A World on the Brink of Global Conflict

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning with us today is Brigadier General Blaine Hope, and he got his ears to the ground trying to find out what the heck is going on with Russia, Ukraine, Iran, Saudi Arabia. Well, General Hope, give us an update.

0:18 Speaker 2 Well, let me take you on around the world trip very quickly. In the Middle East, you’ve got nothing but smoke screens. I would not pay attention to news reports of any kind of deals, any kind of new tolling arrangements, sixty day ceasefires. This thing is going to the end of the IRGC, the end of the regime. That’s where

0:39 this is headed. In a revolution. How that happens. What is the diplomatic sausage making. There’ll be plenty of it, and it’ll be a mess. But there’s really only one path now because of where Aron’s at, Let’s move to Russia.

0:54 Russia Ukraine. Russia is now imposing on Ukraine it’s most formidable hyperstonics weapons and they are hitting logistics stocks and interceptors where they’re stored. The President is right in trying to lead Europe to get them to the table that weapons and money of endless supply. Even if you had it are not going to get Ukraine across the line.

1:19 As brave and valorous as they’ve fought, This must be negotiated out. And the reason that so is if this continues to escalate, Russia’s already showing signs that they’re creating more problems for Europe by returning to the Middle East.

1:37 So what’s happening there. You saw the problem in the Gibraltar Straits and Sweta with untold migrants being driven to the Sweta border by Moroccan soldiers. Well wait, there’s more. Russia’s working with Algeria for hundreds of thousands of Northern Africans to move across and into Morocco and up into those They’re trying to intentionally create problems for Europe. So

2:05 there’s that element to this, and it’s very dangerous in the UK. We have evidence now that a lot of these unchecked migrants that have built mosques all over the place may in fact be storing weapons in those mosques and getting training. The UK has got to get control of this UK immediately, the UK Wow, okay, in yeah, right,

2:30 and we’re looking at potential you could see that being a civil war. You’re looking at the same thing in Ireland, you’re looking at lesser degrees but not far behind in France, Germany, and certainly we’re seeing Spain go into complete abject turmoil.

2:46 So the world is a very fragile place right now. And let’s not forget that we have twelve cyber attacks on water and grid systems across the United States. We’ve got fires in the West. We know that some are arsons, we don’t know who’s starting them. So President Trump’s got his hands full, both foreign and domestically. And while we

3:09 focus on Iran and all of these world events, and we should, there is an economy out there that is starting to unwind itself in a very bad direction. Liquidity crisis, the Japan carry trade had to be short up by our Treasury Department. The we’re looking at private credit markets that are in real trouble right now. So I don’t

3:34 envy the man. He has got quite a set of straits to navigate here. I know we’re all focused on Iran, but you’ve really got to widen out your peripheral vision right now.

3:43 Speaker 1 Understood. So there was another agreement sign between who was it, Pakistan, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. Is there any tell us tell us everybody about that.

3:58 Speaker 2 It’s kind of like a mini NATO agreement with their own mini Article five, where an attack on one is considered an attack on all. And at first blush you would say, oh, boy, do we have potential adversaries getting together in Is this going to be a problem for Israel and the Middle East writ large? I don’t think so.

4:14 I see this as a great opportunity to fit into President Trump’s vision of what the Abraham Accords in the path to it could look like. I could see other nations joining such an alliance, But I don’t see this in terms of okay, we’re going to see s sixteens out of Pakistan and Turkey joining the fight against the Houkis.

4:34 But I do think there’s going to be a great power in intelligence sharing in that consortium, and that could benefit the United States as well as we try to kind of get things on a de escalatory path and a region demilitarized in its foreign policy. That this could actually be a path to that.

4:53 Speaker 1 Now should the United States if that’s going to be a Quasinato position, And we have me and you because you were the deputy with had most of Redi’s who was ahead of NATO at one point we have to talk about in a separate conversation NATO and is this a new NATO type and why is that? Should the

5:19 United States be part of that? And should have they have named the United States as part of it.

5:26 Speaker 2 We should take on a role in it. What we don’t want to do is do NATO two point zero, where we’re bankrolling the whole thing, and now we have a bunch of welfare states that are hoping the United States will just keep printing money in their direction. But what we do want is we want our influence certainly

5:42 in the middle of that type of construct and we always support, at least under President Trump’s foreign policy, nations and regions taking care of nations and regions. Problem there. This is something that Europe has absolutely failed at. They’re not following President Trump’s leadership, and that’s where we hold the chair of leadership because we do bankroll everything there.

6:03 So there’s opportunities, but how you do things, and the devil is always in the details, But I do see a lot of opportunity here diplomatically.

6:12 Speaker 1 Well, General Hall, thank you for the update on Sunday morning, and we’ll catch up with you again real soon. That’s great.