Holding up arms shipments is not good for Ukraine.

0:00 Speaker 1 With us this morning is Admiral James Stavridis, a four star admiral. He was Supreme Ally Commander for four years of NATO and currently Vice chairit of Board of the Carlisle Group and Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Rockefeller Foundation. I don’t know where do you have time to even talk to us, Admiral.

0:24 Speaker 2 It’s always a pleasure to talk to John Katzimatid’s it’s my.

0:28 Speaker 1 Honor, Admirald. So many things are going on in the world and people are confused. Give us the big picture and wherever you’d like to start, whether it’s Israel, whether it’s Ukraine. The Red Sea is still closed, it’s your You start where you feel is appropriate.

0:45 Speaker 2 We’ll come back to those two, John, I want to start with a meeting that happened over the last couple of days in Beijing. This was a very pomp and circumstance formal visit by Russian dictator of Vladimir Putin visiting the Chinese President Shi. It was a chance for these two autocrats to come together and strategize, and I think

1:14 probably top of their list is how they can help Vladimir Putin with his illegal immoral invasion of Ukraine. Here in the West, in NATO, in the United States, we’re going to be very concerned about the way Russia and China are drawing closer and closer together because economically they really complete each other. Here’s China, which has almost no

1:39 natural resources, but a big population, goods services, huge economy, second largest economy in the world. Over here is Russia, which has frankly very poor manufacturing, poorer industrials. But what do they have. They have energy, they have oil, and so you put those two together, Russian China gives them a lot of throwmake globally, and I think that has

2:08 me very concerned in terms of the impact on the war in Ukraine.

2:14 Speaker 1 Understood, and there’s other rumors aside. I mean, it goes back to the movies where it’s a specter against US. I guess that Iran is going to join the Russia and Chinese group. So you have Iran, China, and Russia.

2:34 Well have you heard that at all?

2:37 Speaker 2 That’s absolutely correct. It’s already essentially happened, particularly economically between Iran and China and militarily between Russia and Iran. Let me explain economically, Iran has enthusiastically joined China’s economic no prosperity sphere, if you will, which they call One Belt, one Road. That means they are a preferred client economically of China, and they receive a great deal of investment

3:14 from China. So economically, Iran and China are already very close. Militarily, it is Iran and Russia. Obviously, Iran has plenty of oil and gas of its own, so it doesn’t need that kind of support from Russia. What Iran is providing to Russia are drones, military equipment, all of the basic webs of war that Russia is using in Ukraine, and

3:45 in return, Russia is providing Iran with technical knowledge, satellites, probably helping them with their nuclear program, all of the things forbidden by the United Nations. Just another example of autocracies drawing close together. So to conclude, it’s Iran, Russia, China, and one other one we need to watch in this regard, of course, is North Korea, which is also providing immense

4:17 amounts of artillery shells components to Russia, and again in return, Russia’s providing assistance with North Korea’s nuclear program and satellites. Those foreign nations stand together against the West, against democracy, against liberty, against all the rights of their own citizens, and we ought to be very concerned about this coalition of autocracies.

4:45 Speaker 1 Add roll President Biden, because it’s an election, he has to do. What he has to do. Was trying to bring down the price of oil down and it was down to sixty eight dollars and I ran, nicked, hired the footies and closed down the Suez Canal and the Red Sea, and it brought up the price of oil

5:12 back to eighty. We’re capable of wiping out the Hoodies in ten minutes.

5:19 Speaker 2 I mean, what say you, yeah, I’m in the What are we waiting for camp with the Hooties. We have all the capacity in the world. Our allies are standing with us. They’re shutting down an absolutely critical part of the global supply chain, forcing almost all of the Western oriented tankers and container ships to go the long way

5:48 around Africa. We’re all paying a price for that. The good news is we have launched some limited strikes against their maritime capability. Sure it is not having appropriate effect, and in my view, it is time to increase those strikes against the Hooties and go against broader military targets that they hold inside Yama. John So that would be

6:13 their ammunition depots, their armored vehicles, their tanks, their radar systems, their command and control networks, all the things that they are using in their war against the government of Yemen. Well you do that the better.

6:30 Speaker 1 Yes. When that happens, the price of world will come down. Gasolene could go back to two and a half three dollars a barrow, but I mean two and a half to three dollars a gallon, which is good for the November’s election for President Biden. Inflation will come down, and maybe interest rates have come down.

6:49 Speaker 2 I agree, and I for one, have been calling for this since the beginning of the crisis, because it’s not just the of oil in the economics. These Khothies, who are direct creatures of Iran, are every single day launching missiles at American warships. Why we tolerate that is beyond me.

7:16 It’s time to strike back much more aggressively against them.

7:20 Speaker 1 I agree one percent. If you’re you’re a historian, like I, try to remember things much getting much older than you, so I don’t remember as well. That’s what I think Ronald Reagan did and cleaned up the Red Sea.

7:38 Speaker 2 John, This goes back two hundred plus years ago to the very foundations of the US Navy, when we decided to take on the Barbary pirates on the north coast of Africa who are harassing or shipping demanding ransoms from the young country, the United States of America. Some of our greatest naval heroes were engaged in those battles with

8:02 the Barbary pirates in the early eighteen hundreds. It’s time to take that same approach, frankly, with the Houti pirates that we took with the Barbary pirates.

8:11 Speaker 1 I agree with you one hundred percent. We got another minute, so left. What do you want to tell you? A marketing people hown you tell us.

8:20 Speaker 2 I want to say something that is happening that is good in the midst of an ongoing crisis. The ongoing crisis is the Middle East. The thing that is good is that two point two million guys who are under extreme duress are going to receive aid and humanitarian supplies and they’re going to.

8:40 Speaker 1 Come John from the Sea.

8:42 Speaker 2 And what has happened is the United States of America, the only nation in the world that could do this has created a maritime miracle off the coast of Gaza. Has built a floating deep water pier that those hundreds of yards offshore, big cargo ships pull up, They offload onto a huge platform we’ve built, and then trucks come

9:06 and pick it up. One hundred and fifty to two hundred trucks a day, which is enough for a good meal every single day for every one of the people in goz It’s the bare minimum, but it’s much more than they’re receiving now. And I’ll close with this. The young men and women who built that pier are the

9:25 young Americans who should be applauding, not these protesters on campuses. If they want to do something for the Palestinians, they should do it in ways that directly supports humanitarian aid, raise money for the Palestinians, support those Americans on the front lines. That’s a good thing that America is doing for the crisis in Gaza.

9:49 Speaker 1 Add most the readies. Thank you well, whatever you’ve done for our country, continue to do for our country and keeping speaking out for our country, and we’ll catch up again. No soon.

10:01 Speaker 2 Sounds great, my friend, Thank you, Thank you.