Video URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQEmYYpWt2g
the jogan experience the Putin thing scares the [ __ ] out of me though because he's a you know when it comes to Warlords he's a legitimate warlord yeah who is in charge of I didn't know that they had more nukes than us I mean I guess it's kind of a moot point right because everybody's got a yeah how many everybody's got enough to kill everybody how many times over yeah isn't it something crazy like 10 over yeah they did the math and and it was it was in double digits it's not good it's not it's not good but it's look if you if you step back everybody's everybody's thinking okay how did this you know how did this [ __ ] up situation happen well it's been building obviously right I mean we have how much news coverage do we have of well they're adding more troops to the border with Ukraine wonder what they're doing it could have be military exercises so there was a tremendous amount of speculation leading up to what the [ __ ] is going on which in a sense points to how uh lacking the intelligence is on on Putin on plans and intentions right and he's he's like that's a heavy lift right to to come up with that sort of Intel because ideally you're going to want a human Source um you know you can get Sig you can get whatever you you can gather intelligence from a variety of sources but you really want human access people who can tell you you know what I had a meeting with him and boy I tell you what he was pissed off or this is what he said or this is how he looked without that without knowing what plants and intend intentions are or you know being able to gather Intel on say the Command Staff um everybody was kind of speculating will he won't he what's he going to do well stepping back if you look at what he's done he's been pretty damn consistent right over the years and so I guess you know in a part A lot of it was optimistic thinking okay he's he just wants the eastern part of the country he's just going to go in there and take that because you know maybe he's he's already got it he's declared those two republics legit maybe that's all he wants he's already taken Crimea and so that I think that was optimistic thinking hoping that you know the guy's not going to lose his [ __ ] and go all all the way through the country well that's what he's done and in part
because again if you look at what he did in Chia if you look at what he did helping Assad in Syria if you look at what he did Annex in Crimea if you look at Georgia abazia South essia every step of the way he's been following in his mind this stated desire that he's made very public over the years to rebuild his sphere of influence right so in in part you could argue we kind of miss the obvious right we didn't see the obvious in front of us because we were all kind of hoping and mirroring our values on onto onto pu Putin who doesn't deserve to have our values mirrored onto him because we're thinking maybe maybe he just wants a little bit maybe he's just trying to make a point maybe he just wants them to sign a charter saying they won't be part of NATO so anyway uh I you know my point being twofold I guess we we missed the boat on that we missed it in part because we we're always trying to be optimistic and trying to think okay well maybe they think like we do maybe this a rational process there and then part of it is Intel was lacking and when it comes to Intel when you're talking about like in-person Intel how difficult is that to get on a guy like Putin it's really tough it's I mean that you know look it's a it's a very heavy lift the higher they go up the food chain um because the the smaller your pool of of potential access points are right so you know you've got some mid-level person floating around you know a a a government office somewhere in some Target country and you know maybe you've got lots of options okay who do they socialize with right who can I get access to who who might you know be next to them you know do they have a driver can I recruit the driver things like that right it's it's sometimes it's very simple but uh Putin's had a a increasingly small circle of of close advisers and of people that he he counts on and trusts and part of that may be you know the fact that that was accelerated through the 2-year pandemic where he decidedly was shutting himself off uh because he was he was you know paranoid like a lot of people were about Co do you remember when there was a a guy who suicide drove into Putin's car and Putin wasn't in it yeah that when was that that was um a
few years back yeah some guy there was oncoming traffic and he timed it right when uh there must have been someone communicating with him letting him know where Putin's car is but Putin wasn't even in it yeah and turned right into oncoming traffic and used his car as a weapon and killed the both of them yeah I think killed the both of them uh yeah I we guess you look up when that when that was you se you seen the video though right yeah it was it was a while back though it was uh four five years maybe um but he's you know people have been talking about is he is he losing his [ __ ] is he you know is he going crazy I I don't think he's I don't think it's any of that right he's he like get on a table when he negotiates and talks to people he's like 40t away from yeah yeah and so he but and and that assessment was was clear during the course of the pandemic he was he was isolating himself he was being you know very very cautious but I mean and so maybe that had something to do with it but he anyway point being is is it's tough to when you've got a a small potential well of targets you can go after when you're talking about recruiting somebody who's got access to a high priority Target that's you know that's that's probably one of the heaviest lips we've got how do you get like how does someone get access to like a driver do you use a girl um is that the best way to do it no not really I mean you know what it's cuz what you're looking to do this is not to fall into like you know spy talk spy talk and recruitment 101 but um the movies and and Beach books and everything will have you believe that you know the best way to to hook somebody to recruit somebody as you know blackmail or or a Honey Trap or something you know there right usually you working on on something else you're not necessar working on the ideology but you don't want to start from a negative basis right because in even in normal terms in the best of circumstances when somebody's recruited to spy on their country to spy on on their organization whatever it may be there's a clock starts ticking you know and because because things start to Decay right the person starts to Decay it's very wearing on a human right and for a variety of reasons um and so you
know that window is going to close at some point and it may not end well so you're trying to optimize that and if you start from a negative perspective right if you if you you've got someone cooperating with you because they're blackmail and they're under the gun here and and and they hate you and they hate you know what they're doing that's not what you're looking for you're looking for a more and it sounds weird but you're looking for a more positive so how do you that like how would you get a driver to be your buddy well um it's like there's a there's a recruitment process a cycle that you go through but uh hope everyone's taking notes uh but you uh first of all you got to know what information you're looking for right and and so that that tasking get set you know outside the the building if you're talking about the agency or or really any intel service theoretically the administration of power is setting priority tasking so they send over this and they say herey we need this this is a priority Target for us this information so you look around you go okay well who's got access to the information um all right you build up that world then you figure out who might be accessible right because maybe maybe you you're interested in in you know u a Target here but he never leaves the country you know it's a denied area and uh so then you find out who's got access to the information who might be accessible why might they be minded to talk to you can you create a scenario where you can get next to them uh and then you're looking for points of Leverage right you're really looking and that doesn't necessarily mean you're looking to find a negative right you're looking for something that drives them what makes it are their kids the most important thing to them right do they do they have a kid who you know needs medical attention uh do they have a kid who they desperately want to send away to college but they don't have the money you know so you're looking for something like that that may again it sounds strange because you're talking about recruiting somebody for ESP but it it's a positive rather than a negative and that creates then a longer shelf life in a sense for that asset if that makes sense it does make sense but it would I would imagine that when you're dealing
with someone like say Kim un or Putin or you know some dictator like they they have to be prepared for things like this right so they probably are very cautious on who gets into their Inner Circle yeah and that's that's a Counter Intelligence issue right so every you know every government out there um you know they're worried about that that very thing right and so I mean look and Putin he was a KGB officer for 15 years right yeah now interestingly going back to Putin he he served in East Germany I think for about half a dozen years uh never really had an exposure to the West so that's also something when you're when you're talking about trying to assess his mindset understand where he's coming from part of it is look if he had if if he had been exposed to the West in a much bigger way maybe he served in New York you know or he served wherever you know London someplace where he had more exposure but you look at that guy and you go he doesn't really understand how we think right and so that's an important thing you got to tick that box and put that in there when you're doing an assessment of his personality and trying to because that's part of understanding why he's doing what he's doing you don't think he understands how we think in what way do you mean well I know fundamentally I mean if you look if you live in a in an environment right if you you know if you go to China you live in wherever you know shenzen or Shanghai or Beijing and you're there for a few years you're going to understand the culture the mindset much better than you know somebody who's never lived there and is you know just you know sitting in Washington in a think tank talking about what the Chinese regime may do next so it's that immersion it's that exposure it's dealing with those people um it's the contact that you have um look I'm you know I'm old enough that I remember we uh when the when the wall started to fall uh when when the Soviet Union was collapsing from our perspective right as a as a as a government as an Intel service right we saw that as an opportunity there's chaos there right and what did you have you had Intel officers like Putin right KGB Gru officers who saw their world collapsing around them because at the time before the the the Soviet Union collapsed they were living the good life
right they were the elite in a sense right they were they were pampered their kids were going to get the best education they were set for life their kids were set for life all of a sudden the Soviet Union starts going to [ __ ] right and you could see it and you know so what did we do well we were out there busy right working over whatever targets we might have access to trying to see if maybe they think you know maybe that's another option here maybe there's an alternative maybe I can uh you know save myself my family you know perhaps put aside some money by working for the other side and that's a natural thing to do right every service is going to do that if there's Chaos on the other side so I remember you could see the confusion and the humiliation right and the fear in some of these guys as this was happening and so Putin went through that same process again it's one of those things that you do you you put all that together to try to create this profile of this of this individual right because I'm not buying the talk when you know people get on TV and go oh he's he's going crazy he's losing his mind he's a I'm not buying that there's a reason why he's he's he's driving the way he is and again he's being somewhat consistent he's never given a [ __ ] about civilian casualties right never bothered him before I mean that that yeah that situation in Chia when they went in there right and I mean that was that was yeah I have to argue there was the other side was you know was different as well some of the Chet and separatists were and some of the [ __ ] that they were pulling um but at the same time he didn't care whether he was killing civilians or you know separatists and you know members of their mil uh militia and Military so I I don't know I think it's it's one of those things where I think with with Putin we've got to uh we got to be really pragmatic here we got to understand I don't think he's he's not crazy he's not going to say okay I'm in a corner I'm going to I'm going to push the button and fire off a couple of tactical nukes right I think what he's gotten to the point is is you know you guys have disrespected me this is how he thinks right you've disrespected me [ __ ] you all I told you I want my sphere of
in sphere of influence and I don't care where I have to break it I'm I'm going to have it when you say sphere of influence do you mean he wants to reclaim what is the former Soviet Union yeah he said that he said he said publicly in the past he called the collapse of the Soviet Union in the greatest tragedy of the 20th century that's and and he's he's serious about that he means that so he's not he's not [ __ ] around um and and again if we look at it he's being consistent right he's being consistent over the years he's he's a you know he's uh he's a dictator he's a despot he's looking increasingly more like like you know he's isolating himself which you know that's that's a danger u in a sense to uh all those people around him right he's already cut loose some of his inner circle just over the past couple of weeks right has he yeah he's gotten rid of his his uh well he put under house arrest a couple of his FSB uh uh senior command why why did he do that the domestic service because he because the intel was so bad cuz going in oh because of Ukraine because of Ukraine yeah sorry yeah because of Ukraine so they went in and the Assumption was and now again this is where our Intel is lacking was he given bad Intel or was he given Intel and he just chose to ignore it but it appears as if what he believed in what the top military commanders some of whom have also been let go um or possibly reassigned I don't think that's a good thing in in Russia uh is uh that they were going to they were going to get in there maybe within 48 hours they were going to have control of keev they would be welcomed by the population in Ukraine uh and they would be able to establish a puppet regime a new government I mean they moved the previous president that was you know Russian backed they moved him from Russia to uh Minsk uh in preparation it appeared to move him down to take over the government which is in a sense bad [ __ ] crazy because he was kicked out during the during the last Revolution right by the people that was 2014 yeah that was that orange Revolution that they had