Iran Just Unleashed Deadliest Weapon Warns Ex Colonel; Markets Not Ready | Hal Kempfer
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We're going to examine what's next for the Iran conflict. Will American troops be put on the ground? How long will this war last? And what are the possible paths from here? What will happen to the oil market? To answer these questions, we're getting a veteran with real experience. Joining us now is retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Hal Keer, CEO and founder of Global Risk Intelligence and Planning. Keer is a retired Marine Intelligence Officer with 24 years of service and former director of intelligence for the First Marine Expeditionary Brigade. Here's the latest on Iran. Today is 11th, March 11th, day 12th of Operation Epic Fury after the US and Israel launched joint strikes against Iran on February 28th, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kam in the opening hours. His son Mushtaba Kame was named successor on Sunday. According to the latest reports, at least seven American service members are dead. Roughly 140 have been wounded. Iran says more than 1300 of its civilians have been killed. [music] Across the wider region, hundreds more are dead in Lebanon, the Gulf States, and Israel. Iran has so far over 500 ballistic missiles and naval missiles, and nearly 2,000 drones at targets stretching from Tel Aviv to Kuwait. The United States has struck more than 5,000 targets inside [music] Iran since Saturday alone. According to Sentcom Commander Admiral Brad Cooper, since the first 24 hours of this campaign, Iranian ballistic missiles and drone attacks have dropped drastically. Some reports claim that Iran's missile launch rate has dropped roughly 92% since day one, but Thran retains over 80% of its small boats and mine layers. The straight of Hormuz is effectively closed. More than 150 commercial ships are stranded. Three were hit by projectiles this morning alone. Roughly 18 million barrels of oil per day normally transit the straight and most of that supply is now gone. WTI oil hit $119 a barrel on Monday, the highest since 2022 since the uh invasion of Ukraine before falling back down to around $88 on Monday. And just in today, the International Energy Agency said that its 32 member countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves, which would be the largest coordinated release since 2022. President Trump has spoken directly with Kurdish opposition leaders inside Iran about taking up arms against the region, but has since pulled back, calling the war complicated. Sources say the president has not made a final decision, although he remains open to the idea. >> Uh, Mr. President, you've said the war is quote very complete. But your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So, which is it? And how long should Americans be? >> Well, I think you could say both. The beginning, it's the beginning of building a new country. >> Do you have to take him out? Does he have a target on his back? You mean the new supreme leader? You mean the son? >> How can there be an Iran? >> Well, I don't want to I don't want to say that, but you know, I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country. So, I was disappointed to see their choice. >> So, what is next? Colonel Keer, welcome to the show. An honor to host you today. >> Oh, thank you, David. >> Let's talk about, I think, the question on a lot of people's minds, which is, is Iran the new Iraq or Afghanistan? In other words, is this the beginning of another 10-year war in the Middle East that will involve American troops in the region? One historian has called this America's third Gulf War and warned the unintended consequences could mirror those of 2003 with mission accomplished actually lasting decades. What's your view? >> Well, a veteran of the first two Gulf Wars, uh I sure hope not. Um, the hope is that the mission can be accomplished with causing enough damage to the way that Iran projects power that projects mayhem might be a better way of putting it. You know, using their ballistic missiles, their drones, their maritime capabilities and of course their proxy network of paramilitaries and terrorists all around the region. The hope is that this would be something that staunches that that ends any potential not just aspirations but capabilities of the radical regime in Thran to ever acquire a nuclear weapon and of course the means to deliver that nuclear weapon to other countries. So that that's the hope. Now, with all of that said, that doesn't require a ground in evasion. That that doesn't require a large movement like you saw with Desert Storm or with the opening weeks of uh of Iraqi Freedom where you see this massive ground invasion heading north or or heading into, you know, as certainly I have very vivid memories of going across Kuwait in 100 hours and u and so you're not going to see something like that. You might see boots on the ground, but they might be special operations boots. There are a number of targets there tied to ballistic missiles, drones, command and control, and particularly to the nuclear program where they really might want to put boots on the ground, you know, actually going in there ascertaining the situation, destroying what's ever there in terms of offensive capability and and in case of nuclear material, maybe even taking it uh with them or something like that. There's a lot of possibilities there, but uh but hopefully you won't see a ground invasion. But what you are seeing is a very very robust uh air strike and missile program and and also uh a growing naval program as we've seen particularly when you look at things like a US submarine, you know, basically sinking a ship with a with a torpedo. We haven't seen that since World War II. So that's that's kind of a big deal. We're going to get into uh the details of the Iranian military just a minute and uh their sea mine operation that's going on in the street of for moose. Uh but over the uh weekend on Sunday the uh a new supreme leader uh was appointed the Ayoto son uh Mush Mushaba Kame was successor. Um and uh this doesn't sound like a regime change uh how so >> no it it's not. It's it's more the same. Mashaba was was kind of the gatekeeper for his father u you know the the Ayatollah Ali Kamani uh who was killed in that strike. Now it's not clear there's a lot of reports coming out particularly right now that Moshaba was injured either in the strike they say in the opening days or whatever which could have been he was proximate to wherever that big strike took place. There's also something that they said he has survived an assassination attempt. So maybe it was something separate, but he did suffer injuries. Apparently his foot's injured. He's got a a significant facial laceration. Whatever it is, it's enough that's kept him out of the pictures. He hasn't shown up. He's made no public appearances, anything like that. So he was a safe bet. He is definitely a consistency within that regime. There is no change. U I imagine he's going to be just as radical or more radical than his father and he's going to and he's he has a very close relationship with the revolutionary guard corps which tells you where he's kind of uh where his his orientation is within the body politic if you will the bureaucracy. Now I will I will point out a potential opportunity. Okay. So they put somebody in there who is very much aligned with the revolutionary guard corps despite everything they said and not the highest levels to get to the highest levels of the regular military the artes and uh and of course the regular secular police forces to get to those highest levels you've pretty much got to be ideologically vetted shall we say to make sure that you're one with the regime but at the lower levels that's not always true. Those are they're just professionals that are in the military or the police forces, whatever. And they are not as ideological as Bas, which is that militia that's under that used to be under the IRGC that was brutally suppressing protesters or the IRGC itself. So there is a possibility with this choice of supreme leader that you could see not only frustration with the you know vast majority of the Iranian people 80 90% but you could see some real frustration with the military particularly the navy but also the army who have taken and the air force the ar the navy and the air force have basically been eviscerated by this uh by these attacks they could be very frustrated with what you know looking at the regime and saying what have you done we no longer have a navy and an air force because of you and the army's probably looking at this saying, "Why are we putting up with these guys?" That to me is a that's a possibility. That's always one we've talked about. Could the secular military and police forces turn on these theocratic regime focused things like the revolutionary guard corps and bas >> before we continue with the video, I'd like to bring to your attention something that's perhaps even more valuable and important than your investment portfolio, and that's your personal data and your privacy. Now, your personal information is more accessible than you may think. And that's where today's sponsor, Delete Me, comes in. Data brokers and search websites gather and sell details like your name, home address, phone number, and even family connections, sometimes without you even realizing it. Delete Me is a service I use to help me limit that exposure. Setup takes only a few minutes, and after that, their team handles everything. They [snorts] identify where your information appears, confirm those listings, and submit removal requests to hundreds of data broker websites. They also continue monitoring over time since this data can reappear. I've been personally using it for over a year now, and they've reviewed over 325 listings for my information. The reports show exactly what was found and what was removed, which makes the process transparent. If you want to check it out, go to joindeleteme.com/davlin. link in the description down below or scan the QR code here to get started. Use my code David Lynn for 20% off. Get started and protect your privacy today. I'm reading some reports uh how that the US is well it's costing them a lot of money for the US military to sustain this operation. So according to the Hill published art uh article published yesterday, the Pentagon burned through roughly $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of the Iran war. Other reports claim that uh the West doesn't have enough munitions for a sustained operation. Is that true? Uh there's a limit to the amount of munitions we have. There are other contingencies too. Uh there was a lot of reports prior to this thing kicking off that there was a lot of uh discussion in the Pentagon and discussion from the Pentagon going to the White House saying look uh if something happens in the Far East u you know particular with China and Taiwan, will we have uh the the armaments? Will we have the weaponry, the ammunition that we need to do something? And uh I I never heard exact numbers attached. I heard some broad estimates but the fear was that we we wouldn't have enough ammunition for other contingencies around the world. This is taking a phenomenal amount of uh weaponry to do this. Particularly when you talk uh you know high value items like tomahawk missiles which are not cheap, very expensive and a number of other things like you know miss missiles for Patriot missile batteries are not cheap. Yeah. >> In fact, one of the things that we're we're kind of emphasizing now is we're using these new Lucas uh drones, which is actually a USD adaptation of the Shahed 136 drone that uh that Iran developed. And they're a lot cheaper, about, you know, I think 35,000 a piece or something, which is much less expensive than a, you know, million-doll tomahawk missile. Actually, it's more than a million, but uh so that's one thing. uh doesn't have as much firepower, but it can loiter and do a lot of other things, which is very valuable. Then the other thing is we're actually going to Ukraine and trying to get some of the drone interceptors so we don't have to use these expensive air defense missiles to take out these, you know, rel relative cheap drones. So, yeah, it's big concern, big concern with this. Uh, and now if you're in the araments business, if you're in the araments industry, it's a great time to be in that industry cuz we're going to have to we're already starting to cut contracts as is Europe and rebuilding this capability. So, they're that's if you're an investor, you're looking at some of these companies and going that's where I want to put my money right now cuz uh business is good. How do the uh opening days of the Iran war look in comparison to the opening days of Iraq uh where you were involved for example just in terms of the munitions used in the types of targets struck by US forces? >> It's it's a little bit different. First off, Iran is a much bigger country than Iraq, a vastly bigger country than Kuwait. So when you just look at targets, you're looking at more target sets across a larger country. So that's a different thing. So it's tough to really compare that. Also the prices tough to compare. You're talking 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you know, in terms of what munitions cost then. So it's tough to say that. But I would say we're using a a a lot of munitions. I don't know if it was the same 5 I don't know if it's the same equivalent of 5.6 billion over the first two days. That doesn't surprise me. But what I will say is it it's had an effect. uh about 90 there's a decrease of about 90% of the ballistic missile launches coming from I from Iran from its from its peak period which was about the first day so that's significant about somewhere in mid mid 80s 85% of the drones have been reduced and uh in terms of that so yes there was a big expenditure up front but the other side was and this is where it's always difficult yes you can always calculate how much to spend how much did we save in terms of damage. And if you say, well, it costs a lot up front, but we stopped them from firing all these missiles, so maybe we saved a lot on the back end because less buildings were destroyed, less loss of life, less everything. Yeah. So, it's it's a difficult equation. >> So, Iran has fired over 500 ballistic missiles and naval missiles and over 2,000 drones since the beginning of the conflict, targeting uh targets stretching from Tel Aviv to Kuwait in the Gulf. Uh the United States has struck more than 5,000 targets in Iran since Saturday alone. But just on the Iranian front, some people observers would argue, well, the US and Israel failed to contain the first missile strikes from Iran. Why weren't these missile installations taken out? And why were civilian targets struck? Why weren't they, you know, completely eliminated? And the ability to strike with missiles eliminated in the first 24 hours. I mean, some reports claim that Iran's missile launch rate has dropped roughly 92% since day one, but still a lot of damage was done. What happened there? >> Well, first off, even with even with everything we had over there, you can only hit so many things at once. You know, it's not like it's not like you get a chance to go and say, "Hey, we're going to reduce all your missiles before you fire." Uh, didn't do that. Now, what I am hearing is that uh we did a amazing job shutting down command and control. Uh there were some things that were it's not very clear. Obviously the reporting isn't great but it it basically it says Cyber Command and US Space Command were very busy at the outset diminishing the ability of uh of the Iranian regime to basically command and control its missile and drone forces. And I did notice that they were a little slow off the mark shall we say from the initial strikes to when they started launching. Now you only have so many planes. You only have so many missiles that you can hit in such a time period. So they took out a lot, but there there is no perfect way to take out everything. And some of these things like the tails, the transporter that you know erect launcher systems, those big things that come out and put a missile up and then you fire. Those things are hidden underground. So uh they will pop out and if you catch them while they're out of their revetments, while they're out of their tunnels, you can take them out. But once they go back underground, it's very very difficult to take them out. So that's a that's kind of a you know time timeintensive sort of thing where you have to literally sit on top of them and wait for those to to pop out. We had the we had a similar issue with the Scuds during Desert Storm. That was where we really looked at this and we said, "Yeah, we got to we have put, you know, from the time we get a sensor reading to the time we hit that thing, which we called sensor to target that, uh, we had to close that gap as fast we can." In that regard, I think we've done a pretty good job overall from what I can tell. But, um, but with that said, you know, war is a dirty business. Now, as far as hitting civilian targets, critical infrastructure and stuff, non-military targets, that was an Iranian strategic decision. I think they're going to pay they are paying and they're going to pay an enormous price for that. I think historians will go back and say that was probably one of the biggest mistakes that Iran made was opening up this whole target set with all the Arab countries, Turkey and elsewhere. >> Right. Let's talk about some of these ballistic missiles that Iran has in its arsenals. Specifically, the hypersonic missiles I'm going to talk about next. Uh Fatak 1 and Fatah 2, the newer one unveiled in 2023 supposedly with a range of up to 1500 km. Mach 13 to Mach 15 speed as claimed by uh the Iranians. Uh warhead approximately 200 kg. Uh length approximately 12 meters. Used for the first time uh just a couple weeks ago, March 1st. My question is well a couple questions. First of all, how much risk do these actually pose to US assets in particular carriers and carrier battle groups? Uh, I I'm I'm guessing the Navy wouldn't have moved two carrier strike groups into the region if they thought this was a threat. >> I I would say not much from a naval standpoint, from a carrier task force standpoint. Is it something they watch? Absolutely. But, uh, what's the ability of them to accurately target a carrier? That's where we we kind of hit them in a in a major way is, you know, it's one thing it's one thing to hit a fixed building that's on the map uh that is and it's not going to move. You're not going to a building isn't going to go anywhere. You know, a facility isn't going to go anywhere. A military base isn't going to go anywhere. Ships, on the other hand, are never in the same place. They're always moving. So, hitting a ship, a moving ship somewhere out at sea, particularly if we shut down their intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance capabilities offshore, uh that doesn't pose much of a threat. Now, do these hypersonic missiles pose a threat? Yes. Uh some of them uh actually being launched from a proxy the Houthis into Israel a while back. We saw where uh a couple of them actually got through the air defense zone. Got through the uh the Iron Dome, got through the Aero A12 missiles, u got through the David sling, all of that got in and hit stuff. So that was a that was a big problem that that they were getting through. And we have reports that some of these have been have been used by Iran with some effect, you know, with significant effect with this one, but they don't have a lot of those. And the and the question is really and and this was somebody brought this up. They go, you know, if you got 90 ballistic missiles sitting in a in a, you know, underground tunnel complex, these what they call missile cities, these underground missile cities, and you have no a way to launch them. and you take out all the launch systems, you basically have a useless tunnel full of missiles that you can't use. And so that's where uh we've been going in there and I say we I should say collectively Israel, the US have been going in there and hitting the launcher systems. So even if you have the missiles, if you can't launch them, they're useless. At some point want to go and destroy them, but right now you just want to stop their ability to actually utilize them. So in that regard, yes, the missiles always look impressive. I'm always a little skeptical of what the Iranians say about their capabilities, just like I'm skeptical of what Russia or China always says about their capabilities. You know, everything everything is, you know, faster, quicker, you know, there's no way we can stop it. It's all, you know, the, you know, you might even call marketing hyperbole, uh, that you sometimes will hear where people say, "Oh, this system will this will do everything." and they say that look that it's a capability but it's not it's not as it's not as significant I think as certainly as the Iranians make it out to be. >> There's been some debate as to whether or not Iran has the arsenal to hit the US mainland. Do they have intercontinental ballistic missiles that could target the continental mainland US? >> To my knowledge they really don't. Um they do have missiles that can get up into Eastern Europe. All right. They they now do they have the capability of maybe one doing something where it would orbit or something. That's possible, but I would also say if it's just one, we also have the ability probably to knock that out as well. Uh I haven't seen anything that indicates that they have any intercontinental ballistic missile capability to speak of. There was some fear initially that Iran could put a submarine off the US coast. the you know the submarines like the kilocclass submarines which are not great and actually the kiloclass submarines biggest threat was that they would sit at the bottom of the straight of hormuz and just sit there quietly and then wait for a target to appear. Um that that kind of got eliminated. Three of the four were in maintenance which has always been a perennial problem with the uh Iranian Navy. And then the fourth, a satellite photo a few days back showed it sitting in in port with a very large hole in its hull. All right, which is another way of saying it's no longer a submarine or if it does go into the water, it will never come back. So, uh, in that regard, I just don't see where they have a big threat right now. Could they develop a threat? That's significant. And unimpeded, yes. If you look at how fast their missile program was going, they would have eventually had an intercontinental ballistic missile unless something was done to stop that. >> Well, these hypersonic missiles, how much they tip the scale of power in the Middle East itself. The Iron Dome, some say has been rendered ineffective in Israel by these hypersonic missiles. Yes, a lot of them have been shot down, but yes, some of them get did get through. Uh, Colonel, tell us about what needs to be done now to advance defense systems against these new weapons. I I would say it's already being done. Uh there's a number of things are being taken into account. Uh some of it is using existing technology but using it in a different way. You change the tactics. You know, when is the missile coming in? What type of uh warhead would you like to use to stop that missile from coming in? So there's a lot of it's using existing air defense capabilities but using them in a different way because you have a missile with a different characteristic. So that's being done. There's also some very advanced stuff, not just in the missiles, but there's some very advanced stuff being used with directed energy and lasers. Um, that is right now it seems to be most of that's focused as a cheap way to take out drones. And frankly, from a targeting standpoint, drones are a lot easier to hit than a ballistic missile in many ways. Yes, they can maneuver, but the other side is that they don't move as fast. So, um, so that's working and there's plenty of drone targets to be hit. But I think at some point we're going to see this change dramatically. Once we see lasers and directed energy systems come on in a major way, I think that's going to change the whole vulnerability picture in terms of drones and ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles in its entirety. >> Can you comment on some of the air defense systems that Iran uh claims to have? So including the Russian made S300 and S400 air defense systems and recently acquired from China uh more advanced HQ9B longrange surfacetoair missiles. Can these actually detect stealth aircraft like the F-35 and B2s? >> I don't not really no I I think the F-35 and the B2s are have certainly have the capability technologically speaking but also have uh certain tactics that they employ with what they do that they can defeat these systems. The S300 system isn't that new. Uh it's been around for a while and there is so much incumbent knowledge on the capabilities and limitations of the S300 and the associated radars that I'm not worried about that the Chinese system uh I don't think they have much of that uh as I recall. And frankly, whereas it's tough to kind of, you know, when you hear when you hear kind of these broad things like we took out their air defense systems, that's not a very specific statement, but what from what I hear from that is certainly those are the systems that get prioritized for elimination. The lesser capable systems, you know, you work down the list. So, I don't know that those systems actually pose a significant threat at this time towards any of our aircraft. In fact, what we have is uh from what I can tell air superiority over Iran. And we achieved that within I think we achieved it from the outset of this war. We had air superiority. In certain areas we have air supremacy which means that basically our aircraft can work unopposed. Uh the goal would be to have air supremacy over all of Iran. Once we have air supremacy over Iran, we can pretty much hit anything we want at any time, any place with whatever we have to hit it with. And at that point, uh, you're kind of hitting where it was in the 12-day war last June towards the end with Israel where they appeared to have air supremacy in large large swats of Iran. That has a psychological dimension, too. Once the Iranian people realize that the that the government can't protect them in any way from aircraft, uh, you know, the fear is that they will, you know, they'll they'll it'll stir up nationalist sentiments and those opposed to the regime might say, "Well, we're being attacked by a foreign invader, so we have to back the regime even though we hate them." The other side is they may look at it and say, "This this foreign invader is trying to enable us to overthrow the regime, and now the regime can't do anything. They can't move. They can't move their forces. And if we come out in the streets, they could actually hit, you know, the besiege uh forces units or they hit the RIGC units in ways they couldn't hit them before. And if they can take them out, that means that the protesters potentially could take over government buildings, take over government. Uh I'm not saying it would be an easy faith to comp play, but I am saying that they could actually accomplish quite a bit. And uh and you know, I I will go back. Let me just go back a little bit. You know, everyone says, you know, with these with these regimes, they go, you know, it was always considered impossible that they could be overthrown. And then after it happens, everyone says it was inevitable. And I remember ' 89 to 91, we'd watch all these Warsaw packed countries eventually the Soviet Union itself would go, "No, it won't fall." No, Chashescu will never be overthrown in Romania. That will never happen. And then literally as you get it out of your mouth, you go, "Oh, okay. He's dead. All right, I guess he's out. So, um, so some of these things that seem very difficult, if almost impossible, can turn inevitable very quickly. >> Well, when we talk about air supremacy, uh, how what's the military's answer to lowcost drones like the Shahed drones you were talking about earlier, they supposedly cost around $35,000 to make. You can make them with commercial parts, which is important, and the Patriot missiles used to intercept them cost roughly $4 million. We're talking about asymmetric warfare at the extreme here. And you know economically it doesn't make a lot of sense. So when you were in service Yeah. did you did did the army and and air force prepare for lowcost drone swarms? >> Yeah. Yeah. Actually there's been a very very uh aggressive program to try and and to develop programs. In fact I understand there is a lowcost uh drone interceptor. I think it's running about 15 30,000 something like that that we're sending over there. Uh and uh the only problem we have is we're behind in the power curve. I'll be the first to say we have been behind the power curve on drone and counter drone for a number of years. And as we watched what was happening in Ukraine, you know, it's becoming painfully obvious that we had been pursuing these high-end drones when we needed to be pursuing these less expensive, less capable, but but a lot, you know, much easier to manufacture and to, you know, do swarms and stuff like that. And uh we've been ignoring that. So we're we do have systems. I the problem is I think we're at a little bit of a deficit in terms of being able to field enough of them right now. So what you're seeing with this is we're saying look take out the launchers, try to limit the drones. That way the interceptor drones that we can get in there will be more effective because there'll be less incoming that they have to deal with. >> So in your opinion, what are the most devastating weapons that the Iranians currently possess? And they could be hard weapons or soft weapons, things that could turn uh the scale in their favor right now. >> Well, I don't think ballistic missiles is going to Yes, it's a, you know, I'd have to put at the top of the list as as potential, but I think that that has been dealt with in such a way that no longer poses a threat that it did. I think the ones we have to look at right now are sea sea mines in the straight of Hormuz. And that's from a strictly economic perspective. I mean, if you're sitting in the cities, you know, if you're sitting in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, you know, Doha, you're saying, "Well, sea mine isn't going to come out of the ocean and destroy my building like a ballistic missile or a drone might." True, but you can't move oil and liqufied natural gas to the straight of Hormuz. And that really is the economic engine of the Persian Gulf. So, uh, dealing with the sea mines, taking out the plethora of revolutionary guards, small boats that not only do mining, but also are are used for other types of attacks. That is a big one. And then, of course, the other one is taking out those anti-ship missiles along the coast, particularly in the straight of Hormuz. If we get the straightforward moves open, if we can get the shipping flowing then at and and certainly at that point uh you know you can you can assume that Iran would be unable to ship anything. You know whether you want to call it a naval blockade, it's a deacto naval blockade because of what's going on. That would change all the math. And uh you know Iran going into this was in horrific economic shape. That's why people were protesting in the streets in December and January because the economy is simply failing to deliver. Uh at this point there there really isn't and I don't want to be over optimistic but I'm just looking at this from an economic perspective. There really isn't a way that the regime can continue with the with the current situation. >> This is what the president had to say um in regards to uh sea mines. I'm pleased to report that within the last few hours, we have hit and completely destroyed 10 inactive mine laying boats and or ships with more to follow. Uh according to Forbes, uh there's been no official confirmation Iran has put mines in the straight, although off record, US intelligence sources reported a few dozen have been laying uh have been laid in recent days. Uh how if mines were laid um by the Iranians, how long would the Navy need to take to clear the straight of Hormuz? really depends on how many there are. This is not the first time we dealt with mines. You may recall in the 80s Iran was putting sea mines into the into the Persian Gulf as well. That was when we did our ref flagging operations where we uh we actually uh took a lot of the tankers going in out of the Gulf. We we basically put them under a US flag so we could do a naval escort to take them through. However, back in the 80s, we had a lot more mind sweepers so we could we could actually go through that. There is a kind of a a rather morbid joke that they use. They say every ship is a mind sweeper once. Okay, that's a horrible way to look at it, but it is true. But uh but we really need a way to safely remove those mines. Now, there are a lot of different capabilities that we could use to take those mines out. There are some interesting drone capabilities. I don't know if we have those fully filled yet to uh deal with sea mines as well. But if we can if we can quirk up the sea mines, if we can stop it from being deployed in large numbers, you know, hundreds of mines, potentially thousands of sea mines being being put out there, if we can prevent that from happening and then orchestrate, shape the battle space in other ways to end this war faster, then we can probably get the uh straight of Hormuz open sooner. And with that, that takes off that takes away an enormous amount of economic strain that comes from this conflict. >> So, here's a trillion dollar question. I guess this is the uh this is a chart that's been circulating on social media posted by Luke Growman here. Straight of Hormuz total tanker transit calls according to the source macro bond has been plummeting in the last couple days down to zero. So the straight of hormos as you're aware roughly uh transits 20% of global oil supply every single day and with that gone a lot of Asian countries in particular that need to import oil through that region are harder hit. We'll talk about that in just a minute but from a military perspective how what needs to be done to reverse this trend get things back to normal. just walk us through the process that the military, the navy and the air force needs to do and roughly how long it would take. We want to know how long the straight of Hormuz roughly is going to get shut down here. Well, to go in there, you know, around the straight of Hormuz to deal with the all the threats emanating from Bond Abos, uh that's going to take a while. Uh there's uh you know, anti-hship missiles that are in rebetments that are in areas are difficult to to hit with aircraft. So, that's going to take a while. You may see some of those Lucas drones sitting up there. Thing is, once they're exposed, it doesn't take a a heavy warhead, not 2,000 lb or 500 lb, something like that. You can hit them with a smaller warhead. So, those Lucas drones, those lowcost uh unmanned uh combat, you know, air air uh uh unmanned uh aviation systems that those can go in there and we have deployed those over. So, those can be sitting there as a asility set although they are kamicazi. So at some point they can loiter for a while but at some point they actually got to hit something. Uh so that's something that we have to take in consideration. We don't have probably as many of those as we'd like to but we have deployed them. Uh the other thing too is though you might see and this is where we talk about boots on the ground. Again I go back to special operations. You know you might start seeing some things like maybe amphibious raids or something like that or or deeper set raids further in ones that aren't further in from the coast. things that do not look like, you know, 1980 where we went in tried to uh do the rescue mission in Tyran of the US diplomats, stuff that's closer to the coast, stuff that we can more easily support from a both a maritime and an aviation standpoint where we don't have to worry about a bunch of refueling aircraft, stuff like that. Those are the things where that's where you're going to find those anti-hship missiles actually located. And so we can take those out. And then the other one is to take out those plethora of small boats. And a lot of that is again uh they're small boats. You don't have to have a big warhead to do that. You can do it with a relatively small warhead. So, uh taking out those boats, taking out the NA NA ship missiles. When all of that's done, uh and of course the other issue is not quite sure how many, but they have a lot of the Revolutionary Guard Corps has these little submarines. So, we want to take those out as well. Once that is dealt with, then we can open it up. Now, will that take two weeks, three weeks, four weeks? That's anybody's guess. It's going to take weeks to really do that. And again, then it depends on how much how much risk are we willing to assume and putting boots on the ground or using other uh resources in order to eliminate these weapon systems. But once it's gone, it's gone. And then the straight could reopen. >> Well, according to reports, three ships have been hit so far. um as of Wednesday and it's been reported that one of the ships hit was a Thai cargo ship that uh carried civilians. So, how does this impact the international community? At a certain point, other countries would have to step in to intervene or were they just continuously put pressure on Israel and the US to end this quickly? >> Well, they're they're always going to put pressure and end it quickly. Uh you may have seen um cutter today uh came out and said, "Hey, let's try and work diplomacy or something like that." uh as well. But I think it was I think it was a worthwhile thing for I think for cutter to say I don't think it's gonna actually result in much from the Iranian regime. But uh but with that you saw a few ships and I should mention there are some ships that are kind of hugging the other coast if you will and trying to get through the straight of Hormuz. They're trying to bypass this. Uh there is a one shipping line where the uh the the ship owner actually turned around and said, "Hey, look, if I didn't like risk, I wouldn't be in the shipping business and he's telling his ships to try and basically run the straight to see if they can get through." Now, the US has said that they're going to try and set up some sort of naval escort to get ships through. I don't think we're quite ready for that. I think we have to shape the battle space on the Iranian coast in such a way that we can mitigate the risk and control the amount of anti-ship capabilities that Iran can can use at any given time. But you are seeing there's there's a risk of a number to a number of ships. You know, we got these three ships that were hit. That's obviously a big concern uh that that that's going to happen. China is is trying to get its ship through. Um, you know, Iran, ironically, if they can identify correctly, they may actually let some of the Chinese ships go through. The question is, what are we going to do? Are we going to let China bring out ships full of oil um or or liqufied natural gas, but certainly full of oil. Are we going to just stand by and let that happen, >> or are we going to try and stop those ships? And do we want to assume the risk that we go with trying to stop those ships? in some way. So there's there's a lot of there's a lot of risk going all around is another way to put it and but that's something we have to consider. >> So according to Reuters just on Chinese ships, China buys more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil says data from 2025. China purchased an average of 1.38 million barrels per day. That represents 13% of the total uh oil it imported by sea. So a significant portion of China's oil demand comes from Iran. What's currently happening right now? Uh, how are they are the Iranians letting oil tankers flow through China? >> Well, they're they're trying to. All right. Uh, right now everything's kind of slowed down. I hear that some tankers may be coming out to go to China and I don't know how if the pipelines could sustain using the the Gulf of Oman, you know, the the southern coast as an alternative to what they do. There's so much that's invested in Car Island and certainly in terms of of natural gas, but so much that's that's built built up there that if they can't move stuff through the straight, they can't move stuff through the straight. And and there is a double-edged sword, which is Iran says, "Well, we're not going to let anybody go through the straight." Yeah. Well, we could say the same thing. We're not going to let anything go through the straight. And, you know, you kind of have a standoff, if you will, in terms of who's not letting stuff through the straight. So certainly, you know, I mean, from a China's China's perspective on this is, you know, they they import about 11.1 million barrels a day. I think they produce maybe 4.3 million barrels. Uh, you know, between China and Venezuela, this was a good chunk of the oil. I mean, it was probably somewhere around 25% of their imported oil needs daily. Some would say it was a little bit higher. Um, but you know, Venezuela has been cut off. Now, Iran has been effectively cut off for a period of time. That is a huge amount of oil that that China can't bring in. That's going to cause huge problems for China. In fact, there's already some reflection that it is causing huge problems for China in terms of acquisition of oil. And even when it's all said and done, China will not be able to buy uh discounted uh sanctioned Iranian oil uh like they have been. they're going to have to pay the going rate at the very least for that oil, which means that they have had a certain advantage and that they've been able to buy discounted oil from Venezuela, discounted oil from Iran, and discounted oil from Russia. And that may all change. Now, one of the things that's kind of going the background has me a little little concerned is President Trump says he's going to lift some of the sanctions on Russia to allow them to move oil out. I I strategically from a uh you know from a from a military standpoint and from a power standpoint I don't like to see that. I'd like to see as much pressure remain on Russia as we possibly can. But you know the president has decided the way the president has decided and I think that's to alleviate the price pressure on oil and also to to enable China to keep doing things that they you know that they otherwise may not be able to do. So just on that note quickly uh US eases sanctions on Russian oil sales to India. You'll recall that uh sanctions were put on uh Russian oil sales to several countries including India. Now they're being lifted as you mentioned. Does this position does this Iran conflict actually strengthen Russia in the short term? You think >> you know there has been a number of uh a number of articles and experts out there who said you know who's the big winner in this and they said strange as it may sound Russia may come out slightly ahead on this because this is a big problem. You know India had stopped buying they had finally agreed after tremendous pressure. They had finally agreed to stop buying Russian oil. That was kind of a thorn in our in our policy side was that India kept buying Russian oil and there were other countries that bought Russian oil as well but India was a big consumer of Russian oil. Now this is lifted. All right. So they're going to start buying discounted Russian oil. The concern is okay. So, we're going to have to go through that same thing again when this war is over in order to reimpose those sanctions. And of course, the question is, will we go through this again to reimpose those sanctions the way we did? And of course, the Europeans are certainly concerned because this now gives Russia a lot of revenue that they're going to pump into the war in Iraq. I mean war in Iraq the war in Ukraine in order to u uh put more pressure on the Ukrainians which puts more pressure on the on the Europeans to support the Ukrainians and stopping the Russians. So there's a lot at stake with this. I'm sure you know in European capitals they're they're probably not not pleased with this policy decision by the US. >> So with all the constraints that we've talked about what do you think is the most likely next step? So I've read that there's a few options that the military could consider. one, arming the Kurds, which apparently the president has been in communication with Kurdish leaders so far. That hasn't been confirmed yet. Or putting boots in the ground. We've already discussed that at length. Or number three, just withdraw completely, claim that strategic targets have been hit, and just pull back from here. If you're revising um high command right now, what would you say? >> Well, first off, let me just address the Kurds thing. All right. There were reports coming out the CIA had been in contact with the Iranian Kurds. As you may know, on the Iraq side, they have a a pretty much an autonomous territory that they control up to the north. Still part of Iraq, but it's completely self-governed. They run like a separate country up there. Uh not there is a lot of back and forth, but they are there are differences between the Iranian Kurds and the Iraqi Kurds. All right? So, a lot of times that's overlooked, but there are um with the Iranian Kurds to back them militarily. And certainly Iranian Kurds are very interested in doing that because they do not they do not want to be part of Iran. They've never wanted to be part of Iran. If we do that, then we're starting down the road of backing separatist movements in Iran. The concern is that could complicate whatever we're trying to achieve with the government in Iran. Whether it's whatever this regime morphs into or a completely different regime, you're still dealing with territorial integrity. And if we back the Kurds, you're going to you've already seen Azarbaijan, which has been targeted by Iran, has said that they will militarily support the Azeris, the Azeri areas and the Azeris in Iran to be a separatist group. And then there's always been a problem down by the Pakistani border with the Beluchis which want to be a autonomous territory. So the fear is that you would kick off what is truly going to be a civil war where you have these separatist groups trying to break off and you may have one or two other uh groups in the in the mayhem turn around and say well we'd like to break off as well. You know there are there are Arabs uh that are primarily Sunni uh in some of the key oil producing areas who have always said they do not want to be part of Persia or Iran. They do not want to be part of this Shiite uh regime and this government. So they might be encouraged to do something as well. So the the fear is that you could kind of unccort this thing and uh and start something bigger. On the other hand, if you back the Kurds, that will that will certainly divert a lot of military resources for the Iranians to have to deal with the Kurdish issue and put pressure on them to come sort of some sort of agreement to end this war sooner rather than later. That's the thought with that. Now, as I will tell you, I have heard some rhetoric coming from the White House and stuff where they say first they said we want unconditional surrender and I I heard that and I was like I think I've heard that before World War II, but it's been a while. Okay, >> what does that mean? >> Well, that was the thing that that's exactly what everyone was asking. He said, "What do you mean?" And uh Carol Levit, the White House press secretary, says the president will decide when they have unconditionally surrendered. And so the US would unilaterally decide when the other side has unconditionally surrendered. I have to tell you, I'm like many others. I am not quite sure what they mean by it. It's it does sound a lot to go back to your what your question. Are we simply going to declare victory and go home is a phrase that we've always used. U if you say that they've unconditionally surrendered but the regime's still in place, the question is what have we really accomplished? And then you get into the semantics of what does unconditional surrender really mean? And at this point, like you said, the regime hasn't really changed. So, what does the military need to do to tiptoe around the issue of not alienating the Iranian people and getting them against operations? Because so far, we've seen reports of Iranian people celebrating the Ayatollah, the initial Ayatollah being removed, >> but now his son's in power. And we, you know, we don't want to piss off the Iranian people here. >> Well, let me use a a case in point. You may have seen where the Israelis hit a bunch of oil storage areas in around Tyran. Filled the atmosphere full of thick acid oil smoke. Oil rain is another another phenomenon that comes from this and and I I have more than passing knowledge of that because of my experiences in Kuwait during Desert Storm. I know what oil rain is. I understand an atmosphere that is just absolutely almost unbreathable with hydrocarbons. So, that is a huge huge issue uh that that we apparently did address with the with the Israelis saying don't do that. Whatever advantage you think you're going to get from that could backfire on us and actually get people to rally around the current government. So, we don't want to do that. On the other hand, they made a statement. I think that's what the Israelis are trying to do to say, "Hey, look, we have capabilities. We can affect you in many, many ways, and you might want to get this regime which is responsible for all these strikes." There's there's there's arguments being made both ways. Really, the the the whole thing is what will the Iranian people do? And that's the problem with this is you want to diminish the ability of the regime to control the Iranian people, to stop future protests, to stop them from overthrowing uh government institutions. You want to stop the regime's ability to do that. But you got to be careful. If you hit certain target sets, you'll also incur collateral damage, and that's a problem as well. And so and and case in point, we don't know, but it's looking more more like that was a US missile strike that took out that girl school. >> Mistakes do happen in war. Horrific mistakes happen in war. >> But uh but those are the sorts of things that uh can shift public public sentiment in Iran very quickly if we do too many more of those. >> Just in 15 minutes ago, world leaders were racing on Wednesday to shore up the global oil supply. According to the New York Times, uh 32 member countries will release 400 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserves. This would be the largest action since 2022. Um ultimately, do you think that Americans and uh Western um citizens would face an oil shortage the likes of which we've haven't seen since 73 and 1979. >> I I think I think it's possible this could have a it depends on how long the war lasts. Obviously, this can have a big effect with 400 million and you know how much oil is is actually uh being blocked by the straight of Hormuz. So, uh you know, a couple things. Number one, you got the East West pipeline in Saudi Arabia. You also have another pipeline that runs through the UAE, which actually goes into the Gulf of Oman. Both of those have excess capacity. I think the East West had 2.6 million uh barrels a day uh capacity. Plus, there's a corresponding uh natural gas pipeline. Same thing with the UAE. I think it was like 700,000 barrels per day uh with a corresponding natural gas pipeline. So those are ways of bypassing straight of Hormuz. Uh I understand everything is at full tilt now. There is no excess capacity anywhere. Uh so that alleviates some but the question is okay what about all the rest that's where I think that 400 million can make a big difference. I think it can make a big difference for maybe 10 days, two weeks and then we're right back where we were. So we it really puts pressure on us to get the uh the straight of hormones back open again. >> Final question uh how how do you think the US military is going to evolve from this experience? So especially facing asymmetric warfare from drones for example, hypersonic missiles, everything we've talked about so far. Obviously the milit military has prepared for this. But going into this experience based on what you've seen so far, what are the next steps you think the military will take to evolve? >> Well, I I think first off you're going to see what what will happen here is we're going to deal with what we're dealing with right now. You know, there is a there is a sign of a truth and I don't like to quote Donald Rumsfeld, but you know, you kind of go with what the war the army you have. In this case, you go with the military you have. We can bring in some of these systems that were not fully fielded with air defense and doing going after drones and and and also putting lowcost drones in there. We don't have enough of those. I will say coming out of this the military and this is a fundamental change uh philosophically and it's been slow and coming. We're going to have to embrace drones and counter drone capabilities in ways that we knew we had to do. We understood we had to do, but we hadn't put the full amount of resources and effort into doing it. And I think that's something you're going to see change in a very big way is you're going to see drones, not just air, air, sea, subsurface, ground across the board being incorporated at a much more advanced pace. Same thing with artificial intelligence. You're going to see that being pushed forward very very quickly as well. >> Well, Trump and just finally, uh, Donald Trump wants to propose a $1.5 trillion military budget. So, expand the Pentagon's budget by $600 billion for 2027, fiscal year 2027. What do you think that money should be additional budget should be spent on? >> Well, a lot of it obviously what I just talked about drones. I think a lot of it's going to be used on space. Uh I sure I have no doubt that a lot of that they're looking at is going to be used for this uh Golden Dome thing they want to build over North America and uh that that thing is going to cost a phenomenal amount of money. 25 billion has already been put forward toward it. But I've I've seen numbers that get close around 15020 plus billion dollars maybe more to put that thing into effect. North America is awful darn big. fact that if you really get into the into some of the dynamics like with the US situation with Greenland and uh you know for a time I went to school at the University of Copenhagen for a while and uh I've got friends in Denmark obviously they're not thrilled with the US policy on Greenland for the last year. Um but one of the things is why is the US pushing so hard? Because if we put all these advanced systems for for interception and other things in Greenland, we do not want a situation where Greenland can do what Spain and Britain just did, which is say, "Hey, you can't use our our territory to do something." We want a situation where we'd have greater autonomy. Now, I'm I'm not here to I'm not here to, you know, defend the administration's position. I'm just explaining that would be the rationale behind it is if we're going to spend all this money, we want to make sure we have complete control. That's the same thing with the ARC in the Indian Ocean. We want a greater degree of control of being able to use those bases no matter what we do. >> Do you think we should have AI weapon systems? What's your view on that? >> Well, you know, I I grew up watching all the apocalyptic movies where artificial intelligence, you know, launched the thermonuclear war and destroyed us. So, I'm familiar with all that. I do think that AI can do some amazing things and I think AI is getting a lot smarter a lot faster. On the one hand, I I look at the potential, I go, "Wow, what we can do." Particularly in science and technology and things like that, you know, some of the leaps we can make. On the other hand, I look at I go, "Yeah, you give too much control there. There are certain qualities of moral behavior, ethics, other things. How do you ensure that happens?" And even even though and and I will say this this is a problem with the with the western world I should say you know with you know with uh certainly you know the G7 countries around the world and stuff we go well you know we need to do this do this it's like we can say all we want but our but China and Russia and other countries they don't feel this moral qual restriction with artificial intelligence they may go a completely different direction. So whereas we're holding oursel back, they're actually enabling their systems to do things that we won't let our systems do because of uh you know some ethical concerns that we have. That's a big challenge, you know, and that's I think that's the challenge going forward in AI. I wish I had a a a simple solution. I think it's going to become a very very difficult thing to manage, not just from a technology standpoint, but from an ethics standpoint and and human control standpoint. >> Thank you very much, Hal. I appreciate your insights and we appreciate you lending us your time. Where can we find you? Where can we follow you? >> Obviously, you go to Halford TV on YouTube and I post a lot of my, you know, we call them hits or whatever my interviews and stuff are on there. Uh, you can also go to Strat St. that's for strategic risk assessment talk podcast. Pretty much anywhere podcasts are found. Uh, you can find those. I just did a thing obviously on Iran and I just did one on this uh you know what's going on with Cuba and also with the western hemisphere with the shield of the Americas concept. So those are a couple different places you can find me and of course you can always go to my website for grip global risk intelligence and planning at www.gripsa.com. >> Okay, we'll put the links down below so make sure to follow hell there. Thank you again. We'll speak again soon. Take care for now. >> All right, thanks David. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe.
Iran Just Unleashed Deadliest Weapon Warns Ex Colonel; Markets Not Ready | Hal Kempfer
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We're going to examine what's next for the Iran conflict. Will American troops be put on the ground? How long will this war last? And what are the possible paths from here? What will happen to the oil market? To answer these questions, we're getting a veteran with real experience. Joining us now is retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Hal Keer, CEO and founder of Global Risk Intelligence and Planning. Keer is a retired Marine Intelligence Officer with 24 years of service and former director of intelligence for the First Marine Expeditionary Brigade. Here's the latest on Iran. Today is 11th, March 11th, day 12th of Operation Epic Fury after the US and Israel launched joint strikes against Iran on February 28th, killing Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Kam in the opening hours. His son Mushtaba Kame was named successor on Sunday. According to the latest reports, at least seven American service members are dead. Roughly 140 have been wounded. Iran says more than 1300 of its civilians have been killed. [music] Across the wider region, hundreds more are dead in Lebanon, the Gulf States, and Israel. Iran has so far over 500 ballistic missiles and naval missiles, and nearly 2,000 drones at targets stretching from Tel Aviv to Kuwait. The United States has struck more than 5,000 targets inside [music] Iran since Saturday alone. According to Sentcom Commander Admiral Brad Cooper, since the first 24 hours of this campaign, Iranian ballistic missiles and drone attacks have dropped drastically. Some reports claim that Iran's missile launch rate has dropped roughly 92% since day one, but Thran retains over 80% of its small boats and mine layers. The straight of Hormuz is effectively closed. More than 150 commercial ships are stranded. Three were hit by projectiles this morning alone. Roughly 18 million barrels of oil per day normally transit the straight and most of that supply is now gone. WTI oil hit $119 a barrel on Monday, the highest since 2022 since the uh invasion of Ukraine before falling back down to around $88 on Monday. And just in today, the International Energy Agency said that its 32 member countries would release 400 million barrels of oil from their strategic reserves, which would be the largest coordinated release since 2022. President Trump has spoken directly with Kurdish opposition leaders inside Iran about taking up arms against the region, but has since pulled back, calling the war complicated. Sources say the president has not made a final decision, although he remains open to the idea. >> Uh, Mr. President, you've said the war is quote very complete. But your defense secretary says this is just the beginning. So, which is it? And how long should Americans be? >> Well, I think you could say both. The beginning, it's the beginning of building a new country. >> Do you have to take him out? Does he have a target on his back? You mean the new supreme leader? You mean the son? >> How can there be an Iran? >> Well, I don't want to I don't want to say that, but you know, I was disappointed because we think it's going to lead to just more of the same problem for the country. So, I was disappointed to see their choice. >> So, what is next? Colonel Keer, welcome to the show. An honor to host you today. >> Oh, thank you, David. >> Let's talk about, I think, the question on a lot of people's minds, which is, is Iran the new Iraq or Afghanistan? In other words, is this the beginning of another 10-year war in the Middle East that will involve American troops in the region? One historian has called this America's third Gulf War and warned the unintended consequences could mirror those of 2003 with mission accomplished actually lasting decades. What's your view? >> Well, a veteran of the first two Gulf Wars, uh I sure hope not. Um, the hope is that the mission can be accomplished with causing enough damage to the way that Iran projects power that projects mayhem might be a better way of putting it. You know, using their ballistic missiles, their drones, their maritime capabilities and of course their proxy network of paramilitaries and terrorists all around the region. The hope is that this would be something that staunches that that ends any potential not just aspirations but capabilities of the radical regime in Thran to ever acquire a nuclear weapon and of course the means to deliver that nuclear weapon to other countries. So that that's the hope. Now, with all of that said, that doesn't require a ground in evasion. That that doesn't require a large movement like you saw with Desert Storm or with the opening weeks of uh of Iraqi Freedom where you see this massive ground invasion heading north or or heading into, you know, as certainly I have very vivid memories of going across Kuwait in 100 hours and u and so you're not going to see something like that. You might see boots on the ground, but they might be special operations boots. There are a number of targets there tied to ballistic missiles, drones, command and control, and particularly to the nuclear program where they really might want to put boots on the ground, you know, actually going in there ascertaining the situation, destroying what's ever there in terms of offensive capability and and in case of nuclear material, maybe even taking it uh with them or something like that. There's a lot of possibilities there, but uh but hopefully you won't see a ground invasion. But what you are seeing is a very very robust uh air strike and missile program and and also uh a growing naval program as we've seen particularly when you look at things like a US submarine, you know, basically sinking a ship with a with a torpedo. We haven't seen that since World War II. So that's that's kind of a big deal. We're going to get into uh the details of the Iranian military just a minute and uh their sea mine operation that's going on in the street of for moose. Uh but over the uh weekend on Sunday the uh a new supreme leader uh was appointed the Ayoto son uh Mush Mushaba Kame was successor. Um and uh this doesn't sound like a regime change uh how so >> no it it's not. It's it's more the same. Mashaba was was kind of the gatekeeper for his father u you know the the Ayatollah Ali Kamani uh who was killed in that strike. Now it's not clear there's a lot of reports coming out particularly right now that Moshaba was injured either in the strike they say in the opening days or whatever which could have been he was proximate to wherever that big strike took place. There's also something that they said he has survived an assassination attempt. So maybe it was something separate, but he did suffer injuries. Apparently his foot's injured. He's got a a significant facial laceration. Whatever it is, it's enough that's kept him out of the pictures. He hasn't shown up. He's made no public appearances, anything like that. So he was a safe bet. He is definitely a consistency within that regime. There is no change. U I imagine he's going to be just as radical or more radical than his father and he's going to and he's he has a very close relationship with the revolutionary guard corps which tells you where he's kind of uh where his his orientation is within the body politic if you will the bureaucracy. Now I will I will point out a potential opportunity. Okay. So they put somebody in there who is very much aligned with the revolutionary guard corps despite everything they said and not the highest levels to get to the highest levels of the regular military the artes and uh and of course the regular secular police forces to get to those highest levels you've pretty much got to be ideologically vetted shall we say to make sure that you're one with the regime but at the lower levels that's not always true. Those are they're just professionals that are in the military or the police forces, whatever. And they are not as ideological as Bas, which is that militia that's under that used to be under the IRGC that was brutally suppressing protesters or the IRGC itself. So there is a possibility with this choice of supreme leader that you could see not only frustration with the you know vast majority of the Iranian people 80 90% but you could see some real frustration with the military particularly the navy but also the army who have taken and the air force the ar the navy and the air force have basically been eviscerated by this uh by these attacks they could be very frustrated with what you know looking at the regime and saying what have you done we no longer have a navy and an air force because of you and the army's probably looking at this saying, "Why are we putting up with these guys?" That to me is a that's a possibility. That's always one we've talked about. Could the secular military and police forces turn on these theocratic regime focused things like the revolutionary guard corps and bas >> before we continue with the video, I'd like to bring to your attention something that's perhaps even more valuable and important than your investment portfolio, and that's your personal data and your privacy. Now, your personal information is more accessible than you may think. And that's where today's sponsor, Delete Me, comes in. Data brokers and search websites gather and sell details like your name, home address, phone number, and even family connections, sometimes without you even realizing it. Delete Me is a service I use to help me limit that exposure. Setup takes only a few minutes, and after that, their team handles everything. They [snorts] identify where your information appears, confirm those listings, and submit removal requests to hundreds of data broker websites. They also continue monitoring over time since this data can reappear. I've been personally using it for over a year now, and they've reviewed over 325 listings for my information. The reports show exactly what was found and what was removed, which makes the process transparent. If you want to check it out, go to joindeleteme.com/davlin. link in the description down below or scan the QR code here to get started. Use my code David Lynn for 20% off. Get started and protect your privacy today. I'm reading some reports uh how that the US is well it's costing them a lot of money for the US military to sustain this operation. So according to the Hill published art uh article published yesterday, the Pentagon burned through roughly $5.6 billion in munitions in the first two days of the Iran war. Other reports claim that uh the West doesn't have enough munitions for a sustained operation. Is that true? Uh there's a limit to the amount of munitions we have. There are other contingencies too. Uh there was a lot of reports prior to this thing kicking off that there was a lot of uh discussion in the Pentagon and discussion from the Pentagon going to the White House saying look uh if something happens in the Far East u you know particular with China and Taiwan, will we have uh the the armaments? Will we have the weaponry, the ammunition that we need to do something? And uh I I never heard exact numbers attached. I heard some broad estimates but the fear was that we we wouldn't have enough ammunition for other contingencies around the world. This is taking a phenomenal amount of uh weaponry to do this. Particularly when you talk uh you know high value items like tomahawk missiles which are not cheap, very expensive and a number of other things like you know miss missiles for Patriot missile batteries are not cheap. Yeah. >> In fact, one of the things that we're we're kind of emphasizing now is we're using these new Lucas uh drones, which is actually a USD adaptation of the Shahed 136 drone that uh that Iran developed. And they're a lot cheaper, about, you know, I think 35,000 a piece or something, which is much less expensive than a, you know, million-doll tomahawk missile. Actually, it's more than a million, but uh so that's one thing. uh doesn't have as much firepower, but it can loiter and do a lot of other things, which is very valuable. Then the other thing is we're actually going to Ukraine and trying to get some of the drone interceptors so we don't have to use these expensive air defense missiles to take out these, you know, rel relative cheap drones. So, yeah, it's big concern, big concern with this. Uh, and now if you're in the araments business, if you're in the araments industry, it's a great time to be in that industry cuz we're going to have to we're already starting to cut contracts as is Europe and rebuilding this capability. So, they're that's if you're an investor, you're looking at some of these companies and going that's where I want to put my money right now cuz uh business is good. How do the uh opening days of the Iran war look in comparison to the opening days of Iraq uh where you were involved for example just in terms of the munitions used in the types of targets struck by US forces? >> It's it's a little bit different. First off, Iran is a much bigger country than Iraq, a vastly bigger country than Kuwait. So when you just look at targets, you're looking at more target sets across a larger country. So that's a different thing. So it's tough to really compare that. Also the prices tough to compare. You're talking 20 years ago, 30 years ago, you know, in terms of what munitions cost then. So it's tough to say that. But I would say we're using a a a lot of munitions. I don't know if it was the same 5 I don't know if it's the same equivalent of 5.6 billion over the first two days. That doesn't surprise me. But what I will say is it it's had an effect. uh about 90 there's a decrease of about 90% of the ballistic missile launches coming from I from Iran from its from its peak period which was about the first day so that's significant about somewhere in mid mid 80s 85% of the drones have been reduced and uh in terms of that so yes there was a big expenditure up front but the other side was and this is where it's always difficult yes you can always calculate how much to spend how much did we save in terms of damage. And if you say, well, it costs a lot up front, but we stopped them from firing all these missiles, so maybe we saved a lot on the back end because less buildings were destroyed, less loss of life, less everything. Yeah. So, it's it's a difficult equation. >> So, Iran has fired over 500 ballistic missiles and naval missiles and over 2,000 drones since the beginning of the conflict, targeting uh targets stretching from Tel Aviv to Kuwait in the Gulf. Uh the United States has struck more than 5,000 targets in Iran since Saturday alone. But just on the Iranian front, some people observers would argue, well, the US and Israel failed to contain the first missile strikes from Iran. Why weren't these missile installations taken out? And why were civilian targets struck? Why weren't they, you know, completely eliminated? And the ability to strike with missiles eliminated in the first 24 hours. I mean, some reports claim that Iran's missile launch rate has dropped roughly 92% since day one, but still a lot of damage was done. What happened there? >> Well, first off, even with even with everything we had over there, you can only hit so many things at once. You know, it's not like it's not like you get a chance to go and say, "Hey, we're going to reduce all your missiles before you fire." Uh, didn't do that. Now, what I am hearing is that uh we did a amazing job shutting down command and control. Uh there were some things that were it's not very clear. Obviously the reporting isn't great but it it basically it says Cyber Command and US Space Command were very busy at the outset diminishing the ability of uh of the Iranian regime to basically command and control its missile and drone forces. And I did notice that they were a little slow off the mark shall we say from the initial strikes to when they started launching. Now you only have so many planes. You only have so many missiles that you can hit in such a time period. So they took out a lot, but there there is no perfect way to take out everything. And some of these things like the tails, the transporter that you know erect launcher systems, those big things that come out and put a missile up and then you fire. Those things are hidden underground. So uh they will pop out and if you catch them while they're out of their revetments, while they're out of their tunnels, you can take them out. But once they go back underground, it's very very difficult to take them out. So that's a that's kind of a you know time timeintensive sort of thing where you have to literally sit on top of them and wait for those to to pop out. We had the we had a similar issue with the Scuds during Desert Storm. That was where we really looked at this and we said, "Yeah, we got to we have put, you know, from the time we get a sensor reading to the time we hit that thing, which we called sensor to target that, uh, we had to close that gap as fast we can." In that regard, I think we've done a pretty good job overall from what I can tell. But, um, but with that said, you know, war is a dirty business. Now, as far as hitting civilian targets, critical infrastructure and stuff, non-military targets, that was an Iranian strategic decision. I think they're going to pay they are paying and they're going to pay an enormous price for that. I think historians will go back and say that was probably one of the biggest mistakes that Iran made was opening up this whole target set with all the Arab countries, Turkey and elsewhere. >> Right. Let's talk about some of these ballistic missiles that Iran has in its arsenals. Specifically, the hypersonic missiles I'm going to talk about next. Uh Fatak 1 and Fatah 2, the newer one unveiled in 2023 supposedly with a range of up to 1500 km. Mach 13 to Mach 15 speed as claimed by uh the Iranians. Uh warhead approximately 200 kg. Uh length approximately 12 meters. Used for the first time uh just a couple weeks ago, March 1st. My question is well a couple questions. First of all, how much risk do these actually pose to US assets in particular carriers and carrier battle groups? Uh, I I'm I'm guessing the Navy wouldn't have moved two carrier strike groups into the region if they thought this was a threat. >> I I would say not much from a naval standpoint, from a carrier task force standpoint. Is it something they watch? Absolutely. But, uh, what's the ability of them to accurately target a carrier? That's where we we kind of hit them in a in a major way is, you know, it's one thing it's one thing to hit a fixed building that's on the map uh that is and it's not going to move. You're not going to a building isn't going to go anywhere. You know, a facility isn't going to go anywhere. A military base isn't going to go anywhere. Ships, on the other hand, are never in the same place. They're always moving. So, hitting a ship, a moving ship somewhere out at sea, particularly if we shut down their intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance capabilities offshore, uh that doesn't pose much of a threat. Now, do these hypersonic missiles pose a threat? Yes. Uh some of them uh actually being launched from a proxy the Houthis into Israel a while back. We saw where uh a couple of them actually got through the air defense zone. Got through the uh the Iron Dome, got through the Aero A12 missiles, u got through the David sling, all of that got in and hit stuff. So that was a that was a big problem that that they were getting through. And we have reports that some of these have been have been used by Iran with some effect, you know, with significant effect with this one, but they don't have a lot of those. And the and the question is really and and this was somebody brought this up. They go, you know, if you got 90 ballistic missiles sitting in a in a, you know, underground tunnel complex, these what they call missile cities, these underground missile cities, and you have no a way to launch them. and you take out all the launch systems, you basically have a useless tunnel full of missiles that you can't use. And so that's where uh we've been going in there and I say we I should say collectively Israel, the US have been going in there and hitting the launcher systems. So even if you have the missiles, if you can't launch them, they're useless. At some point want to go and destroy them, but right now you just want to stop their ability to actually utilize them. So in that regard, yes, the missiles always look impressive. I'm always a little skeptical of what the Iranians say about their capabilities, just like I'm skeptical of what Russia or China always says about their capabilities. You know, everything everything is, you know, faster, quicker, you know, there's no way we can stop it. It's all, you know, the, you know, you might even call marketing hyperbole, uh, that you sometimes will hear where people say, "Oh, this system will this will do everything." and they say that look that it's a capability but it's not it's not as it's not as significant I think as certainly as the Iranians make it out to be. >> There's been some debate as to whether or not Iran has the arsenal to hit the US mainland. Do they have intercontinental ballistic missiles that could target the continental mainland US? >> To my knowledge they really don't. Um they do have missiles that can get up into Eastern Europe. All right. They they now do they have the capability of maybe one doing something where it would orbit or something. That's possible, but I would also say if it's just one, we also have the ability probably to knock that out as well. Uh I haven't seen anything that indicates that they have any intercontinental ballistic missile capability to speak of. There was some fear initially that Iran could put a submarine off the US coast. the you know the submarines like the kilocclass submarines which are not great and actually the kiloclass submarines biggest threat was that they would sit at the bottom of the straight of hormuz and just sit there quietly and then wait for a target to appear. Um that that kind of got eliminated. Three of the four were in maintenance which has always been a perennial problem with the uh Iranian Navy. And then the fourth, a satellite photo a few days back showed it sitting in in port with a very large hole in its hull. All right, which is another way of saying it's no longer a submarine or if it does go into the water, it will never come back. So, uh, in that regard, I just don't see where they have a big threat right now. Could they develop a threat? That's significant. And unimpeded, yes. If you look at how fast their missile program was going, they would have eventually had an intercontinental ballistic missile unless something was done to stop that. >> Well, these hypersonic missiles, how much they tip the scale of power in the Middle East itself. The Iron Dome, some say has been rendered ineffective in Israel by these hypersonic missiles. Yes, a lot of them have been shot down, but yes, some of them get did get through. Uh, Colonel, tell us about what needs to be done now to advance defense systems against these new weapons. I I would say it's already being done. Uh there's a number of things are being taken into account. Uh some of it is using existing technology but using it in a different way. You change the tactics. You know, when is the missile coming in? What type of uh warhead would you like to use to stop that missile from coming in? So there's a lot of it's using existing air defense capabilities but using them in a different way because you have a missile with a different characteristic. So that's being done. There's also some very advanced stuff, not just in the missiles, but there's some very advanced stuff being used with directed energy and lasers. Um, that is right now it seems to be most of that's focused as a cheap way to take out drones. And frankly, from a targeting standpoint, drones are a lot easier to hit than a ballistic missile in many ways. Yes, they can maneuver, but the other side is that they don't move as fast. So, um, so that's working and there's plenty of drone targets to be hit. But I think at some point we're going to see this change dramatically. Once we see lasers and directed energy systems come on in a major way, I think that's going to change the whole vulnerability picture in terms of drones and ballistic missiles and hypersonic missiles in its entirety. >> Can you comment on some of the air defense systems that Iran uh claims to have? So including the Russian made S300 and S400 air defense systems and recently acquired from China uh more advanced HQ9B longrange surfacetoair missiles. Can these actually detect stealth aircraft like the F-35 and B2s? >> I don't not really no I I think the F-35 and the B2s are have certainly have the capability technologically speaking but also have uh certain tactics that they employ with what they do that they can defeat these systems. The S300 system isn't that new. Uh it's been around for a while and there is so much incumbent knowledge on the capabilities and limitations of the S300 and the associated radars that I'm not worried about that the Chinese system uh I don't think they have much of that uh as I recall. And frankly, whereas it's tough to kind of, you know, when you hear when you hear kind of these broad things like we took out their air defense systems, that's not a very specific statement, but what from what I hear from that is certainly those are the systems that get prioritized for elimination. The lesser capable systems, you know, you work down the list. So, I don't know that those systems actually pose a significant threat at this time towards any of our aircraft. In fact, what we have is uh from what I can tell air superiority over Iran. And we achieved that within I think we achieved it from the outset of this war. We had air superiority. In certain areas we have air supremacy which means that basically our aircraft can work unopposed. Uh the goal would be to have air supremacy over all of Iran. Once we have air supremacy over Iran, we can pretty much hit anything we want at any time, any place with whatever we have to hit it with. And at that point, uh, you're kind of hitting where it was in the 12-day war last June towards the end with Israel where they appeared to have air supremacy in large large swats of Iran. That has a psychological dimension, too. Once the Iranian people realize that the that the government can't protect them in any way from aircraft, uh, you know, the fear is that they will, you know, they'll they'll it'll stir up nationalist sentiments and those opposed to the regime might say, "Well, we're being attacked by a foreign invader, so we have to back the regime even though we hate them." The other side is they may look at it and say, "This this foreign invader is trying to enable us to overthrow the regime, and now the regime can't do anything. They can't move. They can't move their forces. And if we come out in the streets, they could actually hit, you know, the besiege uh forces units or they hit the RIGC units in ways they couldn't hit them before. And if they can take them out, that means that the protesters potentially could take over government buildings, take over government. Uh I'm not saying it would be an easy faith to comp play, but I am saying that they could actually accomplish quite a bit. And uh and you know, I I will go back. Let me just go back a little bit. You know, everyone says, you know, with these with these regimes, they go, you know, it was always considered impossible that they could be overthrown. And then after it happens, everyone says it was inevitable. And I remember ' 89 to 91, we'd watch all these Warsaw packed countries eventually the Soviet Union itself would go, "No, it won't fall." No, Chashescu will never be overthrown in Romania. That will never happen. And then literally as you get it out of your mouth, you go, "Oh, okay. He's dead. All right, I guess he's out. So, um, so some of these things that seem very difficult, if almost impossible, can turn inevitable very quickly. >> Well, when we talk about air supremacy, uh, how what's the military's answer to lowcost drones like the Shahed drones you were talking about earlier, they supposedly cost around $35,000 to make. You can make them with commercial parts, which is important, and the Patriot missiles used to intercept them cost roughly $4 million. We're talking about asymmetric warfare at the extreme here. And you know economically it doesn't make a lot of sense. So when you were in service Yeah. did you did did the army and and air force prepare for lowcost drone swarms? >> Yeah. Yeah. Actually there's been a very very uh aggressive program to try and and to develop programs. In fact I understand there is a lowcost uh drone interceptor. I think it's running about 15 30,000 something like that that we're sending over there. Uh and uh the only problem we have is we're behind in the power curve. I'll be the first to say we have been behind the power curve on drone and counter drone for a number of years. And as we watched what was happening in Ukraine, you know, it's becoming painfully obvious that we had been pursuing these high-end drones when we needed to be pursuing these less expensive, less capable, but but a lot, you know, much easier to manufacture and to, you know, do swarms and stuff like that. And uh we've been ignoring that. So we're we do have systems. I the problem is I think we're at a little bit of a deficit in terms of being able to field enough of them right now. So what you're seeing with this is we're saying look take out the launchers, try to limit the drones. That way the interceptor drones that we can get in there will be more effective because there'll be less incoming that they have to deal with. >> So in your opinion, what are the most devastating weapons that the Iranians currently possess? And they could be hard weapons or soft weapons, things that could turn uh the scale in their favor right now. >> Well, I don't think ballistic missiles is going to Yes, it's a, you know, I'd have to put at the top of the list as as potential, but I think that that has been dealt with in such a way that no longer poses a threat that it did. I think the ones we have to look at right now are sea sea mines in the straight of Hormuz. And that's from a strictly economic perspective. I mean, if you're sitting in the cities, you know, if you're sitting in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, you know, Doha, you're saying, "Well, sea mine isn't going to come out of the ocean and destroy my building like a ballistic missile or a drone might." True, but you can't move oil and liqufied natural gas to the straight of Hormuz. And that really is the economic engine of the Persian Gulf. So, uh, dealing with the sea mines, taking out the plethora of revolutionary guards, small boats that not only do mining, but also are are used for other types of attacks. That is a big one. And then, of course, the other one is taking out those anti-ship missiles along the coast, particularly in the straight of Hormuz. If we get the straightforward moves open, if we can get the shipping flowing then at and and certainly at that point uh you know you can you can assume that Iran would be unable to ship anything. You know whether you want to call it a naval blockade, it's a deacto naval blockade because of what's going on. That would change all the math. And uh you know Iran going into this was in horrific economic shape. That's why people were protesting in the streets in December and January because the economy is simply failing to deliver. Uh at this point there there really isn't and I don't want to be over optimistic but I'm just looking at this from an economic perspective. There really isn't a way that the regime can continue with the with the current situation. >> This is what the president had to say um in regards to uh sea mines. I'm pleased to report that within the last few hours, we have hit and completely destroyed 10 inactive mine laying boats and or ships with more to follow. Uh according to Forbes, uh there's been no official confirmation Iran has put mines in the straight, although off record, US intelligence sources reported a few dozen have been laying uh have been laid in recent days. Uh how if mines were laid um by the Iranians, how long would the Navy need to take to clear the straight of Hormuz? really depends on how many there are. This is not the first time we dealt with mines. You may recall in the 80s Iran was putting sea mines into the into the Persian Gulf as well. That was when we did our ref flagging operations where we uh we actually uh took a lot of the tankers going in out of the Gulf. We we basically put them under a US flag so we could do a naval escort to take them through. However, back in the 80s, we had a lot more mind sweepers so we could we could actually go through that. There is a kind of a a rather morbid joke that they use. They say every ship is a mind sweeper once. Okay, that's a horrible way to look at it, but it is true. But uh but we really need a way to safely remove those mines. Now, there are a lot of different capabilities that we could use to take those mines out. There are some interesting drone capabilities. I don't know if we have those fully filled yet to uh deal with sea mines as well. But if we can if we can quirk up the sea mines, if we can stop it from being deployed in large numbers, you know, hundreds of mines, potentially thousands of sea mines being being put out there, if we can prevent that from happening and then orchestrate, shape the battle space in other ways to end this war faster, then we can probably get the uh straight of Hormuz open sooner. And with that, that takes off that takes away an enormous amount of economic strain that comes from this conflict. >> So, here's a trillion dollar question. I guess this is the uh this is a chart that's been circulating on social media posted by Luke Growman here. Straight of Hormuz total tanker transit calls according to the source macro bond has been plummeting in the last couple days down to zero. So the straight of hormos as you're aware roughly uh transits 20% of global oil supply every single day and with that gone a lot of Asian countries in particular that need to import oil through that region are harder hit. We'll talk about that in just a minute but from a military perspective how what needs to be done to reverse this trend get things back to normal. just walk us through the process that the military, the navy and the air force needs to do and roughly how long it would take. We want to know how long the straight of Hormuz roughly is going to get shut down here. Well, to go in there, you know, around the straight of Hormuz to deal with the all the threats emanating from Bond Abos, uh that's going to take a while. Uh there's uh you know, anti-hship missiles that are in rebetments that are in areas are difficult to to hit with aircraft. So, that's going to take a while. You may see some of those Lucas drones sitting up there. Thing is, once they're exposed, it doesn't take a a heavy warhead, not 2,000 lb or 500 lb, something like that. You can hit them with a smaller warhead. So, those Lucas drones, those lowcost uh unmanned uh combat, you know, air air uh uh unmanned uh aviation systems that those can go in there and we have deployed those over. So, those can be sitting there as a asility set although they are kamicazi. So at some point they can loiter for a while but at some point they actually got to hit something. Uh so that's something that we have to take in consideration. We don't have probably as many of those as we'd like to but we have deployed them. Uh the other thing too is though you might see and this is where we talk about boots on the ground. Again I go back to special operations. You know you might start seeing some things like maybe amphibious raids or something like that or or deeper set raids further in ones that aren't further in from the coast. things that do not look like, you know, 1980 where we went in tried to uh do the rescue mission in Tyran of the US diplomats, stuff that's closer to the coast, stuff that we can more easily support from a both a maritime and an aviation standpoint where we don't have to worry about a bunch of refueling aircraft, stuff like that. Those are the things where that's where you're going to find those anti-hship missiles actually located. And so we can take those out. And then the other one is to take out those plethora of small boats. And a lot of that is again uh they're small boats. You don't have to have a big warhead to do that. You can do it with a relatively small warhead. So, uh taking out those boats, taking out the NA NA ship missiles. When all of that's done, uh and of course the other issue is not quite sure how many, but they have a lot of the Revolutionary Guard Corps has these little submarines. So, we want to take those out as well. Once that is dealt with, then we can open it up. Now, will that take two weeks, three weeks, four weeks? That's anybody's guess. It's going to take weeks to really do that. And again, then it depends on how much how much risk are we willing to assume and putting boots on the ground or using other uh resources in order to eliminate these weapon systems. But once it's gone, it's gone. And then the straight could reopen. >> Well, according to reports, three ships have been hit so far. um as of Wednesday and it's been reported that one of the ships hit was a Thai cargo ship that uh carried civilians. So, how does this impact the international community? At a certain point, other countries would have to step in to intervene or were they just continuously put pressure on Israel and the US to end this quickly? >> Well, they're they're always going to put pressure and end it quickly. Uh you may have seen um cutter today uh came out and said, "Hey, let's try and work diplomacy or something like that." uh as well. But I think it was I think it was a worthwhile thing for I think for cutter to say I don't think it's gonna actually result in much from the Iranian regime. But uh but with that you saw a few ships and I should mention there are some ships that are kind of hugging the other coast if you will and trying to get through the straight of Hormuz. They're trying to bypass this. Uh there is a one shipping line where the uh the the ship owner actually turned around and said, "Hey, look, if I didn't like risk, I wouldn't be in the shipping business and he's telling his ships to try and basically run the straight to see if they can get through." Now, the US has said that they're going to try and set up some sort of naval escort to get ships through. I don't think we're quite ready for that. I think we have to shape the battle space on the Iranian coast in such a way that we can mitigate the risk and control the amount of anti-ship capabilities that Iran can can use at any given time. But you are seeing there's there's a risk of a number to a number of ships. You know, we got these three ships that were hit. That's obviously a big concern uh that that that's going to happen. China is is trying to get its ship through. Um, you know, Iran, ironically, if they can identify correctly, they may actually let some of the Chinese ships go through. The question is, what are we going to do? Are we going to let China bring out ships full of oil um or or liqufied natural gas, but certainly full of oil. Are we going to just stand by and let that happen, >> or are we going to try and stop those ships? And do we want to assume the risk that we go with trying to stop those ships? in some way. So there's there's a lot of there's a lot of risk going all around is another way to put it and but that's something we have to consider. >> So according to Reuters just on Chinese ships, China buys more than 80% of Iran's shipped oil says data from 2025. China purchased an average of 1.38 million barrels per day. That represents 13% of the total uh oil it imported by sea. So a significant portion of China's oil demand comes from Iran. What's currently happening right now? Uh, how are they are the Iranians letting oil tankers flow through China? >> Well, they're they're trying to. All right. Uh, right now everything's kind of slowed down. I hear that some tankers may be coming out to go to China and I don't know how if the pipelines could sustain using the the Gulf of Oman, you know, the the southern coast as an alternative to what they do. There's so much that's invested in Car Island and certainly in terms of of natural gas, but so much that's that's built built up there that if they can't move stuff through the straight, they can't move stuff through the straight. And and there is a double-edged sword, which is Iran says, "Well, we're not going to let anybody go through the straight." Yeah. Well, we could say the same thing. We're not going to let anything go through the straight. And, you know, you kind of have a standoff, if you will, in terms of who's not letting stuff through the straight. So certainly, you know, I mean, from a China's China's perspective on this is, you know, they they import about 11.1 million barrels a day. I think they produce maybe 4.3 million barrels. Uh, you know, between China and Venezuela, this was a good chunk of the oil. I mean, it was probably somewhere around 25% of their imported oil needs daily. Some would say it was a little bit higher. Um, but you know, Venezuela has been cut off. Now, Iran has been effectively cut off for a period of time. That is a huge amount of oil that that China can't bring in. That's going to cause huge problems for China. In fact, there's already some reflection that it is causing huge problems for China in terms of acquisition of oil. And even when it's all said and done, China will not be able to buy uh discounted uh sanctioned Iranian oil uh like they have been. they're going to have to pay the going rate at the very least for that oil, which means that they have had a certain advantage and that they've been able to buy discounted oil from Venezuela, discounted oil from Iran, and discounted oil from Russia. And that may all change. Now, one of the things that's kind of going the background has me a little little concerned is President Trump says he's going to lift some of the sanctions on Russia to allow them to move oil out. I I strategically from a uh you know from a from a military standpoint and from a power standpoint I don't like to see that. I'd like to see as much pressure remain on Russia as we possibly can. But you know the president has decided the way the president has decided and I think that's to alleviate the price pressure on oil and also to to enable China to keep doing things that they you know that they otherwise may not be able to do. So just on that note quickly uh US eases sanctions on Russian oil sales to India. You'll recall that uh sanctions were put on uh Russian oil sales to several countries including India. Now they're being lifted as you mentioned. Does this position does this Iran conflict actually strengthen Russia in the short term? You think >> you know there has been a number of uh a number of articles and experts out there who said you know who's the big winner in this and they said strange as it may sound Russia may come out slightly ahead on this because this is a big problem. You know India had stopped buying they had finally agreed after tremendous pressure. They had finally agreed to stop buying Russian oil. That was kind of a thorn in our in our policy side was that India kept buying Russian oil and there were other countries that bought Russian oil as well but India was a big consumer of Russian oil. Now this is lifted. All right. So they're going to start buying discounted Russian oil. The concern is okay. So, we're going to have to go through that same thing again when this war is over in order to reimpose those sanctions. And of course, the question is, will we go through this again to reimpose those sanctions the way we did? And of course, the Europeans are certainly concerned because this now gives Russia a lot of revenue that they're going to pump into the war in Iraq. I mean war in Iraq the war in Ukraine in order to u uh put more pressure on the Ukrainians which puts more pressure on the on the Europeans to support the Ukrainians and stopping the Russians. So there's a lot at stake with this. I'm sure you know in European capitals they're they're probably not not pleased with this policy decision by the US. >> So with all the constraints that we've talked about what do you think is the most likely next step? So I've read that there's a few options that the military could consider. one, arming the Kurds, which apparently the president has been in communication with Kurdish leaders so far. That hasn't been confirmed yet. Or putting boots in the ground. We've already discussed that at length. Or number three, just withdraw completely, claim that strategic targets have been hit, and just pull back from here. If you're revising um high command right now, what would you say? >> Well, first off, let me just address the Kurds thing. All right. There were reports coming out the CIA had been in contact with the Iranian Kurds. As you may know, on the Iraq side, they have a a pretty much an autonomous territory that they control up to the north. Still part of Iraq, but it's completely self-governed. They run like a separate country up there. Uh not there is a lot of back and forth, but they are there are differences between the Iranian Kurds and the Iraqi Kurds. All right? So, a lot of times that's overlooked, but there are um with the Iranian Kurds to back them militarily. And certainly Iranian Kurds are very interested in doing that because they do not they do not want to be part of Iran. They've never wanted to be part of Iran. If we do that, then we're starting down the road of backing separatist movements in Iran. The concern is that could complicate whatever we're trying to achieve with the government in Iran. Whether it's whatever this regime morphs into or a completely different regime, you're still dealing with territorial integrity. And if we back the Kurds, you're going to you've already seen Azarbaijan, which has been targeted by Iran, has said that they will militarily support the Azeris, the Azeri areas and the Azeris in Iran to be a separatist group. And then there's always been a problem down by the Pakistani border with the Beluchis which want to be a autonomous territory. So the fear is that you would kick off what is truly going to be a civil war where you have these separatist groups trying to break off and you may have one or two other uh groups in the in the mayhem turn around and say well we'd like to break off as well. You know there are there are Arabs uh that are primarily Sunni uh in some of the key oil producing areas who have always said they do not want to be part of Persia or Iran. They do not want to be part of this Shiite uh regime and this government. So they might be encouraged to do something as well. So the the fear is that you could kind of unccort this thing and uh and start something bigger. On the other hand, if you back the Kurds, that will that will certainly divert a lot of military resources for the Iranians to have to deal with the Kurdish issue and put pressure on them to come sort of some sort of agreement to end this war sooner rather than later. That's the thought with that. Now, as I will tell you, I have heard some rhetoric coming from the White House and stuff where they say first they said we want unconditional surrender and I I heard that and I was like I think I've heard that before World War II, but it's been a while. Okay, >> what does that mean? >> Well, that was the thing that that's exactly what everyone was asking. He said, "What do you mean?" And uh Carol Levit, the White House press secretary, says the president will decide when they have unconditionally surrendered. And so the US would unilaterally decide when the other side has unconditionally surrendered. I have to tell you, I'm like many others. I am not quite sure what they mean by it. It's it does sound a lot to go back to your what your question. Are we simply going to declare victory and go home is a phrase that we've always used. U if you say that they've unconditionally surrendered but the regime's still in place, the question is what have we really accomplished? And then you get into the semantics of what does unconditional surrender really mean? And at this point, like you said, the regime hasn't really changed. So, what does the military need to do to tiptoe around the issue of not alienating the Iranian people and getting them against operations? Because so far, we've seen reports of Iranian people celebrating the Ayatollah, the initial Ayatollah being removed, >> but now his son's in power. And we, you know, we don't want to piss off the Iranian people here. >> Well, let me use a a case in point. You may have seen where the Israelis hit a bunch of oil storage areas in around Tyran. Filled the atmosphere full of thick acid oil smoke. Oil rain is another another phenomenon that comes from this and and I I have more than passing knowledge of that because of my experiences in Kuwait during Desert Storm. I know what oil rain is. I understand an atmosphere that is just absolutely almost unbreathable with hydrocarbons. So, that is a huge huge issue uh that that we apparently did address with the with the Israelis saying don't do that. Whatever advantage you think you're going to get from that could backfire on us and actually get people to rally around the current government. So, we don't want to do that. On the other hand, they made a statement. I think that's what the Israelis are trying to do to say, "Hey, look, we have capabilities. We can affect you in many, many ways, and you might want to get this regime which is responsible for all these strikes." There's there's there's arguments being made both ways. Really, the the the whole thing is what will the Iranian people do? And that's the problem with this is you want to diminish the ability of the regime to control the Iranian people, to stop future protests, to stop them from overthrowing uh government institutions. You want to stop the regime's ability to do that. But you got to be careful. If you hit certain target sets, you'll also incur collateral damage, and that's a problem as well. And so and and case in point, we don't know, but it's looking more more like that was a US missile strike that took out that girl school. >> Mistakes do happen in war. Horrific mistakes happen in war. >> But uh but those are the sorts of things that uh can shift public public sentiment in Iran very quickly if we do too many more of those. >> Just in 15 minutes ago, world leaders were racing on Wednesday to shore up the global oil supply. According to the New York Times, uh 32 member countries will release 400 million barrels of oil from the strategic reserves. This would be the largest action since 2022. Um ultimately, do you think that Americans and uh Western um citizens would face an oil shortage the likes of which we've haven't seen since 73 and 1979. >> I I think I think it's possible this could have a it depends on how long the war lasts. Obviously, this can have a big effect with 400 million and you know how much oil is is actually uh being blocked by the straight of Hormuz. So, uh you know, a couple things. Number one, you got the East West pipeline in Saudi Arabia. You also have another pipeline that runs through the UAE, which actually goes into the Gulf of Oman. Both of those have excess capacity. I think the East West had 2.6 million uh barrels a day uh capacity. Plus, there's a corresponding uh natural gas pipeline. Same thing with the UAE. I think it was like 700,000 barrels per day uh with a corresponding natural gas pipeline. So those are ways of bypassing straight of Hormuz. Uh I understand everything is at full tilt now. There is no excess capacity anywhere. Uh so that alleviates some but the question is okay what about all the rest that's where I think that 400 million can make a big difference. I think it can make a big difference for maybe 10 days, two weeks and then we're right back where we were. So we it really puts pressure on us to get the uh the straight of hormones back open again. >> Final question uh how how do you think the US military is going to evolve from this experience? So especially facing asymmetric warfare from drones for example, hypersonic missiles, everything we've talked about so far. Obviously the milit military has prepared for this. But going into this experience based on what you've seen so far, what are the next steps you think the military will take to evolve? >> Well, I I think first off you're going to see what what will happen here is we're going to deal with what we're dealing with right now. You know, there is a there is a sign of a truth and I don't like to quote Donald Rumsfeld, but you know, you kind of go with what the war the army you have. In this case, you go with the military you have. We can bring in some of these systems that were not fully fielded with air defense and doing going after drones and and and also putting lowcost drones in there. We don't have enough of those. I will say coming out of this the military and this is a fundamental change uh philosophically and it's been slow and coming. We're going to have to embrace drones and counter drone capabilities in ways that we knew we had to do. We understood we had to do, but we hadn't put the full amount of resources and effort into doing it. And I think that's something you're going to see change in a very big way is you're going to see drones, not just air, air, sea, subsurface, ground across the board being incorporated at a much more advanced pace. Same thing with artificial intelligence. You're going to see that being pushed forward very very quickly as well. >> Well, Trump and just finally, uh, Donald Trump wants to propose a $1.5 trillion military budget. So, expand the Pentagon's budget by $600 billion for 2027, fiscal year 2027. What do you think that money should be additional budget should be spent on? >> Well, a lot of it obviously what I just talked about drones. I think a lot of it's going to be used on space. Uh I sure I have no doubt that a lot of that they're looking at is going to be used for this uh Golden Dome thing they want to build over North America and uh that that thing is going to cost a phenomenal amount of money. 25 billion has already been put forward toward it. But I've I've seen numbers that get close around 15020 plus billion dollars maybe more to put that thing into effect. North America is awful darn big. fact that if you really get into the into some of the dynamics like with the US situation with Greenland and uh you know for a time I went to school at the University of Copenhagen for a while and uh I've got friends in Denmark obviously they're not thrilled with the US policy on Greenland for the last year. Um but one of the things is why is the US pushing so hard? Because if we put all these advanced systems for for interception and other things in Greenland, we do not want a situation where Greenland can do what Spain and Britain just did, which is say, "Hey, you can't use our our territory to do something." We want a situation where we'd have greater autonomy. Now, I'm I'm not here to I'm not here to, you know, defend the administration's position. I'm just explaining that would be the rationale behind it is if we're going to spend all this money, we want to make sure we have complete control. That's the same thing with the ARC in the Indian Ocean. We want a greater degree of control of being able to use those bases no matter what we do. >> Do you think we should have AI weapon systems? What's your view on that? >> Well, you know, I I grew up watching all the apocalyptic movies where artificial intelligence, you know, launched the thermonuclear war and destroyed us. So, I'm familiar with all that. I do think that AI can do some amazing things and I think AI is getting a lot smarter a lot faster. On the one hand, I I look at the potential, I go, "Wow, what we can do." Particularly in science and technology and things like that, you know, some of the leaps we can make. On the other hand, I look at I go, "Yeah, you give too much control there. There are certain qualities of moral behavior, ethics, other things. How do you ensure that happens?" And even even though and and I will say this this is a problem with the with the western world I should say you know with you know with uh certainly you know the G7 countries around the world and stuff we go well you know we need to do this do this it's like we can say all we want but our but China and Russia and other countries they don't feel this moral qual restriction with artificial intelligence they may go a completely different direction. So whereas we're holding oursel back, they're actually enabling their systems to do things that we won't let our systems do because of uh you know some ethical concerns that we have. That's a big challenge, you know, and that's I think that's the challenge going forward in AI. I wish I had a a a simple solution. I think it's going to become a very very difficult thing to manage, not just from a technology standpoint, but from an ethics standpoint and and human control standpoint. >> Thank you very much, Hal. I appreciate your insights and we appreciate you lending us your time. Where can we find you? Where can we follow you? >> Obviously, you go to Halford TV on YouTube and I post a lot of my, you know, we call them hits or whatever my interviews and stuff are on there. Uh, you can also go to Strat St. that's for strategic risk assessment talk podcast. Pretty much anywhere podcasts are found. Uh, you can find those. I just did a thing obviously on Iran and I just did one on this uh you know what's going on with Cuba and also with the western hemisphere with the shield of the Americas concept. So those are a couple different places you can find me and of course you can always go to my website for grip global risk intelligence and planning at www.gripsa.com. >> Okay, we'll put the links down below so make sure to follow hell there. Thank you again. We'll speak again soon. Take care for now. >> All right, thanks David. >> Thank you for watching. Don't forget to like, subscribe.