Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome back to Going Underground. Broadcasting all around the world from the UAE amidst almost unprecedented global precarity as victorious midterm democrats and so called socialists support ever more military support for the proxy war on Russia through Ukraine. The CIA coordinates Zelensky strikes on Russian refineries while Trump imports Russian diesel because of the war in Iran. Contradictions in US governance are exacerbated by Trump's loss of Congress to the Democrats, let alone Epstein fury. So next week's scheduled trilateral U. S Russia, Ukraine talks here in the UAE may be up in the air. There's silence in NATO nation. Propaganda media about Azov Nazi torture camps in Kiev exposed by Ukrainian media this week. All around the world, NATO aligned governments warn their populations to hoard emergency supplies for survival war on Russia. Catalyzed uprisings continue across Western Europe, let alone a coup in Poland. DC's Foggy Bottom, where Rubio's State Department is located, lost power supplies this week and food freezes across NATO nations today. Five eyes US vassal state New Zealand votes, albeit without a free press, without which democracy is impossible. But should a far flung nation like New Zealand have to be part of U.S. foreign policy or is it just one more example of empire overreach? To the detriment of the working classes of America, Trump sacrificed his entire project for a foreign genocidal power, Israel. It's 203 years today since a US cabinet considered the Monroe Doctrine. Joining me now is former U.S. air Force consultant Brandon Weichert, his senior national security editor in 1945. His new book is Fortress America's A New Monroe Doctrine. And he joins me again from Naples, Florida. Brandon, thanks so much for coming on. Iran decapitated the US Government and in retaliation for Iran being decapitated. Everyone wants to hear your views on that given your very popular online show with your partner in crime, Mario Norfol. But we're here to talk about Fortress Americas. First, of course is related to it. You do cover the war. It's out in December.
Just tell me about the book in the first place and how it differs from the Donro Doctrine.
[00:02:22] Speaker B: Well, thanks for having me again. Yeah, basically this book started because I realized I actually wrote it in the last year. I've been researching it for a while, but I actually wrote it over the summer. So this was a quick turnaround. And the reason I did this is because the Trump administration, if you remember last year, announced in their national security strategy memo and then again in their national Defense strategy memo that we were not, you know, judge us by the wars we don't fight, not the wars we do fight. That's what they said. And we were gonna be focusing, they said, on the Western Hemisphere. Now, obviously the Don Roe doctrine is not what I had in mind, but the idea that we were gonna be doing Western hemispheric defense on top of sort of focusing on domestic issues here in the United States, that was what I thought was the Trump agenda, the Trump Doctrine, if you will. But then by February 28, as you know, the whole thing changed. It's as if the President didn't even read his national. He didn't. His national Security strategy memo. So I felt compelled to, to write a book that reminded readers why we are not supposed to be this expeditionary, adventurous imperial power going abroad in search of monsters to destroy, as John Quincy Adams once famously said. And we are supposed to be focused much closer to home. And now that there are more, there's. Now it's a tripolar system, internationally trending multipolar. It will be multipolar very. You could already say it is multipolar. But really there's three main powers right now that are military and economic, and that's the United States, China and Russia.
We need to have a better strategy than the one we've been using since 1991, because that one was predicated on hegemony. Well, we can't be a hegemon anymore. We have spheres of influence and we're going to need to enforce the spheres of influence. China's doing that in their part of the world, Russia's doing that in their part of the world.
We haven't been doing it in our part of the world. And the key thing here, if I can just end with this, the key thing here though is when I say enforce the sphere of influence, it's not military first. It's not send CIA paramilitaries to a country we don't like in Latin America and knock off the country.
The whole currency of the realm in 21st century international affairs is geo economics. It's trade first and foremost. It's the economy. And so you have to be able to make your first point of contact in terms of foreign policy, the economic front. The United States used to be good at this. This was what the founders wanted us to do. I quote George Washington effusively in the book. This goes back to the founding a commercial republic. And that's what we need to go back to. And unfortunately, under this president, we've lost sight of that completely.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: You know, some of our viewers are going to think that you've conflated geography for class, but I'll get onto that. You said the
[00:05:31] Speaker B: geography is what?
[00:05:32] Speaker A: You've confused geography for class, because class may be a better way of describing the engine that moves progress. But. And Russia and China, of course, would deny that they have spheres of influence to a degree. Publicly, they would talk about multipolarity in different terms. But to be clear, when you're saying you don't want the CIA in there, you're not supporting Trump's kidnapping of Maduro and Celia Flores. And it doesn't mean a new imperialism, despite the book talking about the Alberta tar sands. Yeah,
[00:06:05] Speaker B: I'm happy.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Venezuelan oil, Bolivian, lithium, and so forth, let alone Greenland.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Well, I make it clear in terms of Alberta that the democratic process needs to play out. That's what I was getting at. I also made it clear in reference to Greenland, what. What Trump ended up doing was what he should have done in 2019, which is basically just invoke the 1951 agreement with Denmark. The 1951 agreement with Denmark was not 51st state. It was, if the United States needs to have an additional military presence on Greenland through the treaty, they can do that. Trump went ahead and decided to make this a personality thing, like he always does. He conflated his own sort of ego or with geopolitical interests.
I also, though, get into the dissatisfaction in places like Alberta with their government in places like Greenland with Denmark. And again, if there is a true democratic process that wants those areas to break away, become independent, or become part of the United States, I don't think we should say no. I think we should let the process play out democratically. I do not support meddling, though. And I was pointing out the. You talk about Alberta, I was talking about a continental system. This is what I talk about heavily in the book, based on trade, identifying where Canada, the United States, even Mexico can cooperate on things like natural earth. I'm sorry, rare earth minerals, critical minerals, oil. Where we can cooperate and come together in a continental system doesn't mean that we have to invade Canada or kill Mexican leaders or whatever. I was not saying that. What it means is, though there's so much abundance and wealth in the Americas, every country in this hemisphere has the ability to cooperate together and to exploit and trade those resources together with each other first before seeking to sell them to China or Russia. We have the ability here to attract. America still has a powerful attractiveness to it economically. We have to be able to rest on that and stop using military first and covert means.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Yeah. And you pinpoint in your book the absurdity of US Energy multinationals refusing to build refinery capacity. Isn't that point. Which is why the Strait of Hormuz became so important? Of course.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: But surely that points to something else. Isn't the problem? And you do point out the terrible situation of the poor within the United States, the vast profits made by the 1%. Isn't nationalization of US oil more important than geographical geopolitical realism to begin with? So that you can then make this cooperative multipolarity within the Western Hemisphere? Otherwise it looks a bit like imperialism. You do say.
So there will be any hope of USA being a truly global power? Again, that sounds like global power. Again. It sounds like this is an interregnum that you're trying to chart before. Again, you go back to
[00:09:25] Speaker B: no West
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Asia.
[00:09:27] Speaker B: Well, hold on. Well, that's not accurate because if you read the last chapter, I take very specific aim at Zbigniew Brzezinski and his grand chessboard. And I dissect it. How we should never have been meddling in Eurasia. And the idea that US grand strategy was ever worried about breaking apart Eurasia was something that was imparted upon us. It's not a natural American inclination. The natural American inclination, as per the dictates of our Founding Fathers, of which James Monroe was part of that generation, the natural ethos was always to focus on the hemisphere, focus on the security of our borders, ensure US Sovereignty and to be a commercial republic. And I make that very clear.
As for the other aspect, I'm not talking about an interregnum. I'm just talking about the fact that I have
[00:10:23] Speaker A: read it. I have read it, Brandon. Yeah, and what? The Global east or the Eastern Hemisphere might take some sort of delight at the idea that finally the United States can keep away from it. But you do mention some points because I have read the book about China, some myths about China, that China is trying to seek colonial exploitation. Why I'm pinpointing those segments of the book, of course, is that there is the realist school which wants.
Which wants to attack China. But that's not what you're trying to do. You want to attack Latin America only or cooperate with Latin America.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: I don't want to attack Latin America at all. I make that very clear, which is why I said I don't believe that the Chavez thing was the best thing to do.
I make that very clear in the book. But in terms of China in the hemisphere, I would prefer to see these countries in Latin America trading and doing business first with the United States and working together other with us to mutually exploit the resources. The United States has resources, we can sell them. They have resources, they can sell us. This is why I was talking also about the continental system being the nucleus of a new American system for the hemisphere. By the way, this is what the Monroe Doctrine was talking about. It was never about imperialism. It was actually anti imperialism. And when you talk about China, I don't want to attack China. And if you ever watch anything I say and do on the Mario Novel program, I'm there every day.
I have Chinese guests on all the time when guests from China in which I am very clear
[00:11:55] Speaker A: just on that, on that. How is the midterms affecting the policy vis a vis China and how do you think China will react to the seeming lame duck in the White House?
[00:12:07] Speaker B: Well, let me just finish that point because it's very clear I do not want to attack China. And I have always said I do not want to attack China. I have always talked about a defensive measure on our part of the world and then cooperation where we can with China. I've written at the national interest years ago that the first island chain we should walk away from because it's not winnable militarily. And also, by the way, I don't even know if all the Taiwanese people really are as anti China as we're led to believe. To your point about your question just now, I'm sorry about the midterms.
I got a message from one of our regulars in China who's a big investor in Shanghai and he sent me an email saying the Chinese have a two year window to further insulate themselves from any potential tariffs that the next American president might want to subject them to. And I think that the way the Chinese are viewing this is smart. They're viewing this as the American system's gonna be at the very least gridlocked for the next two years. Nothing's gonna get done. Anything that in terms of foreign policy happens is all gonna be directed at the Middle east and Europe. This is another window of opportunity for the Chinese to shore up their further defenses in trade and then to come to the new two years from now, come at it from a position of even greater strength. The Iran war. And this is what I have told people for over a year now. The Iran war did not hurt China the way that Mar A Lago thought it would. The Iran war has supercharged China and they now have the ability to be self sufficient in key areas. They now appear to be more attractive as trade partners, which is one of the reasons why Latin America has been pivoting for years to China. That's now even though there's this right wing push in Latin America, you have people like My Lai in Argentina, they're still doing gobs of business with China and they're not gonna stop anytime soon. So China appears as the more stable, rational actor, which makes them more appealing for trade. So all of this works in their fav in terms of the sort of, I don't want to say, I guess the silent race. I don't want to say shadow war. It's not what it is, but it's like a silent race between China and the United States. China is decisively winning.
[00:14:31] Speaker A: Brandon weckert, I'll stop you there. More from the author of Fortress America's a New Monroe Doctrine after this break.
Foreign.
Welcome back to Going Underground. I'm still here with the author of Fortress America's a New Monroe Doctrine and the senior national security editor at 1945, Brandon Weickert.
Brandon, the Iran war is in your new book. And as you said at the end of Part one, if Trump had read it, maybe he would have understood how the war in West Asia
[00:15:08] Speaker B: don't think he reads.
[00:15:10] Speaker A: Well, that's obviously a moot point on on the midterms, I usually start the programs out with saying at the time of this recording, there hasn't been a nuclear strike on Pickaxe Mountain. Obviously our studio in Dubai would be affected by that kind of eventuality. What do you think is the most important takeaway from the midterm in terms of, say, I don't know, why did J.D. vance change his position anyway and support the war on Iran? Do you think, Tucker Carlson, who's been on this show, do you think he's going to run for the presidency? Now? It's a question I didn't ask him when he was on this show.
[00:15:48] Speaker B: Well, he probably wouldn't have answered that.
But I hear that through the grapevine, as you know. I know Tucker. I've never heard him say that he wants to do that. In fact, I've heard him kind of poo poo that. But he does seem to be building a coalition of people who could have a real interesting future in politics as possibly a third party or a group that would do a hostile takeover of this zombie thing we call the Republican Party.
So there's that. I mean, you have Marjorie Taylor Greene, you have Thomas Massie, Joe Kent. I think Joe Kent would be a wonderful presidential candidate You've got a group around Tucker who are very politically attractive, I think, especially now that the Iran war has been proven to be that which you and I knew, which was a complete and total disaster from the beginning. You asked the midterms. So here's the thing, as you know, cuz you watch me on Mario's show, I have been very worried. The N word, you know, nuclear war has been a real nightmare of mine since about July. And the reason I was saying this back then is because people I still talk to in government were saying the president is bringing it up a lot with the Joint Chiefs, with the generals. And the generals are constantly having to change the subject like you would with a toddler like, oh, look at that, oh look at that. We'll use the Moab instead.
That's scary and it means it's on his mind. And we don't wanna have a president where that's top of mind, particularly in an offensive capacity.
But I watched the midterm results and they're so decisive and they're so definitive and there's such a rebuke of this thing. Whatever you wanna call MAGA Now, Make Israel Great Again I think is what we should call it.
You're watching this play out, you can't help but say the president is done for.
If he continues on as president for two years, which I don't know if he will, if he continues on for the next two years, he's basically a hostage of the Democrats in a gilded cage called the White House.
He's going to watch as the Democrats hollow out his administration. Bye bye Pete.
And he's also worried about.
He's also worried about his future in terms of legal ramifications.
So up until yesterday or up until the middle midterms, I was thinking, oh my God, this guy's going to have a breakdown like he did on January 6th. He's going to go balls to wall, he's going to do all this stuff. And it turns out his reaction was very muted. And I started reassessing the day after the midterms.
[00:18:26] Speaker A: I should just interrupt and say this is being recorded before any events that might completely contradict what you're saying.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: And it could happen because we'll see. But Ashvin, right now, right now it seems as though he is sort of taking a pause now. The assets are still flowing into the region.
We still have a lot of things that we could do militarily. There's a moonless set of nights coming up which benefits the US Military for night operations. Could happen still.
But his reaction is not what I thought it was. It's more muted and somewhat conciliatory.
That to me, tells me he's worried about the future, his future and possibly Ashvin. His worry about being prosecuted after office.
That might be the thing. He needs to take his foot off the gas pedal because he only cares about one thing, and that's Donald Trump.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: And when you say he may not finish a full term, that means handing it over to JD Vance for a pardon.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Yes, I think that's probably by April. I wouldn't be surprised that this happens.
[00:19:32] Speaker A: As to those we've had Joe Kent on this program. He was proved obviously completely correct and vindicated.
By the time this is being broadcast again, Hegseth might have gone, this is how unpredictable everything is in your politics at the moment. Tell me about Brad Cooper.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Brad Cooper is basically an IDF officer in an American uniform. And I have talked to people who knew him, who've been promoted by him over the years in terms of their status, not that necessarily they agree with him, but I've been told that he wanted to be the guy. He wanted to be the guy that the war happened under with Iran. The great Iranian threat, according to him, has to be dealt with. So he was the guy that was chosen because he's so just such a hard charger about the war with Iran, he's such a supporter of it. But he's also very political. He's extremely political and he has ambitions beyond being CENTCOM commander. So. So I could foresee, given his very good relationship with the president and some of the top people in the administration, if Hegseth goes, he will be replaced, I think, either by Brad Cooper or General Kane, the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who is very much not in favor of the war. Although, like JD you wouldn't know it.
General Kaine might be on his way out and they might promote Cooper to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But I think that Cooper, especially in the next two years, I think Cooper will probably receive an elevation either to SecDef or to the JCS.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: Of course, we're ignoring the influence of Israel, whether it be Netanyahu or Eisencot. I don't think it makes much of a difference, actually.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: I don't think Eisencot has as much influence over the president as Netanyahu does, though.
[00:21:23] Speaker A: There's something personal going on.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Yeah, I think Netanyahu. Look, I don't know how to say this. Netanyahu, if you met Netanyahu, you would think he was a Guy from New York and he talks the way Trump does, in a way they understand each other, they do business with each other really if you think about it, Eisenkot sounds foreign.
He comes from the military, he's very stiff. He's not. He doesn't have that same personality, that same verb, whatever that Netanyahu again, I'm no fan of Netanyahu that Netanyahu does. So I think it will. And he doesn't have the understanding of the American political system. Netanyahu was basically co president for the last 25 years on and off here in the United States. Eisenhock doesn't have any of that experience.
Could you imagine Eisenhock going before Congress to give a State of the Union, if you will, for the U.S. israeli relations during
[00:22:17] Speaker A: a genocide,
[00:22:17] Speaker B: very stiff.
Yeah, well, and that's another thing by the way.
I'm happy to see Netanyahu go, but we have to also remember Eisenhat created the Dahia Doctrine. So it's not like this guy is gonna be some wallflower when it comes to the Palestinian Arabs. He might not be pro Iran war because he thinks the Israelis don't have the military capacity to do the things they want to do against Iran. However.
However, you know, he's not gonna treat the Palestinian Arabs any better than did Netanyahu.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: And JD Virns, he just squandered his whole political capital by being quite.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: I will tell you on a personal level, I think JD Is a good guy. I think he means, I do think he means well. I think he has a nice family and very successful, very smart guy. I don't think he has what it takes right now. He's not demonstrated when we needed him to be bold and loud and to stand up to the President, not just behind the scenes at the margins to tell the President this is not the way and if necessary doing what Joe Kent did and resign.
He didn't show any, as Bobby Jones would say, any testicular fortitude there. And he's a Marine, so he should have.
I think if anything he will be a caretaker president, a la Gerald R. Ford and then it will go to Jon Ossoff, likely the Democrats. I think the Democrats are gonna be running this country for the next 10 years. And
[00:23:43] Speaker A: these are the Democrats, including the new ones like Abdul Said, who support military aid to Zelensky. Already the CIA has been undermining Trump's position on Europe.
All of them, the so called progressive left in the United States are big war supporters.
What does this mean for the trilateral Talks, if they actually happen here in this country in a few days time, does that mean the war in Europe? Perhaps again we're back to nuclear war because these are nuclear powers using the proxy of Ukraine. What does it mean for the war that the Democrats who want more war have won?
[00:24:26] Speaker B: Well, as you know, I was at one time, long ago a Trump supporter. And during his first term, I and others like David Pine recommended that the President do a real trilateral meeting, sort of like what the Big Three did in World War II between himself, Putin and Xi, and really kind of remake the world system to reflect the reality, which is that it's trending multipolar. The three big powers right now are the U.S. china and Russia. And the world should reflect that better. That went nowhere in the first term.
Had Trump done this in the first year of the second term, I think he would have had a better chance at having a lot of influence to do that. If this tri lat happens at all, it'll be nothing, it'll be meaningless. Cuz Trump's a lame duck. Anything he said. And by the way, he's agreed agreement incapable as Lavrov said. This is true. Even without losing the majorities in Congress. He was always agreement incapable because he's surrounded by pro Ukraine neocons. So the idea that the try latte will be anything other than a photo even if he fires
[00:25:28] Speaker A: John Radcliffe. Even if he fires John Radcliffe.
[00:25:31] Speaker B: He's not going to fire John Radcliffe.
John Radcliffe isn't even running anything. John Ratcliffe is a figurehead of the CIA. They've got him hermetically sealed on the set of 7th Floor. If he did run anything, he would still go along with it because he's a neocon.
But Ukraine in particular is not the President's war. And what I mean by that is he clearly has given orders to de escalate and CIA is doing whatever they want because CIA is rogue under this President, no one has the ability to reign CIA in. And having Ratcliffe, who's deeply compromised and weak and in agreement with the war, having Ratcliffe as the top of the agency allows the CIA bureaucracy to run wild while Ratcliffe runs interference.
So the Ukraine war will continue.
As for the Democrats, this is where they're in terms of foreign policy. They're right on the Middle east, they're way off on the Ukraine thing. They're not going to abandon that. Because when I talk to these Democrats, they talk about international norms and international law and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they're looking at it through that framework. A lot of them are also looking at it through the framework that Trump stole the 2016 election with help from Russia. And yes, they still are thinking this way.
So you have a lot of problems in terms of getting the Democrats to be reasonable on the Ukraine war. So in that way, yes, it's more worrying. However, I do not believe the Russians will use nuclear weapons even if the war continues. I think that Putin has been much more even handed in this than the Americans have been.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Brandon Weinkert, thank you.
[00:27:09] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:27:10] Speaker A: And that's it for the show. Fortress America's A New Monroe Doctrine is out on the 8th of December. Our condolences to all those of you bereaved or affected by Washington's wars of aggression. We'll be back on Monday with Abby Martin on her new film about US Empire, Earth's greatest Enemy. Until then, you can keep in touch via all our social media if it's not censored in your country. And head to our channel, goingundergroundtv on rumble.com to watch new and old episodes of Going Underground. See you Monday.
Sam.
