Intelligence Analyst Stefano Ritondale on the Iran War

Guys, it’s time for some game theory. Good evening. Eric Garland here. Game theory today. I’m here with my colleague Stefano uh Rittendale. How you doing, man? I’m doing well, man. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you for being here. This is an oasis of uh of all intel questions. We’re going to take we will take inquiries from the audience. For all my loyal viewers out there, uh you you you hit us with questions and uh we’re in a mood. We’ll just answer them. We might not even filter it that much. What do you think? I I’m all for it, man. Let’s just Bill O’Reilly, let’s do it live. All righty. So, um you and I are both in the intelligence business. Tell us about your history in intelligence.

Like, you’re a real one. You know what you’re talking about. Okay, so my background Well, here’s the funny thing, Eric. Actually, like um you know, I was a battalion S2. I was a battalion intelligence officer on active duty. And then when I went to the reserves, I was a brigadier general. >> that out for for my people here? An Italian S2, so Battalion intelligence officer in charge, right? So, I was like the intel officer for the battalion active duty. Specifically, I was the battalion intelligence officer. Uh you know, I was a commissioned officer. I commissioned uh for the Merchant Marine Academy, which is one of the service academies in the US Army I mean, US military. So, there’s uh West Point, Annapolis, Air Force, Coast Guard, and the Merchant Marine Kings Point, right?

And I commissioned >> That that Merchant Marine stuff right now that the gates the the um the Hormuz Mhm. it is is going on like there’s a it’s super hot. So, I actually, as a cadet, when I back all the way back when I was a cadet, part of your uh commissioning problem when it when when you graduate for your graduation for your license degree, you have to get your degree and then you have to get your Coast Guard license. There’s both, right? Your college degree and your Coast Guard license. Because they train you to be a merchant mariner regardless of what career path you take. So, part of that I had to sail for 300 days out of the year. And this was back in 2010. And so, back then, that’s when Somali piracy was a huge problem and my boat, you know, it would we we sailed off the Horn of Africa.

Pirates Pirates were everywhere. Actually, we had you know, pirate vessels kind of scout out our vehicle. We had security guards showing weapons and they’re like, “Ah, screw this. We’ll go away.” But I’ve sailed a couple times through the Strait of Hormuz. I’ve done uh uh I was in a Military Sealift Command as a cadet as a midshipman uh resupplying uh US naval warships in the Strait of Hormuz and in in the Persian Gulf and the in the Horn off the Horn of Africa. And so, you know, I so I’m very familiar to exactly your point. We can obviously talk about that. But after my time in the Merchant Marine Academy, I graduated got my my degree, I got my Coast Guard license. And after 300 days on a ship, I was like, “Never again.

Like, that’s not happening. Like my wife to this day still begs me to go into a cruise ship.” I’m like, “Absolutely not.” And uh I commissioned army. And I went armor. I was an armor officer. Oh, wow. Okay. And really I had a really weird career path. After my platoon leader time, I was I was slated to get another platoon because I did a short platoon time about like 9 to 10 months or something like that. Because the goal was they were going to put me in one they put me in one platoon and then we’re going to put me in another platoon because they were standing up a new battalion. And so, the idea was, “Okay, we had an influx of lieutenants. We’re going to have more platoon leader slots open. So, let’s get some of these senior ones to put them in another one and that way we can get these influx to do it and we’ll wait.” And so, while I was waiting though, uh a career opportunity came up to be the aide-de-camp to a general.

And I said, “Sure, why not? I’ll Yeah, sure. I’ll try something different. I’ll try something new.” And I got the position to be the aide-de-camp. And that’s when I deployed to Jordan as part of the kind of basically the counter-ISIS campaign. I was there from 2015 to 2016. And he was he was the senior military commander for uh you know, the counter-ISIS campaign for the US inside of Jordan. And what that meant was he had a lot of engagements with foreign generals, specifically Jordanians. And as his aide, I kind of became his uh um I kind of became his his note-taker. So, when you’re the note-taker of a general officer, obviously there’s a lot of people within the US government are very interested in those notes.

Sure. >> And so, that’s that’s how in a very weird way I started getting involved in this in this aspect of kind of maybe in in a way intelligence, right? Overt, you know, I had US Army nothing covert, but you’re taking notes and then you’re passing those notes off to the US government and then you’re having these conversations. And it was a very enlightening experience for me and I decided, “Okay, you know what? I You know, I kind of wanted to make this my my career path.” When I came back from my deployment, I was gone too long, so I said, “You know what? I’m not going to continue active duty. My daughter was just born. I missed her first year of her life.” And I said, “Okay, I’m not going to do this long-term.” Uh but within that decision, I was in I was put in uh in the 180 first armor division.

I was put in the deputy collection manager. I was kind of like a temporary hold up just a temporary and and and technically that position doesn’t exist in reality. It’s like a made-up position. There’s the collection manager and that’s it. And they kind of like create the deputy collection manager and they kind of put me there. And I was like, right, sure. >> Now, when you say collection, is that intelligence collection? Exactly. 100% within the G2 intelligence. And so, what these guys do is they >> G2, so you were an S2 for the battalion. And the G2 is, of course, the head the head intelligence officer for the division. Right. For the two-star So, the G2 within a division, which is a two-star general, the G2 is a lieutenant colonel.

And so, within the G2, right, generally, they kind of break it up in different They have different sections, and one of the sections is the collection cell. And and the collection cell, their job is to basically plan, okay, I have all these assets, intelligence assets, how do I you know, what how do I plan to send them to collect intelligence, right? That’s the job of the collection. So, I was put under I was made the deputy G2. It was kind of almost like in a way it was almost like an internship for me as a senior lieutenant. It was like an internship. And um the the issue was that unit was deploying to I believe Iraq, but I just came back from deployment to Jordan. So, the US military doesn’t look doesn’t like if you just came from a deployment, you can’t They’re not going to send you to another deployment immediately after.

Generally, they frown upon that generally. And so, since everybody was going to Iraq, a position opened up with the MPs, the military police battalion, which is a lieutenant colonel is in charge, for the S2, the intelligence position. And because of my background and my not necessarily my background, just my experience, they said, “Hey, why don’t you take this position. We think you can do it. We’ll we’ll let you try it out.” And when I went to the MPs and I was interviewing with the executive officer, who’s like the battalion second in command, I basically told them, like, “Look, I’m not technically an intelligence officer. Like, I’m not what you would call branch detail. So, branch detail is as a lieutenant, I’m going to do one thing, but when I pivot when I become captain, I’m changing completely to a different branch, right?

So, in the MI world in the military intelligence world in the US Army, that’s very common. It’s a I tell people it’s like a reverse pyramid. You have this many lieutenants and then it explodes to captains and then it goes back very, you know, back top to like your senior ranking, right? So, the captain ranks it blows up and that’s what is called this branch detail. The thing is I wasn’t branch detail. So, I became a battalion S2 as an armor officer and to be honest, the MP, the executive officer we’re naming to, he loved it because he’s like, “Oh, I got a combat arms guy in my unit. I never get an armor officer. So, yeah, I’m going to keep you.” And so, for 2 years, I was the battalion intelligence officer for this MP battalion and then there I did I did the border mission under the Trump first Trump administration.

I went to San Diego and I did two overseas training missions. I did one in Mexico where I trained the Mexican military for a month and then I did another one in Niger where I trained the Nigerian military for 5 weeks. So, you have been around around. You’ve done I I have I’ve been I Yeah. I I have I will say be both between my time in the Merchant Marine Academy as a cadet and in the Army, I I have had the fortunate aspect that I have traveled probably way more than most people in my similar pay grade in the Army, specifically a junior officer, yes. Straits of Hormuz, Jordan, Mexico, Niger. I’ve been to and I’ve also been through the Straits of Gibraltar. I’ve been through the Straits of Malacca.

Uh Philippines, Singapore, uh Djibouti, um Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, uh UAE, Sicily, um and then in during my deployment to Jordan, we did a lot of TDY. So, like Lebanon, Israel, uh Qatar, you know. Yeah, Kuwait. Again, like I had a very fortunate that I managed to travel a lot as a junior officer around the world. Yeah. And so, you were doing intelligence, so you’re doing threat assessment of all the creepy crawlies out there. Sure, the overt, there’s a you know, there’s a squad here they’re armed with this, but I imagine a lot of covert operations from various bad guys. Many of whom might be coordinated by the Iranians. Correct. So, >> Hypothetically, I’m not trying to elicit you. No, no, no. But, so to to your point, right?

When I left the active duty, when I became a reservist, uh but same brigade is two and then became and then I became the brigade is three, which is the operations officer. But, I was kind of dual hatted both operations and intelligence officer in that billet. And there we were focused in in the Pacific. But, when I was a contract I got hired as a contractor and then I worked in the G2 as uh an op four analyst. So, opposing force analyst and intelligence planner. And for those who don’t know what an op four analyst is, is basically you you think you’re you’re hired to basically think as the enemy. Right? That’s your job. Yeah. >> Red team. >> What would I do if I had their capabilities and their their desires?

Exactly. And then I replicate >> Exactly. So, it’s capabilities and intent. And then my job was to replicate that in military exercises. To train our guys before their deployment, right? But for that, to meet training objectives. So, you literally did and this is my my catchphrase inadvertently, but you did game theory. You did strategic simulation of all right, you play these bad guys. You play these guys. You play our ally. I’m going to play us. And and and to your point, it wasn’t uh like most people in the army, like if they they hear that, generally you would see that at the tactical level. Like I have, you know, the NTC is one of the training areas in California, 29 Palms for the Marines.

Like, here’s my guns, here’s my tanks, and it’s very tactical, and we fight that. Because of the Because the the unit I worked for was called the 32nd Army Air Missile Defense Command, they were They They are Patriots and THAADs, which right now I think a lot of people might now be familiar with. >> Air Missile Defense, just so Yeah. Okay. And they were Those are inherently strategic thinking level assets, right? Because you deploy Patriots to send a message generally, right? Most people would think we send a carrier strike group, what you don’t hear or or might not or you miss is I’m going to I’m going to deploy a Patriot or THAAD at the same conversation. So, we have to think at that broad picture.

>> Surface surface-to-air missiles. Correct. Uh well, surface-to-surface missiles. >> Surface-to-surface missiles, okay. >> So, the enemy So, okay, so the the Patriot and THAAD are surface-to-air. Their primary threat are ballistic missiles, which are surface-to-surface. Got it. That’s why they exist. They can also shoot down planes, drones, etc. So, I had to think that, but but what was very interesting is is that technically through the Army I never officially became an MI officer by billet. Like, I had the experience, I just never finished the training because I was doing the training, and then I got medically discharged. So, I never officially on paper became an MI officer. I was I I left the military as an as an armor officer.

I just had a lot of experience in the position, both in active duty, reserve, and as a contractor, that enabled me to kind of, you know, be successful, and then >> You were just constantly collecting intelligence, reporting on it. Um you were there in the room when people were discussing it. You you the output notes from the meetings, and you did strategic simulations, uh game theory, if you will, on how to respond. So, you were doing operational plans. That’s That’s intelligence where I’m from. So. And And then And then while I was a contractor, that’s when I created this, which is all-source news, the you know, my my my Twitter account or X account on OSINT, that kind of did OSINT for cartels.

And it started out as a hobby in in 2021, in March 2021. And you know, actually, I think that’s how you and I first met was through really my cartel coverage on on on Twitter. And uh obviously, we saw what that that matters, and that’s kind of become a huge focus of mine, obviously. And now my official title uh after all my contracts and all that was I was the chief Now, I’m the chief intelligence officer my other position of Artorius, which is a open-source intelligence company that leverages It’s an AI-driven OSINT company that does collection, analysis, assessments, alerting, and decision-making leveraging AI. So, that’s kind of a a a summary of my entire career, but what what people would say is that it wasn’t I did some training, obviously, but I never officially became an IM officer, but just had a lot of exposure and experience that really enabled me, I guess, to be successful.

So, you And you’ve been there at these critical times during the global war on terror, uh insofar as that was uh I mean, that’s what we called it. I wasn’t This is I’m editorializing here. It was not a very coherent time for our national security. I was in Washington, D.C. um through all of that, and prior to 9/11 and after. Um so, I have a I have a couple critiques, but um you know, so you were there 2010, you were you were out in the field, and you’re doing intel. Um and here we are right now, where the United States has finally changed its doctrine, isn’t really working with NATO on this particular thing, and we’ve just basically erased Iran. Like they’re like we’ve we have significantly degraded what they had for weaponry.

We have functionally decapitated the regime and you know, it’s a question of when this stops and what comes after and I’d love your opinion on it having been looking at for as many years as I have this is different which I mean we should all understand like they were threatening this kind of conflict and people were making all kinds of money off building the weapon systems, doing intelligence around it, doing political donations, fundraising around who’s tougher on Iran. We’re not doing that. We we put the Gerald Ford and we put the Lincoln carrier groups out there and we just started putting warheads on warheads. Yep. And we And it’s what’s fascinating to me is how much the defense commentary um regime really doesn’t know what to do with itself.

Like there’s not as many great opinion havers right now which I think is delightful. They you feel the entire the center of gravity is shifting. Is nobody knows what to say cuz we’re actually doing it. We’re doing something and we’re not dragging out it’s not like Iraq where we went in Mhm. and nobody had a plan to get out. It’s not that we couldn’t have made a plan to get out. We could have. We didn’t. And that was the point for a lot of people I think that we would just be screwing around bringing democracy but not really for for decades and I’ll tell you I was in Washington DC and I got to watch the BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes in Northwest DC and Bethesda, Maryland and McLean, Virginia become Bentley’s and Rolls-Royces in a short period of time at which I think may have been the real output of all that.

But uh But now we’ve taken the entire Iranian regime and we’ve put a hurting on them. Now, how much of that is is quantified? I mean, we’re This is fog of war. It’s going on right now and there’s only so much we can know about the situation from the non-classified perspective. Um but it seems it seems like they’re doing doing some damage. So, what’s your what’s your read on this? You know, it’s funny because while we were talking, you know, I got the alert from our app Sitrep that I know you did a video and the USS Abraham Lincoln did one of the uh their helicopters in the in the carrier strike group just engaged uh an Iranian vessel who approached the carrier strike group and so they destroyed that, right?

So, you know, got the the alert right there. You know, that’s kind of what’s going on and um and and I think it’s to your point that that highlights You know, it’s it’s interesting when you’re somebody like you know, when I when I talk about Iran, I I I really both, you know, publicly either with the media or in the spaces and all that, I really try to analyze it from my perspective working with the 32nd and being involved in that. And I mean, I’ve said this multiple times and I’ll say it again. The amount What is the primary force that Iran has, specifically in a conflict like this? It’s their ballistic missile force and their drones and their cruise missiles, right? Mhm. I would say that and maybe most people would be shocked by this is that the quantities that we’re seeing of the Iranian ballistic missiles drones and cruise missiles that they’ve launched is significantly less than I would have expected.

Significantly less. And it’s interesting kind of the I I’m going to be a little bit light on this. Maybe people who think that maybe the United States doesn’t is not having as much success as they have, but the argument they’re making well maybe Iran is holding back on their capabilities. And my counter to that would be holding back for what? Well, RIGHT? >> WHAT? LIKE WHAT ARE THEY WAITING FOR? WHAT ARE THEY WAITING >> YOU EXACTLY? >> PERFECT time to fire missiles at somebody? I don’t know, maybe when they’re decimating your capital? Exactly. They’re decapitating your government? It it it it smacks It’s the same argument with the Russians, right? We you hear this with the Russians and you go oh they’re just holding back.

It’s been 4 years, guys. 4 years, right? >> 4 years. Holding back for what? Same with the It’s same with the Russians. >> at CBS News came out with a comment. I’m not going to say who it is or what think tank, but there was some guy at a think tank and he said, “Well, they could really get committed to getting a nuclear weapon now.” I’m like with with what? With the five cinder blocks that are knocked over on each other right now? Like what? >> But pretty close. I I think the problem is is that there’s there’s this it’s it’s I think there’s a fundamental lack of understanding of the Iranian problem set. Right? Because when you build war games, what are the inherent aspects you have to build it on is what’s the trigger event?

Right? Because in a war game anybody who’s done war games specifically at the strategic level, it’s not you don’t just get your bunch of your your military GUYS AND SAY, “CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’RE AT WAR. GO FIGHT.” NO, THAT’S NOT >> TO BE a context to it. What was the trigger event? And cuz it’s like a fist fight. There’s always rules. People will sit there and a fist fight go on a certain way, but if somebody digs out their car keys and puts them in somebody’s eye socket, they’ll intervene. The context matters and the the conduct matters. >> Right. Because because in the the because the the the context sets the stage for why you’re fighting and what the enemy end goal is. Right? Because you can build a war game that is, let’s say a tit-for-tat because you want to train for a tit-for-tat.

Let’s say that’s all you care about. All you want to do And by the way, for for military And this goes to anybody, if I see another goddamn comment of oh, in this war game Ukraine or France or the UK Marines decimated an American brigade, it’s like you have no idea what you’re talking about. Number one, because you don’t understand the not the notion of military exercises. When you do military exercises, right? The vast majority of them are designed to meet commander training objectives. Not to win. You don’t win. You train. That’s the goal. Even when you do all the construct, even when you make up a scenario, even if you even have a fake enemy or a real country enemy, and you build it, the goal of a military exercise is to meet the commander’s training objective.

Now, there are other ones There are other exercises that you do that are intended to see if the conflict happened now, how can we fare in fighting that. The the problem of these though, because that’s when you generally when you see these commentaries about oh, we we do war games and you’ve seen this, right? Oh, we we fight the Chinese and we lose. Okay. This is what I have an >> And we lose. Here here’s the issue I have with this. Because I can tell you right now, I you never hear that now about the Russians. But I guarantee you if it was 2020, you would hear that all the time about the Russians. Here’s the problem when you’re doing war games. Who is acting as the Chinese in a war game or who is acting as the Russians in a war game?

It’s Americans. Right? Right. That know how China, Russia, Iran, or whatever made up enemy you create, they know how to fight. But and they know how to play that doctrine, but they’re always going to have an American military mindset. And the American military mindset, for example, is very adamant about, for example, you don’t wait for orders, you execute. That’s the number one thing that very incentivizes inherently down troops to fight in organically. That’s We saw We see this in the Russians with Ukraine. That’s not how they fight. They’re not a professionally trained military who does war games. >> and for different reasons with different command structures and different strategic goals. Right.

>> And you got to have And when you’re doing a war game, you’ve got to have your intelligence on the context it’s got to be good about what the you know, the like the sociocultural context and that the the other guys are going to be fighting with. Like you cannot assume North Koreans are going to follow the same Mhm. you know, the same style of fighting and thinking that guys that were trained at the Naval War College in Quantico. It’s They’re You Yeah, and you You You try to You try to imitate that, but there’s always going to be to your point that cultural barrier. It’s It’s impossible. And And to your point, it’s also from the intelligence perspective a lot of times we just assume, right? There’s an aspect of intelligence that I think you and I and Eric understand, which is there’s one thing in the ability to collect it.

There’s another aspect is do you know how to analyze it? And more importantly, do you know how to analyze it that then enables your commanders to make a decision. And that’s not an easy process. That might seem as natural for an American or somebody in NATO, but in other countries it’s not. And and I think that’s where the fundamental difference is. And going back to kind of Iran, you know, analyzing this, I I think that’s kind of the main issues that Iran is having, right? One, their their quantity and their ballistic missiles are way lower than we thought. Even their quality aspect is not as where I thought it was. But but the problem that I think it also goes back to is it’s very what how they’re fighting is there’s not a plan.

There’s There’s not a process with an intelligence I you probably heard of this, intel drives operation, right? Ideally. Right. The The Their I think their only thought process right now is how can we cause the price of oil to go up and hope and we hope that that causes Trump President Trump to stop this operation. But that’s not I mean, it it makes sense, but it it’s but the way they’re executing this operation doesn’t match necessarily that intent. I mean, that now we get into what is the quality of their strategic thinking. And you get a lot of dudes who are in the Iranian regime who were, you know, who went to school in Paris, who went to school in London at some point or their dads did or it’s it’s been different over the years.

The guys who were there in the ’80s, you know, almost all those guys went to school in London at some point or, you know, Berlin New York, Washington. And then by the ’80s we’re facing these guys that really have a pretty good sense of Western um thinking. But, you know, now it’s it’s many years since then, but the question is can can they understand what we’re up to? Can they think in in our shoes or Trump’s or uh whatever cuz so much is so much has changed here. Trump Trump’s perspective here as an 80-year-old guy who is in his who got into his second term. His first term as a president was was very contentious and his second one was a spent avoiding a prison. And whether either he’s, you know, he is free to uh to achieve all his goals and dreams or if he’s on a revenge like a Quentin Tarantino revenge rampage in the last 38 minutes of the movie, you know, either might be applicable here.

Um maybe even deserved. Um but that’s what’s going on. If the Iranians aren’t able to to see what’s going on, like we’ve broken with the UN, we’ve broken with NATO in a lot of different ways, we’ve certainly broken with the United Kingdom. Um they’re not assisting. This is America and Israel are getting this thing done. And the question I have about the Iranian regime is did they have any good operational plans in or were they just assuming that this crap was going to go on forever where we would negotiate interminably and we wouldn’t I mean I think the world is starting to get sensitized right now to what it means to have 11 nuclear-powered carriers. Like we have aircraft carriers. We have guys on them that know how to sail them in combat.

And they can they can well one of the guys I worked with early on in DC, he was he was a military officer and he said, “We only do two things really well. We kill people and we break their stuff. Everything else, call the State Department.” These are guys that you know, we may not be great nation builders, but we are expert nation unbuilders. And I think That’s what the plan is. I would agree with you. And and Trump’s Trump was talking just today saying, “Well, we could completely destroy their their electrical infrastructure in a way that would take 25 years to rebuild, we could do that in 1 hour. We don’t want to do that. We want there to be an after where these guys can have a great country.

I mean the amount of power that you’ve got to have in order to take that position where he knows he he has the cards or to use it less metaphorically he has the Tomahawks. He has the B-2s. He has the B-1 Lancers. That’s not necessarily the kinetic aspect in the military. The US has cyber and space that when we’re specifically we’re talking about the electric grid, that’s where the United States is very susceptible. But but I think but I think when we’re talking about Iran, this is kind of the from the Iranian perspective, I think is if they survive in their mind, that’s a win. That’s their goal. And they receive survival. Now Now, here’s the problem. Let’s say this lasts a month and at the end of the month there’s an agreement and when the US stops, right?

That doesn’t the problem for the Iranians is just as the 12-day war was a fundamental problem for Iran, that doesn’t didn’t necessarily translate to the January protest that we saw last 2 months ago in Iran. Um there was some connections to that. Now the Islamic Republic has said, “Okay, you you you survived this latest round, but now you have a huge problem set that you have to deal with with your own internal population to rebuild and all that, right? And so so it it again, it’s this construct of regime change. And and what I would say from an intelligence perspective, it’s very important to highlight something. It is extremely difficult to analyze and try to get indicators and warnings of what we would call the will to fight.

Which in this context is the regime survival even. It’s very difficult because it the perfect example of this is the Arab Spring. Mhm. Where a man burned himself alive outside of a fruit stand in Tunisia, and a month later the dictator who survived for decades was overthrown. Right. It’s hard to imagine that. >> Nobody Nobody I You me Nobody in their right mind would have thought in 2008, 2 years later the Arab Spring was even a remote possibility geopolitically. This is what we call the black swan events that might come up from an intelligence perspective. And it is very hard to analyze it. And not only is it very hard to analyze it, but it’s also very hard to try to collect on it. Or to try to anticipate it and to >> networks, your human networks might not be the ones that you have in place.

Um to wit, it was, you know, the price of bread doubled around that time. And there was another factor. You had this um you had this social media network that we’re broadcasting in part two right now called Twitter {slash} now X. Um that it it was being used for real-time communications and real-time um but both like strategic messaging of the people that wanted political change. Uh but also tactical. They were when they were getting attacked by um um regime security forces. They would then, you know, DM their buddies and go, “Nope, not around that corner, two blocks away.” So, it was both strategic. Here are our objectives, you know, we want to get on the BBC, we want to we want to talk about what the people of our country want.

And then tactics, “Nope. You know, turn left, guys. We’ll meet you there after.” Um and >> And and it And it goes back to that though because and then I think we also That’s where OSINT I’ve made this argument a lot where That’s where OSINT kind of is a new contract of intelligence really because, you know, But that’s like it’s also analyzing it from the perspective of how SIGINT really like human is the oldest intelligence that ever existed. And then for the longest time, humans was it. That’s all you had. It was just humans. And then during the turn of the 20th 20th century, we had IMINT with the ability to, you know, fly planes or even pigeons with photographs and having a Okay, that’s That was the beginning of imagery intelligence, but now in >> Did we use pigeons for imagery intelligence?

Did pigeons collect Did we strap little cameras to them? I mean, I’m I’m going to Maybe. I would assume so. I know maybe during the Cold War, they probably put little pigeons and they’re like, “Fly over there and take pictures.” But that’s just IMINT, you know? Yeah, however it works. What However, with with World War I But World War I, you have a plane and you have a scout observing everything from a plane back in the day when they invented the plane. That’s imagery. Even if the guy even gets a picture Hot air balloons uh Civil War, I believe. Exactly. I don’t know if they took cameras up there, but it’s the same concept. The idea of an of overwatch. Yeah. Yeah. And and and I would say the other thing is is like when you’re dealing with intelligence, it’s also SIGINT, right?

With the invention of the ability for modern-day communications, then it then it became key to intercept those communications. Right. Uh uh uh I mean, the uh exactly why the US and the famous telegram from from Germany to Mexico in World War I, how the British intercepted that and turned it into America as a kind of badly for America kind of to join World War I. And but that’s SIGINT, right? And so SIGINT was a new intelligence format that it kind of existed within the 20th century. We’ve seen that it kind of explode and become much more prevalent as communications become much more digitalized and virtual. But I think that’s the thing about OSINT where OSINT really exploded within the last 20 years.

As social media becomes the predominant form for many people to communicate and to express opinions, and to express their livelihoods. And as the world continues to be much more interconnected through the internet and and more importantly through social media, that’s where OSINT continues to grow in influence and power. And that’s where I think we see a lot of the aspect of how OSINT is a major factor now, and it’s a new form of intelligence, but it’s a predominant one. Because OSINT What was OSINT 50, 60 years ago? It was just reading the newspaper and trying to get an idea through newspaper papers that was published from other countries and looking at their TV stations, what was going on there.

That was the best you could get in OSINT. You didn’t have that what you have now with the advent of social media. It’s only going to grow and grow and grow. And I think in this construct of Iran, that’s where you have this all source kind of aspect where I think obviously the United States is much a league in the head, and Iran is significantly lacking, but their the desperation for them is for regime survival. And I’d like to quickly, Eric, if I may. I mean, we did I don’t know if you saw that Reuters article yesterday that kind of talked about the US intelligence reports about regime survival and kind of the the I don’t know if you saw that. I don’t think I did. So, yesterday Reuters had an exclusive report that indicated that US intelligence assessment was that the regime was not in the verge of collapse, right?

They had a lot of regimes stability. And and and even with the loss of the killing of the supreme leader and the killing of 40 leaders within the Islamic Republic. And that’s kind of backed up by other reports from, let’s say, American and Israeli press where they were hoping that the initial, you know, shock and awe and decapitation strike might create a scenario like Venezuela where maybe it would open the opportunity for the United States. And they were like, “Okay, well, it doesn’t, so we need to kind of continue on.” But what what I tell people about when they’re reading intelligence reports, specifically we we’re not going to read the actual report, right? Because that’s at a very high level classification.

If you read the Reuters >> very intense. This is happening as we speak. So, I should hope that the US military is holding in some of the real assessment of of the regime cuz they need to make tactical decisions that that Well, I think that’s why we’re seeing a the last 48 hours we’ve seen a change where Israel what they’re doing much more so than now. They’re actually trying to hunt besiege military forces, right? The besiege which is very responsible within Iran for that internal stability. They’re trying to conduct actual drone strikes and targeting their checkpoints. Not just the buildings and the leaderships and the bases like actually trying to hunt these guys down to try to maybe change that.

But but what I would what I want to get to this intelligence report from from Reuters. You know, we got to be very careful when you leak into when when reported intelligence gets leaked to the press, a lot of times it’s not a complete picture. Why do I say that? One, we don’t know the confidence level of this intelligence report. Number one, it could be a low, medium, or high, right? We don’t know. And that really because you can have an intelligence assessment, but you can have a low confidence because you’re lacking key intelligence that might help you have a higher level of confidence. Because I can give you an assessment. I assess Eric that you and I are going to have a great conversation on your YouTube channel.

I assess high confidence. But high confidence why that means assess high confidence. Why? Because you and I have >> we have the two best sources of it. Yes. BUT BUT IN REALITY BECAUSE YOU AND I HAVE TALKED TO EACH OTHER extensively outside of this venue. You and I have talked to each OTHER EXTENSIVELY. RIGHT? THAT’S WHY I CAN SAY I HAVE a high confidence. But let’s say you and I have never talked before, I can say I >> You’d assess low confidence or no confidence. Exactly. That’s how intelligence works. You can give me an assessment with a low confidence. You were expected to do that in the intelligence. You can’t just say >> You’d better Well, this is this is we have run into a ton of problems in the last 20 years where people have said, “Oh, high confidence.” Like we now have the declassified CIA assessments of Saddam Hussein prior to us going into Iraq and they said high confidence.

And it turns out when you get into the the declassified top secret top top top secret document that guided all this, they’re like, “We assess that he wants weapons.” I’m like, “That’s like assessing somebody is hungry is different from assessing that they have a ham sandwich.” He would like weapons. They told us in the news papers that he had these things. Then it turned out the actual assessment was he just wanted these things. And it was assessed high confidence. And now you >> that goes to source validation. One guy code named Screwball. Yeah. A a disgruntled chemical engineer from Iraq who’d been processed through the BND German intelligence service and even the Germans were like, “Oh, no.

You know, he is Iraqi. We got that part. But they you know, they I think they told us to take care with him. So yeah, the source the source there was a single source and he was of low quality. But then the CIA turned around and said, “Assess high confidence.” That’s a scandal nobody went to prison over. They should have. Or they at least should have had Sorry. They should have had their >> career ripped up for that. >> think this is kind of what we’re talking about intelligence cuz you have the confidence level and then you have source validation. Right? And that’s your point to source validation where you’re trying to and it’s and this is it gets very tricky and it’s much more important when you’re dealing with human intelligence.

I think source validation but even when you’re dealing with SIGINT, even if you’re dealing with SIGINT because I can have a communications between two people talking but what is their access to the information even though I’m intercepting that conversation, what’s their access? This is super important right now because we have the Epstein files out there. And the number of people online, for example, or in the news core or anybody, who actually know how to read intelligence is like you and me and a few other people. Mhm. Out of gazillions of people who want to talk about this stuff. And the Epstein files so far are mainly signals intelligence. They are intercepted emails that are dumped and there’s no context.

There’s virtually no context. And I’m sorry, the idea that this is the total amount of files that we have on Epstein since the ’70s, um obviously, you know, what we’re not seeing is the reams and reams of counterintelligence stuff from our country, from other countries. There’s no way we don’t have more on this guy and it’s not available to us. So, we have a bunch of unverified SIGINT that’s been dumped dumped out in the public and the public does not have the discipline to do this and so people are like, “Well, this person’s name appeared 30,000 times.” It’s like, “Uh-huh.” That means nothing. It could mean something, but it doesn’t necessarily mean something. But the people that that are involved in in assessing whether something is likely to be true or repeatable or other analysts would agree, you know, that that is you have to have lots of different sources and they should be, you know, sources that you can you can qualify in some way.

And so, talking about the methodology for these things is important for people who have never done it uh in life-and-death situations or professionally or both, which is almost everybody. So, talking about, “Hold on, what are we looking at?” >> Mhm. Um and another Look, another intelligence issue I want to want to bring up here um that’s less popular but it’s about to be more important is the assessment that Vladimir Putin threw the 2016 election to get Trump elected. We there’s grand juries open in Florida right now uh for at least the former CIA director John Brennan um a criminal matter where they tried to cook up uh basically a biased if not virtually fake intelligence report saying that Trump was Vladimir Putin’s pet and that Putin took action to make him president.

Which was different than what the entire intelligence community um had concluded eight weeks before in the prior in intelligence community assessment. Um that comes down to tradecraft. I’ve done videos on this channel about the tradecraft, the tradecraft review that was put out by director uh John Ratcliffe’s office and when you get into the report that was done about Trump and Russia in December of 2016 they assessed that Putin wanted Trump specifically. And then when you look at what the sources were, it’s looking like that Steele dossier which was a non-professional product from the United Kingdom. >> My understanding though in that there were if you read So when they when the ODNI came back under Tulsi Gabbard Mhm.

what her argument was because And And by the way, I think it’s very important to note it’s very important during the first Trump administration the the Senate Intelligence Committee which was GOP held Oh yeah. >> concurred concurred with the CIA’s assessment. Now Now we’re running into an issue in part. >> They definitely said the right I’m not I look I’m I’m the guy who busted the Russians being involved in this. So I This is why this is so incredibly subtle is that the were the Russians involved? Hell yes, they were. They were all over the place and even more afterwards. >> Senate if you look at the Senate Intelligence Report, they concurred in even the assessment. What what what Tulsi Gabbard’s DNI said was and this is where I think that we where where we have to be I think the problem this has been so politicized it’s very hard to get to the bottom of the truth because what they’re what her argument was is they wanted Clinton to win and the reason why they wanted Clinton to win is because they can use the emails as blackmail.

And so that’s that’s that’s so that that is kind of the fundamental kind of disagreement in a way of this intelligence and I think the problem is what you’re highlighting though Eric is the problem when you put politics into intelligence on both sides. Sure. >> And and this is goes back to even my original one about this this Reuters report. Because even I’m seeing it being politicized because because it goes back to this argument of one goes back we don’t know the confidence level of this Reuters report. Two, we don’t Here’s another thing. We don’t know the intelligence cutoff. So when you build an intelligence report, there’s what it’s called an intelligence cutoff where you say I cannot input any new intelligence because I have to make an an intelligence assessment You have to hit stop and go what do we got?

And then and because there might be a critical intelligence that comes out 24 hours later, but you’re like Okay, well that’s Okay, now we got to completely do a different intelligence report, but this stays because as of this timeline from the intelligence cutoff, this is the assessment of the US government. But intelligence and I think people when they look at intelligence >> of war like this where there’s so much going on, I mean, how do you But but because people think intelligence is trying to predict the future. It it’s almost like if I may in a sense a really stupid way, I’m sorry I’m going to say this, but it’s like people who think Polymarket and Kelsie are actual predictive analytical thing.

They’re not. It’s gambling, ladies and gentlemen. It’s gambling. And with no morality. But intelligence is not designed to tell you what the future is like. What intelligence is supposed to do is this is our best understanding based on an incomplete picture. Here’s what we think is going to happen, but the reason why it matters is now you can make an informed decision on how to respond to it. Because if I give you an intelligent report, Eric, that says the Russians are going to invade tomorrow, but you can’t do anything to do anything about it, then what the hell is what cares? Okay, cool. I don’t give a Let’s say, Eric, you know, I have a client who’s concerned about uh medical issues in the Middle East, and I come with them with the report about Oh, but I got this amazing report about supply chain disruptions in South America.

I don’t care. It’s not my problem. It’s not timely, actionable, relevant. It’s got to be relevant. >> That’s what intelligence is ALL ABOUT. YOU TRY to inform this and then how the intelligence works in the US government, there’s intelligence that’s given up to the president, to the secretaries, you know, the cabinet members, decision makers within the National Security Council. And then there’s intelligence that’s designed to go down to the operators, let’s say. Like the guys on the ground. Most of it the military, but you can also have operators from intelligence agencies, law enforcement. And you And that’s how intelligence you have intelligence goes to feed up and feed down, and they’re framed completely differently.

And And again, this is where the complexity of intelligence works. And this is where I think in the media and in social media when people commented, it just goes right I think the absent files is a phenomenal example, because it goes back to even even even when they declassified the Kennedy files and you would see all these crazy comments and what I would tell people is look at the source description. Because you WOULD SEE THESE WILD STATEMENTS. Oh my God, this is an FBI report. It has to be true. And then what’s the key aspect? Source description. And the source description would read something like this. It’s a single source that we have no history of reporting. Guess what lady and gentlemen?

It got validated. So was that were you being Kennedy or Epstein or or both? All. There’s both. >> above. All of the above. You were going TO ANYTIME AND I THINK this is this is the thing with I you know how many times we anybody served in the military has seen single source human reports that have no historical context or validity or the source validation or the source scoring is terrible. But because they make a report and it gets distributed because they make a report they have to DISTRIBUTE IT. BUT THAT’S YOUR JOB AS AN INTELLIGENT PROFESSIONAL to look at the source description and say is this a valid intelligence report? And this is by the way actually this opens up a great other conversation which is the aspect of duty to warn.

Which is the perfect example that we saw in California. Right now with the Iranian drone threat in the West West in California in the West Coast. Somebody called in a potential threat, right? And said there could be we assess Now it was unverified it was my understanding but somebody could hit California as um as as recompense for what’s going on in Iran. Right. It it literally could have just been that. Somebody calls it in on the phone to let’s say the embassy or to the FBI office in LA and says I have a report that indicates that Iran’s going to launch Shahed 136 drones against Los Angeles tomorrow. And then they hang up. The government to be you you can’t not say something. The government has to report it exactly.

9 911, you had a bunch of dudes who were taking flight lessons who weren’t interested in landing. And then after the fact they’re like, well we had a bunch of Saudis who wanted to fly planes, but they didn’t want to land. Well, okay. You know, if it was just one guy, maybe he got cold feet and he doesn’t need to worry about landing cuz he’s never going to take a flying lesson again. If six guys, that’s really that’s more interesting. But in order to know that it’s a pattern of six guys, someone’s got to call it in. So so when you when you but the the important aspect exactly when you’re dealing with with the government how it works, the duty to warn in other words, when the government by law, the US government has to inform you, let’s say Eric Garland, your name pops up in an ISIS database for whatever reason.

It could have been like they just bought from the black market to steal your credit card information cuz they wanted to make money. But if they if they find out, hey Eric Garland, you’re in an ISIS database by law because of a duty to warn, they have to inform you. But they ISIS might have been interested in stealing your credit card information rather than actually you’re a target. Right? So the duty to warn is a much lower threshold than actionable threat intelligence reporting. Where you then actually address it and maybe action upon it based on increased law enforcement or the embassy does an a warning to American citizens. Those are two separate Of course. >> So that’s why you get a lot of threat reporting that gets distributed for Iran I’ve seen it I’ve seen it extensively about cartels where it’s like, yeah, okay, yes, there’s a threat reporting.

The media picks it up, reports on it as if it’s a fact. Like, “Well, wait a minute. It’s It’s a single-source human report that we don’t have a good history of this guy really reporting that much. Or even if he does, but it’s single source. It’s one guy who claims it. We have nothing to verify it. And anybody who’s done anything legal can understand what witness testimony and and relying on just people is the worst form of trying to get to the bottom of the matter and the truth. And I think that’s another aspect. And this is what gets lost because there’s so much nuance. It’s very convoluted. It’s very complex. But sometimes it’s just easier, Eric, as you said, like, “Here’s the soundbite. Let’s make money through social media.” Right?

You know, or there are people that want to increase the tension, or they they want to get political points against the guys who have sought to confront the Iranian regime. There’s a lot of people who want everything that Donald Trump does to be equally bad and unreasonable. Okay. You know, and that’s They’re welcome to do so. But, you know, for us as the public, okay, we’re going to have news. Um and, you know, I would say that um we have a real trust gap between our institutions and the general public here. Take for example, going all the way back to 9/11 and the the days after that, we got told Iraq’s a threat. Well, it wasn’t. I mean, theoretically, they’re they were not friendly. Uh not anymore when we stopped paying them.

And, you know, they had uh you know, Saddam Hussein was kind of a mob boss who ran this territory. And he didn’t like us, but you know, he was a wily cat. And and he hated the Wahhabs. He hated the guys who pulled off 9/11. But then they turned her, you know, there was a political move to say that he was friends with them. And maybe he his people met with Muhammad Atta in Prague or whatever. It was all crap. So, what is the America What are the American people to do when they’ve been told we need to go to war, we need to invade Baghdad? Okay, so we get done with that and then you have another 10 years in Iraq and Afghanistan and you know, the the threat of Iran’s been there the whole time and then people are trying to assess Okay, all right.

So now we’re actually this actually looks like war. But none of our kids are going over there. This is not Vietnam right now. Right now. Though we were just in Iraq for 10 15 years. And people are trying to parse through what they’re hearing for news when you have such a a strong trust gap between the White House and the media. The Pentagon and the media. So it’s a just very volatile time right now. >> say What I would say to the American people, right? I think I think 2001 and 2003 in in many aspects were watershed moments in the US intelligence community. One because of the failure of 9/11 and the intelligence failures of the 9/11 Commission and and and one of the things that was created as a response to that was the Department of Homeland Security.

Right? It’s ways and that and let’s be honest, love it or hate it, we haven’t had another 9/11 since then. Right? And unfortunately, that’s how the US government, by the way, works. We have to fail to fix it. This is how it is. Every regulation that the US government is has designed is on the blood of somebody. This is how it works. So, that’s number one. >> I I had colleagues in DC who had a meeting booked at the Pentagon on the 12th of September 2001 to discuss non-state actor networks as opposed to nation-state threats. So, rather than focus on the near-peer competitor in the Pacific, China, um to focus on these uh these actor net these non-state actor networks that had pulled off the US’s coal, the the embassy bombings, and of course they never had the meeting.

Cuz it was overtaken by events. Mhm. And you know, we were post-Cold War and we were really looking at the near-peer competitor in the Pacific as being our next main um, antagonist, potentially, which is hypothetically why we were engaging with them and doing so much business with them as a way to diffuse that future tension. We probably overdid it in some people’s opinion. But then we found out that we are we were not staffed up to really understand the non-state actor networks, Al-Qaeda and and all that, and we learned the hard way. And and and and and then that goes to though, by the way, because that is the Department of Homeland Security, but then there’s another aspect where I think the the failures of the invasion of Iraq is what led to the creation of the Office of Director of National Intelligence, the ODNI.

And you know, I look, this latest round in Iran, I mean, we we we obviously we see the the the administration the it’s not like Iraq where they had this large talking points, right? That’s not really This clearly is because of the protest that’s that that killed over 30,000 I think Trump was done and that’s why he said that’s my like that’s when we saw the build-up, that’s when we and then and really it was just a military build-up. Sometimes, especially with Trump, I would say, don’t look what he says, look what he does, right? That’s his key aspect. But let’s look at the ODNI, right? Okay, so yes, we had the failure of the Iraq War. But I I think that’s something that we kind of need to move past because that gets held up a lot against the US, but let’s call something that was a huge success for the US.

They call the the Russian invasion in of a Ukraine. Not only did they call it, they had the the invasion plan down to a T. We knew everything of how the Russians were going to invade Ukraine. To the point where William Burns, the former CIA director, went to Zelenskyy. There’s a phenomenal New York Times report way back then that covered this. And he went to President Zelenskyy and said, “This is the Russian invasion plan. Good luck.” And you can make the argument that the reason why the Ukrainians were able to withstand the initial onslaught from the Russians is because we gave them the plans. And the Russians never adjusted it. Because they don’t know how to. And and that’s why it’s so Yes, I understand the invasion of Iraq.

That was 20 years ago. That’s like telling the the the and we and not taking into account the lessons learned and things. I’m never I’m not saying trust the government. I’m never going to be that guy. But but it the failures of the US, for example, in the ’50s or the ’60s are are and in the ’70s with Vietnam are not the same problems that we had in the 2000s that we have now. And this specific war with Iran, it’s not necessarily per se an intelligence perspective of an imminent threat in many aspects and ways. I think it’s more I mean, I think President Trump didn’t articulate it just like the 2003 war, this huge cost for war. But at the same time, even though there’s a lot of American people who are against it by the polls, it’s not a motivating factor.

And so this is where, you know, the Trump administration says, “Okay, now I have leeway to operate how I see fit regardless of Iran because clearly Iran wants to push that cost onto the Americans, specifically I’d say with the price of gasoline.” But this isn’t an intelligence fight. And if anything, I would even make the argument that the intelligence has been successful because to my earlier comment all the way at the back of this is that the number of missiles and cruise missiles and drones that the Iranians have launched in response to this type of regime change operation is significantly less than what I would have assessed and believed and that the only logical explanation is that because in the beginning salvos of strikes at the US and Israel did they specifically targeted Iran’s ability to punch back.

I think what what what is it that they launched? 10 mines in the Strait of Hormuz? Are you kidding me? That’s it? With all due respect, from a tactical military perspective, that’s a joke. That’s not a robust military capability. And again, it goes back to it shows that the US from a tactical operational level inside of Iran has a very clear understanding with the Israelis. We have a very clear understanding of how the Iranians fight and we know how to disrupt it and that’s what we’re doing. Everything else is a political conversation outside of the realm of you and I where we’re having this conversation of intelligence. I agree. And the the success of of this mission and you can see the Israelis’ fingerprints all over it in and I think good ways in that they know everything about this regime.

They’ve had decades to to to warm it up and now that it’s gone hot shooting war they these guys can’t fire missiles, they can’t keep their their senior leadership alive, they can’t put mines into the straits the way they thought they could. And that that is fed by intelligence. That you know, in intelligence intensifies the lethality of the actual kinetic operation. It’s it’s a force multiplier. And somebody’s doing doing it pretty well. It seems. Intelligence drives operations. That’s it. Intel drives operations. That’s and and and and again, it goes to that Reuters article like you know, there’s a lot of things and and then the question is obviously the the administration is probably going to look in, but that it that report I I promise you if there’s a conversation within the administration of okay, well, we want regime change.

Okay, got it. We’re not there now, but we want it. I guarantee you that same intelligence report has their recommendations of how to get there. And maybe that’s where if we’re not going to know because that’s super classified obviously. Sure. Um but that’s where you have to look for anybody here what did what is US and Israel doing now compared to where they were a week ago? And I think that’s where we’re seeing the shift on the target packages. Where a week ago it was much more on the on the Iranian’s ability to punch back and and kind of the symbology and the leadership. Now even there there is a much more intense focus specifically from the Israelis on targeting the the units responsible on the ground for regime stability.

And I think the goal is from a kinetic and non-kinetic perspective is to cause that regime internal security apparatus to crumble. And I think that’s the goal. It’s it would be hard to see if it’s successful, but that’s the things that I’m looking at that that’s kind of catching my attention. Well, first you knock out the missiles. You put you put their navy on the bottom of the of of the gulf. And then you you decapitate as many of the the actual leaders as you can and then you go to the secret police so that anybody who tries to start a new regime doesn’t get killed, tortured, thrown thrown in a hole by the local security forces. Make sense? And there the the first, you know, like >> We’re only two week we’re not even we haven’t even hit to week two.

They have no navy. They no longer have an air force. I don’t know what their army’s looking like, but I’ll bet it’s not great. Uh they don’t really I I gather that the the leadership is in northeastern Iran right now. >> that’s that’s the rumor that they went to that’s the rumor >> that they went up to Northeast Iran that they went up there which I would be very cautious cuz that’s also very when the protest started in Iran that’s a hotbed of where a lot of the protest occur. So it might not be a place to run for safety. But it’s far it’s far away from the US and Israeli reach for now or not really because we already we’ve seen strikes in that town in that city specifically as well. At the end of the day I mean like we we flew planes from Missouri and blew up their nuclear program from Missouri.

Yeah. >> We blew up their nuclear program. Like we have we have the reach, we have the capabilities and we have the leadership that wants to get it done. So they’re getting it done. So how long how long will this regime stick around? I mean I think some of this is psychology and you let them go through their I mean they’ve had to go through some necessary evolutions following our initial strikes. They’ve had to look to Russia and discover that Russia is not going to come to their aid. They’re looking to China their partners and no one’s coming the Chinese are not coming to their aid. They can’t. Um I mean China’s got to deal with disruptions to its its petroleum supply chain first and foremost and then financial and then there’s there there are a lot of a lot of our strategic partners that played footsie with the Iranian regime more than they’ve talked about.

So that’s all coming apart. So you know couple two to four weeks for everybody involved in that to realize this is never going back to normal. So you need to make a deal. You need to negotiate on our terms not yours. >> like we again it’s as I said this and I’ll say it again. The The aspect of regime stability, more importantly, kind of in the broader context of this idea of the will to fight. It’s a very hard thing to measure. It’s the hardest thing to measure because there’s not a single point of intelligence that can dictate to you is the regime going to collapse. It’s in the aggregate. It’s the large-scale and generally the problem you run into is that that’s not necessarily all the time the focus of intelligence because the intelligence is trying to focus on specific requirements to try to address it and then enable the operations, right?

So, it’s much more generally pinpointed when you’re trying to deal with very broad-based aspects and it’s very hard like what is and frankly, I’m just going to say it in maybe non-scientific terms. What’s the vibe? Very hard to measure when you’re talking about tens of thousands and not hundreds of thousands of people. That’s what you’re looking for. And what are the metrics that you can It’s difficult. You can get indicators like here, this we see this, we see this unit desert, we see these guys defect, we see uh these guys have no food, these guys are complaining about pay, but that does that necessarily all translate into a complete breakdown in the command and control? And the only thing you have it The only thing you have to compare to is other regimes coming apart or this regime or or this country having gone through a political revolution before.

So, you can look at the end of of the Soviet Union, which was you know, which was all over the place. You had the the Berlin Wall comes down 1989 and then you just have like a a lot of people going out in blue jeans and t-shirts singing songs in in the Baltics and then it all collapsed. In you know, in Iran, you have the 1970s, you know, uprisings against the Shah and then things got really out of hand and then they invaded our embassy and all that. But it’s to is totally different. I mean, it’s it’s got it’s got commonalities, no doubt. These are Iranians. But, what happens this time? And what are the What are the weak signals that we look for prior to the thing happening? That is a very the it’s a brand new original problem that intelligence analysts tonight are working on.

I It’s It’s very That’s why I That’s why we don’t know the confidence level of the of the intelligence report. We don’t know the scope. That’s another thing, the scope of it. Something I didn’t even talk about because it could just be the scope The conversation could be is the scope of the ability of the new supreme leader to just have conversations. And and be able to have command and control, not necessarily in the aspect of regime desertion or others or internal Again, we don’t There’s so much we don’t know about it that it’s very easy to say something that is true in the intelligence report, but as you said, it’s missing context. And I think that’s where it’s when you’re dealing with this, you have to have that background and understanding to kind of be able to frame it.

And I think, Eric, to to your point, I think the problem we’re running into This is I mean, this is the government. Where the government I think this is what they do bread and butter, they love it. But, you and I have had this conversation where corporations, they don’t care about this, and they should. But, they have completely abandoned all aspects. I think maybe certain corporations we’re seeing it’s coming back. But, for example, specifically the geopolitical aspects and the geopolitical intelligence for corporations to make decisions, and it’s lacking. And you see it now where all these corporations A lot of them come Oh, we didn’t see this coming. Okay, I don’t What I need I mean, I don’t know what else you need Some I’m doing a lot of work with with the Council of Competitive Intelligence fellows.

I’m doing interviews with some of my colleagues there. I’m one of the fellows. We were just talking not long ago about how the 1990s, the the corporate intelligence, which is when I got in, the corporate intelligence was every bit as sophisticated as government, if not more so, in in spots, especially in some of the companies that really invested in it. And then that was all stripped out, especially in the the latter 2000s and the last 10 years or so. Um, so uh preaching to the choir, you know. But people, you know, it’s time to start it’s time to start paying attention to geopolitics again. And um, one thing’s for certain, if you take the if you look at all of what’s going on with um our relationship to the UK, Russia, Ukraine, this Iran thing, the uh Mexico, globalization is not going the way people dreamed 20 years ago.

You know. Certainly not 30. Mhm. Where we, you know, we sort of gently enter this age where corporations the new national actors and uh nations all get along through the WTO and the the um the United Nations and you know, NATO’s by and large uh obsolete and you know, we just gently start increasing each other’s GDP per capita. That’s not what’s That’s not what’s going on. That was the dream 28 years ago, yish, with the certain globalist types. Um, but no longer. So, it’s time for everybody to start paying attention to this geopolitical stuff again, because this is you know, I you you look at how nervous everyone gets when we start changing supply chain for petroleum. And people were wondering why, you know, why Trump was drill, baby, drill so much as soon as he got back in office.

I think he knew he was going to make these heavy changes here in Iran, and he wanted to make sure that our country could ride out, to the degree possible we could ride out any shocks to the supply chain because we do have on shore capabilities and some off shore capabilities or near shore I should say. Um you know, this is uh we were making we’re making real changes now. Doing real stuff. So I think I think I think it it it the message I would say to anybody who’s listening especially in the industry and all that uh you made a mistake in in cutting intelligence departments uh specifically those that kind of deal with in the geopolitical side that used to be a cornerstone of every specifically Fortune 500 Fortune 100 that have international reach.

I think a lot of I’ve actually wrote in a paper about this and published it on uh a security website. And how GSOCs for example all they care about is uh the immediate physical security and cyber security. It’s like guys there’s a lot of other problems that you’re not looking into. And they’re and they’re so narrow focused and like what’s the immediate 50 meter target and they don’t have the ability or or the guidance or the power to look at the 300 meter target the kilometer target 3 months ahead 10 months ahead. And I think that it that has been a significant disservice uh uh to a lot of corporations. I’m starting to see slowly that turning around in certain aspects but it’s nowhere near it and and it’s crazy how Russia Ukraine didn’t wake people up.

And I think people just become complacent and and maybe Iran is the wake up call because now this latest iteration of war has hit a major financial center which is Dubai which maybe shocked a lot of people and and and and that’s the closest that they’re ever going to get hit at home. Uh but this is the future guys and and you need to reinforce it you need to focus on it because the next war could easily be China Taiwan. So >> Yeah, speaking of old old situations that you know that suddenly bubble up and they’re happening. Mhm. Yeah, you mean where we where we were making all the semiconductors. Mhm. And we started shifting to over here. Well, there’s a lot of people who are going to be happy to hear somebody other than me say that the corporations were wrong to to uh defund all those departments, but um Clip clip that.

Clip that and blow it up, guys. Do it. Oh, and that’s happening. That’s happening. B- Before Before we go here, uh you want to you want to pump up uh SitRep and and uh I did a video recently uh that’s getting some good uh some good audience about SitRep. Uh you know, we don’t have a business deal in place there. I was just uh I I was just reviewing it for my my audience cuz it’s uh it’s a fun app. It’s not expensive. It fits in your phone and it’s like having 200 intelligence analysts. So, how how’s it going? Uh it’s going great. I mean, obviously, you know, uh we’ve seen a lot of a significant increase in demand recently. Uh but, you know, for those who don’t know, by all means check Eric’s video.

He did a great job explaining it. Uh how we how it was built, it had to be pretty self-explanatory to use. Uh because if we had to give you a tutorial how to use it, then we failed. And our thought process with SitRep was it was to give people the ability to have what used to be corporations and government would pay to this day still tens of thousands of dollars to use. And you know, ours is a subscription base, 1 week for free, free to trial period, uh $10 a month. Uh to give what others pay tens of thousands of dollars to have access to. And even And even some of those systems are very subpar a- and outdated. And uh you know, a lot of people now are using it for the Middle East, but almost every country in the world has a loading.

So, let’s say you’re going to Curaçao. They’re in the Caribbean, and you don’t know anything about it. There’s a data feed specific for Curaçao pushing you news from Curaçao as if you lived there. And so, it’s a tool that it in your phone not only are you receiving open source intelligence from around all the countries around the world, basically, but you’re also receiving as if you live in that country. That’s how we want to build it. Pretty self-explanatory. So, instead of having to pay, you know, dozens of dollars for millions of different subscriptions all at once from different countries to try to get an idea and a limited understanding, with $10 you have all the news around the world at your fingertip.

And as you said, as if you’re an intelligence professional, as if you’re an OSINT analyst, and what a lot of corporations and governments specifically pay a lot of money to get, you get it for $10. So, SitRep available on Google and Apple. Give it a shot. I mean, if you like following the news, this is you get nothing but high-quality news, low, medium, and high importance. High importance, something blew up. Medium, something might blew up. And green can be the tennis team came home, and they gave a demonstration in the capital here. And it’s from all these countries. And I love the mix of the green, yellow, red. That sometimes the you know, the green stuff is not is not what I’m interested in this very second.

Um cuz, you know, Latvia might not be in a state of emergency. But, you know, knowing what’s going on there, like, you know, uh what is I looked in into Canada, and it’s like, Quebec, they’re voting on a new provincial budget. Where did this happen? Quebec City. Yep, it’s March, and yeah, and there’s you know, whatever. It’s the it’s the business of civilization. Uh and it’s high-quality stuff, and uh we could we could use and it’s all um uh impassioned. It is just there there’s no emotion in it. It’s just professional. So, I’m a fan. So, that’s why >> W’s, who, what, where, when, why, and you get a detailed analysis, and more importantly, you get a historical context, which explains to you why it matters and what’s the context of it.

Because again, context matters. So, you’ll get all of every single alert. I think we I think on average, I mean, I don’t know I would have to get the exact number, but thousands of reports are generated on that every day. Thousands of thousands of thousands of reports. So, it’s constantly updating every second all the time and you get it. Whatever country you’re interested, you’ll get it. But, yep. And that’s it. Sit rep meritorious. That’s our boys here. All righty. Well, this was a This was a great opportunity to chat with you, see what you think about about the world. And we’ll do it again sometime. Absolutely. I had a great time. Thank you so much for Eric. This was a great conversation. And I will say, you know, we were going back and forth what we were talking about, but we we I think we honed in on the thing that actually we were both passionate about.

It’s just intelligence in this world and I think that was a phenomenal in-depth academic conversation that I truly enjoyed and and and very much necessity. So, I really appreciate the time to join you and talk to you today. Thanks for being here. And thanks for watching. Take care.