The Pentagon's Deep-Cover Plans, Israel's Deadlock, and China's Spaceplane | Espresso Martini

[00:00:04] Secrets and Spies presents Espresso Martini with Chris Carr and Matt Fulton. Hello everybody and welcome to Espresso Martini. Matt, how are you? I'm good Chris, how are you? I'm on my third cup of coffee today. Oh wow. So I don't know what you're up to.

[00:00:33] I'm on my fourth, but this one... Oh shit, you got me beat. I know. This one is my homemade pumpkin spice latte. Okay. I'll try to tip the cup too much, but you can kind of just see it on my camera. This is my autumnal drink of choice. And if we ever get invited to the CIA to go to their Starbucks, I would like to order one of those, but we'll see what happens. All right. So I'm very pleased myself for making that.

[00:00:58] And I bought a big thing of pumpkin spice syrup and I didn't realize how big it was until it arrived. And it's now probably about four years worth of syrup for, you know, so it'll keep me going. Does it expire? I don't believe so. Because it's just sugar, isn't it? So I think it should be all right, but I'll double check. If it does expire, then I might have to have a pumpkin spice latte party or something. Yeah. You gotta just keep at it, you know? Yeah. Can't let that go to waste.

[00:01:29] So yeah. So that's me. Highly caffeinated. I did have one decaf out of my four coffees, so maybe it's not that bad. I don't know. That's what I like to tell myself, but there we go. There's no decaf in this department actually. I don't have any. Oh, well, there we go. Maybe you need some. But yeah. So yeah. But decaf latte is a quite a nice thing to do sometimes, but decaf on his own. Not so great. Anyway, that's coffee. We digress. We'll talk about spies and things. Yes, we do digress. So today's episode, we've got quite a lot going on in this one.

[00:01:57] So we've got a new secret Pentagon espionage and sabotage agency, which Matt's going to tell us about in a minute. We've got the MI5 director's speech. We have some information about the Israeli elections, which are still kind of ongoing. So that one is a sort of bit of a moving target, as we put it. And we've got some Russian diplomats have been expelled from Vienna. That was quite an interesting one. And if we have time, there's been some really interesting new imagery of China's space plane that's been doing the rounds on the internet.

[00:02:27] And so we will do our best to talk about that as well. We're going to make some time because I want to talk about that. Yeah, yeah, we will. We will make time. Cool. We have the caffeine to get us through it. So I hope everybody listening has the caffeine. We do. We do. We got the time. The schedule's cleared. The cat at so far has stepped away and is no longer threatening to cause shit while we're recording. So we got, we are good to go. Okay. Good. Well, there we go. So talk to us about this Pentagon sabotage agency. Yes.

[00:02:53] So it's about, we're following sort of two stories here that are kind of both shed some interesting light on this. So last week within a day of each other, the Washington Post and Politico published two stories that read together, say a lot about the new aggressive direction. The Pentagon spy apparatus is headed. The first from Zach Dorfman and Warren Strobel at the post reports that the Pentagon is planning its own deep cover spy program.

[00:03:20] Officers would pose as business people with no official cover and no diplomatic immunity as the covert arm of its economic warfare against China and other rivals. The post says it's still in the planning stage. And the second from Politico is about a new agency supposedly called the technology support office or TSO, which by the way, is a, is, is just such a great, like vague Pentagonese agency name for a spooky secret squirrel stuff that they don't want to get out.

[00:03:48] It's always called, it's always called anodyne stuff like that. Yeah. Anywho, I digress again. That was set up by a memo in April. And according to Politico sources, it's built to sabotage rivals military technology, hacking tools, supply chain interference, and deception operations meant to get adversaries to install faulty parts. Both run through the same two men, deputy defense secretary, Steve Feinberg and his senior advisor, Tom Rockasson, who used to run the CIA's clandestine service.

[00:04:18] He was deputy director for operations for a bit under, under Obama. Yeah. Under Trump's first term and into not Obama into Biden rather Pentagon sent both outlets, the same statement, word for word, saying their questions were built on information that was, quote, simply not true. That sits a little awkwardly next to TSO turning up by name in that department's own records. Not everyone inside the DOD and intelligence community is thrilled.

[00:04:45] One former CIA official told the Post that Rockasson, quote, just wants to build his own CIA down in the Pentagon. And Cyber Command and SOCOM, Special Operations Command, reportedly objected to TSO taking precedent over their own budgets, especially on like hacking operations and stuff. And by both accounts, Congress has been told very little. So Chris, what do you, what do you think about this? Wow. Yeah, this is interesting.

[00:05:12] I mean, just as you're talking, I was just thinking to myself, does America need another agency? Because how many have you got now? Is it like 17? What is it? 18? 18 official agencies in the IC. I don't think this would count as like, this wouldn't count as one of those. This would be like some quiet sap way down under the Undersecretary for Intelligence and Security. Yeah. Well, I do, I do like it's anodyne name. If that's what it's going to be called, the technology support office, it does sound like a branch of IT. Mm-hmm.

[00:05:41] And yeah, as the article kind of pointed out, the Politico one mainly, the unit sort of a merging of two existing departments. So in theory, this should make like the operations more efficient and potentially save money. But the capability itself therefore is not entirely new. And it's just simply kind of operating under one roof. But on the one hand, I can see the value of an agency like the TSO within the military. But on the other, anything involving kind of Pete Hegseth does not fill me of confidence. Mm-hmm.

[00:06:08] The TSO appears to offer a capability designed for wartime, which is clearly within the Pentagon's remit. But I feel like it's sort of a slippery slope that the unit operates without proper oversight and safeguards. So aggressive covert operations conducted outside of an actual war could trigger complicated diplomatic disputes, which strike me as sort of things that the people running this are not too interested in. And it could even worst case provoke some sort of kinetic response.

[00:06:34] Some may argue that the US and West are largely on the receiving end of aggressive cyber operations at the moment. Increasingly, obviously, Russian sabotage in Europe. And that we need this capability to sort of push back in kind. Some may also argue we already have this capability. But sort of striking that right balance now in how proportionally to respond is delicate. And I'm kind of concerned that this nuance might get lost amid this sort of chest thumping

[00:06:59] at the Pentagon via Pete Hegseth, who took over Secretary of Defense and then renamed the position Secretary of War. So yeah, I kind of feel like there's some things going on there. One other thing as well, like the prospect of these officers operating abroad under non-official cover also strikes me as risky because if those individuals are caught, they could face lengthy prison sentences. Worst case, they could also get tortured. They could get in extreme cases even executed.

[00:07:27] Probably quite rare, but that potentially could happen. You know, CIA officers, by contrast, typically operate under diplomatic cover, which then provides certain protections. And there was some stuff in the article as well about how the CIA apparently sort of been phasing back their kind of non-official cover operations. There was some stuff there, which was kind of interesting. A lot of that cadre has been aging out for a while and just to maintain that cover and placement overseas is just getting increasingly difficult. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:07:57] So maybe there's an appetite to getting lost for that type of capability. And this is where the TSO could kind of swoop in, but it's not about its risks. It's not about its risks at all. So we'll see. We'll see where this goes. What are your thoughts on that? Well, I want to back up here a bit. DoD and CIA have historically meant different things by non-official cover or like NOC, right? That's the acronym. Yeah. DoD has done human for a bit through DIA and everything that we could talk about as well.

[00:08:26] But when you think of DoD's NOCs, right? Typically that's in recent history come under JSOC and their expeditionary intelligence arm. It's most usually referred to as the ISA, the intelligence support activity inside JSOC. You'll often hear it referred to as Task Force Orange or TFO.

[00:08:50] In Pentagonese, its last sort of official name that I heard was the first capabilities integration group and its code word at the time of October 7th was Titan Zeus. I'm assuming that's been changed since then. However, under that sort of expeditionary intelligence gathering mission that TFO has had, usually you'll see their NOCs are operatives that go in under commercial cover or as tourists.

[00:09:19] Often you'll see some of these, these officers are like actually like married to each other, right? So we'll like go in as tourists to a country under that cover. And they go in for a specific operation to collect intelligence against a particular target. That's hard to get otherwise, or to prepare the ground, like a shaping operation for a specific raid or whatever that JSOC is going to be doing or intelligence that they need gathered in support of planning an operation, right?

[00:09:46] You'll see a lot of that stuff in like Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Mexico right now, for sure. Or that's definitely going on there. Compare that to the CIA's model historically, which is sort of what you think of more traditionally as being like a NOC under non-official cover, which is officers who live overseas under cover for years, often in or near hostile countries.

[00:10:12] So like, let's say if there is a NOC in a position under a commercial position who lives in say, I don't know Dubai or Istanbul or whatever, that for some reason gives them proximity and access to sources in Iran, right? So they won't live in Iran because the that's far too dangerous and tough on that officer, right? So they would live outside of it in a third country, you know, in Dubai or Istanbul or something

[00:10:41] and travel in once in a while as needed or otherwise sort of collect intelligence when their agent comes out of Iran to Dubai or Istanbul, right? Yeah. Similar to what Malatru did in Le Bureau, the French version of the agency. So he, if I remember correctly, he was like posing as an academic, I think living in Syria or something and it would give him access to stuff. Yeah. And people. Yeah. That's a good, that's a good example for sure. Neither article here says which model the Pentagon intends to use.

[00:11:12] Of course, DOD's past precedent points to that sort of JSOC model of a NOC coming in and out. I would imagine. It's easier to build legends against, you know, in some ways rather than something very specific one off rather than trying to keep someone overseas embedded for long periods of time. But there's also some counter signals to that. So the mission that they're talking about here argues more for the CIA's model of a NOC, right?

[00:11:38] So if you're collecting economic intelligence on Chinese AI models, biotechs, chip firms, right? That's an access problem that you measure in years, right? You know, unless it's something very specific, like some sort of expeditionary cyber operation, right? That you need to get into like an air-gapped network or steal something and then you can send someone into, I don't know, Singapore or Thailand or Cambodia or what have you,

[00:12:08] right? Collect what you need to get, do what you need to do, get out rather than staying there all the time. Yeah. Yeah. Also, there's Tom Rokasan who is officially a special advisor now for the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, right? He was formally, of course, at CIA, the deputy director for operations.

[00:12:34] He features prominently in Tim Weiner's book, The Mission, right? That talks about, you know, the CIA and their operations in support of Ukraine and against Russia after the election. I'm paraphrasing how he's quoted in Tim's book, but he famously, after the 2016 elections, sort of rallied his troops at CIA and said, and again, I'm paraphrasing here. He said, you know, the Russians, they meddled in our fucking elections.

[00:13:04] What are we going to do about it? And up until 2025, he, you know, when he left and him leaving CIA, CIA was pursuing that, you know, that mission to take revenge against the Russians for 2016, which led to them, you know, the US and UK, British intelligence stealing the war plans for Ukraine and exposing that, right?

[00:13:30] So he's, he's the guy responsible for that, which part of me is nervous about even raising that on the air, thinking like someone under Hegseth will hear that and kick him out, you know, that he cared about the 2016 elections and the Russians role in it. I don't know. Maybe we should just bleep which elections. Right. So he's a, he's a career guy, very serious, a career CIA guy.

[00:13:58] I not anything that I know or have heard, you know, a Hegseth clown, you know? So there's that to be, you know, kind of more calm about, but you know, this always there's, I think in general, as far as invigorating our clandestine operations against China, especially

[00:14:25] when it comes to economic warfare and everything, I think we've been bringing a knife to a gunfight here for far too long. And it's time we stop that shit. Yeah. The MSS and other Chinese intelligence agencies, you know, basically looting anything that isn't bolted to the ground as they have been for, for decades. Now I'm all about returning some of that stuff in kind.

[00:14:48] There's a lot of uncertainties here, you know, historically the whole model of using non-official cover to support intelligence operations is really difficult and getting more difficult, especially operating inside China. And I would, I would guess that some of these plans that they're drawing up don't call to have knocks placed inside China itself. That just seems kind of just asking to get people killed for no real good reason at all.

[00:15:18] You'll probably see they'll be in like, you know, third countries in Asia or wherever else, Africa, potentially where they can get close to these supply chains and everything and have, have an impact in, in that way. I also think just cause this stuff is really hard, doesn't mean you shouldn't try to do it. You know, I'm, I lean towards thinking that this is, you know, of course is, is it, is it great that it

[00:15:45] was exposed in the post and, and, and Politico if I was inside these programs? No, I wouldn't be happy to see that. But nevertheless, here we are. I am more hopeful and not really freaked out and against this stuff. So long as it remains above board and isn't doing stupid stuff and Congress is briefed and in the loop as, as is appropriate. Yeah. For them, you know, there's precedent for also like, well, this is going to be really controversial within the IC in general,

[00:16:14] as it always is when the Pentagon tries to sort of step on the CIA's traditional role for human intelligence collection. Mm. This got really big in, in the run up to and directly after the Iraq war with Rumsfeld and Mike Flynn creating the strategic support branch, you know, which was sort of the last time the DOD really tried to make themselves independent and not entirely reliant on the CIA's human intelligence collection.

[00:16:42] You know, so that's, that was really controversial and did not show great returns there. And Congress, I believe at one point, even sort of statutorily limited how much human intelligence collection DIA could even do compared to CIA.

[00:17:03] And of course there have been fights for years about, you know, like chiefs of stations, like the head, you know, U S intelligence community person running operations out of an embassy. Historically, of course, that's always been a CIA official. There was for a while a push to sort of diversify that to other agencies in the IC and that, that kind of got quashed a bit.

[00:17:26] Question. Have you seen any, have you seen any reaction from any of the people who swim in our circles on, on X and blue sky? Only somewhat being flummoxed that it probably potentially leaked. That's all I can say. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Fair enough. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. Well, is there anything else I'd like to add on that? Cause I think, yeah, I don't think there's much else for me to say, but yeah, no, it's, it's definitely one to pay attention to.

[00:17:52] I don't know how often we're going to even see stuff like this or hear, hear about it, which is probably a good thing, but probably, you know what? I would bet after, after the midterm starting next year, there's going to be within the house and Senate intelligence communities, a lot of interest in this stuff. Some of it's going to be quite skeptical and, and adversarial, not without reason. You know, this is, this is controversial.

[00:18:21] Well-intentioned, smart people are going to come down on different sides of even trying this in theory, in principle. Yeah. I think, I think when it comes to economic warfare and the supply chains issues around China, we should punch them in the face repeatedly as often as we can. Do it responsibly and within the letter of U S law, of course, but I'm not against trying to get serious about this just because it, you know, steps on toes and everything and isn't guaranteed success, but it's complicated. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, thank you for that, Matt.

[00:18:50] Well, let's take our first break. We'll be back with more. If you're enjoying this podcast, please consider becoming a patron subscriber. Go to patron.com forward slash secrets and spies, and you'll get access to the ad free versions of this show. Thank you for your support.

[00:19:20] Welcome back, everybody. So our next story is about the MI5 director's speech. So I'm just going to tell us a little bit about that. So in his annual threat update, MI5 director general Ken McCallum has warned that the UK faces an increasingly complex national security environment with threats from hostile states, terrorism, cyber attacks, and emerging technologies becoming more interconnected.

[00:19:45] One of the central messages of his speech is that MI5 is expanding its focus beyond identifying and disrupting threats to making the UK more resilient. The agency has formally established protection as a third core mission alongside counterterrorism and countering state threats. The aim is to make the country harder to attack and better able to withstand disruption. Russia, unsurprisingly, remains a major concern.

[00:20:13] McCallum describes an increase in hostile activity, including sabotage, cyber attacks, and the use of criminal proxies to carry out operations, which we've talked about. And then Iran is also accused of using criminal networks to intimidate opponents and target individuals and organizations on British soil.

[00:20:32] Meanwhile, China continues to present a significant espionage and interference challenge, particularly through attempts to acquire sensitive research and technology and to influence the democratic process. The speech also highlights the changing nature of terrorism within the UK. Islamist extremists remain a threat, but MI5 is increasingly concerned about far-right radicalization, particularly among young people.

[00:20:58] Because, yeah, we had a case recently where a 13-year-old was charged with terrorism offenses. Yeah, they talked about that in here. Yeah, yeah, crazy, crazy. It is crazy, yeah. So, McCallum notes online platforms can accelerate the journey from grievance to violent intent, whilst hostile states can exploit existing social divisions to undermine public confidence and weaken social cohesion. Artificial intelligence is another major theme.

[00:21:23] McCallum warns that AI is already changing the capabilities available to hostile states and terrorists, from cyber operations to planning attacks. He also raises concerns about the potential misuse of AI in developing biological weapons. The launch of a new AI threat assessment center reflects the growing importance MI5 places on understanding and countering these risks. And then finally, McCallum argues that national security cannot be left to intelligence agencies alone.

[00:21:51] Businesses, universities, technology companies, and the public all have a role to play in protecting sensitive information, strengthening cybersecurity, and making critical infrastructure more resilient. So, the overarching message is that the UK is facing a sustained period of security challenges in which traditional espionage terrorism, technological change attempts to divide society increasingly overlap. MI5's response is not to simply identify threats and prevent attacks, but to strengthen the country's ability to withstand them.

[00:22:21] So, I think those are kind of positive messages there. But, Matt, any thoughts from your side? Not enough focus on the really insidious role that social media algorithms play as an accelerant in the radicalization process. You know, it doesn't – like, these algorithms don't need to, like, manufacture an extremist. And, like, if you look at it objectively, like, they don't.

[00:22:45] You know, like, there has to be something else there, like, some germ, some little spark at first, you know? But then it takes it and it builds it and it speeds that up, that timeline in a way that really wasn't there before. Yeah. You know, it, like, needs to find first the isolated, angry, or, like, violence-curious kid and give them this endless supply of this slop,

[00:23:10] plus a community that supports them in doing so and makes them feel that they're not alone and there's some sort of, like, permission structure to actually operationalizing it, you know? And, of course, to McAllen's point also, like, that requires really a whole of society effort and probably – I mean, I would say a whole effort of Western governments,

[00:23:33] but right now there's a big issue with that, so let's just pare that back to just say, you know, European regional governments for now. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah. I agree with that. I think this is the elephant in the room in some respects that no government seems to have the balls to tackle. So I went to see The Social Reckoning just two weeks ago.

[00:23:56] And one of the main points in that film is about how Facebook basically kind of profited and also kind of encouraged and pushed, sorry, extremist content to people so they would engage with it and stay on the platform longer and that leads to their profits. And they did it knowingly. It's almost a bit like – it reminded me of The Insider where tobacco companies learned that their product was addictive,

[00:24:21] but they didn't want to do anything about it because they knew as soon as they deal with that, the product will, you know, will die out slowly. Brilliant film. Brilliant analogy there, yeah. With the cigarette companies, yeah. Yeah, and this is the thing. And nobody – no government so far, even our current Labour government, as much as I appreciate a lot of what Andy Burnham's saying, the Prime Minister at the moment, even he's not really doing enough to tackle this and governments are too slow. I mean, somebody – I don't remember where this came up the other day.

[00:24:50] We were talking about – somebody was talking about AI and they were expressing concern that it took governments 20-odd years to just deal with social media. So will it take 20 years to deal with AI? We don't have that. It's – no. It's a big issue. And I think technology companies need to take responsibility and they need to be made to take responsibility. Yeah. They need to be forced to. There is no other – we don't expect Boeing to certify their own aircrafts that they're safe to fly.

[00:25:19] We don't expect drug companies to certify their own medication is safe and does what it claims to do. You know, why do we allow it with these people? And to that point, you know, if the fines for transgressions on this stuff is essentially a parking ticket to these companies, then there's no fines. There's no enforcement at all. I think we need to hack these people apart over this stuff. Definitely. Definitely. I have one other maybe controversial suggestion which I'll throw out there just because I can't.

[00:25:50] Because the individual who's sharing stuff on social media, in my mind, that's not really too different from broadcasting and being a broadcaster. And there are already existing things in place in the UK at least about broadcasting with Ofcom. And broadcasters have to adhere to a certain standard and they don't – they get fined or they get in trouble. I think individuals should also fall under that. I think that is draconian.

[00:26:18] But I think that if you were made to – you know, if you get penalized for knowingly sharing nonsense, I think there should be some sort of penalty for that. See, that would be – you're talking about the individual users falling under Ofcom guidelines rather than just like the social media companies. Oh, the social media companies should also fall into this. But I think also the user. Right. As like a publisher. Yeah.

[00:26:45] But I think the user themselves also should fall under this category of being a publisher. Because I think that would change social media. It might even kill social media to be honest with you. Yeah. Not a bad thing at this point. But I'm getting to the point where I think that because people hide – especially people who are abusive – hide behind their anonymity on there. That they can get away with so much stuff. But if you were made to be – it's you as you – you know, publicly known that you say this. A bit like going on LinkedIn.

[00:27:14] A lot of the time people on LinkedIn behave more responsibly. Well, there's also – there's user verification on there. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Like you kind of – you have to use like government ID to prove that you are who you are. And, you know, there isn't really a bot problem on – there's a lot of problems on LinkedIn for sure. A bot problem isn't really one of them per se. I sadly think we've got to that point because we've had social media for 20 years pretty much. And it's not getting any better. Genuine societal evil it has become, I think. Yeah.

[00:27:42] President Obama the other day gave a talk in Glasgow and he brought up a point about how he feels social media is actually very damaging to society. And then somebody wrote a counterpoint that were also institutions abusing their authority in society also contributes to that, which I get too. But I think now we're at a point where we've had this for 20 years and the free market, if you want to put it that way, is not fixing it. And they're profiting off this thing.

[00:28:08] And they've even profited off conspiracy theories for a long time and made conspiracy theorists very wealthy people. And frankly, it's damaging our society. And I think somebody needs to do something about that. So I hear you totally. And I don't disagree in theory. I think you're describing – I don't know if it worked. Yeah. Would never work here.

[00:28:33] I think it's possible that you – their First Amendment, like there's no way you – if you want to post nonsense bullshit on your Facebook algorithm as a person, I don't see – that's a – you have the right to do so. It doesn't mean you're immune to the societal consequences of doing it. But as far as the government sanctioning you because of it, that wouldn't really fly.

[00:28:55] However, if a social media company, if their algorithm at their platform is designed to take that stuff and run with it and give you a financial – you, the user, a financial incentive for doing so, that's a different story. You know, I would draw that line around the user versus a social media company that's taking this crackpot conspiracy theory stuff and giving it this massive megaphone, you know? Because this stuff was always there.

[00:29:24] Like the crazy crackpot conspiracy stuff was always there. It was just on weird, weird hidden message boards online or even if you want to go back further than that, like actual like mailing lists, newsletters and stuff, you know? This just gave it – It was hard to get to and now it's easy and now we're seeing the consequence because it is easy to get misinformation and people, you know, are not a media literate, if we put it that way, which I think a lot of people are not. No. Even – it is shocking actually.

[00:29:54] I've even – there's people I know who are academically brilliant people but share such nonsense sometimes. And I'm like, where is your critical thinking on this? Yeah. So, yeah. So, big, big issues there which I think might have been a bigger – in fairness to Director McCallum is it might have been difficult to have said a lot of that in the speech but –

[00:30:19] It is and it's also like his role is like he's not a politician, he's not an MP, he's a Director General of MI5, like it is his lane to make these big prescriptions. They don't set policy. Right, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of people think they do set policy but they don't or at least officially they don't as far as we know, no intelligence service in the West is supposed to set policy. So, yeah, so we'll leave it at that but it's – yeah.

[00:30:42] Now, the other thing that came up actually is there were some warnings from MI5 about Chinese espionage at universities and, you know, and they sometimes operate under the guise of a legitimate academic collaboration. And I'm concerned that that might fall on deaf ears, you know, because we've – in the past we've had a similar – well, I'll draw a parallel. So, in the past we had a debate over Islamist extremism on university campuses during the 2010s.

[00:31:09] And frankly, quite a lot of teachers' unions kind of turned it into a free speech debate when it really should have been a safeguarding issue and eventually – More like a racism debate. Yeah, and now the government then – well, sorry, back in 2015 the government kind of then introduced the prevent juicy for universities which kind of formalized their responsibility and made them much more liable for the stuff that went on their campus.

[00:31:32] I don't think it's completely resolved the situation because obviously in the last few years with the conflict in Israel, Gaza, obviously anti-Semitism's gone up and things like that. So, there's still a lot of issues that are resolved around kind of extremism on campus.

[00:31:50] So, I'm a bit worried that universities might fall foul of turning around and saying, well, the government are just being racist about Chinese people or something and not kind of pay attention to the very real risk there. That depends then on also a factor there is how, you know, when the feds show up on these campuses with their badge and their gun, how they talk about this and how they present it.

[00:32:16] You know, are these policies framed in a xenophobic way or are they framed in sort of a hard black and white national security? Like, yo, they're running ops on their campuses. They're stealing this stuff and saying, oh, it's just scientific exchange and they're actually building weapons for the PLA. You know, very different things. And they, you know, hopefully have given annual presentation at every university every year just outlining it. Maybe even give examples of how certain things at their campus has been used.

[00:32:43] And some of these research universities are just so piss poor and being proactive and just willfully naive to how this stuff is being used to institutions that they partner with overseas. And there's money as well, isn't there? Because there's Chinese money. There's Chinese money that's been sort of thrown into the equation.

[00:33:00] And I think there was some scandals at last year or this year involving an American university and an academic who got kind of snarled up in some kind of situation where he had allegedly been paid by a Chinese research institute or something. And, yeah. There's instances of professors at research at a professor at a research university who was using his grad student, like coercing his grad students to like steal stuff. Wow.

[00:33:29] On behalf of Chinese intelligence. Okay. That's bad. One of them committed suicide because of it. Yeah. Like that level of egregious awfulness. Yeah. Yeah. You know, true story. Yeah. Good God. I didn't know. I must admit I'd missed that one. That's pretty horrendous. That one. God. I might. Is that not the same one I was thinking of? Because it was just some other one that was not so long ago. I got to find the link for it. But yeah, a couple, a couple months ago. I want to say in the summer, a lot of this stuff came out.

[00:33:59] About that case in particular. Yeah. Really egregious, egregious, terrible stuff. Yeah. That situation with the grad student there. Yeah. Yeah. So I really just hope that people take that seriously. As the theme of his speech was, it's sort of a societal responsibility. And I do, about being an old man shouting at the sky, I kind of get a feeling in the last sort of, I don't know, as long as I've been an adult, I feel like the people caring about

[00:34:29] their responsibility in society seems to have gone on the down low quite a lot. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know exactly why, but... Hey, you kids, quit working for the MSS. Yeah. They may pay well, but in the end it will come back to haunt you. Yes. They may show up in your auntie's kitchen in Wuhan and threaten her if you don't do it. Still, it's against the law here. Don't do it. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do it. And it's not even... Yeah. It's... Oh, God. Yeah.

[00:34:56] So there's definitely a lot of things to be thought about there. So I thought overall, pretty interesting speech. Wasn't... I think in many respects, wasn't too dissimilar to his one from last year, if I remember correctly. I think quite a lot of the things still... A lot of these threats... I find this with the podcast sometimes, a lot of these things we talk about, I'm like, wow, we talked about it a few episodes ago, but it's sort of a new spin on the same thing a lot of the time. So it's... Y'all didn't listen last time. Yeah. Yeah. So I hope they will this time. So yeah.

[00:35:24] Anything else you'd like to add or are you happy there? No. Well, let's take a break and we'll be back with more. If you're enjoying this episode, please consider buying us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com forward slash secrets and spies. Thank you.

[00:35:54] So our next topic, let's talk about touching the third rail here. We've got the Israeli elections, which is all sorts of things are going on with this. Matt, what are your thoughts on what's going on here? Yeah. So keep in mind also, these elections just happened on Thursday. Most of the vote... I'm sorry. On Tuesday, most of the vote being counted. On Wednesday, we're recording this on Thursday, October 29th. It'll be out. This episode will be out on Saturday. So we're kind of trying to hit a moving target here.

[00:36:23] That said. So Tuesday night, 10 o'clock in Israel, the polls closed with the highest turnout at that country's election since 1999, nearly 78% participation. And the exit polls look like opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot's night. Most of the broadcasters had the former IDF chief of staff's block narrowly ahead of Benjamin Netanyahu's. And Eisenkot tells his supporters the public has opted for change.

[00:36:53] Then the actual count comes in and the picture shifts. As of Thursday, with about 95% of the vote tallied, Likud, that's Bibi's party, as the largest in the Knesset again, 26 seats to Yashar's 21. And Netanyahu's block stands at 53 seats total. Well, Eisenkot's by comparison is at 48. Neither is anywhere near the 61 seats it takes to form a government.

[00:37:20] So the other 19 seats here are really like kind of a core story from this election, which is a record showing for Israel's Arab parties. So you count them with the opposition and Netanyahu has clearly lost 67 to 53. But Netanyahu has effectively ruled those parties out. There is no way in hell his, you know, far right allies are going to form a government with Arab political parties.

[00:37:50] Eisenkot and his partners have balked at this as well. And Likud is already claiming the Arab parties stole the election. Shocker there that they're claiming that the claim the elections committee's own director says appears baseless. Meanwhile, Yair Galan, leader of the Democrats party inside Eisenkot's own camp, is urging him to bring Arab parties in anyway to form a coalition.

[00:38:19] So it goes then to President Herzog, who decides who gets the first shot at attempting to form a government and who says Israel has to do everything it can to avoid another election, which would be the country's seventh since 2019. So, Chris, how do you feel about this one? How it's turning out? Well, first disclaimer, I'm definitely not an expert on Israeli politics or the mechanics of their political system. So I'll say that up front.

[00:38:47] I don't claim to be an expert in things I'm not an expert on. So I did kind of use this as an opportunity to better understand what goes on. And frankly, I was a bit surprised. So what I've understood, and forgive me, anybody listening who I'm incorrect here, but I don't believe I have a triple check this. So Israelis vote for parties and then the parties then negotiate to form a government. That's kind of like the fundamental of Israeli politics. And the important point is that the party winning the most votes does not automatically

[00:39:16] get to govern. What matters is whether a group of parties can assemble the majority. Right. Now, apparently, you need at least 61 MPs to command a majority and the Israeli parliament has 120 seats. So what we're having a situation here is where we're at with Netanyahu. So he is currently, he's got 53 seats, hasn't he? And then the main opposition bloc have 48. And as you were saying, the Arab parties have 19.

[00:39:44] I'll let people spin the mathematics in their head there because I'm not a mathematician either. So, so basically, yeah. So you get into a situation and it's happened before where a lot of Israelis are not happy of the Netanyahu government or Netanyahu in particular, yet their kind of proportional representation system leads to these situations where the opposition to Netanyahu is too divided. Yeah.

[00:40:13] You just can't get rid of him. And so it makes it very hard for a kind of coalition to get enough votes to go against him. And it's made me realize how much I actually now, as chaotic as Britain is, because Britain's hardly the poster child for political anything at the moment, because we're on our second prime minister who's technically unelected. So, you know, in the space of 18 months. How many have you had since Brexit? I think it's 10. I could be wrong. I think it's about 10. Larry DeCatts, the only- 10 prime minister since Brexit?

[00:40:43] Oh, God. Have we? Hang on a minute. So we've had- Hang on. Well, I suppose if you count David Cameron at this point, you've got David Cameron. Okay. Then you've got Liz- Not Liz Truss. May. Oh. Theresa May. Boris Johnson. No. Hang on. Yeah. Boris Johnson. Then Liz Truss. Then Rishi Sunak. Then Keir Starmer. And then, so yeah, sorry, seven. Seven. So we've had seven. So, and then Larry DeCatts, who just continues. God bless him. Long may he reign. Bless him. Yeah.

[00:41:11] And so he's put me off proportional representation completely now, because there is a move in the UK of like, oh, we should get proportional representation. After reading about how it works in Israel, I'm against proportional representation. I think it's a terrible idea. And he's leading, from what I can tell, is leading to these situations where you can vote, half the country or more can vote for not wanting a person, yet that person will stay. And it's very bad.

[00:41:36] So, and then the other thing, the other thing I want to bring up, because obviously at the moment there's a lot of criticism of Israel, both fair and unfair. Yeah. And like, there's a lot of opposition to Netanyahu in Israel. And what I tend to find is a lot of people who are critics of Israel try and paint this picture where everybody is just behind Netanyahu. It's important to understand that Netanyahu remaining in power does not necessarily mean that most Israelis support him.

[00:42:06] He faces substantial domestic opposition. And polling before the election showed that many Israelis did not want him to continue as prime minister. And obviously, the vote count coming in at the moment is sort of reflecting that as well. But opposition to Netanyahu does not automatically translate into a parliamentary majority. And this is the issue, I think, for Israeli politics, which is quite complicated, quite nuanced. And I do now wonder how many people actually understand that. I understand much better than I did before reading that article.

[00:42:36] So thank you for suggesting this. What are your thoughts on all of this? Yeah, I'm kind of I'm with you there. I think it's his elections are really there. I mean, frustrating in ways, but also clarifying in a lot of ways as well. I don't know how it's going to shake out with if if the opposition is going to be able to form a government

[00:43:02] or how Bibi, you know, squeaks away from this one yet again. Regardless, OK, you know, even if they do have to go to another election, that's going to be in what a year's time. Bibi is going to stay on as a caretaker. And I think it's going to be honestly my like first reaction to these results. I think I'd have to do this, you know, same shit, different day. Yeah. Pretty much over there. Yeah.

[00:43:29] There's a lot of talk that the U.S. and Israel are planning another round of strikes against Iran to coincide with after our midterms next week. I would expect that to happen unless. Democrats win something like, I don't know, like 54, 55 Senate seats or whatever, and that really sobers people up in the admin to, you know, OK, do we want to do we want to so here again? I don't I don't know.

[00:43:56] I would I would assume at this point, just assume that we're going to have more strikes on Iran after the midterms. Israel will be a part of that. I mean, there's also reporting to that in the last few weeks there were joint U.S. and Israeli sorties, you know, like attack sorties training, simulating strikes against Iran over over Iraq.

[00:44:18] And there was a lot of really says something about Bibi hope that the Iranians would fire on those aircraft to give them an excuse to strike Iran before these elections in in Israel. Because, I mean, Bibi's calculated and I think history shows he's not wrong here that when, you know, Israel is under some sort of a security threat or at war or whatever, it tends to benefit him politically.

[00:44:47] And I don't see why if he is, you know, still holding on for another year or so, why we wait while we wait for another election, why he wouldn't try to do, you know, to to hit the snooze button on his prosecutions again with more strikes against Iran or perhaps really, you know, really serious stuff. And I think there's a lot of, you know, the West Bank formally, you know, locking that down more. It brings me no pleasure to say, but I think we're just going to see more stuff like that.

[00:45:16] Also, bear in mind, bear in mind, I think it really clarifies that. Even though, yeah, there's a lot of opposition and and exasperation with Bibi's rule in Israel, there is a real gulf between Israeli public opinion around their security situation and how they see the situation with Gaza as opposed to U.S. public opinion towards that stuff and a public opinion across the entire West.

[00:45:45] You know, there's a real gulf there. It's just unavoidable. And I think there is going to be I don't say this with glee. You know, there's going to be a real reckoning with how the U.S. and other Western countries and with Europe, it's already there. But with the U.S. especially, how we think about and calibrate our relationship with Israel. I mean, that's going to be starting next week after the midterms. The 2028 race is going to begin like it or not.

[00:46:12] But and the U.S. relationship with Israel is going to be a huge issue in both primaries because that's not it's not a bipartisan thing anymore. I mean, there's going to be people running in the primary and everything and groups, factions of the Republicans that, you know, J.D. Vance really has to court and everything that are no fans of Israel. And a lot of that stuff behind that, you know, gets real ugly and nasty real quick.

[00:46:42] It's going to be a thing. And I think that is truly the collapse of U.S. public opinion on Israel is going to be really Bibi Netanyahu's enduring legacy here. I think this is the thing. This is the issue, I think, that a lot of a lot of people need to understand.

[00:47:03] People who support Israel, I think, need to understand how damaging Netanyahu is in the long run, because I think that he's Israel's reputation is in very bad shape currently across Europe. It just is like I'm not I'm not saying whether that's right or wrong. It just it just is. Deal with it. It is. And like you can OK, you could dismiss it if you want to as that it's propaganda or whatever. And there is probably propaganda in that. Definitely.

[00:47:31] There are people I speak to who talk complete nonsense, but you can't dismiss the sentiment that a lot of people are unhappy with what's going on, with the way Israel's responded to October the 7th and the way Netanyahu has then exploited that and then gone on to this war of Iran and so on. And I think that he and I know there's arguments like that no matter what Israel does, there's going to be criticism. I kind of get that. But I feel like Israel has gone one or two steps way too far.

[00:48:01] And Netanyahu is he's kind of protecting himself because he's trying to stay in office at the expense of Israel. And I think 10, 20 years time, the next generation of politicians are going to completely cut off support to Israel. I don't think it's even going to be that long. I think you're talking four years here. You know, it's going to be it's going to be 20, 28. This is going to be an issue that we're going to talk about.

[00:48:25] And, you know, Bibi was saying in his campaign to Israelis, you know, after Trump, when the Trump era is over, you know, there's going to be a huge issue around how the U.S. calibrates its support for Israel and everything. And I, Bibi Netanyahu, I am the best positioned person to be able to navigate that because that has been a he has argued that that is a that is a talent of his.

[00:48:48] His ability to come on U.S. networks and speak English with an American accent and, you know, talk our language, you know, know how to work us and everything. That shit is gone now. And if if there is a serious political debate here on both parties about our relationship with Israel, the worst person you could have as prime minister navigating that is Bibi Netanyahu. The very worst person right now. And that's his fault. It is. And I and I feel very sorry for Israel.

[00:49:17] I mean, you know, largely I kind of I'm sympathetic to Israel, but I just think the last few years make that very hard. I mean, what's going on with Netanyahu and stuff? And I feel very sorry for ordinary Israelis who are kind of stuck in this situation. And I'm very sorry for ordinary people in Gaza as well, because I think Hamas are horrendous as well. It's sort of. Yeah, it's just two extremes making life very difficult for everybody in between.

[00:49:43] I mean, and this election, sadly, you know, the international sentiment, I think, is we want to see Netanyahu gone and blah, blah, blah. But it's just like the way their political system works doesn't make it that easy. And again, another lesson for everybody here. When you divide an opposition, it makes it very hard to get actual progress. So let's learn that lesson now. Yep. Pin that.

[00:50:08] Remember that because there's some very important elections coming up both next week and maybe in a few years time as well. So, you know. Are we talking about this? No more this Green Party nonsense, both in America and Britain. Yes. Honestly. But anyway. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. But there we go. So I've probably upset everybody with that one. But there we are. Hey, you know what?

[00:50:33] I wish we weren't here, but acting like we're not doesn't go away. Exactly. It's just it's it's. We're going to have to deal with it. We're going to have to deal with it. Anything else to add? No. No. We'll see how this shapes out. I just don't see. I don't I don't see right now a path to how the future looks all that different from how it's been the past few years. Yeah. And we've seen how that's been.

[00:50:59] So, yeah, I think it's going to be a lot of pain and heartache over this topic. Actually, one other thing. There was a summit last week between Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Iran that didn't include Israel or America. Did you catch anything about that? I think that was so using their new the new quad mutual defense treaty that we have between. What is it?

[00:51:27] Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Pakistan. What was the fourth one? It's like a Muslim. The Mecca pack. Right. They went to and talked to Iran about getting the Houthis in Yemen to back off. And I sort of read that as basically Saudis going with their hat in their hand to the Iranians like, hey, how do we like get your dog back away from us? You know, not great.

[00:51:57] I mean, it's it's it's long been an Iranian wet dream to shape policy in the Middle East that isolates Israel and decreases the U.S. role in the region. And I think this is a a step in that direction, unfortunately. Yeah. Yeah. OK, well, well, I'm sure we'll be coming back to this topic in future episodes. Definitely. Yeah, there's some things I wouldn't mind looking at with some people on this in the near future.

[00:52:25] So, yeah, we'll keep an eye out for this one. Well, let's go to our final break and we'll be back with more. Welcome back, everybody.

[00:52:48] So we now are going to be looking at some Russian alleged spies or Russian diplomats who've been expelled from Vienna. It's russophobic propaganda, Chris. They did nothing wrong. They're not spies. Russia doesn't spy on anybody. Other than cathedrals. Other than they just they just they're really into architecture. Yeah. Yeah. Especially well, Vienna is a great place for architecture. I could completely concur on that. The opera as well. The symphony. Yeah. Great for that stuff.

[00:53:19] Oh, yeah, totally. I mean, if I were a professional spy, I'd love to be stationed in Vienna. That would be the dream. It could be worse places to be for sure. That would be the dream. For sure. But there we go.

[00:53:56] Anyway. The film is a phase commonly used when governments suspect diplomats are spying. Austrian intelligence services reportedly suspects all four of involvement in covert intelligence operations, although the authorities have not publicly detailed the specific allegations. The decision follows earlier concerns about Russian intelligence activity in Austria.

[00:54:16] Back in May, Austria expelled three Russian diplomats amid allegations that their antenna equipment on Russian diplomatic buildings have been used to intercept data transmitted by international organizations via satellite internet. Austrian defense officials have also warned military personnel about possible Russian recruitment attempts.

[00:54:37] Vienna is particularly important in the intelligence world because it hosts numerous international organizations, including the OSCE and the United Nations agencies. Its large diplomatic community provides opportunities for intelligence officers to operate under diplomatic cover, whilst diplomatic immunity can make it difficult for the host governments to prosecute suspected spies, which we talked about a bit earlier.

[00:55:00] The expulsions also highlight a wider debate within Austria about its longstanding policy of military neutrality. Austria's foreign ministers argued that neutrality alone cannot guarantee the country's security and has called for stronger defense capabilities and greater international cooperation.

[00:55:20] The Austrian government is considering changes to its espionage laws, which have historically focused on spying against Austrian interests, making it more difficult to prosecute activities directs against international organizations based in the country. For Russia, the expulsions represent another setback to its diplomatic presence in Austria. According to Reuters, they bring the total number of Russian diplomats expelled by Austria since 2020 to 18.

[00:55:47] Moscow has condemned the latest move as unfriendly and indicated that it will respond. The broader significance is that Vienna remains a major intelligence hub and that European governments are increasingly concerned about Russian espionage activity extending beyond traditional theft of secrets to targeting international institutions, sensitive communications and military information. So a good old-fashioned spy case here, Matt. What are your thoughts on all this?

[00:56:16] Yeah, I mean, you sort of said it. I think what's really significant about these Russians getting PNG'd is that it comes out of the Vienna diplomatic staff there. So after 2022 and the full-scale invasion beginning, European countries did mass expulsions of Russian intelligence officers all across Europe, right?

[00:56:42] The exception to that, of course, was their mission in Vienna. So a lot of them were reposted there as kind of the new center of gravity, the new hub for coordinating Russian intelligence operations against the continent. There's even recently—and how recently? But recently, there is reporting about—so there's the Russian embassy, the Russian chancellery, right, which is in the middle of Vienna, this old building that they've owned forever.

[00:57:09] However, on the northeast side of Vienna, across the river, closer to where the UN agencies and stuff are, there's like the Russian mission to all the international organizations in Vienna. And part of that complex, there's a Russian school, right, I guess, for diplomatic families and stuff there. On the roof of that school recently has sprouted a bunch of new SIGINT equipment, right? Make of that what you will.

[00:57:36] So they clearly shifted their center of gravity to Vienna as like a major hub. So I think seeing any expulsions from that mission is more significant than it would be otherwise. Also, of course, shows, you know, you said Austria being historically kind of neutral in the, you know, fight between the West and Russia, as they were through the Cold War. And their disposition has continued to be now to the frustration of a lot of European countries, for sure.

[00:58:07] So it's good to see them taking it seriously and expelling them, even if it's just a couple. But any actions against the Russians in Vienna will hurt them significantly. So I welcome it. Yeah, me too. I mean, so I don't know if many people know this, but Vienna is sort of being dubbed the city of spies. Yeah.

[00:58:31] Apparently there are 17,000 accredited diplomats and international organizations such as the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency there as well. A lot of the UN scientific agencies and stuff. Yeah, yeah. And apparently out of that 17,000, about 7,000 are suspected as being spies under diplomatic cover. So it's a lot of spies there. And it's a great city for spying because you've got lots of coffee and you've got lots of cake. So it makes, for me, it's the perfect city. Coffee cake spies.

[00:59:01] They're all their cafes and stuff. Yeah, so this is good. So yeah, so as you've been saying, like, yeah, they've been famously quite kind of, they've been neutral and a little bit lax and turned a blind eye. And some have even alleged they've turned even a stronger blind eye to Russian activity in the past. But it does sound like things are changing now. Now, when we, well, we spoke about Jan Masalik a few months ago now. Yes. Back in April. And I've got an interview about that that's very interesting.

[00:59:31] And he was operating for a while out of Vienna. And he recruited people in Vienna. And then Christoph Grozev was sort of, was based in Vienna and he was being spied on and his apartment was burgled in 2022. He had to flee. Yeah, he was, it was, he was under threat of assassination or kidnapping there. Exactly. Yeah. So it's, it just shows that Vienna is still a hotspot to this day.

[00:59:54] So, yeah, it's definitely not a, it's very much an active city and not a Cold War relic as some people might maybe think it is. But it's a great place to visit. I highly recommend it. I would love sponsorship from the Vienna Taurus board. Please just call me. I've never been, but we could do, we could film a little Secrets and Spies John across the city. I would be extremely down for that. It'd be really cool. I mean, it's, it's 10 years since I first went there.

[01:00:21] Honestly, it's just so picturesque at every, you know, I've got photos of myself where they filmed the third man and all sorts of stuff. Honestly, it's brilliant. We'd be, we'd be, you know, probably buzzed and over caffeinated and stuff with cakes the whole time, but we could do something really cool there. I bet. It'd be brilliant. Maybe I, I'd like to do it. Definitely. I like Vienna in the winter, even though it's cold, but it just looks the part. Yeah. So maybe we should try and set up a Vienna fund or something for next, next winter.

[01:00:51] I can do it. Pass the, pass the hat around for that. Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. And on one, on one final personal note, and I bring this up, it is relevant, but this weekend marks the sad anniversary of the death of my wonderful mother-in-law Esther. And I've mentioned this because our last family holiday together was actually in Vienna and she absolutely loved the city. And she was, you know, she was fascinated by its architecture.

[01:01:19] She enjoyed the, uh, the cake and the tea. And there was a particular tea we had at the, uh, hotel Sarka she enjoyed. And, you know, Vienna will always be kind of special to my heart because of that. So, you know, espionage aside. So yeah, it's, it's a great place. Highly recommend it. And please, if anybody from the Vienna tourist board is listening, please contact me. My, my, my line is open 24 seven.

[01:01:45] So our final, final thing today then is this China space plane. So this has been just doing the rounds in the last 48 hours, I think. And I just felt it would be remiss not to include it. So the war zone, you know, God bless them. We've done a brilliant article on, on it, but just to very paraphrase this article and just the key details quickly.

[01:02:05] So U S intelligence has confirmed that an image of a secretive Chinese space plane is circulating online, has been circulating online for several years, does indeed show an experimental Chinese spacecraft in orbit. The image was included in a new report by the U S defense intelligence agency. And it shows a small reusable vehicle that resembles, interestingly, the American, the American X 37 B space plane, which is operated by space force.

[01:02:35] Yeah, we've definitely done a few episodes on that. And I always forget it's X 37 B. I always think it's X something B, but yeah. And the Chinese vehicle has apparently completed four orbital missions since 2020, with its latest launch taking place in February, 2026. Its precise purpose remains unclear, but during an earlier mission, it was observed releasing several smaller objects into orbit.

[01:03:01] The latest satellite image also shows, or also appears to show another spacecraft attached to its rear. Although we do not know what that object is or what it was doing. It could be a satellite. It could be, I wondered if it was some way of it sort of recharging itself, but we shall see. Test payload experimental kind of stuff. I mean, that's officially what the X 37 B is supposed to be doing. You know, it's a test bit. Yeah, exactly.

[01:03:31] The significance is that this space plane can do things that conventional satellites cannot easily achieve. And it can carry and deploy payloads, return to Earth for use, and maneuver close to other spacecraft. And those capabilities could support scientific experiments and intelligence gathering. But they also could be used to inspect, interfere, or attack other satellites. And that's one of the big concerns there. So with the US, they've operated the X 37 B for years.

[01:03:58] And so this is sort of part of a wider technological competition between Washington and Beijing. However, there's no public evidence that the Chinese vehicle is currently being used as a weapon. Not for lack of trying, I bet. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And there are concerns that both countries are developing increasingly sophisticated military capabilities in orbit. And if anything, I think it was over the summer, really, that the debate about space being a new battleground really kind of kicked off. So, yeah. Matt, what are your thoughts on this?

[01:04:27] Very cool article. I have this DIA report that the Warzone article talks about. I haven't had a chance to look through it yet, but it's very cool. Very neat seeing that Maxar imagery of the Chinese space plane there. It does look like a lot. It does look a lot like the X 37 B. That is true with some differences in the wings, how they're shaped and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did they do that for copyright reasons? Probably.

[01:04:52] You know, the Chinese are just so concerned with not violating copyright law and, you know, stealing what isn't theirs and just, you know. Anyway. No, they would never do that. You know, what's also really interesting here is, so in the Warzone article, I'm pulling it up on my screen here.

[01:05:12] So, there is a, in here, there's an image from the Chinese internet that shows a wind tunnel testing of a Chinese two-stage to orbit conceptual space plane, which is very interesting. So, I've had, you'll laugh at this, Chris. I've had that image for a while for my own stuff, actually. And I find it very interesting. Okay. So, the, a two-stage to orbit concept, right? Right.

[01:05:40] The X-37B or even the space shuttle itself kind of, I don't know if the space shuttle technically qualifies, but the X-37B technically does because it's included in a rocket, right? That launches. And then the X-37B comes out of that rocket and stays up there for on-orbit operations, doing whatever shenanigans it gets up to for months and years at a time.

[01:06:03] And then it comes down and glides down to a runway at Canaveral or Vandenberg, right? When it, when it's, when it's done. So, that's a two-stage to orbit concept in general. However, this image that I'm looking at right here, the article doesn't say this, and it is just a sort of fuzzy kind of black and white thing.

[01:06:27] The reason I've had this image for quite a bit of time is because, so that, for, for folks listening or whatever, I don't know if you want to put this up in the YouTube or something, Chris, if that's. However, it's basically, it's like, it's like a mothership, right? And then a kind of, you would call it a parasite vehicle that's on like the, the roof of it. And it shows it in the wind tunnel, like detaching, parasite vehicle detaching.

[01:06:56] And that's the thing that would go up into orbit. The mothership then would come back down to a runway or something or whatever. What's interesting about this is it, that mothership here that it has looks a lot like the kind of shape and form of a two-stage to orbit concept that is runway launched. Right? Oh, yeah, yeah. Which is not what the X-37B does.

[01:07:25] It's that a runway launch two-stage to orbit concept is the reason why I've had this image. I'll leave it there. But it, it, it, it's interesting that they are apparently playing with such concepts, even if it's just, you know, in a wind tunnel. I find that, I find that very interesting. It looks similar to, so furthering this idea of a two-stage to orbit concept.

[01:07:52] I'm in January, probably with a friend of mine taking a road trip out to beautiful Dayton, Ohio, where the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force is. And in that museum, they have a, an XB-70 Valkyrie. That's exactly what I was about to say. Yeah. It looks like an upside down Valkyrie. Yeah, it does, Chris. You're right. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. So the XB-70 is at the Air Force Museum in Dayton.

[01:08:20] And that was a concept for a, like, supersonic bomber back from the 60s and everything. And there have been rumors for years that other related concepts would launch satellites and other objects into space being launched from a runway, which is why I want to go see this thing. Just, you know, it looks similar to that. Make it that way you will. Makes you wonder what they've seen that they're responding to. Well, yeah, yeah.

[01:08:49] I mean, and the Valkyrie sadly came to a tragic end, didn't it? Because there were only two of them. One of them had a mid-flight accident with a... Yeah. And a fighter jet, but they were doing a photo kind of... The other ones in the museum. Yeah, yeah. They were doing kind of like a photo thing, showing off the capabilities, and it crashed. It's such a cool-looking plane. I'll send you pictures. Honestly. Yeah, they don't... Nobody really makes planes that look like this at all. No. It's just that kind of 60s modernism about it, you know?

[01:09:19] They don't show them. No, true, true. Well, the Chinese are making planes look like them. So there we are. Maybe we can go for a flight in one wonder. Yeah. But that image... Hold on to your butts. That image, though, that they had there in the wind tunnel, that does not look like a rocket-based two-stage-to-orbit concept to me. That looks like a runway launched. And I did, like, the Leo pointing thing when I saw that. And it's not like they haven't...

[01:09:46] Because there's another image in here where it's underneath a bomber, and they've been testing it that way, too. Because they used to... They weren't able to launch the space shuttle from a jet. All these were testing that capability. So there was stuff that, like... So was it the D-12 drone that was attached to... That was tested at Groom Lake. There was a parasite vehicle that would have been launched from a SR-71 or an A-12. It's Forerunner.

[01:10:16] Yeah. No, sorry. The Lockheed D-21. It was a little supersonic reconnaissance drone. It was going to be launched from a variant of the A-12, which was the predecessor to the SR-71. That, what they have here, looks kind of similar in... To how the D-21 would have... Basically, yeah, you put it on the bottom of a bomber, and you bring it way up high, and then it launches from there. Same...

[01:10:43] I mean, if you are going to perfect and get into operation a runway-launched space plane like that, you first have to prove that you can do it through a system that's a lot simpler like launching it from a bomber, you know? And there have been stories for years. People have tried to debunk it. It's been debated about, you know, a variant of the XB-70, something that... It's not an XB-70, but it looks a lot like it.

[01:11:12] That's been spotted over the years, you know? I know that would be, in some regard, a two-stage-to-orbit concept that lifts off from a runway. But, I don't know. I just found that very cool and interesting. Good luck to them. Yeah, really fascinating stuff. And that was doing the rounds just last couple of days. So if you haven't caught that trend, now is your opportunity to. There we are. Be down with the cool kids in the spy world. Very cool. Very cool stuff there.

[01:11:42] Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, Matt, is there anything else you'd like to add to this or anything else? No. Go vote here if you haven't already between... This is out, what, Saturday? And you got till Tuesday. So go fucking do it if you haven't already. I don't want to hear about it. Definitely. Go vote. And if we had an election, I'll say the same thing, but we don't. But please, go vote. So there we are. Well, look, Matt, it's been brilliant. Thank you very much for your time on this. Thank you. So just going to wrap us up. There's a few little things I wanted to mention.

[01:12:11] So first of all, everybody who has ever listened to this podcast has probably heard the music that I believe is excellent that accompanies this podcast. And it's made by a very good friend of mine, Andrew R. Bird. And Andrew composed the music for my film, The Dry Cleaner. New listeners may not know I made a film called The Dry Cleaner. And I'm just renewing a deal at the moment. So it'll be available again on Amazon and Apple. Oh, cool. So keep an eye out for that. That's cool. I'm just in the process of signing that off and keep putting off signing this document, which I need to sign.

[01:12:41] But anyway, all that aside, so Andrew R. Bird's got a new album out. So a new album called Automatopia. And it's available on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music. And I'll put a link in the show notes. But please do check it out. Download it. Support Andrew. So Andrew R. Bird, if you want to look him up. Awesome guy. Very talented musician. He has done excellent work on his podcast and wonderful work on my film.

[01:13:10] And there's some new stuff I'm developing at the moment, which will hopefully take place in the next couple of years that we'll be collaborating on again. And so I just wanted to give a good shout out to Andrew there because he's sort of the unsung hero in some respects, his podcast for the music. So thank you, Andrew. And please everybody check out his stuff. Lastly, if you enjoy this podcast, please consider giving us a tip. You can buy us a coffee at buymeacoffee.com forward slash secrets and spies.

[01:13:37] All those things really do help us because this podcast is independently produced. We make it ourselves. And I feel very inadequate in comparison to some of the bigger podcasts out there. Sometimes we're making megabucks. I'm thinking, why are we not making megabucks? So that's my New Year's resolution is to get us on the journey to megabucks. But we'll see. But any donations will be gratefully received. If you want to be a long-term contributor, which again, be grateful for when you get

[01:14:03] access to the ad-free version of the show, you can go to patreon.com forward slash secrets and spies. And if you become a long-term member, you'll have our eternal gratitude. And also we can send you a cup or a coaster, depending on which level you pick. And I don't have a secret of spies cup, but I do have a secret of spies coasters today. And on our store on Redbuckle, not only can you- My cup is on my dresser with change in it, so I can't go grab it. Yeah. But yeah. That's cool. That's cool. I should have been drinking coffee. I should have made my, I made a rookie error.

[01:14:33] And I should have made my pumpkin spice latte with secrets and spies cup. I apologize. But we have the coasters. And on our Redbuckle store, you can purchase those. And also we have these little secrets and spies badges, which I doubt you can see, but I'll show you, Matt. I don't think you've ever seen that. I wore it at SpyQ last year. That's cool. Somebody suggested I should like get something like that. Do we have stickers? Just to point out. Do we have stickers? We don't have stickers. We could- Of course. Yeah. I can get that sorted. So yeah. Yeah. Go on to Redbuckle and get that happening.

[01:15:02] So that is everything. So yeah. Secrets and spies swag is available on Redbuckle. Links are in the show notes. Get you some swag. Yeah. Yeah. We've got tote bags. We did sell a water bottle once and various other things. So go on there. And then next year, I think we'll look at refreshing our Redbuckle and see if there's more exciting stuff we can put on there, but we'll see what we can do. But anyway. So thank you everybody for listening. Have a wonderful, wonderful weekend.

[01:15:32] And if you are participating in the American democratic process, please do so. Yeah. While you still can, go do it. We'll catch you on the next episode. Use it or lose it. Oh dear. Yeah. Definitely use it. Don't lose it. Right. Well, thank you again everybody. And thank you Matt. And I'll catch you all later. Thank you. Bye for now. Bye-bye.

[01:16:05] Thanks for listening. This is Secrets and Spies. Maloney,