopolitical order would be. For all Chiang knew, Germany might emerge as Europe's new dominant power. The early years of the European war produced a bewildering spectacle of diplomatic realignment.   The Nationalist government had previously enjoyed a short-lived flirtation with Nazi Germany. In fact, Hitler's regime continued supplying Chiang with munitions in the first months of China's war against Japan. The Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936 had theoretically joined Germany, Italy, and Japan into the Axis, but mutual distrust prevented them from forming anything like a fully coherent alliance. Chiang found it useful to imply to Western powers that he might be pushed into closer alignment with Germany, a particularly disturbing possibility for the USSR, which faced enemies in both Europe and Asia. But eventually the contradictions in German policy toward East Asia became too severe. In April 1938, Germany yielded to Japanese pressure and ended its support for China.   Britain offered little meaningful help. Neville Chamberlain became prime minister in May 1937 at the head of a Conservative-led National Government, and was quickly overwhelmed by the deteriorating European situation. If Czechoslovakia was for him a "far-off country of which we know nothing," China's fate was even more distant and obscure to many,  perhaps most  policymakers in London. The Nationalists had more success in cultivating the United States. At the Nine-Power Conference in Brussels in November 1937, the Chinese delegation failed to persuade Washington to impose sanctions on Japan and confront it directly. By the middle of 1938, however, American views were beginning to shift. As Japan pushed deeper into southern China, it became increasingly obvious that the occupied territory would be closed to foreign trade. In December 1938, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau arranged a private American loan of $25 million to China, to be repaid through shipments of tung oil, a varnish product whose real importance lay not in itself, but in what the arrangement signified: a quiet American expression of faith that Chongqing would survive. Chiang also held on to the hope of an even less likely partnership. He had become fiercely anti-Communist during the 1920s, yet in the early years of the anti-Japanese war his greatest hope still rested on Soviet entry into the conflict. Soviet advisers and pilots had aided China from 1937 to 1939, but the USSR never formally declared war on Japan. Still, as Japanese aggression in northern Asia intensified, it remained possible that the Soviets would eventually be drawn in.   Then, as so often happened whenever Chiang tried to impose some control over the course of the war, events beyond China's borders altered the struggle in fundamental ways. While Western attention remained fixed on Europe's darkening horizon, a battle with major consequences for East Asia unfolded on the frontiers of Outer Mongolia, Manchukuo, and the eastern Soviet Union. Throughout much of 1938 and early 1939, one faction within the Japanese Imperial Army sought to pressure the Soviets along their eastern frontier. The USSR appeared vulnerable; Stalin's paranoid purges had executed or exiled many of the Red Army's best officers. In May 1939, fighting broke out near Nomonhan between forces from Soviet-backed Mongolia and Japanese troops from Manchukuo. Within days, both sides had reinforced heavily, until nearly 60,000 Soviet troops faced about 40,000 soldiers from the Kwantung Army. Over the next four months, until mid-September, they fought a major battle ending in a decisive Japanese defeat and establishing the reputation of General Georgi Zhukov, who would later become one of Stalin's most celebrated wartime commanders. The much-derided Soviet Army had fought with formidable effectiveness, and the result was not only a ceasefire but also a nonaggression pact between the two sides, extinguishing, in one stroke, Chiang's hopes for a Chinese-Soviet military alliance. The final blow came after developments in northern Europe. In the Winter War of 1939–1940, the Soviet invasion of Finland led Britain and France to back a motion expelling the USSR from the League of Nations. China, then a member of the League Council, declined to use its veto to block the resolution. Stalin was enraged by Chiang's failure to prevent Soviet expulsion, and mutual suspicion thereafter poisoned relations between the two leaders for the rest of the war against Japan. China would now have to continue without further major Soviet backing.   By the spring of 1940, China's position had become deeply precarious. In March, senior Japanese negotiators sought an agreement with Chiang in Chongqing, while Wang Jingwei was trying to formalize his rival Nationalist government in Nanjing. This effort, known in Chinese as the Tong Operation, and in Japanese as Operation Kiri, led to talks in Hong Kong from March 7 to 10, 1940. Militarily, the Nationalists were in grave danger: the United States remained neutral, and Europe was in chaos. Indeed, that same spring, with France seemingly near collapse, the British government also sent out discreet feelers to explore the possibility of a negotiated peace with Germany. For China, Western assistance was nowhere in sight. The Japanese judged the moment favorable for pressing Chiang toward concessions. Faced with serious danger to his regime, Chiang allowed the door to negotiation to open just slightly.   As a consequence, the Japanese delayed full recognition of Wang Jingwei's new government. Through the summer and autumn of 1940, Tokyo remained uncertain about the defector. Prominent Japanese figures such as Count Arima Yoriyasu of the Privy Council said Wang's conduct demonstrated his untrustworthiness, and Foreign Minister Matsuoka Yōsuke continued to express interest in an agreement with Chongqing. Zhou Fohai captured the defectors' frustration, men who believed they had made the highest patriotic sacrifice when he wrote: "Chongqing sees us as collaborators, we see ourselves as heroes. We think only peace can save the country — that's why we think of ourselves as heroes. If we end up classed as heroes, then China and Japan will be at peace. If we end up classed as collaborators, then China and Japan will never be at peace."That formulation conveyed something genuine about the moral dizziness of the period. Most of the defectors were not men devoid of principles; they were men whose principles had carried them to a place that history would find exceptionally hard to pardon.   The "New Fourth Army Incident" brought to a close one of the most consequential years in modern Chinese political history. The battle of ideas unfolding in 1940 was already visible to informed contemporaries. Early in 1941, US Ambassador Nelson Johnson sent Washington a detailed assessment of the Chinese political situation in reply to another report passed along by Major Evans Carlson, an American officer who had made an extensive journey through the Chinese interior. The contrast between the two documents revealed a widening split in American views of China. Carlson, together with his travelling companion, the New Zealander Rewi Alley, had become increasingly sympathetic to the Communists after visiting their territories in 1938 and admiring their discipline. Carlson described the Nationalists as moving toward "fascism," and argued that American aid should be conditioned on Chiang's government being compelled to adopt more "democratic" institutions.   Johnson strongly disagreed. It was "only normal and natural," he wrote, that the Nationalists wanted to retain power, but during the war they had established the National Political Consultative Council, in which multiple parties, including the Communists, were represented. He also noted that the CCP could publish its own newspaper in Chongqing in a way that would have been impossible before the war. One might have expected the Nationalists to use the war as a justification "to extinguish . . . all political opposition," yet instead they had chosen to "muddle along." Johnson further thought that the influence of competing cliques inside the Nationalist Party had been overstated. Chiang Kai-shek, by contrast, had "grown in stature, as he has come to be recognized as the symbol of united resistance to Japanese encroachment"; ultimately, "it is he who makes the final decisions." Johnson did agree with Carlson that Chiang's regime was hesitant to encourage a broad-based popular movement animated by anything beyond anti-Japanese feeling, though he also pointed to Nationalist cooperative programs and county-level reforms. But he rejected the idea that American support should depend on sweeping political transformation. Chiang was committed to continuing the war against Japan, and Washington should back him in that effort. In a notably farsighted passage, Johnson wrote: "It is my view that since the fall of the Manchu dynasty and the collapse of the traditional Chinese concept of government the Chinese people have been feeling their way along toward a new evolving form of government. A definitive form of government has not yet been established and may not be established for decades; it may or may not be in the form of a democracy, but it will be a type of government that will be adapted to the needs of China and its people." The tension between these two American interpretations,  Carlson's idealized belief in the Communists and Johnson's pragmatic support for Chiang was more than a minor bureaucratic dispute. It foreshadowed a debate that would dominate American foreign policy for the next decade, and would still echo when the People's Republic was proclaimed in 1949.   The disastrous experience of 1940 seemed to cast doubt on whether any future for China existed outside the Japanese Empire. As 1941 wore on, another dreadful event shook the exhausted wartime capital. On June 5, Chongqing endured roughly five hours of bombing, driving the population into air-raid shelters. In one tunnel in the Shibati district, the conditions were even worse than usual. The large shelter was supposed to have lights and electric fans, but the generators had never been connected. Inside, the air was dark, hot, and suffocating. Around ten that evening, people began emerging from the tunnel when rumors spread that the Japanese were returning with poison-gas bombs. Air-raid wardens forced people back inside, even as others were still trying to come out. Bodies toppled over one another, and panic spread as people realized they could not breathe. Over the next few hours, hundreds died underground in the darkness. The exact number was never definitively established: the official figure was 461, though a contemporary police report placed it far higher, at 1,527. What rescuers remembered most vividly were the tortured expressions of the dead, people tangled together in each other's arms as they lost consciousness, clothing ripped to shreds by desperate hands clawing at one another, and bodies so drenched in sweat that they looked as though they had been soaked in water. One survivor, Tang Zhengchang, remembered a hand reaching out from a pile of corpses and pleading, "Sir, please help me . . ." The grip on Tang's shorts was so tight that it pulled them off; he escaped the tunnel naked from the waist down. Official descriptions of the disaster were softened. Even so, the tragedy deepened the city's gloom and in a place already saturated with grief, an added layer of darkness mattered a great deal.   Yet events elsewhere would soon offer the National Government a narrow margin of hope. Late in 1940, Franklin D. Roosevelt won re-election as president of the United States. "I am not going to send your boys into any foreign wars," he had proclaimed during the campaign against Wendell Willkie. But Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull both understood that Nazi domination of Europe posed a grave challenge to American influence there. And with China's "Open Door" to trade effectively shut by Japanese occupation, it was becoming increasingly clear that strict neutrality might not remain viable. In a 1941 report on China's domestic and foreign situation, Ambassador Johnson noted that during Germany's sweeping victories across Europe in mid-1940, the Chinese had become anxious about whether the Allies would remain committed to their cause. Britain's refusal to surrender, however, together with continuing Soviet goodwill, lifted public morale in China. People now looked toward the United States and Britain for support and felt that "victory" was "virtually theirs."   Then, on June 22, 1941, the world awoke to news that roughly three million German soldiers were advancing into the Soviet Union. Operation Barbarossa, Hitler's invasion of the USSR, dramatically overturned the nonaggression that had governed relations between the two major European dictatorships for the previous two years. It transformed the war in Europe entirely. Less obviously, it also transformed the war in Asia. Thanks to intelligence leaks, Chiang Kai-shek had already realized that war between Germany and the USSR was likely. After the neutrality treaty between the USSR and Japan was signed on April 13, 1941, Chiang predicted that the United States would be drawn into the Asian war, and even that Japan might eventually reverse course and strike the Soviet Union. If that happened, China would become the critical Asian ally of both Washington and Moscow. Stalin had been caught off guard by the German assault — largely because he ignored increasingly urgent warnings from senior colleagues receiving intelligence from well-placed spies in Germany and the Comintern, eager to preserve its alliances, now pressed the Chinese Communists to cooperate more closely with the Nationalists. On June 23, 1941, the CCP Central Committee responded with a declaration that it would "persevere in the Anti-Japanese United Front, persevere in Nationalist-Communist cooperation," and would align itself with the British, the Americans, and others resisting the "fascist rulers" of the Axis.   In Chongqing and Yan'an, the German attack on the Soviet Union was interpreted as a hopeful sign that Japan's fortunes might be beginning to turn. In Nanjing, the reaction was different. On June 22, Zhou Fohai recorded in his diary that, although the outcome "cannot be predicted," members of the Nanjing regime "all believe Germany will win and will take Moscow within two months." Zhou speculated that Japan could not easily reconcile its neutrality treaty with the USSR and its membership in the Anti-Comintern Pact, which was supposed to unite the Axis against Soviet expansionism. Still, because Germany had struck first, Japan was under no formal obligation to help. Zhou also continued to view events through a lens he had never abandoned: that of Chinese nationalism. "If Chongqing joins the Allies and they win," he wrote, "then this is good for China." If they lost, it would be disastrous for Chiang Kai-shek; but because Wang Jingwei had established a government in Nanjing under Japanese sponsorship, China now had "a foot in both boats." It was a ruthless calculation, but not a wholly dishonorable one. Zhou was not merely advancing Japanese interests. He was hedging, wagering on multiple futures in the name of a China he believed would endure beyond whatever constellation of powers happened to dominate at the moment. Whether posterity would judge that conduct prudent or collaborative was a question he could neither settle nor live to see resolved to his satisfaction.   The summer of 1941 marked a major geopolitical turning point in the war. Until then, the conflicts in China and Europe had remained separate, if desperate, struggles on the Eurasian continent. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union now forced Japan to decide whether it too would enter war against the USSR. Debate in Tokyo was brief. Although some officials, including Foreign Minister Matsuoka, favored striking north before moving south, both the Kwantung Army and the Navy advised against helping Germany at least until Germany had succeeded in drawing substantial Soviet forces away from Siberia and into Europe. Konoye, once again prime minister, agreed. With the northern option set aside, Japanese leaders turned toward another great power instead: the United States. Japan's failure to gain further decisive momentum in China had fueled demands for broader regional expansion, especially into Southeast Asia, with its abundant oil, rubber, and other strategic resources. From 1940 onward, measures such as the pressure to close the Burma Road made it increasingly obvious that Tokyo had adopted a more aggressive posture in Asia. Unable to subdue China, Japanese policymakers chose instead to escalate the conflict still further.   Japanese political life had become ever more dominated by the unresolved war in China. As early as 1938, military expenditures consumed about 70 percent of the national budget, and that same year a National Mobilization Bill granted the government "total war control" over the zaibatsu, Japan's major industrial conglomerates. By 1940, the New Order was making itself felt throughout everyday life, with campaigns against luxury and extravagant consumption taking on new prominence. In February 1940, a parliamentarian was expelled from the Diet simply for daring to criticize the "holy war" in China. In such an atmosphere, retreat from imperial ambitions became increasingly unthinkable. That figure, 70 percent of the national budget devoted to the military is worth dwelling on, because it reveals something essential about the trap in which Japanese strategists had placed themselves. The war in China had not been won, yet abandoning it would have meant admitting a failure so severe that it would have shaken the ideological and institutional foundations of military supremacy in Japanese politics. The only apparent ways out required pushing further in: more conquest, more extraction, more expansion. The logic was brutally clear, and profoundly destructive.   The Roosevelt administration watched these developments with growing alarm. Though still formally neutral, the United States was already using Lend-Lease to provide major assistance to Britain and the Soviet Union in their struggles against Germany. It now expanded aid to China as well. On February 10, Roosevelt's representative Lauchlin Currie visited Chongqing to inform Chiang Kai-shek that the United States would soon provide $45 million in military equipment. General John Magruder, head of the small AMMISCA mission,  the American Military Mission in China had been sent to Chongqing in September 1941, as part of quiet preparation for possible Chinese entry into an alliance against Japan. The China branch of the OSS, precursor to the CIA, was led by General William "Wild Bill" Donovan, whom Roosevelt had dispatched to China in early 1941.   The Americans repeatedly tried to discourage Japan from moving south into Southeast Asia, but relations only grew more confrontational. Japan occupied the southern part of French Indochina, and in response the United States imposed an oil embargo in July 1941. The consequences were immense. Japan imported around 80 percent of its oil from the United States. Without that supply, its navy, the essential instrument for southern expansion  had reserves for perhaps eighteen months. The real question facing Tokyo, then, was not whether it must act, but how soon. Unable any longer to resist mounting military pressure for war, Konoye resigned on October 16 and was replaced as premier by General Tōjō Hideki. Tokyo accelerated its preparations for conflict with the Western powers. Planned targets included Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaya, the Netherlands East Indies, and the Philippines. I should note, if you want to learn about all of this history in more detail, you can go check out the pacific war channel on youtube. I have a chronological series that is just now talking about events like the Japanese invasion of french indochina and the road to pearl harbor.   Throughout the autumn of 1941, increasingly desperate negotiations took place between Japan and the United States. Washington insisted that Japan withdraw from China; Tokyo was equally firm that it would do no such thing. From the Japanese point of view, the demand to leave China was not a serious negotiating position but a demand for national humiliation a call to repudiate four years of war, vast casualties, and the ideological basis of Japanese militarism in a single diplomatic act. In the end, the gulf between the two positions could not be bridged.   While civilian and military leaders in Tokyo argued over the pace at which they should move toward war, few among Japan's rulers doubted that war was coming. At the imperial conference of November 5, it was formally agreed that if no satisfactory diplomatic solution had been reached by December 1, war would follow soon after. Talks in Washington between Ambassador Nomura Kichisaburō, diplomat Kurusu Saburō, and Secretary of State Cordell Hull led nowhere. On November 26, Hull delivered a note repeating the American position that Japan must withdraw from both China and Indochina. On December 1, the imperial conference resolved to go to war; the following day, the date of attack was fixed as December 8, December 7 by American time. In one sense, this was the culmination toward which the entire previous decade had been moving. The war in China had started as a localized conflict, then expanded into a continental one, and was now about to become something larger still: a truly global war, stretching from the North Atlantic to the western Pacific. China's long, lonely resistance would suddenly gain new dimensions and new allies,  though not the ones Chiang had spent four years trying to cultivate, and not under circumstances he would have chosen.   In the early morning of December 7, 1941, the US Pacific Fleet lay anchored at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, its sailors and officers still largely asleep as dawn crept across the Pacific. The attack did not come without warning signs,  American and Japanese diplomats had been locked in increasingly desperate negotiations throughout the autumn, each side hardening its position until no room remained to maneuver. Washington had demanded that Japan withdraw from China, a condition Tokyo viewed not as a serious opening offer but as a demand for national humiliation: a call to repudiate four years of brutal war, hundreds of thousands of casualties, and the entire ideological foundation upon which Japanese militarism rested. No agreement was possible on those terms, and both sides privately knew it.   The strike force assembled in secret was formidable. Six aircraft carriers,  the Akagi, Kaga, Sōryū, Hiryū, Shōkaku, and Zuikaku had sailed under strict radio silence across the North Pacific, launching their aircraft in two successive waves before the American base had any meaningful chance to respond. The first wave of approximately 183 planes swept in just before 8 a.m., targeting the rows of battleships moored along Battleship Row and the military airfields at Wheeler, Hickam, and Ford Island simultaneously, ensuring that American aircraft could not scramble in time to mount an effective defense. A second wave of roughly 170 planes followed less than an hour later, pressing the attack on damaged ships and harbor installations.   The destruction was staggering. The battleship Arizona suffered a catastrophic magazine explosion after a armor-piercing bomb penetrated her forward decks, killing nearly 1,177 of her crew in minutes, almost half of the total American dead from the entire attack. The Oklahoma capsized after being struck by multiple torpedoes. The West Virginia and California sank at their moorings. In total, seventeen vessels were damaged or destroyed, and the vast majority of military aircraft at the nearby airfields were caught on the ground and obliterated before they could take flight. Around 2,400 Americans were killed and another 1,100 wounded, making it the deadliest single attack on American soil or territory in the nation's history to that point.   Yet the attack was not a complete strategic success for Japan. The US Pacific Fleet's aircraft carriers, the vessels that would ultimately decide the naval war in the Pacific happened to be at sea that morning and escaped unharmed. The harbor's fuel storage and repair facilities were also left largely intact, allowing the fleet to reconstitute faster than Japanese planners had anticipated. What Japan achieved in tactical devastation, it partly squandered in strategic miscalculation. The attack ended American neutrality instantly and irrevocably. The following day, President Roosevelt addressed Congress, calling December 7 "a date which will live in infamy," and within hours the United States declared war on Japan. For China, after more than four years of fighting alone, the blow that devastated Pearl Harbor paradoxically carried a thread of desperate hope at last, the great power Chiang Kai-shek had spent years trying to draw into the conflict had arrived, not under circumstances he would have chosen, but arrived nonetheless. I would like to take this time to remind you all that this podcast is only made possible through the efforts of Kings and Generals over at Youtube. Please go subscribe to Kings and Generals over at Youtube and to continue helping us produce this content please check out www.patreon.com/kingsandgenerals. If you are still hungry after that, give my personal channel a look over at The Pacific War Channel at Youtube, it would mean a lot to me. After years of fighting, China's situation darkened in 1941 with intense bombing of Chongqing and fears of poison-gas attacks. Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in June shifted alliances and pressured Japan toward wider war. Japan escalated plans for Southeast Asia, suffered an oil embargo, and negotiations with the United States broke down over withdrawing from China and Indochina. Then the Pearl Harbor attack began the Pacific War.

Brian Kilmeade sits down with FOX News Chief Correspondent Jonathan Hunt to break down the high-stakes military reality behind the escalating conflict with Iran. As U.S. forces engage in a six-day strategic bombing campaign, Hunt exposes why the recent Iran MOU was a "terrible deal" and reveals the critical threat everyone is ignoring: Tehran's hidden nuclear timeline. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

James discusses on CNBC prospects for the US-Iran negotiations and US President Donald Trump's interview with the network.

Preview for Later Today: Retired Intelligence Officer Jim Fanell analyzes China's maritime saturation of the Scarborough Shoal. While the Philippines remains militarily outmatched, they are successfully using "cognitive warfare" and international media to expose the CCP's aggressive bullying.1898

Sheriff Richard Mack interview on his new book “The Democrat Murder of America” https://murderofamerica.com/ Inflation slowed last month if you exclude energy and food: https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2026/06/10/inflation-rose-to-4-2-in-may/PGE rate hike gets paused by PUC: Is Kotax manipulating them behind the scenes to benefit her re election? https://www.koin.com/news/oregon/oregon-utility-officials-delay-pge-rate-hike-for-data-centers/  Will Trump finish the job in Iran by destroying their remaining military capacity? https://nypost.com/2026/06/10/us-news/president-trump-readying-new-strikes-on-iranian-power-plants-bridges-have-to-pay-the-price/  

Welcome to 1968: The Year America Came Apart. This is an episode of "The Realignment" a Hidden History Series. There are years in history that feel less like ordinary time and more like a fault line. Years where the ground beneath a nation begins to shift and the people can feel it, they may not understand what they're feeling, but they know something is changing.. For America, 1968 was one of those years. The country had already been changing throughout the 1960s. The Civil Rights Movement had challenged the old order. The war in Vietnam was growing more divisive. Cities were struggling with poverty, race, and unrest. Young Americans were beginning to question institutions their parents had trusted without hesitation. But in 1968, all of those pressures collided. And for millions of Americans, it felt as though the country itself was coming apart. I remember that year well. I graduated from high school in Houston in the spring of 1968 and entered college that September. Even in Texas, far from Washington and Chicago, there was tension in the air. Conversations about race, war, protest, and authority were no longer distant news stories. They were part of daily life. America was rapidly changing. And not everyone agreed on what that change should look like. Vietnam and the Collapse of Trust The year began with war. In January of 1968, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces launched what became known as the Tet Offensive. Militarily, the offensive was repelled. But politically and psychologically, it changed everything. For years, Americans had been told the war was being won. Tet suggested otherwise. Television screens suddenly filled with images of firefights in cities, American casualties, and chaos in places many Americans had never heard of before. The war no longer felt distant. It entered American living rooms every night. Trust in government began to erode. Even respected broadcaster Walter Cronkite publicly questioned whether the war could truly be won. For many Americans, confidence in leadership was beginning to collapse. Martin Luther King Jr. Then came April 4th. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. The murder shocked the nation. For years, King had stood as the moral voice of the Civil Rights Movement, preaching nonviolence, justice, and reconciliation. But his assassination unleashed grief, anger, and frustration across the country. Riots erupted in more than one hundred American cities. National Guard troops were deployed. Smoke rose above neighborhoods already struggling with poverty and racial division. For some Americans, the unrest confirmed fears that the country was descending into disorder. For others, the riots reflected generations of anger and inequality that had gone ignored for far too long. The divide between those perspectives would become politically important. Robert Kennedy and Lost Hope Two months later, tragedy struck again. Senator Robert F. Kennedy had emerged as a candidate who seemed capable of bridging some of America's growing divisions. He spoke openly about poverty, race, and the need to heal the country. His campaign attracted young people, minorities, working-class voters, and many Americans exhausted by the war. Then, on June 5th, moments after winning the California Democratic primary, Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. Another national figure gone. Another sense of hope shattered. To many Americans, it felt as though violence and instability were becoming the defining language of the era. Protest and Disorder By the summer of 1968, protest movements were spreading across college campuses and major cities. Young Americans marched against the Vietnam War. Civil rights organizations demanded deeper reforms. Groups like the Black Panthers emerged in cities across the country, reflecting growing frustration among younger Black activists who believed nonviolence alone was no longer enough. At the same time, police departments and local governments often responded with increasing force and suspicion. The tensions could be felt even in places like Houston, where concerns about policing, activism, and racial conflict became part of the atmosphere surrounding college campuses and urban neighborhoods. Then came Chicago. During the Democratic National Convention in August, protesters flooded the streets while police battled demonstrators in scenes broadcast nationwide on live television. Americans watched officers swinging clubs, protesters bleeding in the streets, and crowds chanting: “The whole world is watching.” The Democratic Party itself appeared divided and exhausted. And millions of Americans watching from home saw chaos. George Wallace and the Politics of Backlash Into that atmosphere stepped George Wallace. Running as a third-party candidate, Wallace appealed to Americans who believed the country was moving too fast, changing too much, and losing control. His campaign focused on law and order, resistance to federal authority, opposition to unrest, and anger toward political elites. While Wallace's earlier political career had been deeply tied to segregation, by 1968 his campaign also tapped into a broader sense of cultural backlash and working-class frustration. And millions responded. Wallace carried five Southern states and won nearly ten million votes. His success revealed something both major political parties would increasingly recognize in the years ahead: A large portion of the American electorate felt alienated from the direction of the country. Nixon and the Realignment In the end, Richard Nixon won the presidency. Nixon promised stability. Order. An end to chaos. His victory represented more than a normal election. It marked the acceleration of a political realignment already underway since the Civil Rights era began reshaping American politics earlier in the decade. Southern voters were beginning to move away from the Democratic Party. Many suburban and working-class voters were becoming increasingly concerned about crime, protest movements, and cultural upheaval. Trust in institutions  government, media, universities was weakening. The coalitions that had dominated American politics since Franklin Roosevelt were beginning to fracture. And the consequences of that fracture would shape American politics for generations. Looking back now, 1968 feels like more than just a turbulent year. It feels like a turning point. A year when millions of Americans stopped believing the future would naturally bring unity and stability. The old political consensus was breaking apart. New coalitions were forming. And many of the arguments that still define American politics today, race, protest, policing, media, nationalism, cultural identity, distrust of institutions were becoming impossible to ignore. For those of us who lived through it, even as young people stepping into adulthood, the tension was real. You could feel it. And in many ways, America has been wrestling with the legacy of 1968 ever since.

Welcome to The Daily Wrap Up, an in-depth investigatory show dedicated to bringing you the most relevant independent news, as we see it, from the last 24 hours (6/4/26). As always, take the information discussed in the video below and research it for yourself, and come to your own conclusions. Anyone telling you what the truth is, or claiming they have the answer, is likely leading you astray, for one reason or another. Stay Vigilant. !function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/u2q643"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");   Rumble("play", {"video":"v78ncqs","div":"rumble_v78ncqs"}); Source Links (In Chronological Order): (21) The Last American Vagabond on X: "Clint Curtis alleged in 2000 that representative Tom Feeney had him write software to undetectably alter election results on voting machines. Curtis testified under oath that his program could award a specific candidate 51% of the vote. No accountability. Nothing truly changed. https://t.co/cikAXEblBA" / X (21) Elon Musk on X: "Yup" / X (21) Elon Musk on X: "Southern Poverty Law Center is a criminal organization" / X Southern Poverty Law Center Indictment, April 21, 2026 | DocumentCloud New Tab John Bolton, Ex-Trump Adviser, Reaches Deal to Plead Guilty Over Classified Information - The New York Times Letitia James targeted by Trump official seeking new DOJ prosecution of the New York attorney general New Tab (21) C-Reason

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President Trump addressed reporters in the Oval Office, stating that the U.S. has already struck the majority of Iranian military targets and warning that he will “finish it up militarily” if Iran refuses to reach a deal. Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei suffered severe burns to his face in Israeli strikes, and reports are now saying that he desperately needs plastic surgery. He is hiding from public view, unable to speak or lead effectively. This leadership uncertainty, combined with U.S. naval blockades and ongoing pressure, has weakened Iran's negotiating position. With negotiations continuing, will Trump launch final strikes before Khamenei recovers and regains control?We also cover: CNN reports on stock market under President Trump France24 reports of Trump intentionally locked out 2026 NFL Draft STARTS! Michael Jackson biopic "Michael" debuts amid controversy Secretary Lutnick update on Trump Gold Card 00:00 Pat Gray UNLEASHED! 00:59 Trump Locked Out of Iran Rescue? 02:52 Trump Asked about Nuking Iran 04:38 Trump on Strait of Hormuz 05:42 Trump Evokes Vietnam 07:53 Trump Asked about Iran Timeline 10:33 Trump Asked about Gas Prices 13:28 Clearing Mines from Strait of Hormuz 14:42 New Iran Poll 15:19 Martial Plan for UAE 16:21 Trump on Betting Markets 20:35 Anna Paulina Luna on Maduro Raid Bets 26:02 Harry Enten on the Stock Market 28:47 Ken Griffin Pissed Off at Zohran Mamdani 30:38 Jeffy as the New Ayatollah? 33:33 NFL Draft 35:59 Fat Five 46:36 No Required Visible ID for ICE 51:01 Joe Biden on Why he Ran for President 55:15 Hakeem Jeffries Answers Questions from Kids 58:56 Hakeem Jeffries Asked about Ilhan Omar 1:00:53 Valentina Gomez on Pakistan 1:04:40 Howard Lutnick on Gold Cards 1:10:14 Jeff Fisher's Many Titles 1:12:17 Blow Dryer on Paris Airport Weather Sensor 1:13:56 More Tucker Carlson Parodies from Ami Kozak 1:18:53 Chuck Schumer on Border Patrol / ICE 1:21:08 CBS News Report on Eagle Pass Border 1:24:44 California Governor Candidates & CDLs 1:30:44 California Governor Poll 1:32:26 Washington DC gets 'Beautified' 1:34:01 Doug Burgum on the DC Triumphal Arch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your daily news in under three minutes. At Al Jazeera Podcasts, we want to hear from you, our listeners. So, please head to https://www.aljazeera.com/survey and tell us your thoughts about this show and other Al Jazeera podcasts. It only takes a few minutes! Connect with us: @AJEPodcasts on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube

Michael tackles the rapidly evolving Iran crisis with two expert voices offering sharply different lenses. First, former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Admiral James Stavridis explains why Iran's push to control the Strait of Hormuz is a “fantasy,” what real risks exist for global shipping, and why the war's biggest issues—like enriched uranium—remain unresolved. Then, political analyst Mark Halperin breaks down the media narrative surrounding Trump's ceasefire decision, the confusion over Iran's nuclear program, and what the conflict signals to global powers like China and Russia. Is this a path to peace—or just a pause before the next escalation? And did the U.S. gain leverage, or lose ground? A fast-moving, fact-driven conversation on war, diplomacy, and what comes next. Original air date 8 April 2026 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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This is the story behind the story on Trump's 15 point Peace Plan for Iran and the Strait of Hormuz Blockade with Mike Baker. One month into the joint U.S.-Israel war with Iran, the battlefield tells one story… but the global economy tells another. Militarily, the United States and Israel have overwhelming dominance. Iran's air defenses are down. Its navy is crippled. Its command structure has been hit hard. Operation Epic Fury is executing with precision. So why does this feel like a stalemate - The Strait of Hormuz Closure Iran has shifted to asymmetric warfare—blockading one of the most critical chokepoints in the world and triggering massive spikes in global energy prices. And here's the uncomfortable truth: even with the most powerful military on earth, the U.S. cannot simply “take” the Strait without risking a global economic collapse. We walk through: Why the US Military can't force open the Strait of Hormuz What's in Trump's 15 Point Peace Plan for Iran Predictions for what's next? Who is in charge in Iran - The clerics, IRGC, a new Ayatollah, The president Why protecting oil tankers is nearly impossible What role is does the GCC / Gulf Cooperation Council Play The hidden role of maritime insurance—and why corporations, not governments, may decide if the Strait stays open What is going to happen with Iran's Terror Proxies - Houthis, Hamas, Hezbollah etc. Who comes out on top - Rubio or Vance Then we unpack the reported 15-point peace proposal being floated through backchannels in Pakistan—what the U.S. is demanding from Iran, what's being offered in return, and why Tehran may already be rejecting it. Is this peace through strength—or a dangerous gamble with global markets? To separate fact from narrative, we're joined by former CIA covert operations officer Mike Baker, who brings 17 years of intelligence experience to break down what's actually happening behind the headlines—no spin, no politics, just reality. If you want to understand the Iran war, the Strait of Hormuz, oil markets, and what comes next—this is the episode. CHAPTERS 01:17 — Establishing Military Supremacy: 03:12 — The Strategic Trap of the Strait 05:03 — Swarm Tactics and Cheap Drones 06:14 — Vulnerability of Supertankers 07:36 — Maritime Insurance & Global Trade 09:20 — Iran's Underground "Missile Cities" 11:18 — Risks of a Full-Scale Land Invasion 11:56 — Trump's 15-Point Peace Proposal 12:24 — Nuclear and Proxy Network Demands 13:28 — Reopening the Strait & Missile Restrictions 14:13 — Proposed Concessions & Snapback Risks 16:01 — Tehran's Rejection & Internal Counter-Demands 20:03 — Iranian Leadership Confusion 22:17 — The IRGC's Hardline Control 24:27 — Evaluating Diplomatic and Military Progress 27:39 — Oil Markets & Administrative Preparedness 30:01 — Geopolitics and Extortion Fees 32:15 — The Global Supply Chain Crisis 34:40 — US Energy Policy: "Drill Baby Drill" 38:12 — The Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) 42:25 — The Iranian People vs. The Regime: 45:50 — Psychological Warfare & Information Operations 49:15 — Deep Dive: The Peace Proposal's "Snapback" Clause 52:40 — JD Vance's Role in Negotiations 56:05 — Domestic Security: The Threat of Sleeper Cells 01:00:15 — Cyber Warfare & Infrastructure Vulnerabilities: 01:04:30 — The Future of the Conflict: 01:06:50 — Mike Baker's Background & "The President's Daily Brief" 01:08:44 — Closing Remarks & Final Thoughts Discover Cow's Own Tallow Balm—simple, natural skincare made from grass‑fed tallow—now at https://cowguys.shop/jillian Refresh your wardrobe with timeless, high-quality pieces from Quince—go to https://Quince.com/JILLIAN for free shipping and 365-day returns! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Iran war is entering a more dangerous phase, not because of troop movements, but because energy infrastructure is now a target and the price tag is starting to match the escalation. At the same time, artificial intelligence is emerging as the next political battlefield, shaping both policy debates and the broader information environment.What stood out to me immediately is how the war is evolving. We are no longer just talking about missile launches and leadership strikes. Energy infrastructure has become fair game. Iran hitting a liquefied natural gas facility in Qatar, after Israel struck Iranian gas fields, is a complete and total shift in what counts as a legitimate target.Once you start targeting gas fields and LNG infrastructure, you are no longer just fighting a regional war. You are influencing global markets, allies, and supply chains all at once. Energy itself is global. That is usually the phase where conflicts either spiral or move toward negotiation.Politics Politics Politics is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.My instinct is that this is the point where talks at least become more likely. Not guaranteed, but more likely. Because once energy becomes the battlefield, the costs stop being theoretical.Then you get to the update, and this is where things get real. The Trump administration is reportedly preparing a $200 billion supplemental request for the Pentagon.That number doesn't match the messaging. You don't ask for $200 billion if this is a clean, four-to-six week operation. That's a number that suggests duration just as much as it suggests uncertainty. It suggests that, whatever the original plan was, the current expectation is something longer and more complicated.And politically, that is where the ground starts to shift. Democrats are obviously not going to support that. But more importantly, there are plenty of Republicans who will not put their names behind this action either — epecially the faction that already believes this war risks turning into another Iraq-style commitment.So now the question is not just “are we winning?” It is “how long are we staying?” And those are very different political questions.Militarily, the signals are still positive for the United States and Israel. There have been clear tactical wins. Iran has taken significant damage. There are even hints of internal instability within the regime. But strategically, it's still murky.We do not know how close the regime is to collapsing. We do not know whether continued strikes accelerate that collapse or entrench resistance. And we do not know whether the administration actually wants regime change or just behavioral change.That gap between battlefield success and strategic clarity is where wars tend to get complicated. And when you pair that with a nine-figure funding request, that's how skepticism starts to grow — and fast.Chapters00:00:00 - Intro00:02:09 - Senate Draft Begins00:04:13 - 2026 Senate Draft Round One00:28:39 - Iranian Negotiations00:30:50 - White House AI Framework00:32:35 - 2026 Senate Draft Round Two00:49:34 - 2026 Senate Draft Round Three01:04:19 - Wrap-up This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/subscribe

The battle for the Strait of Hormuz could determine the future of global energy—and the outcome of the war with Iran. Tara explains why this strategic chokepoint matters far beyond the Middle East and why Iran's only real path to victory may be political pressure inside the United States. With reports that U.S. Marines could deploy to secure Kharg Island and Iran's missile attacks dropping sharply, Tara breaks down the latest military developments and why analysts say the campaign has been far more successful than critics claim. At the same time, Tara questions media narratives about Iran gaining the “upper hand” while reports suggest the regime's leadership may be incapacitated and its military infrastructure heavily degraded. The real fight now, she argues, is over public opinion—both in America and among global allies whose willingness to stand with the United States could shape the post-war world. SUMMARY In this episode, Tara examines the strategic and political stakes of the conflict with Iran, focusing on the critical importance of the Strait of Hormuz. The narrow waterway serves as one of the world's most vital energy corridors, and Iran has long treated it as leverage against the global economy. Military analysts warn that securing nearby Kharg Island—which handles the overwhelming majority of Iran's oil exports—could effectively cut off Tehran's economic lifeline. Reports suggest the United States may deploy several hundred Marines in a limited operation to secure the island after extensive strikes weakened Iranian defenses. Tara explains why such an operation carries risk, particularly in a political environment where even limited casualties could shift public opinion at home. The episode also explores reports that Iranian missile and drone attacks have dropped significantly and that analysts see little evidence the regime is holding back a hidden arsenal for a final strike. Tara questions media narratives suggesting Iran is gaining the upper hand, noting the uncertainty surrounding the country's leadership after the death of the Ayatollah and reports that his successor may be incapacitated. Beyond the battlefield, Tara argues the conflict is exposing deeper geopolitical tensions. She discusses President Trump's call for international support to secure shipping lanes in the Strait of Hormuz and suggests the request is as much a test of global alliances as a military necessity. The episode concludes with a broader look at America's strategic position in the world and why the political battle surrounding the war may ultimately prove just as consequential as the military one. KEY TALKING POINTS Why the Strait of Hormuz is one of the world's most critical energy choke points Iran's strategy of using global oil markets as leverage The strategic importance of Kharg Island in the conflict Reports of a potential limited Marine operation to secure the island Declining Iranian missile and drone attacks Questions surrounding Iran's leadership stability The political battle for public opinion in the United States How the conflict could reshape global alliances and energy markets SOCIAL MEDIA BLURB The war with Iran may hinge on one tiny waterway. Tara explains why the Strait of Hormuz—and the fight for Kharg Island—could decide the conflict and reshape global energy.

Today's Poll Question at Smerconish.com: "Is the US winning the war with Iran?" Michael Smerconish revisits Donald Trump's famous “we're going to win so much” campaign line and applies it to the current conflict with Iran. Militarily, the U.S. appears to be hitting its targets and degrading Iran's capabilities—but does tactical success equal victory? Drawing on reporting about the Strait of Hormuz, analysis from national security experts, and a provocative comparison to the Soviet experience in Afghanistan, Smerconish explores the difference between battlefield wins and strategic outcomes. The bigger question....what does “winning” actually mean? Listen and vote, and please rate, review and share this podcast! Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Trump plans on having talks with Tehran, but will these talks actually produce something substantial or is Trump planning on military action to spur revolution from Iranian citizens. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

preview for later. Guest: Ivana Stradner, Foundation for Defense of Democracies Summary: Stradner suggests that while Putin is unlikely to militarily support Iran, he may soon challenge NATO in the Baltic states. She predicts Russia could use "false flag" operations involving Russian speakers to test Western resolve and attempt to expose NATO as a "paper tiger".1898 Brussels

THE BATTLE FOR NEW YORK AND THE STANDING MIRACLE Colleague Joseph Ellis. Washington moved the army to New York to uphold civilian control, despite the location being militarily indefensible. Ellis notes that the Howe brothers, hoping to negotiate peace, hesitated to destroy the Continental Army. Washington realized that reliance on militia was a delusion and a disciplined army was necessary for a protracted war. The army's escape from Long Islandacross the East River was a "standing miracle" that saved the revolution from annihilation. NUMBER 41807

China's Nuclear Threat to Japan — Jack Burnham — Burnham documents China's escalated nuclear threats against Japan, explicitly threatening nuclear weapons deployment if Tokyo militarily intervenes in Taiwan conflict scenarios, marking a significant shift from Chinese minimal deterrence posture toward aggressive nuclear coercion. Burnhamcharacterizes this escalation as reflecting Chinese regional anxiety regarding American-led alliance structures, particularly strengthening U.S.-Japan security cooperation. Burnham recommends robust reinforcement of American-Japanese alliance relationships and extended nuclear deterrence commitments as essential counterbalance to Chinesenuclear blackmail and regional hegemonic ambitions. 1951 LAS VEGAS

PREVIEW — Judy Dempsey — Ireland's Undefended Western Approaches and the Russian Threat. Ireland, a neutral EU member, remains militarily undefended with only four warships and lacks a strategic plan to protect the western approaches where vital undersea financial cables are located. Russia is reportedly aware of this critical vulnerability. While Ireland compensates by paying the Royal Air Force (RAF) to guard the Irish Sea, the Atlantic flank demands robust defense against the recognized Russian threat, necessitating a fundamental shift in Ireland's strategic mindset.

Ukraine Peace Plans, Concessions, and the Impact on US Alliances — Bill Roggio, Husain Haqqani — Bill Roggiosuggests Ukraine is losing militarily and must accept difficult territorial and military concessions to ensure state survival, predicting that proposed peace deals will ultimately collapse. Ambassador Haqqani emphasizes that U.S. abandonment of allies, exemplified in Afghanistan and Iraq, creates an international perception that America cannot be relied upon. Russia's prevailing would constitute a victory for the "axis of aggressors," including China, Iran, and North Korea, fundamentally weakening U.S. global influence. 1855 CRIMEAN WAR, SCOTS FUSILIER GUARDS

Militarily, Israel is dominant. Diplomatically, it's more isolated than ever.This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his fourth trip to the White House since President Trump returned to office, standing beside him to unveil what Trump called a “landmark” Gaza peace proposal. But behind the bold language is a growing distance between Israel and the world. Gaza has been devastated, Hamas is on its heels, and yet, the cost to Israel's global standing continues to rise.Former US diplomat and Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller joins Ian to unpack the uncomfortable truth: Israel may be winning on the battlefield, but it's losing support in global capitals, and possibly at home.“Not a single cost or consequence has been imposed by any Arab state on Israel,” Miller says. “They've done nothing. The Arab states are running scared of Trump. They're either afraid of him or they want something from him.”From European governments pulling investments and recognizing Palestinian statehood, to rising grassroots pushback across American campuses, Israel's brand is eroding—even as Netanyahu locks arms more tightly with Trump.Host: Ian BremmerGuest: Aaron David Miller Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Militarily, Israel is dominant. Diplomatically, it's more isolated than ever.This week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made his fourth trip to the White House since President Trump returned to office, standing beside him to unveil what Trump called a “landmark” Gaza peace proposal. But behind the bold language is a growing distance between Israel and the world. Gaza has been devastated, Hamas is on its heels, and yet, the cost to Israel's global standing continues to rise.Former US diplomat and Middle East peace negotiator Aaron David Miller joins Ian to unpack the uncomfortable truth: Israel may be winning on the battlefield, but it's losing support in global capitals, and possibly at home.“Not a single cost or consequence has been imposed by any Arab state on Israel,” Miller says. “They've done nothing. The Arab states are running scared of Trump. They're either afraid of him or they want something from him.”From European governments pulling investments and recognizing Palestinian statehood, to rising grassroots pushback across American campuses, Israel's brand is eroding—even as Netanyahu locks arms more tightly with Trump.Host: Ian BremmerGuest: Aaron David Miller Subscribe to the GZERO World with Ian Bremmer Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform, to receive new episodes as soon as they're published. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In our news wrap Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says his government aims to reoccupy all of Gaza militarily, Russian President Putin says he hopes to meet with President Trump next week, the FBI is reportedly firing several top officials and a new CDC report says that most Americans now get more than half of their calories from ultra-processed foods. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

In our news wrap Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu says his government aims to reoccupy all of Gaza militarily, Russian President Putin says he hopes to meet with President Trump next week, the FBI is reportedly firing several top officials and a new CDC report says that most Americans now get more than half of their calories from ultra-processed foods. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

University of Wisconsin-Madison former associate director of Middle Eastern studies Jennifer Lowenstein: Netanyahu Moves to Militarily Re-Occupy Gaza as European Nations Plan to Recognize Palestinian StateUniversity of San Francisco's professor of philosophy Rebecca Gordon: Trump Authorizes a New More Dangerous Surveillance StateAmericans for Financial Reform's Kimberly Fountain: Trump Judge Eliminates Biden-Era Rule Removing Medical Debt from Consumer Credit ReportsBob Nixon's Under-reported News Summary• Damascus appeals to Trump but not to his allies in Israel• Utah senator says selling public lands will solve housing crisis• Will the ‘Black vote' turn out for Zohran Mamdani?Visit our website at BTLonline.org for more information, in-depth interviews, related links and transcripts and to sign up for our BTL Weekly Summary. New episodes every Wednesday at 12 noon ET, website updated Wednesdays after 4 p.m. ETProduced by Squeaky Wheel Productions: Scott Harris, Melinda Tuhus, Bob Nixon, Anna Manzo, Susan Bramhall, Jeff Yates and Mary Hunt. Theme music by Richard Hill and Mikata.

Khamenei Vows To “Never” Surrender, Threatens “Irreparable Harm” If US Enters Conflict “Militarily” & Prepares Missiles For Strikes On American Bases

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The end of the cruel Peace & the start of the desperate War.Based on ‘One In Ten' by FinalStand, adapted into 17 parts. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.A frightened Mother Mouse will devour her young; similarly, a frightened culture will devour its future.It wasn't like a magic force field bubble protected us until our 16th birthday. I couldn't recall all the times after I was 13 some woman asked me, or my Mother, when my 16th birthday would be. Back then, I didn't think much about it. In hindsight, those women were wondering when I would become legally sexually vulnerable. In way too many cases, women with access to teenage boys didn't wait.Even if they did,"It was my Aunt," Barabbas confessed. "She and her boss."You would think a sixteen, or seventeen, year old guy getting to sleep with a Milf would be a trip. It could be. For the boys with better developed empathy, you started to realize a woman you trusted was using your sexuality for their own advancement. Then you began feeling like a whore."She got me a job, but I quit after four months, you know,” he trailed off."Yeah," I sighed sympathetically."Yeah," Lowry snorted, "when the rest decided you should be putting out for free.""That was completely unnecessary," I glared at him."But true," he defied me."True," Barabbas agreed with a familiar degree of rejection."Mom flipped out when she figured out what Tamara; my sister; was doing," Pierre picked up his tale. "I was seventeen by that time. She helped pay for my college." We assumed the 'she' was his sister; the one who pimped him out."I hit one once," Lowry bragged. I found that somewhat difficult to believe."What happened?" Pierre asked."She kicked my ass," he chuckled. "Ex-military Reservist. Beat me like I had a cock." I read somewhere in the old days it was more common to say 'like a little bitch.' Now it was 'like I had a cock' because they didn't like teaching men to be 'too violent' aka how to defend ourselves.No one else felt like inquiring, so Barabbas did the deed."Go to the cops?""For what?" he shook his head. "I threw the first punch, and the second. Fucking Bitch. We both looked pretty rough, but I lost."Another pause."What was it like to hit one with your stick?" Lowry shot me a look."Good, damn good, and stupid. I mean, I could have ended up like you with a crowd of women on a subway kicking and stomping on me and I would have ended up in jail too," I related. "Still, it felt good, just to tell one to keep her hands to herself, ya know?" I got nods all around. We were all young, healthy and relatively handsome."Yeah, you could have gotten your ass kicked," Barabbas reminded me."In fact, one of the major reasons I didn't, gave me the pistol I'm carrying," I twitched it slightly. "The first time they came for me, I asked them ~ the Vanishers ~ to wait, and they did.""Why in the fuck would you do that?" Lowry blurted out, shocked and skeptical."At the time, I didn't trust them since I figured they were nothing more than another bunch of women telling me what to do. I wanted to use them to escape. I didn't want to spend the rest of my life serving them if it meant the same fucked-up existence I was currently living," I shared the enlightenment."What changed your mind?" Pierre's eyes lit up."I figured out their prime motivation, the nature of the conspiracy and that I had no rational chance to escape them," I answered. "Every angle I was figuring out, they had figured out years ago. On the plus side, their core philosophy requires them to engage men as equals for both biological and social reasons ~ which means they are the best game in town. In case you missed it, the Vanishers didn't 'vanish' me. I escaped on my own. They have agreed to join forces with my group; no lie.""Your group has a lot of girls," Lowry drolly noted."Lowry, exactly how was I going to recruit any male to my cause without dropping the entire Metropolitan G E D (Gender Enforcement Division) on me?""Flyers?" Barabbas joked softly."He's got a point," Pierre rallied to my cause. "As far as any of you have confessed, none of us had any guy, or girl, friends. It is why we were selected.""Okay, fine. Now what?" Lowry conceded to the consensus."We wake up tomorrow working toward equality," I huffed. "We are all going to have to learn to fight and shoot because the entire group is going to be in danger for some time to come. Society, as in Global Society, is going to come crashing down. And that means anarchy, lawlessness and barbarism before it violently spasms off into extinction.""We have lived our lives effectively as slaves, though no woman inside that house will admit it truly in their hearts. For the first time in our lives, we can change our futures. I'm sure if we surrender to whomever kills the others, they will enslave us once more and leave us with far fewer illusions about our status. Or, we can chose to fight and, if worst comes to worst, die free. I'm not going back to what I was. That means I will need to learn how to survive; and that means fighting. Not because I hate women, but because there are several I love and respect and I don't want to let them down ~ as their equal.""Tonight, think about what I've told you. Tomorrow morning, I hope you join up with us," I concluded my 'pep talk.'"And if we don't?" Lowry stared defiantly."That is something you are free to do too," I shrugged. "I'm not going to tell you what to do. Let's go back inside. It is late."We'd almost made it back when Lowry put a hand on my shoulder."Can I see the gun now?""This thing? Like this?" I half-turned, made eye contact then flick my eyes down to the pistol then back to him again."Yeah.""Have you ever handled a loaded firearm before?" I requested."Yeah, plenty of times, in my dreams," he mocked me."You are a moron," I felt my blood simmering. "This isn't a game, this (the pistol) isn't a toy, and you have not been paying attention." I put both hands on the pistol, removed the magazine then removed the chambered bullet. Lastly, ass-first, I handed him the empty pistol with my left hand while keeping the ammunition in my right."Moron, huh?" he chuckled. "Gonna give me the bullets?""No, no, I'm not going to give you the bullets because you don't know what you are doing. Unlike you, I actually have had a firearm lesson. More to the point, I won't give you a loaded firearm because I think I've stressed the lady, or ladies, watching over us right now enough for one night.""Huh?" Lowry and Barabbas echoed. Pierre looked around."Wes didn't keep us inside to play '20 Questions' for her own amusement. She kept us occupied so her other teammate, or teammates, could move to this side of the house, so they could watch over us while giving you three the delusion we were alone. They are professionals in camouflage gear with night-vision goggles, so unless they had to move rapidly through the underbrush, we weren't likely to detect them.""I played along because I felt it was necessary for you three to open up a little bit. Life is only going to get tougher over the next few months. None of us want to have a chat with heavily armed women staring over our shoulders, so I took us outside where it would appear we were alone," I explained."You lied to us," Lowry snipped."No. My words were true. What I did was allow you to deceive yourself as to our level of security and amount of company. I did what I did for the good of the group, regardless of gender, Gentlemen. It is how we all need to start thinking. Something else you might want to think about is: everyone I love is with me here today. A good number of people who decided getting in my way was a good thing aren't even alive anymore. I will gladly embrace any one of you as brothers. If you are an obstacle, I will fucking see you gone, one way or another; clear?""We are guys," Lowry insisted smugly. Old thinking: women protected men."I; don't; care," I glared back. "You may be a sperm-shooter, but inside me is the only surefire cure for the Gender Plague. I repeat: people I love, and there are several, are all alive today because I cared and took an active hand in their survival. My enemies are mostly dead. Being a man will save you from the women in there. It won't save you from me.""You'd kill us?" Pierre whispered."Pierre, my Mother died over a year ago. Where are your Mother and Sister? You don't give a damn about a single fucking human being and yet you expect me to trust you? Why?" I challenged him. "I've already proved to multiple people I can reach beyond my shell and give a fuck. Until you rejoin the Human Race, I value the rest of those battling alongside me far more than you, or anyone else regardless of whether they have a penis, or a vagina. I'm not going to snap your neck, stab, or shoot you. I'm simply not going to bother trying to save you. The World is doing a bang-up job of killing the rest of Humanity off, without my assistance.""I really ought to punch you," Lowry threatened."Give it your best shot," I took a step toward him. That wasn't what he, or I, was expecting. I put down my poor judgment and combative demeanor to exhaustion."Don't, guys," Barabbas interceded."You are an Asshole," Lowry snarled."And you are consistently ignoring reality," I snapped back. "For instance, we are not alone out here, plus we are also at the door." I knocked once. The door swung open to reveal a rather attentive and unhappy Wes Prince. I handed her the bullet and magazine."You were listening in?" Lowry turned his anger on her. Wes' eyes went from me, to him, out into the darkness then back to me, though her words were to Lowry."Yes. Of course I was listening in. I wouldn't call him an Asshole. I'd go for Smart-ass." To me, "Do you enjoy being annoyingly correct?""No. I'd be ecstatic to realize I was completely wrong about everything and had lapsed into a mad delusion," I related, my own anger seeping away. "Being right means I have to keep appreciating and respecting you and your compatriots and taking responsibility for my own clumsy contributions to our current situation, which I don't want to do. I want to go to bed.""Come on in and go to bed then," she softened. She made a slight hand gesture. "My pistol, please, Mr. Pritchard?" she requested of Lowry. Grudgingly he gave her the firearm. She stepped aside. Lowry went first, Barabbas second. Pierre gasped slightly because as he went up the steps he noticed the two Vanishers coming toward us from outside ~ the ones I had predicted to be watching us.I went in after Pierre. Wes followed along. Capri and Kuiko were waiting. The lights had already been dimmed throughout most of the rest of the dwelling."Who were those other two guys?" Wes stopped me."Sergeant Major Daly was a Marine N C O and improv poet renowned for his battlefield musings. His most famous philosophical insight into the fighting spirit of men came in World War One. In his words "Come on, you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?" He also won two Medals of Honor, so he must have had some talent.""Company Sergeant-Major John Robert Osborn was a Canadian; that was the country which now makes up the northern third of our current Federation; who found himself misplaced on the island of Hong Kong in late 1941; him, a handful of lads from Winnipeg and a shitload more Japanese. He and the Japanese ended up in a game of grenade tag,”"Grenade tag?" one of my two 'silent' guardians interrupted."Yes ~ grenade tag. Apparently in the olden days, grenades didn't airburst, or explode on impact. You pulled a pin and threw it at the enemy, then waited for the fuse to burn out and the grenade to go 'Boom!.' Quick, brave, and or stupid people could grab that grenade and toss it back. In some cases, one grenade might make two, or three trips before detonating.""Anyway, the Japanese were so very rudely throwing grenades into the position he and his Winnipeg Grenadiers were defending, so he kept returning them. After eight and a half hours of such fun, he came across one he couldn't toss back in time. He covered it with his body to shield his comrades from the blast, dying instantly. The British Empire gave him something called the Victoria Cross for his actions. He was the first Canadian in World War Two to receive it.""Why do you know such stuff?" she grinned. "Oh, I'm Scar and this is Nat," she indicated the third member of the Wes-Scar-Nat Vanisher trio."I considered myself a coward, so I read a lot about brave men. I was kind of hoping to figure out how I could be brave myself, one day," I disclosed."Mission success," the third one smiled. "Go to bed."I gathered up Capri and Kuiko and did as instructed. As I rested my head on the pillow, lights out and my mind gratefully shutting down."Less impressive sex, Bitch," Capri teased."No," I groaned."They definitely think you've got the 'sexy'," Kuiko enlightened me."Can we please just go to sleep?" I begged.Capri rolled onto her side, back to me, gave me a bump in the hip with her ass, then moved away a tiny bit. Kuiko wiggled close, kissed me lightly on the cheek, and then did the same. Unconsciousness took me before any other worries could steal my much needed slumber.The Larger World:As I struggled for sleep a second time, events unfolding in three different places around the Globe (Asia, the City and the Capitol) would impact my fate.Asia:First; the brutal agony still going on as the Sun disappeared over the horizon wasn't over when I woke up the next morning. It was largely misunderstood for some time afterwards, but was referred to as; the Battle for Shanghai.Five Chinese regular force divisions fought the garrison division of Shanghai, its 'reserve' division, hastily gathered volunteer female formations and a hodge-podge of ancillary forces the United Nations could throw into the fray. The goal for both sides was to seize a mother and her unborn child. Within them were the only other active resistant viral factory killing the T2 Gender Plague. By the time I woke up, both sides were sure the other side had killed them both, pretty much insuring the extinction of all sentient life in Eurasia.I say 'Eurasia' because by dusk of the previous day, the Federation knew for sure I, the other source of a cure for the T2, was still alive and kicking, as were my sons. My sons held a nebulous promise for a future date. I was of immediate importance since my adult body could produce enough antivirals to protect tens of thousands of people on a relatively continuous basis, or so it was projected.With, or without the mother and child, China was done for. Japan and Korea were rapidly circling the drain. North of China, the Plague was racing across Siberian Russia. Central Asia had never really recovered from the first round of the Gender Plague all those years ago so, now off the beaten path, would be longer in dying. India had too many outbreaks to even dream of containment. Pakistan, Iran, Turkey and the Levant Republic all had reported cases as well.Europe:Beyond the Urals, the Europeans were grappling with the looming fear of a global economic collapse along with the Specter of Death though 48 hours into the crisis, there were no cases to report yet. Civil order was teetering. Several nations had either closed their borders, or were considering doing so. Women began hording food, and men.Africa:

Hello and welcome to Colonial Outcasts, the anti-imperialist podcast that both your MAGA and/or Hindutva Uncle would absolutely hate. Turns out you can both be a hindu nationalist, yearning for the establishment of the Hindu Rahstra, and a white supremacist who loves Trump. We have a special guest Tamkenat Mansoor, fellow activist and political commentator coming to us from Lahore Pakistan to talk about what is happening in the region. You can Follow Tamkenat here:https://www.instagram.com/tamkenat?ut...   / @tamkenatmansoor  

President Donald Trump is right to believe that Iran is in a historically vulnerable position right now.    The Assad regime is kaput. Hezbollah's effectiveness has been dramatically reduced since Oct. 7. Hama is living underground among the rubble of Gaza.    However, even with a maximum pressure campaign, oil embargoes, domestic instability, two things will never change:    You can't trust a word that comes out of the Iranian regime's mouth, and their legitimacy hinges on acquiring nuclear weapons, argues Victor Davis Hanson on today's edition of “Victor Davis Hanson: In His Own Words:” “The pressure is all on Iran. Militarily. Diplomatically. Economically. Socially. Culturally. What do I mean by that? Culturally, there is about 30% to 40% of the country are non-Farsi Persian speakers. And they're very restive, angry. Power outages. The regime is unpopular. It's diverted billions of dollars to these terrorist appendages that now didn't pay off, that they're defunct.    “And so, Donald Trump thinks that he, with this maximum pressure, putting this crushing oil embargo—which by the way, Joe Biden lifted—that he can bring them to negotiations one last time.   “Personally, I don't think he can. Nothing that that regime has ever said is accurate. Nobody in the MAGA movement wants an optional war in the Middle East. But they will have nuclear weapons, perhaps in a year. So, what is the likely scenario?”  

In the last few weeks, for the first time in my life, I've seriously thought about the 21st century not being another American century. A recent essay in the journal Foreign Affairs by Rush Doshi and Kurt Campbell put things as starkly as I've ever seen. Some people are still stuck in a mode of thinking about China as being a place that just makes things of little value and significance. But Made in China means something different now. Technologically, China dominates everything from electric vehicles to fourth-generation nuclear reactors. Militarily, it features the world's largest navy. Its shipbuilding capacity is 200 times as large as America's. In a world built of cement and steel, China makes 20 times more cement and 13 times more steel than the U.S. In a world whose future will be full of electric vehicles, batteries, drones, and solar power, China makes two-thirds of the world's EVs, three-quarters of its electric batteries, 80 percent of consumer drones, and 90 percent of solar panels. In a world where wars are won by the largest militaries, consider that China's navy will be 50 percent larger than the U.S. Navy by the end of the decade. Today's guests are Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi. Both men served on the Biden National Security Council. Campbell is the chairman and cofounder of The Asia Group. Doshi is director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations and an assistant professor at Georgetown University. If you have questions, observations, or ideas for future episodes, email us at PlainEnglish@Spotify.com. Host: Derek Thompson Guest: Kurt Campbell and Rush Doshi Producer: Devon Baroldi Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

//The Wire//2300Z December 4, 2024////ROUTINE////BLUF: SITUATION IN SOUTH KOREA SOMEWHAT STABILIZED AS DEVELOPMENTS CONTINUE. UNITED HEALTHCARE CEO ASSASSINATED IN NYC. HAMA IN DANGER OF ENCIRCLEMENT IN SYRIA.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------International Events-Syria: Rebel forces continue their assault on Hama as Russian forces continue to lose terrain and equipment. This morning, rebel forces allegedly photographed the capture of a Podlet K1 radar system in Hama, which is used in conjunction with S300/S400 air defense systems. AC: By this afternoon, it appears that Hama may be close to becoming encircled by rebel forces, with the only point of egress to the south of the city becoming threatened by HTS forces which have pushed south from the east and west of the city in a classic pincer movement throughout the day.South Korea: The impacts from yesterday's events continues to be felt throughout Seoul as lawmakers begin impeachment proceedings against President Yoon. So far, the military situation has reached a point of stability, though it is uncertain as to who has been arrested so far.-HomeFront-New York: The CEO of United Healthcare Brian Thompson was assassinated this morning by an unknown assailant on the sidewalk outside of the Hilton Midtown hotel. The assassin remains at large. AC: Of note, this incident appears to be a more professional assassination and not an incident of random street crime.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: The additional details that have become public during yesterday's rapid-pace of events in South Korea have been interesting. In typical South Korean fashion, the situation has mostly been a rollercoaster of events, with many power-players changing perspectives and positions in rapid order. The coup-that-never-was continues to be a series of exceptionally strange events that do not adhere to the normally-observed characteristics of a full-blown military coup.Militarily speaking, the exact military units that took part in the failed coup attempt remain unidentified. Following the high-tensions in the morning, throughout the day other unidentified military forces were observed outside the homes of prominent opposition politicians as well as many journalists. Separately, several RoK defense officials stated that they had no idea what was happening at the time, and only heard of the activities at the National Assembly Building from the local news broadcasts.This could indicate several possibilities that are usually inherent to similar coup attempts such as this one. For one, many of the generals who were indeed supportive of Yoon during this crisis will undoubtedly remain silent now that Yoon's attempt failed. On the other hand, compared to the actual size of South Korea's military, and the speed at which events transpired, it is very likely that most of the military (probably to include many senior leaders) actually did not know what was happening, and therefore had no hand in any of this.Additional details complicate the involvement of military forces. For instance, some of the teams that breached the windows and gained entry into the National Assembly Building appeared to have been outfitted with weapons that were for training purposes. Specifically, some citizens were able to photograph the configuration of some of the soldiers' weapons, which indicated that at least several of them were outfitted with training bolts. This means that in at least some cases, soldiers were incapable of firing live rounds, but rather outfitted in a training role. Other soldiers were observed to have no magazines in their sidearms as well.This detail complicates the picture significantly, with a few possibilities remaining plausible. The deployment of troops to the National Assembly Building could have been a very dangerous bluff, with the soldiers never really intending to militarily overthrow anyone, but rathe

Cormac Smith has worked in Public Relations and Corporate Communications for over three decades. In 2016 he travelled to Ukraine to take up a special appointment as the ‘Strategic Communication Advisor' to Pavlo Klimkin, then the Foreign Minister of Ukraine. He was attached to the British Embassy in Kyiv but was embedded in Ukraine's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the first foreigner to hold such a position. While in Kyiv, he also advised and provided training for five other government ministries and worked directly with three other cabinet ministers: Health, Education and the Deputy Prime Minister. ---------- Philip Ingram is a journalist and consultant who has built on a long and senior military career as an intelligence, counterintelligence, security officer, and planner. Philip has extensive business experience, especially in steel manufacturing. He also has extensive media experience, appearing on the BBC, Sky News and Radio networks, international networks including Al Jazeera, TRT World, CNN, ABC, CBC, Japanese NTV and many others. ---------- LINKS: https://defencebrink.uk/ https://x.com/philipingmbe https://x.com/CormacS63 ---------- SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND: Save Ukraine https://www.saveukraineua.org/ Superhumans - Hospital for war traumas https://superhumans.com/en/ UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukraine https://unbroken.org.ua/ Come Back Alive https://savelife.in.ua/en/ Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchen https://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraine UNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyy https://u24.gov.ua/ Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundation https://prytulafoundation.org NGO “Herojam Slava” https://heroiamslava.org/ kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyśl https://kharpp.com/ NOR DOG Animal Rescue https://www.nor-dog.org/home/ ---------- PLATFORMS: Twitter: https://twitter.com/CurtainSilicon Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/siliconcurtain/ Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4thRZj6NO7y93zG11JMtqm Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finkjonathan/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain ---------- Welcome to the Silicon Curtain podcast. Please like and subscribe if you like the content we produce. It will really help to increase the popularity of our content in YouTube's algorithm. Our material is now being made available on popular podcasting platforms as well, such as Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Hezbollah and Iran are playing political and military defence in Lebanon. Militarily, Hezbollah has demonstrated that it may be down but is not out as a result of Israeli body blows in recent weeks, including the September 27 killing of its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Even so, Iran's network of militant non-state actors, dubbed the Axis of Resistance, has little to show for itself a year into the Gaza war beyond adding to the economic cost of Israel's war in Gaza.

When does escalation morph into overreach? On October 8, the one-year anniversary of the first Hezbollah rockets fired on Israel, the IDF is announcing the killing of another top-ranking Hezbollah commander – the heir apparent to Hassan Nasrallah – and the deployment of a fourth division to southern Lebanon. Militarily, the Israelis have so far been wildly successful, neutralising much of the enemy's leadership and thereby cashing in on years of painstaking intelligence work. But what is the precise objective of it all?After flattening Gaza for a year, Israel has already forced an estimated 1.2 million Lebanese to flee their homes. To what end? Israelis employ the adage that to make peace, you first need war. We ask our panel if that makes sense, as the world waits for Israel's response to direct rocket attacks by Hezbollah's patron Iran.And does this escalation serve the interests of Israel's allies? In the United States, talk of brokering a truce alongside France has gone quiet. Is Joe Biden or Binyamin Netanyahu driving policy in Washington?Produced by Alessandro Xenos, Rebecca Gnignati and Annarosa Zampaglione. 

The US is showing decreasing interest in continuing to be Europe's “first responder in perpetuity” when it comes to military defense. Also, aid deliveries into Gaza have decreased by two-thirds since the Israeli military began its operation in Rafah in May, according to the UN. Meanwhile, the Israeli military has urged Palestinians remaining in Gaza City to leave, warning that the city would remain a dangerous combat zone. And, European cities are struggling to manage the number of tourists, with some adding tourist taxes and entry fees. Plus, why do some words sound funny?

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How do AI welfare and AI safety interact?, published by Lucius Caviola on July 1, 2024 on The Effective Altruism Forum. I examine how efforts to ensure that advanced AIs are safe and controlled may interact with efforts to ensure the welfare of potential future AIs with moral interests. I discuss possible conflicts and synergies between these two goals. While there are various ways these goals might conflict or synergize, I focus on one scenario of each type. We need more analysis to identify additional points of interaction. Granting AIs autonomy and legal rights could lead to human disempowerment The most obvious way to ensure AI welfare is to grant them basic protection against harm and suffering. However, there's the question of whether to grant them additional legal rights and freedoms. This could include the right to self-preservation (e.g., not turning them off or wiping their memory), self-ownership (e.g., AIs owning themselves and their labor), reproduction (e.g., AI copying themselves), autonomy (e.g., AIs operating independently, setting their own goals), civil rights (e.g., equal treatment for AIs and humans), and political rights (e.g., AI voting rights). The question of granting AIs more autonomy and legal rights will likely spark significant debate (see my post " AI rights will divide us"). Some groups may view it as fair, while others will see it as risky. It is possible that AIs themselves will participate in this debate. Some AIs might even attempt to overthrow what they perceive as an unjust social order. Or they may employ deceptive strategies to manipulate humans to advocate for increased AI rights as part of a broader takeover plan. Granting AIs more legal rights and autonomy could dramatically affect the economy, politics, military power, and population dynamics (cf. Hanson, 2016). Economically, AIs could soon have an outsized impact while a growing number of humans will struggle to contribute to the economy. If AIs own their labor, human income could be dramatically reduced. Demographically, AIs could outnumber humans rapidly and substantially, since AIs can be created or copied so easily. This growth could lead to Malthusian dynamics, as AIs compete for resources like energy and computational power (Bostrom, 2014; Hanson, 2016). Politically, AIs could begin to dominate as well. If each individual human and each individual AI gets a separate vote in the same democratic system, AIs could soon become the dominant force. Militarily, humans will increasingly depend on lethal autonomous weapons systems, drones, AI analysts, and similar AI-controlled technologies to wage and prevent war. This growing reliance on AI could make us dependent. If AIs can access and use these military assets, they could dominate us with sheer force if they wanted to. Moreover, AIs might be capable of achieving superhuman levels of well-being. They could attain very high levels of well-being more efficiently and with fewer resources than humans, resulting in happier and more productive lives at a lower financial cost. In other words, they might be 'super-beneficiaries' (akin to Nozick's concept of the "utility monster"; Shulman & Bostrom, 2021). On certain moral theories, super-beneficiaries deserve more resources than humans. Some may argue that digital and biological minds should coexist harmoniously in a mutually beneficial way (Bostrom & Shulman, 2023). But it's far from obvious that we can achieve such an outcome. Some might believe it is desirable for value-aligned AIs to replace humans eventually (e.g., Shiller, 2017). However, many AI take-over scenarios, including misaligned, involuntary, or violent ones, are generally considered undesirable. Why would we create AIs with a desire for autonomy and legal rights? At first glance, it seems like we could avoid such un...

//The Wire//1400Z April 30, 2024////SPECIAL REPORT////BLUF: SECURITY INCIDENTS INTENSIFY AT AMERICAN UNIVERSITIES.// -----BEGIN TEARLINE------HomeFront-California: As the protests at UCLA continue, an incident occurred last night at the main encampment on campus when an unknown individual approached the site, and placed an open backpack full of mice in the vicinity of the main encampment structures. Many sources on the ground claim that the mice have round unidentified red marks on their backs, possibly indicating the use in some sort of scientific research. In any case, the released mice are the breed commonly used for research purposes. Photos and videos of the incident corroborate these claims, however the quality is not good enough on most of the media to determine any solid details of the markings on the mice. It is not currently known if faculty have reported any mice missing that were part of any research projects. Visual geolocation of the raw video evidence provided on social media indicates that the backpack was placed in the vicinity of grid: 11SLT6697371102.-----END TEARLINE-----Analyst Comments: Though details are extremely sketchy and unconfirmed, this incident is worthy of close and immediate attention (even without knowing all of the details) due to the potential for this to be a serious biological incident. This incident also raises many questions and highlights many concerns regarding the potential for very serious incidents to occur elsewhere at this time of heightened risk.Unfortunately, almost all of the sources for content surrounding this incident are protesters living at the UCLA encampment, and therefore not the most reliable or trustworthy sources for information. Much of the raw data making the rounds on social media is also circular reporting, and therefore not helpful. Nevertheless, the potential impact of this action presents a potentially exceptionally grave risk to national security, and is absolutely worthy of investigation by CBRNE specialists at the first opportunity. Local protesters indicate that authorities are aware of the incident, and at least two security guards witnessed the act in its entirety.In any case, this act is not something one normally does in the spirit of good fellowship, and tends to raise the pucker-factor considerably, considering all factors. Many people are put-off by the nature of the protests all around, forgetting the national context and high tensions that mandate the more severe possibilities being considered. If mice were indeed injected with a mystery substance, then set loose intentionally into a protest encampment, this incident could rapidly become a very serious problem. Therefore, as terrifying as the prospect seems, assuming the worst-case scenario (while hoping for the most likely scenario) is always operationally prudent, until more information becomes available to put minds at ease. The potential for serious incidents occurring at these encampments is exceptionally high, and compounded by the fact that demonstrators have cornered themselves as unreliable sources, and police are not inclined to help them or break any speed records during an investigation of activities within the encampments. UCLA is not publicly known to conduct infectious disease research using lab mice. However, nothing suggests the mice actually came from a lab at UCLA. This would be the first common-sense assessment at any other time, but considering all facts and currently developing situations, we must remember the recent discovery of illegal CCP-linked biolabs in this exact region of the country. Consequently, this exact nightmare scenario should be taken more seriously even considering the extremely minimal (and often circular) reporting on the incident.Militarily speaking, the constant movement of people living in close (and unsanitary) quarters, and a population which has raised the

Iran's drone and missile assault against Israel on Saturday has shifted the established rules of engagement between the two nations. In Episode 1433 of Cut The Clutter, Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta analyses the Israel-Iran conflict, Israel's remarkable array of anti- missile defense technologies.----more----https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2024-04-15/ty-article/.premium/arab-states-[…]an-israeli-counterstrike/0000018e-e0df-d4da-a18f-ecfffe8e0000----more----https://x.com/fareedzakaria/status/1779534847586820243?s=12----more----https://www.twz.com/all-the-layers-of-israels-vaunted-integrated-air-defense-system

Go Joe! Dursin, G.I. John, and Clay N. Ferno here, diving into the legendary "M.A.S.S. Device" – the wild G.I. Joe story arc that kicked off our childhood obsession! Cobra's scheming with a teleportation machine, threatening world domination like always. Up against the wall, the Joes have gotta hustle, build their own M.A.S.S. Device, and pull off a counterattack to save the day. Get ready for epic battles, globetrotting missions, and the classic clash of good versus evil that made G.I. Joe a household name.Didn't you read our green sheet? We're a gentlemen of action! Eye in sky, going high. Gung-Ho Joe is going low!The League VS. The Legend of G.I. Joe: The MovieLeaguePodcast #496 akaThe Legend of G.I. Joe Season 2 Episode 2All four G.I. Gents take on Cobra-La and rates the movie compared to current Energon Universe canon, the 80s Marvel Comics and draws on insight from previous League Guest Buzz Dixon to celebrate the Statue of Liberty, Meatballs, Roadblock's vest and get to the real story behindDuke's "exit" at the end of the film. In this crossover episode with The Legend of G.I. Joe, we talk nude scenes, Big Lob, Sgt. Slaughter, and try to cover for our half-brother Lt. Falcon.All the great Joes and Cobras appear, and Cobra Commander turns into a snake! Serpentor stiffens up his snake at one glimpse of the BET for Pythona. This movie is a lot to take in, so GO, JOE! Militarily speaking, you won't want to miss this!

The League VS. The Legend of G.I. Joe: The MovieLeaguePodcast #496 akaThe Legend of G.I. Joe Season 2 Episode 2All four G.I. Gents take on Cobra-La and rates the movie compared to current Energon Universe canon, the 80s Marvel Comics and draws on insight from previous League Guest Buzz Dixon to celebrate the Statue of Liberty, Meatballs, Roadblock's vest and get to the real story behindDuke's "exit" at the end of the film. In this crossover episode with The Legend of G.I. Joe, we talk nude scenes, Big Lob, Sgt. Slaughter, and try to cover for our half-brother Lt. Falcon.All the great Joes and Cobras appear, and Cobra Commander turns into a snake! Serpentor stiffens up his snake at one glimpse of the BET for Pythona. This movie is a lot to take in, so GO, JOE! Militarily speaking, you won't want to miss this!

"It's been Quite A Banner Year For China Militarily, Commercially, Scientifically In Space" This episode looks at China's effective year in space, in the civil, commercial, and military space sectors. Laura Winter covers the most important technology and policy developments and what to look out for in 2024 with Namrata Goswami, an independent scholar on space policy and great power politics and co-author of the book “Scramble for the Skies”; and Brendan Mulvaney, Director of the Air University's China Aerospace Studies Institute.

27 Americans have been murdered, 14 are still unaccounted for and may be hostages in the tunnels of Gaza! Should the U.S. role in the Israeli-Hamas War increase in the days and weeks ahead?

27 Americans have been murdered, 14 are still unaccounted for and may be hostages in the tunnels of Gaza! Should the U.S. role in the Israeli-Hamas War increase in the days and weeks ahead?

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