S7 Ep40: Espresso Martini 15: Missing Chinese Foreign Minister, another Russian coup predicted and the dangers of AI.

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[00:00:36] Secrets and Spies presents Espresso Martini with Chris Carr and Matt Fulton. Hello everyone and welcome back to Espresso Martini. Chris, how are you? I'm good. How are you doing Matt? You good? I'm good. I'm good. Hanging in there. You know, dog days of summer.

[00:01:05] Yeah, yeah. I see you got your coffee with you. I do. I've got mine as well. Still not an iced coffee, but I still haven't learned my lesson from last time. Trying to stay well caffeinated today. Did you know, well I know you know, but did you know this is the 15th installment of our little enterprise here? Pretty neat, huh? Do you know what? You say I know, I should know. I thought it was the 16th. Huh? So my notes are titled EM16 Thoughts. Hold on, I gotta check here before I'm like, what the fuck? Hold on.

[00:01:35] No, I think you're right. I have 15th in our shared notes. Yeah, I think you're right. So officially it's 15th. It's the gas lighting for me. All right. Very exciting. Yes, indeed. So no, it's good. Anyway. All right. So, and this is the last, this is the last episode of the season. So we're taking a quick break, a brief repose in August, then coming back strong in September. But before we do, there's a lot to cover. So let's jump into it.

[00:02:03] So on today's espresso martini, we say so long, farewell, afi d'rzej en adieu to the puzzlingly short tenure of China's foreign minister, unpack some hot gossip surrounding last month's Wagner mutiny, and discuss updates on the war in Ukraine, both at sea and on land. Finally, we'll worry ourselves sick over AI's potential threat to the 2024 elections. And we'll be right back.

[00:02:31] We'll be right back. We'll be right back. I'm gonna see you next time on the show. Bye.

[00:03:04] Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Moving on to our first topic. Qin Gang, who until Tuesday was China's foreign minister, didn't quite get the Liz Trust lettuce treatment, but after a mysterious 30-day absence, was unceremoniously shown the door after only seven months on the job. This Washington Post piece by Megan Tobin will help us break it down. Chris, then I'll come to you. Yeah, so.

[00:03:32] Chinese Foreign Minister Qin Gang has been officially removed from his position after a month-long disappearance, marking a sudden end to his rapid rise within China's political system. He has been replaced by Wang Yi, who previously held the position for almost a decade. Qin's whereabouts during the weeks of silence leading up to his removal were not clarified by his own ministry, leading to wild speculation about potential reasons for his disappearance, including political or personal missteps and serious illness.

[00:03:58] The prolonged silence has been damaging for Chinese diplomacy, impacting the country's ability to work with the outside world. Qin's removal complicates the tentative thaw between the United States and China as he had agreed to visit Washington after meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Beijing. The announcement of Qin's dismissal was made by Chinese state media after a hastily convened and unusually short meeting of the Chinese Communist Party's decision-making body, the National People's Congress Standing Committee. That's a mouthful.

[00:04:26] No reason was given for his removal. Qin's rise to prominence was due to his loyalty and rapid promotions under President Xi Jinping, and he was handpicked to execute Xi's diplomatic agenda. Qin was known for his uncompromising pursuit of China's policy goals and was vocal about Taiwan being a sacred territory of China. His appointment as ambassador to the United States in 2021 was seen as evidence of Xi's fast-tracking him for higher positions, but during his tenure as foreign minister and ambassador

[00:04:55] to the United States, relations between China and the U.S. became increasingly strained. Overall, Qin Gang's abrupt removal has raised questions about the Chinese political system's opacity, impacted China's diplomacy, and created uncertainty in international relations, particularly with the United States. So, Chris, what do you make of all this? Yeah, it's an interesting one. I mean, Qin Gang looks like a loyal soldier to China to date, so I would be surprised if what he did was ideological. But I could be wrong.

[00:05:23] I mean, obviously his dismissal or his disappearance was like a week after meeting the U.S. Foreign Secretary, Antony Blinken, and he could have said something that may not have gone with official policy, but I'm not sure about that. There was an interesting piece, a bit in the article, about potentially he may have fathered a child out of wedlock, and this child may be living in the U.S., and that's certainly frowned upon in China. I mean, it's interesting.

[00:05:51] It's sort of frowned upon because it's kind of quite, in a lot of communist countries, extramarital affairs are frowned upon, not so much for moral reasons, but more for sort of reasons of control because they generally like to vet partners of senior people in like Russia and China. So there's something very interesting there with all of that. One interesting extra tip, but apparently his birth of the child in America could be seen

[00:06:18] as a slap in the face to President Xi because it sort of shows a lack of confidence in China and its future. So I thought that was an interesting interpretation as well. So yeah, his disappearance, was it been three weeks or something? It was about a month. About a month, crikey. I mean, you know... About a month, yeah, about 30 days that he disappeared. Yeah, yeah. He wouldn't really get that quite in the same way in the UK. I mean, we did have...

[00:06:45] I remember we did have a few days after the Brexit vote where we were not sure who the Prime Minister was anymore, but that only lasted a few days, and that was quite a thing. But to have somebody so senior in the government just sort of vanish, yeah, that's kind of a weird one. Do you know, when I was reading all this, I was thinking of a picture in my mind. There's a very famous photo of Joseph Stalin walking with the NKVD chief, Nikolai Yezov, and apparently Yezov fell foul of Stalin.

[00:07:15] And this picture was then adjusted using very early old school Photoshop techniques, and he was removed, and the picture was re-released with Stalin walking along the river, and there's this sort of gap where Yezov used to be. So it was kind of reminding me a little bit of that. I had a quick look at the Chinese government website, and the last entry, because they basically do still have Gang on the website, but they've just... His last official entry is from 2018 to 2021 as Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, but his

[00:07:44] more recent job title has disappeared. So that was very interesting. Yeah, so reading the tea leaves here, no pun intended, and there's, you know... So yeah, well, he was sort of disappeared for the last 30 days, and there was like, you said there was no explanation given as for why, and there was some sort of consideration. Could it be some kind of like health emergency? You know, does he have COVID or something? Which would be...

[00:08:12] The Chinese system is so opaque and stuff. I mean, first, I'll just say, I mean, I am not a China expert at all, so I'll refrain from making pronouncements on what this means for their internal politics or, you know, their relations with the West. But it would seem to me like if the guy had COVID, if he was sick, if he had to take a step back from his positions because of his health, like, just come out and say that, you know? Like, that's not a scandal. That's not something that you would have to... Like, he's sick, okay? It happens.

[00:08:41] But so that silence kind of then, of course, leads people to speculate, you know, further. And there's this quote in the Washington Post piece by Neil Thomas. He's a fellow for Chinese politics at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Washington. He said, the lengthy silence has been hugely damaging for Chinese diplomacy. The party's addiction to secrecy and its internal operations is now having a debilitating effect

[00:09:09] on the country's ability to work with the outside world, which I mean, like, if you want to be a great power, you know, possibly even a superpower, which is definitely sort of China's aims, like, you have to be... It's harder for people to work with you, for other countries to work with you, if, like, your foreign minister just kind of just disappears and no one will tell you why, you know? Like, it's not really... Like, imagine, I don't know, Chris, imagine you're working with, like, a client or on some

[00:09:35] film project somewhere and, like, you need to, like, you need to speak to them to get the job done and they just disappear for 30 days and, like, you can't ask why, you know? Like, would you want to partner with them in the future? No, no. And sadly, actually, in independent filmmaking, it happens much more than one would like. Yeah, I was at all that. That is... Yeah, that's not too far-fetched. No, it doesn't do too much for confidence, really, when people just vanish with no explanation. I mean, there was one guy I worked with who just vanished. Um, bless him. He's out there somewhere.

[00:10:04] Um, I don't think he died or anything. He just disappeared and just ghosted everybody. Bless him. Yeah, it's quite a shock to the system. Yeah. Going back to, like, reading the tea leaves here, I mean, so, Chin's apparently retained some of his more important roles. Um, like, uh, his position as state councillor and a seat on the CCP Central Committee, which I guess are more senior in, like, the official Chinese hierarchy. Turkey. So, that would show, you know, not really much of an evidence of, like, a health scare,

[00:10:33] but also, like, I think you said, his activities on the Chinese Foreign Ministry's website, a lot of that stuff has been scrubbed, which wouldn't really point to a health issue. If I had to guess, I would think it's probably either a corruption issue that he got nabbed for, which the Chinese have come down pretty hard on corruption issues. That's understandable. Which, you know, I think the Russians could learn a lesson from that. So, it could be that, a corruption thing, or, yeah, like you said, this, um, this, uh,

[00:11:02] child he had out of wedlock who, you know, is, in this, in this Washington Post article, someone was quoted as describing him as, like, an anchor baby, you know? So, like, you have, yeah, like, the Chinese Foreign Minister with an illegitimate kid who's a U.S. citizen. For the Chinese system, that's kind of, that's kind of a touchy situation. I can see from a security point of view, I mean, they're not wrong to be concerned by that, because that does maybe put leverage on, on, on him and the Chinese government. You know, I could sort of see, you know, yeah.

[00:11:31] Or it's at least sort of, like, embarrassing, I mean, like, to your point that said, like, Xi would see it as a slap in the face, like, like, you know, this guy doesn't have faith in China's future. Like, uh, it, it doesn't mesh with that kind of solid front facing, you know, like, we're one kind of unified party, one kind of unified front. Yeah, it kind of reeks a little bit of, like, that, uh, rich Russian oligarchs who, who love to denounce the West, but do like to live in it, um, or, or enjoy the trappings of the West. Um, you know, it does feel a bit like that.

[00:12:01] Right, yeah, their kids go to school here, they vacation here, yeah. Yeah, it's true. Anything else to add on that? Well, apparently, uh, he's the shortest serving foreign minister with only 207 days in office. So, uh, so he's, he's up there with, uh, Liz Trust as the shortest serving prime minister in Britain. Yeah. We should do a book on the shortest serving, like, people in, in world politics. That'd be quite interesting. Yeah. All right.

[00:12:30] Well, Chin Gang, we hardly knew ye. Moving on, or westward rather, uh, let's return to Russia and all its drama and dysfunction. Uh, Michael Weiss and the insider offer a fascinating glimpse into the Game of Thrones-esque, uh, machinations at play in the Kremlin. Citing sources in the FSB, GRU, and Ministry of Internal Affairs, they explain why Putin's praetorians failed to prevent an army of Wagner mercenaries from marching nearly unopposed into Moscow.

[00:12:56] So going through the key takeaways here, uh, Yevgeny Prigozhin's attempted coup in June surprised outsiders, but was reportedly tacitly supported by some Russian intelligence officials. Prigozhin faced little resistance during the rebellion as he enjoyed widespread support within the ranks of Russia's security apparatus and military. Russian soldiers and security officials expressed little devotion to the current regime and were disenchanted with the ongoing war in Ukraine, making them less inclined to stop Prigozhin's forces.

[00:13:25] Despite coming close to challenging Putin's reign, Prigozhin was not arrested or imprisoned, and he even had a meeting with Putin in St. Petersburg after the coup attempt. Some Russian generals offered various excuses for not intervening, and even FSB Spetsnaz units did not show up to stop Prigozhin's forces. The chaotic first 24 hours of the coup revealed tension and disorder among the top ranks, suggesting that Putin may be somewhat weakened.

[00:13:50] Prigozhin's loyalists have become divided, with some relocating to Belarus with him, while others signed contracts with the Russian Ministry of Defense. While Prigozhin has evaded immediate consequences, there are warnings that Putin may eventually punish him to send a message to others. Prigozhin continues to hint at future undertakings, but remains a polarizing figure within Russia's power structures. So, back to you, Chris. I'm not exactly seeing your shocked face right now. Well, no. I was going to say, none of this surprises me in the slightest.

[00:14:20] But Prigozhin having popular support among the rank and file in particular, you know, colour me shocked here. I think we talked about that a few episodes back, and I still use my Boris Johnson Brexit comparison. I don't think Prigozhin knew or thought that he would actually challenge Putin's rule and get as far as he did, and was a bit shocked when he did. Well, I wonder if he underestimated his own popularity, if he's that humble. But I suspect he thinks about this all the time now. I think he probably spends most of his evenings thinking, should I carry it on or not?

[00:14:50] Because I think Prigozhin's days are numbered, but I think Putin's days are numbered too, and I don't know which one will go first, and in what way. I am deeply intrigued by Michael Weiss' several sources in the Russian special services. I mean, like, that was a big standout for me. I have nothing but admiration for Michael Weiss. Borderline jealousy, I think. But I think he's amazing what he does.

[00:15:17] And, you know, despecting that this all could happen again in the autumn is worrying, but it's greatly timed for when we return from our summer break. So, you know, please don't do anything during August. Now, when I first heard about the original mutiny stroke attempted coup, it did to me in that first evening, it felt like holding one's breath, because in my mind, as I went to bed that evening, a lot of scenarios were playing in my mind. You know, we talked about it before.

[00:15:44] Like, the biggest, scariest scenario is obviously some sort of civil war breaks out in Russia, and suddenly different people have control of nuclear weapons and stuff, and may even be stupid enough to either think about using it against one another, or somebody who really hates the West might decide, you know what, I was going to fire something at the West. Somebody might even want to take out Ukraine. All sorts of crazy-ass scenarios could have happened. Thankfully, none of that did happen, and it kind of turned out to be a big, damp squib, which in many ways I think we're all quite happy about.

[00:16:14] And so, yeah, to think that this is probably going to happen again in the autumn does worry me a little bit, despite the podcast material that will come from it. But, you know, I think as I said last time, I think Putin, I think he knows deep down that he needs to keep Wagner on side. So any reprisals against Prokosian at the moment would likely lead to that group turning on Putin and his government.

[00:16:38] I did see in Michael Weiss's article that not always rosy with Wagner and Prokosian, there are some who felt that they got unfairly blamed for things. And, you know, and if the military like Prokosian as much as they do, Putin must know this on some level and they can turn on him as well. You know, so, yeah, so during the rebellion it was difficult for, you know, said in there during the rebellion it was difficult for Putin to kill Prokosian

[00:17:06] simply because he just didn't have enough political capital to easily deal with the man who gained a certain level of popularity due to his rhetoric as a quote unquote truth seeker. So, yeah, interesting times in Russia really are at the moment. Wasn't it really kind of just a stunning statement to think that there's someone in Russia that has so much political capital that Putin cannot just kill him out of hand? Yeah. That's that alone is impressive. Yeah. I mean, back to the Stalin picture.

[00:17:35] Yeah. We haven't really talked too much about this angle on this podcast, but Julia Yaffe, she's a really good reporter with Puck News and sort of covers this closely. I think she's her family is originally from Russia and she has a bunch of contacts and stuff over there still. She made the point a couple of times that it's a bit of a I don't want to say contrarian. I think contrarian is the wrong word, but she's made she's made the point a couple of times

[00:18:01] that Putin is arguably strengthened by this mutiny because, OK, let's say if you're if you're if you're a Russian officer and intelligence official, some oligarch, right, who may have some kind of beef with him and you see Prigozin try to oppose Putin and back down. If he can't do it, who can? True. You know, I'm not I'm not saying that I necessarily agree with that sort of take, but

[00:18:30] it's a take that I find interesting and I think is worth giving voice to here. I don't know. Respect for Weiss, like nothing but respect for Weiss and his work. But I still question the characterization of this as a coup. Yeah, really? I mean, like, do we know for sure that Prigozin's intent was to overthrow Putin or did he just have a hissy fit? You know? Yeah. Well, one a few tidbits in here. I mean, so obviously my initial like interest in his sources and stuff. So there's a few things.

[00:18:59] Number one, could those sources just be bullshitting in some way? They could be. I'm intrigued that he was so public about having sources in the Russian different aspects of different parts of the government. He talked about sources in the GRU and various other things implies that they're still working in the Russian services. And I just don't think I would be so direct unless I wanted Russia to feel like I had that kind of access.

[00:19:29] I don't know. I'm not saying Michael's making this up. No way at all. I just I'm intrigued about his choice to reveal that he has sources in those places and whether those people are still active or not. And how does one get hold of FSB people and stuff? But again, Michael covers Russia. He's a Russian speaker himself and he's been covering this for years. So, you know, he's obviously done a lot of homework and met a lot of people over the years. So that's an interesting one.

[00:19:59] But one there were a couple of tidbits that did stand out. So back to the whole the kind of coup stroke mutiny. One thing that came up, there was a quote from a duty officer who was talking about during the shift changes, new duty officer for internal affairs did not want to be a hero. And if Purgosian demanded to open the gun room, he would give him everything. And, you know, because the big point was for him was who will feed my children?

[00:20:26] So basically this duty officer is only loyal to whoever is going to basically pay him. And I think this is one of the deep fundamental problems in the system that Putin's kind of created in Russia. I mean, he didn't start it, but Putin's going to carry on with that old school way of working a little bit in Russia and corruption is unfortunately so endemic in Russian forces that really with that sort of situation, those people could only be loyal to whoever's actually going to pay them, pay them well and pay them regularly.

[00:20:54] And so if Putin suddenly looks like a less stable candidate like he did during that kind of mutiny, I could see why people would turn. And I don't, am I right or wrong in thinking there haven't been any major reprisals against any serving members of the military by Putin? Have they? I haven't seen any major reprisals. I could be wrong on that. Might be not paying enough attention to it. I don't know.

[00:21:20] I have a little note about this in the next segment, but that general, Sue Rovkin, who sort of, I guess was nominally the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine. He's hasn't been seen in public since the mutiny. He's believed he's at Lafortevo prison because he was sort of conspiring with Prigozin. I mean, to that point though, I mean, it's interesting that Prigozin so far, and I want to make it very clear, so far has gotten away with it.

[00:21:49] That could change at any minute. But, you know, while like ordinary Russians get prison sentences for speaking out against the war at all. Yeah. What is it? Eight years or something? Yeah. I think it's like 15. Is it? I think so. I mean, like there's that one story a couple months ago of this kid, like a school age girl, drew a picture in class that was, you know, unflattering to the war effort.

[00:22:16] And Russian social services took her away from her father and the father got charged. Like just insane, incredibly puritanical stuff like that. But yeah, so while like Prigozin can almost march on the Kremlin and get away with it. I mean, to that point though, it does seem that the Russians recently, Putin has started cracking down on that ultra-nationalist military telegram blogger crowd who've been like really,

[00:22:45] right, really outspoken about the Ministry of Defense's conduct, the war, like Igor Gherkin and other such rapscallions. You know, Igor Gherkin was an FSB official who in the 2014, you know, seizure of Crimea and stuff. He was really involved in that and was like, I think part of the Donetsk militias and stuff. Yeah. He got arrested recently for criticizing the army.

[00:23:11] To your point about that, that duty officer, I think it sort of shows, I mean, people have different reasons and stuff and, you know, good, good, some bad. But I mean, it shows to me that so many of the people in that system are just, have become just complete nihilists who will just wait on the fence to see who comes out on top. You know, like they just fundamentally just believe in nothing. It's sad because I think this has just been Russian politics probably since God knows when really.

[00:23:41] You know, I mean, we've both read many Cold War books and, you know, get your drinks ready. Oleg Gordeski's book in particular talks about how in public people would play the crossword because that was the only kind of benign topic that everybody could get involved with without any repercussion. And, you know, I think, you know, I was speaking with a colleague of mine who on the Warship podcast and he was talking about how there is so much sort of so many sort of revolutions

[00:24:09] and what have you in Russia and the tides can turn so fast that people instinctively don't want to stick their neck out because of fears of reprisals. And I think if I lived in that situation, you know, I would feel the same. So I don't see, I don't judge any Russian who decides to take it easy a little bit or keep their neck down. I don't blame them really. I think that must be a, this is why, you know, I prefer the idea of democracies because

[00:24:36] I could not imagine what it must be like day in, day out living in such a system that's so repressive to, you know, I suppose the human soul really. Um, and, and just with such crackdowns and expression and things like that, and it's only getting worse. I think, you know, at least in the two thousands, there was some thawing on that, but Putin seems to be cracking down more and more now. Um, and it's just becoming back to what it was like during the kind of cold war and communist days really.

[00:25:06] Um, and that's not good. One, one other thing that interested me in the article, um, and it's most bit on the theme of Michael Weiss and his mentioning of his contacts and where there's a reference to, um, Ukraine's capabilities to monitor Russian military command communications. Right. And again, I was just intrigued by the choice of discussing that so openly. Um, are the Ukrainians, uh, cause I know Michael Weiss has a lot of contacts to Ukrainians and stuff.

[00:25:35] Um, are his sources who he spoke to wanting the Russians to know that they could do that or do they want them to feel like they're being watched and that the Ukrainians don't necessarily quite have that level of access? I don't know. It's a bit like say, you know, it's a bit like during World War II, we cracked Enigma and it's like putting on Twitter, Hey, we can, we've got the Enigma now. Is it not a fear by saying so publicly that they've got access to this communication that the Russians might just change their codes or something?

[00:26:03] But again, maybe somebody knows something more than I do and the Russians have run out of codes. They don't have any new equipment. I don't know. It's a bit of a, it's just an interesting choice. I think to mention that so openly like with his sources and stuff, I was just very intrigued by that. I'll just say I raised an eyebrow when I read that. I have no idea what that all means really. Well, maybe it's a, maybe it's time to get Michael on the show here after we get back. Oh, you can, we've got to ask him. Yeah.

[00:26:32] That might be on the extra, extra shot that never gets aired. Yeah. But I don't know. It's the, for the extra shot after we stop recording. The bit that all the governments listen to with care, you know? Yeah. But yeah, no, it's a, no, it's a really great article. Oh, another thing that came out was the Spetsnats as well. The Russian elite forces, the Russian version of the SAS, you know, they, they didn't do

[00:26:59] anything during this coup other than protect the FSB building. And apparently two days before this mutiny stroke coup, they were ordered to protect the FSB building. So it's good to see that the FSB's priority is to itself in case the shit hits the fan. It's like any good omnipotent secret police, you know, at the very end there, uh, you know, I mean, at the end, Himmler was, Himmler was concerned with his own hide. You know, he was in a private's uniform trying to blend in.

[00:27:29] Please don't pay attention to me. Um, that's, that's what these guys do when the shit hits the fan, you know? Yeah. Well, we saw Purgosian sort of dodgy wig collection, et cetera. So obviously that mindset's there of when the shit hits the fan, you need to look like somebody else. Um, I still don't know whether those pictures that were shared were authentic or not, but, um, he did just look like Purgosian in terrible fancy dress at Halloween. But, uh, this is why I've always been a bit like, um, skeptical about costumes and makeup

[00:27:57] and that kind of Mission Impossible style mask thing. Um, but apparently, apparently the CIA do have some very good, um, kind of capabilities with disguising people. Um, uh, the, oh God, the name escapes me at the moment. Uh, is it Julia Mendes? Julia Mendes? Yes. She's written a book that I've still yet to read. And she, she talks about, um, she had a meeting with the president in total disguise and he had no idea that she was a woman.

[00:28:25] Um, and you know, that, that was a bit of a revelation to me because to me, I've always, I mean, I don't know, theatrical makeup and stuff's good when it's done by people who know what they're doing with a lot of time. Um, but believe you and me, it's very easy to spot really bad makeup real fast. And I've always been a bit skeptical about disguises, et cetera. Um, so yeah, I don't know. I've always, I've always been found it interesting, but Pregosian's disguises definitely, if I were looking for him, I would totally recognize him a mile off.

[00:28:54] Well, you know, if, if, if we're concerned about, this is a bit of an aside, but if we're concerned about like MAGA types here, you know, supporting the Russians, maybe we should show them more pictures of Pregosian in drag that might change their tune. You know? Yes, that's true. That is true. Cool. Well, I think that was a, that is a really great article. I do recommend people to read it and, uh, thank you for suggesting it because I think that was a really interesting one. Yeah.

[00:29:20] So while Putin struggles to stabilize his regime at home, his military has relaunched a concerted effort to cripple Ukraine's agricultural exports, which could cause skyrocketing food prices abroad and even lead to famine across the global South. G Captain Maritime News has a write up on the fallout from the Black Sea Grain Initiative's collapse and NATO's hesitance to intervene more directly to ensure these exports reach markets.

[00:29:45] It explains, Russia attacked Ukrainian ports after withdrawing from a UN-backed grain export deal with Kyiv, causing concerns about food prices and mass starvation. Russia considers all ships traveling to Ukraine as potential carriers of military cargo, making grain ships vulnerable to attacks in the Black Sea. Ukraine proposed rerouting grain ships through NATO waters, but the U.S. Navy rejected the idea, citing concerns of provoking Russia to escalate the war.

[00:30:12] Former admirals suggested NATO naval escorts and reflagging ships with the American flag for protection, but the U.S. Navy resisted. The U.S. Navy's willingness to protect ships in the Middle East, but not in the Black Sea, raises questions about its priorities. Ukraine also asked the UN to establish a system for reparations for damages caused by Russia's military aggression in its territorial waters. The situation raises questions about NATO's protection of its territorial waters and implications for maritime security and conflict escalation.

[00:30:42] Thoughts on this one? It's a bit tricky. Yeah. So, you know, this worldwide grain and fertilizers shortage, it affects a large proportion of Africa, apparently. And that's not a good thing. And I can only assume that Russian propaganda in Africa is now going to blame Ukraine and NATO for their actions there. You know, because there are a lot of people, I think, online last year in the early stages of war who were kind of downplaying the global significance of this dreadful war and kind

[00:31:10] of saying effectively it was just a European affair or that even worse, Europeans only cared about it because the Ukrainians are white. But, you know, Africa is being terribly affected by this and obviously with the effects of climate change as well. If you don't have fertilizers for crops, you can't grow stuff. And if you're not getting grain coming in, you can't, you know, feed people as well. So that is a big, big problem. And I think food security, I mean, I would love to do an episode on food security at some

[00:31:38] point because I think that is one of the big issues coming up in our lifetime. I'm hoping a lot later than sooner. But I mean, like, if we keep having lots of droughts, keep having lots of mass fires and things. I mean, like, if you look at what happened with Australia last year, not that Australia is a big exporter for us, at least. But I mean, if you saw what happened with all those fires and then had that happen, I don't know, in the United States, had that happen in other places.

[00:32:04] And it all happened pretty much at the same time that a food shortage could happen very fast. And, you know, with memories of COVID and stuff disappearing from the shelves very quickly, it's a bit worrying. And not that I want to become a prepper or anything, but maybe the preppers are right on that front. I don't know. Maybe I need to have a couple of bags of rice and grain just hidden away somewhere with my Uzi and God knows what else.

[00:32:28] But so one other thing that interested me that stood out in this article was that the it sounds like NATO ships have been targeted. It was Romanian NATO ships have already been targeted by the Russians. And NATO have apparently kind of played that down a bit. And to me, it's sort of showing that the Russians are very brazen about attacking NATO ships.

[00:32:55] They don't seem to care because we had that incident last year, last September, where the Russians kind of still debate about exactly what happened, but they kind of launched or dropped a missile in the vicinity of a British spy plane, a rivet joint that had like 18, 20 crew members of crew on board. And if they'd shot that down, that rivet joint down, that could have been a huge, huge international incident. And the Russians didn't seem to give a shit. And they've even attacked a drone as well.

[00:33:25] Didn't we learn from the, yeah, didn't we learn from the discord leaks that they actually tried to shoot it down? Yeah, you're right. We did. There was, yeah, yeah, we did learn that. I've completely forgotten that. Yes, we did actually learn that there was something about they actually purposely did that. So there's a, so there's a lot of caution on NATO's side. So the point I should get to is there is a lot of caution on NATO's side. Um, and I, and I kind of understand and partly agree with this caution, but at the same time, the Russians are being so brazen, they don't give up monkeys about attacking a NATO ship

[00:33:54] that maybe we should consider having a NATO escort with these ships. So then if the Russians are stupid enough to shoot at these ships, then they know they're gonna, you know, get consequences. Because I think it's the problem. Putin, I think Putin likes to kind of, um, poke, prod and sort of nibble away at these little areas and cause these niggles that then leads to allies and people fighting with each other.

[00:34:21] Um, and so he, and so he can kind of, kind of keep getting away with things. I think this is the problem. And Putin's strategy always seems to be that. I mean, you know, we've had endless, um, encroachments of NATO airspace over the years, even British airspace by Russian planes testing our, um, early warning systems and stuff. Yeah. We get out, you know, we had that a lot before the war. I don't know that happens so much now, but certainly before the Ukraine war, that would happen good few times a year.

[00:34:50] Um, where you'd get an article in the Telegraph or the son of like a Eurofighter with a Russian bear next to it and stuff. And so, you know, Russia is very brazen and I think maybe we need to find a way to meet that without it obviously escalating to the point where we completely regret it. Um, you know, the other option is to give Ukraine the ships and the submarines to do the job for NATO, which is kind of what we're doing with the war anyway.

[00:35:20] Maybe we can add an extra you to AUKUS, you know, cause what is an extra you between friends? You know, maybe we need some, uh, subs in Ukraine out that have the capability to sink a few Russian ships. Um, you know, I wouldn't lose any sleep over that if they're going to start doing that. Yeah. The scheme that the Ukrainians were kind of proposing is that I think NATO warships would escort these ships sort of from Ukrainian waters along the Black Sea coast through the

[00:35:47] territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey into the Bosphorus and then into the Med, right? So if these ships aren't in international waters in the Black Sea, you know, okay, they're safe, right? But I mean, I think this is a moment where we should call Russia's bluff. Yeah.

[00:36:13] And I think, you know, like the no flies in debate from about like a year ago, these operations are never going to be able to go. They're as simple as they seem to be on Twitter. Um, but you know, I think this might be a good role for the Turkish Navy.

[00:36:43] Yeah. I mean, I think Erdogan has decent relations with Putin, arguably better than any other NATO leader. Um, you know, the Black Sea is Turkey's backyard and I don't think Russia would dare touch them if there were Turkish warships escorting these ships to the Bosphorus. I don't, I don't think the Russians would, would go near them. I think that's a very good point actually. Yeah. At least the Turkish ships kind of have a natural reason to be in that area as well. So yeah, I think you're right. The Turkish are the perfect choice there for that because they have that natural reason to be in that area.

[00:37:13] Um, and yeah, Putin would probably be less likely to target those ships. Um, so yeah, something needs to happen because this is unacceptable, especially with, with the food security side of it as well. Um, I just think it's, we just need to keep finding ways to sort of push back against Putin because the more we let him, you know, give an inch and he'll take a mile and there's been too much that going on, um, especially with NATO playing all this down, um, from what

[00:37:42] that article was saying, that's quite frustrating to read actually. Cause, um, I would hope that NATO would at least just be honest and put the information out there and then have that debate. I mean, it's a bit like, um, you know, there's this sort of tendency in politics to sit on certain information just because they're concerned of how it's going to be interpreted and stuff. And I just think you need to put out the information and the consequences will be what

[00:38:10] they are in some situations. I mean, obviously there are times where secrecy is important or I get that. Um, but when stuff like this is going on, um, I just think the transparency is better in these situations because also every time NATO get caught covering up information, it's a great excuse for critics of NATO to kind of use it as an example. Okay. Uh, as, as of NATO, you know, lying, um, or covering stuff up. Yeah. So it's, it's very frustrating to read that. Yeah.

[00:38:40] And I think John Seifer and Mark Palmaropoulos have been sort of making this point a lot on Twitter recently, but like there needs to be sort of a shift in the thinking here that like, I think there's a good point to be made that instead of us fretting about provoking Russia, Putin needs to wake up worried about provoking NATO. Yeah. Yeah. And how do we do that? I don't know how we do that. You know, are we supposed to start penetrating their airspace? I don't know.

[00:39:10] How does one do that? Do we need to, um, uh, do a customary nuking of some small random Island that nobody's on? I don't know. What do you do? I don't know. That's interesting. I mean, yeah, I think, I think there are, there are moments where you just have to call bullshit. Like, no, we're going to get these ships out. Fuck you. Um, try us if you want. And I think Turkey is the perfect partner to do that. Yeah. Yeah, indeed. Otherwise, yeah. Otherwise it's sending the Marines, isn't it? That's technically not a declaration of war.

[00:39:39] If you send in your Marines, is it? You know, but yeah, that's not going to happen. Well, uh, I think this issue in the black sea, a real flashpoint potentially serves to further illustrate the urgency that many feel to bring the war to a close sooner rather than later. Uh, the longer drags on, the greater the likelihood that through some accident, miscalculation or desperation from Moscow, you could see NATO and Russian warships exchange fire. But this is primarily a land war.

[00:40:05] Uh, and so to end it, Ukraine must decisively degrade Russia's capabilities on the ground. Uh, this next piece in The Guardian by Jack Watling, a senior research fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, speaks to the frustration that bureaucracy, production constraints, and just plain lethargy from the West is unnecessarily prolonging the war. I'll sum it up. Uh, Ukrainian forces have been engaged in a challenging battle against heavily fortified

[00:40:31] Russian positions along the so-called Surovkin line to claim their territory, resulting in significant equipment and personnel losses on both sides. Russian troops are entrenched behind multiple layers of concrete, hardened positions, backed by artillery, attack helicopters, electronic warfare, and air defenses, making it difficult for Ukrainian forces to advance without suffering unsustainable losses. Despite these challenges, Ukrainian troops tend to win in close combat with the Russians, highlighting

[00:40:59] the importance of proper preparation for such engagements. The Ukrainian armed forces have longer-ranged, accurate heavy howitzers, giving them an advantage in counter-battery fire against the Russians. Western support has enabled Ukraine to gain an edge, but there have been some mistakes that need correction. Ukraine had requested specific assistance from its international partners, including artillery, engineering capability, tactical air defense, protective mobility, and collective and staff training.

[00:41:27] Western capitals provided some support, but engineering and tactical air defense assistance were lacking, and collective and staff training took time to set up. The delay in provoking Western tanks and IFVs, those are infantry fighting vehicles, to Ukraine gave Russian forces more time to build defenses, complicating the Ukrainian troops' task. It concludes, Western capitals need to take a longer-term view and make timely decisions, especially in expanding munitions productions, to maintain the advantages Ukraine currently enjoys

[00:41:57] and meet NATO's right in its targets. Chris, I think you flagged this one. What do you think? Yeah, well, I mean, a few standouts. I mean, one of the key ones, obviously, the Ukrainians are having to learn complex maneuvers and tactics under live fire, and, you know, learning on the job. In that situation, any mistake leads to death, and I've got nothing but admiration for the Ukraine forces and what they've achieved so far. From reading the article, it appears that, yeah, the US and NATO members are giving Ukraine just enough, but could be doing more.

[00:42:26] That's been said many a time by many people. Some have speculated that in Washington, it's because there's this concern of what a defeated Russia will look like and the consequences of that. And, yeah, we had a listener who reached out to us just after our last episode, and he brought up a point that we were both sort of scratching our heads about a little bit, about sort of how Russian forces would invade other countries in Europe.

[00:42:52] And we did see that there were Kremlin plans and projections for getting control of Belarus in roughly 10 years, and I think we covered that in March, didn't we? And at the moment, I do not honestly think that Russia has the capability to mount any more invasions of Europe, in Europe. But, you know, prior to the war, maybe, but certainly the war has totally decimated their

[00:43:17] forces, and I think even totally challenged our perceptions of what Russia's capability even is. And I definitely don't think there's the morale either, or the talent to mount any other significant operations in Europe at this time. You know, and I've said before, historically, Russian forces have tended to be reliant on brute force, and they still have the capability to win the war against Ukraine.

[00:43:41] So, you know, I think Washington do need to have a think about their, you know, their concern about what this sort of defeated Russia will look like. I think for me, it's sort of like, I've said this before, it's sort of like my concern is more about 15 to 30 years' time when, you know, post-defeated Russia, post-justice, post-all sorts of things. You know, where Russian forces have learned their lessons from this war and are better organized.

[00:44:10] That's what concerns me. And I think if we don't have a properly sort of defeated Russia and a proper peace and reconciliation sort of process, then that becomes much more likely. And then I think Russia is going to be much more dangerous than it currently is. And that's the thing. It's like that fear to avoid that, like, Weimar Germany dynamic that this is done, you know? Yeah.

[00:44:37] And I'm like a broken record on this, but, you know, we've seen World War II. There are clear lessons to be learned from how that we got to that point. And I, you know, as an older man or whatever, I don't have kids. I don't actually plan to have any kids. But I don't want my friend's grandchildren to be having to deal with Putin 2.0 with a much better equipped and, you know, less corrupt Russian military who have learned valuable

[00:45:04] lessons from their conflict with Ukraine and decide, yeah, we're going to take on NATO, etc. I really would like to see that avoided. You know, I think we've all got better things to be doing in our lives and have to deal with that. On a practical level, I think the White House and NATO should do all they can to give what Ukraine they need. One of the interesting things that came up, and funnily enough, my air show I went to just the other week, I had a conversation with a friend of mine about F-16s and why, you

[00:45:32] know, why was it so important to give the Ukrainians F-16s? Because I, in my mind, the Ukrainians have Russian jets at the moment. I believe they're Su-27s and 29s. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong on that. But they're, you know, pretty advanced Russian jets. But I still don't quite understand why there wasn't a process to buy up all the Russian jets other NATO members have, because other countries do have them, and give them to the Ukrainians as kind of a band-aid, because it would save time on training.

[00:46:02] Because then you're giving the Ukrainians equipment they already know how to use. Because one of the things that came up in this article is that NATO are kind of training Ukrainians in the NATO way, but the Ukrainians don't have full NATO integration. So why F-16s are a better choice in the long run is the F-16 has, basically it has access to the NATO fire control systems, which Ukraine's current jets do not have, and the Russian jets

[00:46:30] that they would get, in my scenario, would not have. And so there's this weird situation going on with arming Ukraine where they're getting some, they're getting NATO equipment with NATO fire control systems. But they've also got an awful lot of equipment that doesn't have NATO fire control systems. And it's this awkward thing of what to give people, because obviously the Ukrainians are all trained in what they know. But we're starting to give them other stuff for this sort of future NATO integration, which at the moment, in my mind, the NATO integration thing, at least to me, is a little bit less important.

[00:46:59] I think you need to give them stuff that they can use that can basically, to put it crudely, kill Russians and get their territory back from them. Um, and you need to give the Ukrainians what they know how to use, because every time you send a pilot away to, I don't know, America, Germany or Britain to train on an F-16, that's a Ukraine one pilot down. You know, over time, obviously, with the Ukrainians, Ukrainians being given F-16s and stuff, that's a fair point. But it's, it's, yeah, I think this article basically illustrates that there is this sort

[00:47:28] of conflicting thing going on between sort of the NATO way versus the Ukrainian way. And it feels like at the moment that the Ukrainians, to put it crudely, are being trained on Macintosh computers, but being given Windows 95 systems back in Ukraine to deal with. So, so it's, it's a messy thing, but there's no real easy answer in a, an emergency situation like this, is there? Well, I, I think to your point there, it sort of shows that, you know, I think while we've

[00:47:55] established on, on, on the last podcast that, you know, we believe that yes, Russia, not Ukraine deserves to be a NATO and should be a NATO. It's not simply a matter of saying, okay, now you're in, you know, like being in NATO is a huge comprehensive level of integration with the rest of the Alliance, you know, and this takes time, even under peacetime circumstances, it takes time to build up and to, you know,

[00:48:21] train and to, and to get to that level of readiness and just integration. And they're doing this in the middle of a massive shooting war, you know? Yeah. And, you know, like to your point about like pilots are much more valuable than the planes that they fly, you know, losing, losing them is like you, it, you can't just replace them, you know, the way you could build a new airplane. You can't just build a new seasoned combat pilot, you know?

[00:48:51] Well, yeah, so much skill required to fly a jet and then fly it and not just to fly it, but to fly it in combat and be effective. I mean, at that air show, I was at watching these F-16s and stuff. It's a lot of horsepower you've got to deal with and stuff. And yeah, no, total admiration for these pilots, really. I mean, I think also it's absolutely insane that Russian defenses are called the Syravacan

[00:49:16] line, named after a general who is now probably in a cell at Lafortevo prison, or conspiring with Grigozin, who meanwhile walks free. I mean, if that's just like just not knocking irony on the head and is a symbol for how this war has gone for them, I don't know. I thought that was so funny that that's what their defenses are called. I mean, I also think it says something heartening and pretty profound that Ukraine actually values

[00:49:42] its soldiers and won't waste their lives hurling them against these defenses like cannon fodder. I think that's really like the difference just between these two countries. This whole thing, it's a colossal logistical undertaking, and these difficulties aren't new. I mean, I remember like the Europeans really struggled to sustain themselves a couple weeks into the Libyan civil war, you know? So they had to rely on US for fuel and ammunition. And I think it's important that the Pentagon and NATO identifies and fixes these issues now,

[00:50:12] rather than in the middle of a major theater war in the Pacific. Yeah, yeah, indeed, indeed. Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned the war in the Pacific, because I've been looking at this new plans for amphibious planes as the US military have decided that they want to bring flying boats back and stuff. And there's even talk of maybe even bringing back the old style Catalina plane and doing a kind of revamped version of that. So it's all sorts of interesting things to consider, depending on who your adversary is and what kind of systems they need.

[00:50:42] The PLA just did a big live fire exercise, transporting troops across a body of water in these big like ferries. So you can imagine what that's for. Yeah, it's kind of worrying, isn't it? Yeah. All right. Well, that's what we're here for, to keep you awake at night, I think. You know, somebody once said to me, like, espionage is a bit like modern horror in a way, because there's so many terrible things around us. But yeah.

[00:51:10] Well, if you're having trouble sleeping, I'm sorry, but I don't think this next story will help you much at all. So while the Russian army's performance on the battlefield hasn't proven it to be the 1500 pound bear its recruitment ads claim, Russia's intelligence services have always been wickedly capable in disinformation, misinformation, psychological warfare, active measures, plug, etc. Going back to the KGB laundering conspiracy theories through third world newspapers.

[00:51:39] These operations are, of course, vastly cheaper than waging a full scale invasion. They're leaner, have fewer moving parts to break down, and if successful, can easily inflict more damage than any tank division. We saw this with the troll farms in 2016, with Brexit, with astroturf protests around COVID and Black Lives Matter, chipping away at the ability of ordinary people to perceive what is true and what is false, with the cynical aim that they'll either internalize these lies or give up and check out.

[00:52:07] Generative artificial intelligence, AI, takes this capacity to produce indistinguishable disinformation and blast it into the stratosphere. Going into 2024 and the elections here in the US, alarms are going off that the public, the press, the intelligence community aren't prepared to tackle this threat. And this just came up in a nomination hearing for the next NSA director. A Politico piece here by Maggie Miller breaks it down. Lieutenant General Timothy Ha, Joe Biden's nominee to lead the NSA and US Cyber Command,

[00:52:35] warned that generative AI technologies will likely pose a significant threat in the upcoming presidential election. Lawmakers in the House and Senate are scrambling to find ways to regulate and monitor the use of new AI technologies, particularly after past attempts by foreign hackers, including from Russia, to interfere in US elections. The increasing use of AI technologies, like OpenAI's chat GPT, has raised new challenges, particularly with regards to the proliferation of disinformation online.

[00:53:02] Senators from both parties showed significant interest in addressing AI-related problems during Ha's confirmation hearing, with China's use of AI for surveillance and monitoring cited as a worrying example. Chris, what say you? Well, I have such mixed feelings about AI. The more I think about it, the more its development feels like a slow motion car crash that was totally avoidable. And I do wonder sometimes that those who work on, you know, innovative technology really

[00:53:31] reflect or consider the consequences and put that before their own personal pride and ego. And there's a very good film about that that we'll talk about later. So AI, as helpful as it is, does feel like the next disruptive force that we're not ready for, a bit like the sudden rise of social media and how it allowed destructive disinformation to spread. And, you know, I dread to think how AI is going to be used in the 2024 election, because all we need is a fake video akin to the Hillary Clinton email scandal or Trump admitting to

[00:54:00] grabbing women's genitals in the day of the election that could totally change and sway the vote. And then it could be weeks later before it's revealed whatever this thing was, was a fake. And the election would not be reversed because of that, you know. And I think schools and even employers need to be promoting digital literary skills more. They're not already. I think they really need to make that a priority,

[00:54:25] because I meet so many people who have very poor digital literacy skills. And what I mean by that is they seem to have the inability to Google the author of an article that they're reading that has an emotional response with them. And they don't sort of look into the background of the author and their experience, what they've written before, what other people have said about them, which is basic empiricism. Empirical analysis is something I learned at university when I did my dissertation.

[00:54:52] And it was one of the many things that really helped me get out of conspiracy theories. And I do recommend people, if they aren't familiar with how to do that, to really look into that. Because the future is going to become a lot more uncertain in many ways with this technology. And what governments say will become a lot more cloudy. And I just think it's very concerning. And we've seen the damn movies about it.

[00:55:20] That's why I call it a slow motion car crash, because it's not like we haven't warned ourselves or be warned. I mean, even James Cameron came out the other day to say he'd warned us with the Terminator. And he's not wrong, really. On the plus side, obviously, AI has the capability to make our lives easier. And I do use it. I use it to edit my own writing, check my grammar. I've used it on this podcast to help with edits, even though I've found, actually, that AI tends to make the job harder. And still, it doesn't really save me any time. I use it for this script.

[00:55:50] Well, yeah, I do use it for the Espresso Martini scripts. And it does help, because to get an article down to bullet points, it's very helpful. Because, I mean, the scripts of this episode, what was yours? Mine are usually about between 10 to 16 pages in the end for each episode. I think this is like, I think this, including Extra Shot, I think it's like 13-ish. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I didn't use ChatGPT to just write the whole thing. I mean, part of it is clearly in my voice.

[00:56:20] But, you know, like these bullet points and summaries of stuff, it just saves time and it's easier. Yeah, yeah. Just to get the key points from an article and be able to read it back to people, that's what I use ChatGCP for. It's sort of the bozo work. I still have to read the article, because I read each article about two or three times. So, part number one, just to read it so I understand it. Two, to do the ChatGCP and make sure ChatGCP hasn't fucked it completely up.

[00:56:44] And then three, to get my thoughts gathered with what the article means and read around the article a bit too, you know. So, it is helpful. And for me personally as well, you know, I have dyslexia, so my grammar is pretty terrible sometimes. And so, I find things like Grammarly, which is an AI tool as well, is a very useful bit of kit. Much better than Microsoft Word. And, you know, for grammar and spelling,

[00:57:15] that has made my life so much easier, because I hate to admit it, but that's my area of total weakness as a writer. You know, so when writing, all my stuff's got lots of red lines all over it, which I have come to the thing of, I'll deal with that later. You know, I'll get to the point. So, yeah. So, one other thought, I'll just sidetrack myself there, my use of AI. But I think there does need to be some sort of international debate and agreement on this, akin to maybe the START treaty.

[00:57:45] You know, maybe AI should be treated a bit like nuclear weapons. Maybe I'm going a bit over the top there. But it has a lot of dangerous potential. And it's dangerous on many levels, because I think one of my, like many people, I mean, we've seen a lot of, you know, there's a lot of unemployment floating around now. And some of that at the moment, and it's going to grow, is because certain jobs are now starting to become automated. We've seen it over the years with, like,

[00:58:14] when I used to go to my bank 10 years ago, it used to be full of staff. And now my bank is more just two or three members of staff, a lot more automatic sort of checking points. Same with the supermarket. A lot more self-checkouts than there are actual checkouts. And I kind of feel like that maybe because you're doing the work of a checkout person, maybe you should get at least 10% off your bill. But there we go. That's another debate there. And I think there should be a robot tax too, but that's a whole other thing.

[00:58:43] So, yeah. But even if we, so if we don't have an international agreement, the other problem is that what will happen is, you know, in the West, we will probably be a bit more, well, I like to think we'll be a bit more cautious about its use, but near-state competitors might be less cautious, like Russia, for example, with their disinformation and things like that. Now, I could be biased and wrong putting it that way, but I kind of feel like certain countries are more likely to exploit it for bad things than others. I mean, undoubtedly,

[00:59:13] I'm sure our intelligence services use AI for all sorts of things too. I feel like AI has kind of become inflicted on us without a debate as a society. I feel like technology has progressed in such a way where we just sort of slowly adopt things, but we don't talk about it. The same with sort of social media and even smartphones. They just appeared on the market, but there was no real debate about it until it started doing things that we weren't happy about. So with smartphones and social media, we've had debates about digital privacy,

[00:59:42] but we've had those debates 10 years too late, and a lot of those debates were too focused on government and not private corporations. I mean, I'm talking about Snowden here. The Snowden revelations, what the big point that Snowden never brought up, and none of his allies did, was the fact that companies like Google have far more data on you, and it's far more invasive, and even actually listens to you, at least via Alexa, for certain keywords that the NSA would never do and never be able to do

[01:00:11] because of all the legal sort of steps to stop them from doing that, but there are less legal steps for private companies. So I think AI is a bit like a Trojan horse. We've got to be really careful with it. I'll get off my soapbox. Well, if you want an interesting story, true story about using AI to help develop this script, so the previous article about, you know, the assistance to the Ukrainians and stuff, I fed that into ChatGPT and just said,

[01:00:40] you know, give me a few bullet points, top line summary about its key points, you know, and it did that, but then it said at the bottom, this is an article about a fictional scenario, so you should be, you know, cautious about fully believing what it says, and it did that because ChatGPT has no knowledge of current events past 2021. You're right. So it does not know about the invasion of Ukraine, and it said, yeah, this is an article about a fictional scenario.

[01:01:10] Oh, ChatGP, all the days of when this was all fiction, you know, back in the good old days. You know, yeah. But I mean, if you really want to get freaked the hell out here, okay, so if I'm Putin, I've realized by now that I can't militarily defeat Ukraine against the support NATO provides, and this is an existential dilemma for me, right? Like if I lose this war, I'm likely to be like killed, but I could still shatter NATO by working to put Trump back in office, right?

[01:01:40] And it would be a lot cheaper than losing half of my military in Ukraine. So, I mean, so, okay, so I'm just kind of spinning this scenario up on the fly here, but relatively inexpensive and easy to do with AI, with a combination of AI and a, you know, rebuilding a replica of the upstairs White House residents on a soundstage somewhere, putting that all together with AI to produce what purports to be

[01:02:07] a sort of grainy kind of cell phone video as if it was a Secret Service agent or a White House resident staff sort of snuck it in, a video of Joe Biden in bed in the White House, hooked up to all kinds of tubes and monitors in like a full-on, like, dementia. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And released that a couple days before the election. Yeah. We can even release a video of him dying on the day of the election. He has a heart attack or something. You know, because people go on about Joe Biden's age

[01:02:37] and he is, was he 79, B80, I think, next year. So obviously, it is a bit of a concern for people, but I could just see a video of him, I don't know, clutching his chest in the White House and falling over on the Resolute desk or whatever. And it would take hours for even the government to even notice that it's gone out for them to issue, say, well, we have to have like live cameras of all the presidents waiting to be re-elected just to prove that they haven't been... Yeah,

[01:03:05] like a Truman Show kind of shit to show that like he's actually not dead. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a bigger problem with this is, so you could release that video and then have, you know, the White House bring him out immediately like, nope, here he is, it's fake. But people's media literacy is so shit anymore, you know, that if they, if they want to believe something, they will. Yeah, totally. Even if it makes zero sense logically. And this,

[01:03:34] this is our illness. Right. And be fully discredited, nope, like they could actually bring Joe Biden out like, nope, it's fake. I'm fine. And you'll still have at least, I think probably close to 40% of the country still being like, I don't believe that. I think, you know, that's an actor that's on Tyler Perry soundstage. And it's, and people question sometimes why we talk about this in the podcast, because this is a clear threat to democracy. You know, I think actually digital literacy or the lack of it is a threat to democracy.

[01:04:02] And I think we may unfortunately see it and its consequences massively next year. We've already kind of seen it. We've seen it with the rise of, we already have far right politics and things like that. Um, and with the January 6th attack, which apparently we somehow predicted on the show many years ago, but well, predicted a sort of scenario like that. But yeah. So we, we, we kind of already have here. I mean, a couple of weeks ago, there was a, uh, Ron DeSantis's campaign, put out a radio ad in Iowa

[01:04:31] that used, uh, an AI generated Trump voice saying something. I forget exactly what it was, but an AI generated version of Trump saying something right on this radio ad in Iowa. There was another video. Um, and this is more, you know, really beggars belief, but there was a video that someone did of, um, with AI of Hillary Clinton on MSNBC endorsing Ron DeSantis. So we've already seen it. Like you, you,

[01:05:01] you will see it in this election cycle. Um, I mean, I don't know that it's going to be something as, as dangerous as, you know, that scenario with Biden that I just said, but like, it's going to happen. And I think it's not so much, the issue isn't so much the, the technology, it's the gullibility and the idiocy and the ignorance of us that makes it dangerous. Yeah. Well, this is it. And, and I was listening to an interview of Malcolm Nance ages ago. He was talking about how

[01:05:30] within the Russian intelligence service and these troll farms that they run, that they have literally, well, there's groups of people responsible for each country. And they have like desks for each state and each region. And each person at those desks becomes an expert and all the petty issues that are going on in that target country in those states and in those towns. And their job is to create assets that will basically play to those petty issues and piss people off.

[01:06:00] So you can bet right now as we're having this conversation that there is somewhere, some, somewhere there is a troll factory where there are individuals who are probably creating assets in anticipation for next year or they're planning what assets they will create. Like we do, I do on like shoots and stuff. I have in the past worked on shoots for Christmas that you usually film in the summer because you need time to do all that. And they've been planned back in the following January, the previous January and things like that.

[01:06:29] So there are people out there probably having meetings about what kind of assets can we create? What do we need to create these things? There are probably even people testing out fake videos of Biden dying in the White House or snorting cocaine off the desk, the Resolute Desk or whatever, you know. You name all sorts of things that will piss off American voters on the day of the election and make them vote for not Biden, you know. And so it's going to be very interesting

[01:06:59] and I'm just, yeah, I'm concerned. I'm very concerned. Yeah. So thank you for bringing that up. This is a subject I, yeah, this is a subject I really want to, I really want to get into in the fall with a show that I've been planning for a while and has gotten pushed back for various reasons. But in the fall, we're going to get into this big time. Well, I think that about wraps up our show today or at least half of it. Links for all the articles we covered are in the show notes. We'll be continuing

[01:07:29] with Extra Shot over on Patreon. So if you're a subscriber, we shall see you there shortly. And if not, why not? Like it's only like five bucks, right? Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cheap. So no. So yeah, please do consider subscribing because obviously you'll be directly supporting this show and you'll have our undying gratitude. And if you're lucky, you'll get a free cup or a coaster. So, you know. So yeah, I mean, what else do you have to do? Patreon.com forward slash Secrets and Spies.

[01:07:58] Come listen to us ramble for another hour. Oppenheimer, Bond, smartwatches spying on you. It'll be fun. But alas, if not, we thank you very much for listening to Espresso Martini. Enjoy the rest of your summer or winter for our friends down under. And we'll see you in September. I got a feeling there'll be mountains for us to dig through when we return. Yes. Yes, indeed. If you have any questions, suggestions, statements of outrage, feel free to shoot us an email at secretsandspies at gmail.com. Drop us a review as well

[01:08:28] on your streaming app of choice. It really helps. But maybe keep the statements of outrage in an email though. Chris, where else can folks find us? Yeah, we can find us on Twitter. Just go to at secretsandspies. We are now on threads, which is also at secretsandspies. And we're also on Instagram, which is also at secretsandspies. You can see my Royal International Air Tattoo photographs on there and various other sort of spy-related photos that I come up with on my random

[01:08:57] sort of amblings around London. So yeah. All right. Well, thanks, Chris. Thanks again for listening, everybody. Thank you, everybody. Take care. And we will catch you in September. And if not, we'll catch you on extra shot. Take care. Bye. Thanks for listening. Mrs. Secrets and Spies.

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