Chinese Spy Balloons, Russian Sanctions, and Iran's Nukes Artwork

Kellogg's Global Politics

Husband and wife team, Dr. Anita and Ryan Kellogg, take on the latest international news and events with their lively discussions and occasional debates on these issues. Having grown up in red states in conservative families, the Kelloggs bring their unique perspective living in multiple countries overseas and subject expertise in their chosen fields. Join us for a conversation that began in South Korea and continues through the present day.

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Kellogg's Global Politics

Chinese Spy Balloons, Russian Sanctions, and Iran's Nukes

February 07, 2023 • Anita Kellogg • Episode 28

We begin with the latest updates on the Russia-Ukraine War and how Russia’s sheer numbers in manpower might help it regain momentum. We also discuss the debate over whether the US should support a Ukrainian offense in Crimea and why Western sanctions on Russia have had an underwhelming effect on the Russian economy and its ability to wage war.

One of the biggest stories in the US this week was the discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon. We discuss this and the news of the US expanding its military presence in the Philippines. We wrap up by talking about US hopes to divert its supply chains from China to its allies.

Finally, we cover the latest Israeli strike on Iran and how Israel - Iran relations are likely to fare under the new Netanyahu administration.

Topics Discussed in this Episode

[06:30] Russia-Ukraine Update: Sanction Failures and Crimea End Game
[33:30] Chinese Balloon Drama and US Alliance Building in Asia
[57:30] Israel Strikes Iran and the Prospects for War

Articles and Resources Mentioned in Episode

Russia-Ukraine Update: Sanction Failures and Crimea End Game

Chinese Balloon Drama and US Alliance Building in Asia

Israel Strikes Iran and the Prospects for War

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Anita Kellogg: [00:00:00] Welcome to Kellogg's Global Politics, a podcast on current events in US foreign Policy and international affairs. My name is Dr. Anita Kellogg, an international relation scholar specializing in the relationship between economics and national security. I'm here with my co-host, Ryan Kellogg, an expert in energy investment and policy.

Ryan Kellogg: Thanks and glad to be back. So this is episode 28 and we're recording this on February 4th, 2023.

Anita Kellogg: On this episode, we begin with the latest updates on the Russia, Ukraine War, and how Russia's share numbers and manpower might help it regain momentum. We also discussed the debate over whether the US should support an Ukrainian offensive into the Russian occupied territory of Crimea, and why Western sanctions on Russia have had an underwhelming effect on the Russian economy and its ability to wage war.

One of the biggest stories in the US this week was the [00:01:00] discovery of a Chinese surveillance balloon over Montana. We discussed this in another big story on the US expanding its military presence in the Philippines. We wrap up by talking about how the US is trying to go about diverting its supply chains from China to its allies.

Finally, we covered the latest Israeli strike on Iran and how Israel Iran relations are likely to fare under the new Israeli Prime Minister in Netanyahu. So what's been going on in our lives?

Ryan Kellogg: So you, I know you were real busy this week with a exercise. I don't know if this is done annually at the National Defense University, but it was a pretty, pretty involved budgetary exercise.

You want to talk a little bit about that?

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. As part of the program getting their master's degree, they do this week long national resources exercise and the Eisenhower School is all about the sort of industrial side of military planning. And so the idea is that the higher up in [00:02:00] command, it's really important to know how to, the logistics of getting your equipment in place in the event of a conflict.

So part of being able to do this is to understand the budget and to know what resources you need to sustain the type of conflicts that you're preparing for in the future. And initially, as this was explained to me, I thought, wow, this is going to be really boring, but. I actually found it really interesting to listen to as a non-military person listening to them debate over, do we need the eight 10 program or will Congress let us get rid of the eight 10 program?

Balancing how it affects local economies from Congress versus the actual need for these, I learned the phrase ‘fight tonight’. So what equipment you need to be able to mobilize within 24 hours. It was just a really kind of, it was an [00:03:00] interesting experience.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, for sure. And you, you mentioned A10 a lot because I'm like a big A10 fanboy.

That was my favorite flight simulator and of course the A10, aka Warthog, aka Tank Killer, grew to fame during the Gulf War, which is really my formative years as a little kid. But yeah, so I'm disappointed that the future generals in each of the branches is looking to cut my favorite jet. Yeah, nobody

Anita Kellogg: very close air support.

Nobody seemed to think so. They were divided up into the services. You had the Air Force, you had Navy, Marines, and you had the Army. And so they were negotiating within their groups of what they thought was important to keep for national objectives and what was not. And I think at least two groups mentioned the A 10 being something that they would like to get rid

Ryan Kellogg: of.

Yeah. Which is, is understand why. Then read a little bit more detailed analysis on it and it, it makes sense that if there's any sort of air defense system [00:04:00] that the enemy has, you don't have complete air superiority. It's going to be a big target. So I get it. , but I'm also sad, but I don't think

Anita Kellogg: you have anything to worry about , because none of them thought that they could actually get

Ryan Kellogg: rid of the program.

Yeah. I mean, where's the incentive? Who is defending this from an economic standpoint? Congress. Yeah, but who, which district are they making more of these I didn't think they were making anymore. I get that they have to make parts and maintenance and maybe that involves something, but, or is it just people that are, are fans of the, the system.

you're not really

Anita Kellogg: asking me this question. Okay. I have no idea. This is just me.

Ryan Kellogg: You just learned what the A was

Anita Kellogg: overhearing what my students were talking about. Um, in a very general sense. No, and then, I mean, it's just interesting to learn. Think about these things and things that they wanted to get rid of.

But like the Navy, it's like the Air Force wants us to keep this, or the army wants us to keep [00:05:00] this. We don't see it meeting art necessary objectives. And the exercise continues through the next couple of days, Monday and Tuesday. And that's where there more of the rivalry between the services may have to agree on a final budget, but in between like, okay, army, we need you declare this much of the budget or something like that.

Mm-hmm. . So one of the things that I was really interested in working at a professional military school was that I don't know a lot about the military and someone who's doing national security a lot, learning more about it, understanding the way it thinks about defense is just kind of fascinating for me.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, no, it's definitely a, I mean, it's a cool exercise to sit on and see how that thinking goes. And is there evaluation of feasibility, like from a, I guess a political standpoint, was it strictly, Hey, we practice kind of coordinating [00:06:00] between branches and competing priorities and we came up with a, a budget that we can recommend?

Well,

Anita Kellogg: one of the interesting things is there's this public tool to um, be like, if you're going to get rid of something, it tells you how much money that you would save like over 10 years or something. And to some extent, they are supposed to take into account political feasibility. Mm-hmm. , but they also sort of know that this is not a detailed budget.

Right. This is an exercise. And so to some extent they realize that what they want is kind of idealized, but this is what they think the budget should look like. Yeah. Here.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Like I said, well, good stuff. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: I am definitely learning a lot at work and that's really a way to feel very energized and engaged.

All right, so onto the main thrust of the show beginning as we do with the Russia, Ukraine update. And one of the first points that we wanted to talk about was just the increase in Russian manpower in [00:07:00] Ukraine.

Ryan Kellogg: So I think there've been a, a number of reports coming out where there's little doubt that a major Russian offensive is being prepared.

And this is just based on the number of troops being placed in the Donbass region. And we've mentioned the Donbass over the past couple episodes, particularly back moot. The expansion of forces is all across the Eastern front, and this really reflects a change in strategy since the takeover of the Russian War effort under general Valerie Garris Sim Mav.

So now they're estimating there are about 320,000 Russian soldiers actually in Ukraine. And this would represent a force that's twice as big as the initial invasion force. And there's another 150 to 200,000 in reserves. So it represents obviously the partial mobilization. That Russia announced several months [00:08:00] ago.

This is seeing this fruition over time in terms of the amount of manpower you've also seen on all across the eastern front, increase in artillery bombardment, which has increased over the last couple of weeks from about 60 targeted attacks per day to about a hundred. And it seems like what we've seen, particularly around Beck Mood, which we've talked about, you know, for various reasons is strategically important.

It's important to the Wagner Group and the leadership there in terms of their political advancement, but it's also seeing this absolute willingness to sacrifice men and equipment to gain territory. All of that has been somewhat underestimated within the West, and I think that's, you know, in the analysis that's been coming out, that's really was the driving force for this recent push of giving.

Ukrainians, the, the main battle tanks, which, you know, since our last episode we've seen [00:09:00] kind of the, the dam break on that the US came with its announcements of providing, uh, Abrams, its modern tank. And

Anita Kellogg: then just after we explained why it wasn't practical

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah. Well that, that was the interesting part.

And I, I don't know if that was. Primarily done because of the German objectives, which they seem to back off on, but I guess the US took pretty seriously. But then, you know, the next day the Germans basically announced around the leopard two tank, they're supplying up to 88, which is pretty significant number.

And then on top of that, all the other Eastern European powers have committed, you know, a certain number of tanks. So I think in total you're looking at several hundred modern Western tanks coming to the Ukraine. But all of this is driven by this realization that. , Russia's not going to fold. They're willing and able to commit manpower.

They have artillery, you know, as we'll talk a little bit on the [00:10:00] sanctions. They're able to resource from people like North Korea or Iran being able to ramp up production to a certain extent on some of these armed, maybe particularly around artillery. So the window of opportunity to try to make territorial gains to counter this major offensive is small and the west needed to move.

So it's really kind of this push. For that.

Anita Kellogg: I don't think any of this is a surprise. Definitely shouldn't be a surprise. I feel like it's not one to Millie, because he's been cautioning lot over the optimism of Ukraine, making these gains, knowing that Russia had mobilized all these people and were starting to increase its production.

This is what happens in war. It takes time to mobilize forces, extra equipment, but it does happen. And now it's getting to the point where Russia is starting to show those gains. Which [00:11:00] again, I really feel like listening to Millie is something that he's been trying to emphasize all

Ryan Kellogg: along. I think so I, I think it's because of this sheer incompetence that the Russian military exhibited in the early months of the war.

The major losses that they took towards the end of the year with the Ukraine's push and Kharkiv and Kherson that. There's a little bit of this feeling of Russia so far in the back foot, but I think enough planners have, you know, realized the, the state capacity of Russia is still significant. And I think as we'll discuss around the performance of the Russian economy is that's still very robust and much more robust than what a lot of people expected.

And certainly their ability to, to wage war. Yeah. At this level and, and the domestic pressure, I mean, it's kind of, they've been able to, to tamper that down effectively as well, despite [00:12:00] losing over a hundred thousand casualties. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: As we'll go into that. I think that sanctions shouldn't be surprising at all given the sort of analysis I had and others had, um, even though it was a minority from the beginning.

But yes, so I think that there was some excitement about Russia being on hiss back foot, but I think people who were excited about that were not really taking into account what the Russian state could bear upon and how it was taking time to mobilize these additional resources, but that it would mobilize them.

Ryan Kellogg: which you know, is kind of typical to Russian military strategy, but the willingness to sacrifice bodies. Mm-hmm. for this as well.

Anita Kellogg: Right. Which I also find that surprising given Russia's history.

Ryan Kellogg: Right, right. We can pivot to the discussion around the Russian sanctions and the Russian economy, because there's several articles that came out towards the end of the year really looking at, obviously there was a very.

[00:13:00] Strict and expansive sanction regime that was put into place a year ago following the invasion and the economist reported. So the Russian economy is actually surprisingly well compared to the forecast at the beginning of the war. So back in March, April of last year, people are expecting a GDP contraction of 10 to 15% within the Russian economy.

And the figures that came out from the IMF over this past week showed that it only shrank 2%, which is, that's pretty, pretty extraordinary. The damage is mostly focused around certain industrial sectors like car manufacturing. Mm-hmm. , they noted was down by 60% because a lot of the car manufacturers rely on foreign made electronics.

But government spending, which. Makes sense. And if you're truly mobilizing for war, that spending has increased significance. So surging 71 billion primarily on defense. [00:14:00] And so overall industrial production is basically flat. Mm-hmm. for the year. Mm-hmm. , despite kind of the, the targeting of, of some of these sectors.

Furthermore, all the unemployment has basically remained unchanged. And a lot of this comes about, and there have been other analysts that have noted this, but the central banker. In Russia. She's done an extraordinary job, particularly at the beginning of the war, taking increasing interest rates, basically to help control inflation, which in turn helped to strengthen the rule and really prevented a financial crisis, particularly run at the banks.

Mm-hmm. cause. So they put that to end pretty quickly. But then obviously the other balance of this is Don Oil. That's the majority of, of revenue for the Russian state. And those that have been extremely robust, and we'll go into a little details on that, but the, the overall trade surplus for the years still over 200

Anita Kellogg: billion.

I just wanted to say it's interesting because in that initial days to stabilize the rubble in the West, [00:15:00] people kept emphasizing, well, this is all fake. And I think not seeing the significance of how it would affect the economy. And so for all that they could point to the fallacies of doing it, it stabilized the economy.

Mm-hmm. , it did have a significant effect.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, so extremely well managed from that perspective and looking ahead to 2023, I found this, this stat pretty shocking as well. So the I MF came out with their forecast and they're saying that the Russian economy is actually going to expand slightly at 0.3%, and that's enough to beat both the UK and Germany for next year.

So the Russian economy is going to perform better despite all of the sanctions, all of the pressure that it's under will perform better than UK and Germany.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I think it reveals a few things. The first thing that I noted that was different than some of the initial effects that I had noted, most of these problems I had noted in the very beginning of trying to put a sanctions regime on Russia.[00:16:00]

But one thing that had seemed to be working in the beginning of the war was Russia was finding a lot of people to sell to, but it was having trouble getting imports. In a lot of countries trying to avoid secondary sanctions, but that, that had corrected itself. And while there were a few imports that they still struggled to get, like for cars, mostly their imports numbers are the same as they were before the war.

And I think that that's pretty huge because that was really the only strong economic effect that you had been seeing from sanctions. Multilateral sanctions depended on the west having enough influence without being other large economies like China and India. And as long as you cannot put a uniform sanctions regime get that buy-in, which is seems really unrealistic, then, you know, sanctions, regimes are going to have limited effects, especially for a country as big as Russia.

I mean, we have done a lot to hurt the Iranian economy. Mm-hmm. . But [00:17:00] even in what I was reading, while we. Truly damaged their Iranian economy. They've still found ways to keep afloat and now they're teaching Russia some of those techniques as well.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, and I think a lot of it does go back. The fact that these are Petra states, all the countries, and the west, the number one goal is to keep the global, since it's a global commodity, it's a global pool of oil and is a resource because it's so well connected in terms of the transport and shipment that you want the oil to get to market.

Even with the EU sanctions that were put in place last December, the goal was to reduce the revenue. So reduce the price, but not reduce the volume of oil hitting the market. So much of the economy depends on those volumes. So much of the global economy needs those volumes that you can't have an effective sanction regime because there's too much [00:18:00] incentive for all parties involved that those volumes have to get to market.

Anita Kellogg: Well, and this idea that if European shippers were not going to ensure these shipments unless oil was sold at a certain price we talked about at the time I thought was misguided, because then there would be. alternative fleet. And that's what's happened is you have these shadow fleets that seem to be mostly Russian owned and the countries that still really want the oil, such as China and India have been perfectly fine accepting it.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. So that, that part has been really interesting, seeing how quickly that emerged and basically having gone from a system of oil transport around the world that was fairly transparent to one that is when it comes to Russian crude, largely in the shadows in black market, but how quickly with that profit incentive that these Russian own vessels also, interestingly, Turkey, Turkey, NATO member mm-hmm.[00:19:00]

that's, I think that one's the most I get. India. Yeah. And it's had a history of being part of the non-aligned movement, but the fact that you have. Critical NATO member Turkey also essentially on board and serving as a money launderer, more or less. Mm-hmm. for getting Russian crude to market. So the energy intelligence actually reported that, you know, since the EU sanctions with embargoes went into place, that oil exports from Russia are only down 5%.

And like you said, have all shifted to the non-Western tankers with China and India reaching really record levels. India, I thought was, I mean that one's really, we've talked about it before, but I didn't see the scale of it. So before the war, India only imported 50,000 barrels a day of Russian crude, and since then they have surged a 1.4 million.

Yeah. So just a huge, huge shift within that market. . And then [00:20:00] Malaysia also has been at the center of almost like oil laundering for Russia, where oil shipments will be acquired usually offshore through non-transparent means, and then resold. Even though these, essentially these oil sources that are Malaysia’s laundering are from Russia, Iran, and, and green sold to European countries.

Right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That's how they're laundering

Anita Kellogg: it. It's crazy. One thing I thought was interesting that I genuinely didn't know is that we don't really know what Russian oil is selling for in these countries because there's no price transparency. I think I read that India gives you no price information whatsoever of what they're buying Russian oil for.

So we have all these estimates that they're selling it at a 40%. discount from, from the rent, but we don't actually know that. Right. And a lot of people think that that estimate the discount is being overestimated. [00:21:00]

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it could. It could well be. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: I didn't know. I didn't really realize how bad the data

Ryan Kellogg: was.

Yeah. I mean, once it goes off of these kind of more western companies and the transparency required to be, you know, backed and financed and insured by the western banking system, then that transparency goes away. And so

Anita Kellogg: I think you see with distinctions regime, all kinds of unintended effects where Russia being such a large country, in a way, this massive sanctioned regime had maybe been employed to like Iran, but you know, Iran made up a much smaller percentage of oil or Venezuela.

But when you try to do it with large enough country like Russia, it has more ability to influence. other actors outside of what Western Unity that exists, as well as now you've created a learning process for skirting [00:22:00] official Western ways of trading, and I think that this will have long-term ramifications.

Ryan Kellogg: And we see that maybe beginning in Iran with the working around the swift, so the banking system for cross-border transactions. Of course, Russia and Iran, Iran's been banned from SWIFT for I think since 2018. and Russia since the invasion has been banned. But they recently announced that they're linking their baking systems to, to work together and would end up allowing for these outside of the western system, a means of cross-border exchange with 13 other countries.

Mm-hmm. . Um, so yeah, that, that was always the fears, these alternatives would emerge. It'd be interesting to see if

Anita Kellogg: China joins something

Ryan Kellogg: like this. Yeah. If China joins. But the, the other thing, just stepping back to the oil thing on the shipping side. So because China has such a huge stake in shipping for consumer goods, [00:23:00] that it's main champion, Costco actually has stopped providing tankers.

So I, I thought that was an interesting note. We were, you know, we talked about, oh yeah, this great strategic alliance between Russia and China, but when push comes to shove and kind of the, the threats to China's greater economics, it's not a surprise, but at the same time, it's. It's always interesting to see that.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, that balance. I mean, Costco operates a lot of Western ports, right? Right. So that's the company that bought like a 20% steak in the Hamburg port. Right. So I feel like they have to do that because otherwise they might lose their ability to Right. Operate Western ports. Yeah. So it's in that way, it's like a different circumstance,

Ryan Kellogg: but it shows that they behave in rational ways based on market pressures, not based on political right.

Alignments or strategy that the Chinese state's not willing to sacrifice or subsidize only

Anita Kellogg: to cost losses. Yeah. I [00:24:00] mean, buying oil off of Russian tankers, that's nothing to them, but losing enormous financial investments.

Ryan Kellogg: Not willing to do for the Russians. Yeah, no, I

Anita Kellogg: mean, it would be

Ryan Kellogg: so impractical and unnecessary.

Anita Kellogg: Clearly. Yeah. So there are definitely limits on that, but also this idea that China ever acts economically irrationally is way overstated. I mean, just has never been born in its

Ryan Kellogg: actions. Yeah, we haven't seen any of that. Yeah. And none of this is prohibited under the sanction regime. I mean, Chinese consumer goods have surged within Russia, so Chinese cell phones and things along those lines.

Anita Kellogg: That was another interesting unintended effect. I think when you close Western markets. Mm-hmm. , you really open them to competitor markets like China. . And so now, yeah, now it's given these Chinese cell phone companies greater profits and,

Ryan Kellogg: and the semiconductor, which I think is a [00:25:00] really interesting thing because that ties into the CHIPS act on targeting the Chinese.

And we, we had talked before on, oh, how that's going to force them just from a domestic market to really have this opportunity because they won't have these Western competitors anymore domestically. But here we are, we're another action that the West has taken against Russia in this case that's creating a new market and new incentive to grow the semiconductor industry because they have this whole huge market that's completely open

Anita Kellogg: and no greater profits you have, the more you can put that into research and development.

Right, right. So, So, yeah. So really the only success has been in limiting the cell of semiconductors to advance semiconductors for certain Russian military equipment.

Ryan Kellogg: Y Yeah. Yeah. And that was the piece, I mean, so Don Graves, the deputy secretary in the commerce department wrote a war in the Rocks piece.

And you know, a lot of it I wasn't really buying into, because I just read, you know, [00:26:00] all this analysis on the failures of the sanctions in general. But I kind of get, yeah, on the advanced level, specifically targeting, you know, certain Russian military equipment that has been, but

Anita Kellogg: it is successful. It's really significant that we've given them another large market.

We're really helping spur that industry.

Ryan Kellogg: Right. Yeah. That really stood out to me.

Anita Kellogg: And so I think that's the complication we talk about as may go into a little bit in the next section on China, just. . All these ways that we try to, when we're trying to harm China by disrupting supply chains, actually create all these incentives and have in the past that can actually benefit China in the long run, even if it hurts them in the short run.

Ryan Kellogg: Yep. So I think just wrapping up, the Russia, Ukraine update, wanted to draw attention to two different articles that came out this week that offered a little bit of posing views [00:27:00] on what many analysts view as the ultimate endgame and we've talked about before, and that's around the battle for Crimea.

This is reminder, so Crimea remains pivotal, both strategically and symbolically for both sides. It was seized by Russia originally in 2014. And has been a vital staging ground for the Russian invasion last year, and it continues to be a supply line for the war effort in southern Ukraine, and of course is the home to the Russian Black Sea fleet, which has been able to strike long, long-range targets within the country.

Furthermore, Putin has staked his personal reputation and perhaps, uh, regime survival on maintaining control of Crimea. So it's really seen as the fulcrum. Of the entire war. So the, the first article that we'll talk about is actually a former podcast guest and recent PhD recipient. So you guys, [00:28:00] PhD got through that we, I know we kind of conjectured on, given how busy his schedule was, how much he was able to put in the dissertation.

But I know he finished that up. Alex Vindman argues within this article that came out in Foreign Affairs that NATO allies should provide a massive surge of weapons. And he has been a proponent of this. Mm-hmm. . But I think specifically what was interesting on this article is that. It should be provided in, in such a way that allows Ukraine to conduct an almost a lightning offensive within the areas around Crimea so that you create leverage and future negotiating so that you have the weapons, the capability, and the position on the battlefield that you can credibly take Crimea, but you don't actually go through with that invasion and you do it in such a time.

Politically, it's more feasible for Ukraine to potentially give that up because you aren't having these [00:29:00] grinding bosses from kind of a slower campaign and it's gives an off ramp, which is something we've, we've talked about before on, well, what is the, the off-ramp for Putin? There's not going to be regime change.

There's not going to be this Deus ex machina that somehow removes Putin from office. What is a credible way to give him that, that exit ramp? So this is envisioned as a way that forces his hand to exit with the Crimea essentially being part of the negotiated process and maybe having a referendum that's monitored by the UN or some other fair body where the people of Crimea ultimately decide their status.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, I think reading both articles, so the other one was in the War, in the Rocks, and it was by James Acton at the Carnegie Endowment Center, arguing that threatening Crimea may be a red line for Putin. And this is if [00:30:00] you truly felt like his grip on power there, then he would be more willing to use a nuclear weapon.

And that Putin has definitely shown that he wants to avoid that, and he would only do that as a last resort. But we've talked about before if you feel like you're losing everything personally and for Russia, then there could be a limited possibility of escalation in that way. I mean, obviously he's not wanting a full on nuclear war, but he realizes that he'd be risking it.

I think both of them have good points. I was wondering, as we keep giving them, Over time, more advanced equipment, would that have made a difference if we had just given them the equipment in the beginning instead of this kind of slow trickle? So I do wonder that, but on the other hand, I also wonder, well, if we did that all at once in the beginning, would that have set up escalation?

Penman talks about this kind of slow [00:31:00] process of escalation, but I think you can manage the threat of nuclear weapons better in a slow escalation instead

Ryan Kellogg: of all at once. Yeah, I get it. Because it's this slow grinding process has come at great human costs to the people of Ukraine and poor conscripts.

They're sent to the frontline from Russia. So the human cause from this slow grinding. Hard to bear, but yeah, no, I, I definitely see your point on the idea that, yeah, if you provide all this surge of equipment back in the summer, that that would've been, uh, provocative and panicked to the point of where Russia and Putin feels like this is falling away even quicker than they anticipated.

And they're, they're forced to take the drastic use of a tactical nuclear weapon. And

Anita Kellogg: I don't know what the right answer is. I mean, I think everyone's managing it the best that they can, [00:32:00] but it does seem like that might have been a risk in providing all these weapon system upfront. And I also understand Vindman's impatience, but it is true.

The more sophisticated the weaponry is, the longer it is going to take to get on the

Ryan Kellogg: battlefield. And I, but I get the point of, well, if we'd started this process in summer, a lot of this equipment would be in place right now. And you'd have people that are, are trained in, in using it. And between the arguments, they're pretty subtle sort of distinctions because one is the type of weapon systems that you provide can credibly be used to take Crimea, which implies a lot of this comes around to the range and strike capability of the weapons that are being provided.

We have been still withholding, you know, the HIMARS, rocket based artillery system has a medium range, but there's certainly weapons systems that could immediately strike Crimea, that could immediately be a threat to the Black Sea Fleet. But we have not provided those [00:33:00] Ven men's essentially arguing provide those, not necessarily use those, but that's what makes it credible to be able to take the Peninsula as opposed to Acton who's saying we should not provide those because that just in providing those would be provocative, right?

And create the conditions that escalate to potential nuclear war.

Anita Kellogg: I mean, I think Vindman has a point that maybe the only way to really get Putin to the negotiating table is by threatening Crimea. But risking the escalation is very obviously problematic and being cautious is

Ryan Kellogg: warranted. Yeah, so I thought really interesting points.

Obviously, it's going to be featured a lot over the next couple of months, so definitely would encourage everybody to check out those, those two pieces.

Anita Kellogg: Absolutely. So a new story that has captured the public's attention is discovery of a spy balloon, a Chinese spy balloon over the continental [00:34:00] United States.

So the, I mean, this is just like crazy stuff that you haven't even thought about since the Cold War with Russia. It's definitely had a big impact on China. US Ties. Secretary of St. Lincoln, who was scheduled to go to China fairly soon canceled his trip. , which is officially postponed, but no dates have been set for to reschedule.

His visit would've been the first time in six years the Secretary of State had visited China. The serious ramifications for this in terms of US China relations and diplomacy. So there'd felt like there had been a slight decrease in tensions since Biden and she met in November and Bali. Right? Yep. And this trip was hoping to consolidate that there was even a talk of president she meeting with Biden in the United States and that maybe this trip was going to set up the conditions for that.

And now it makes it pretty much impossible to [00:35:00] maintain or continue that progress to work on issues of global concern such as climate change and the discussions they'd had over resuming some of that negotiated progress.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I mean it's, it's extraordinary Where, so is this a just a major. Up by the Chinese government.

You know, you have this Emporium meeting coming up. They're putting concerted effort, stepping completely away from zero covid, getting the economy open, engaging with the world. Again, trying to put kind of that period behind, why launch a balloon surveillance mission that you knew NORAD was going to detect?

Why do that now? I saw articles that were like, well, is this just a miscommunications within the Chinese bureaucracies and departments between, I guess their intelligence and the borough? The, the central committee? I mean, I, I what is, are [00:36:00] heads going to roll in China because of this,

Anita Kellogg: or, that's the big question why China would do this.

The United States says it's very unlikely that they could gain any substantial data, any value added data. Yeah. Although some, do you think that it does give. then better ability to map the US intercontinental ballistic missile silos for future targeting and to gauge the US response. But overall it seems pretty crazy that they would take this action.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, it's just, well, I mean, and I haven't seen a good explainer out there are, I guess, are Chinese satellites not advanced enough that they couldn't gain everything that they're supposedly gaining from a surveillance balloon? Well this currently, because that, that's certainly in the case of the US all our, our satellite presence is constantly monitoring Chinese military activity.

I'm sure from orbit and right. But has a high level of resolution and all [00:37:00] that. But

Anita Kellogg: no, but you get better data balloons than you are going to get from satellites and it really isn't seen as deficiency in China satellite. So yeah, the last time I'd been listening the last time, anything that reminded anyone of this happening was sort of like a spy plane that was shot down over Russia during the

Ryan Kellogg: Cold War.

Yeah. And that was kind of interesting because I read that Washington used the same excuse that Beijing is using, essentially saying, yeah, we were just conducting like it was an UN couldn't have been unmanned back then. We were just conducting like weather surveillance,. And it took days later the Soviets are basically like, yeah, we got your pilot.

We know you're not doing because they thought the pilot died, they gotten shot down and he's dead. So, they're going to deny everything. Just say, oh this is a weather mission. But the Soviets captured the pilot a lot. Yeah, it was a big embarrass. Yeah, for Eisen, the Eisenhower administration. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So, it's, it really doesn't seem to make sense.

It definitely confirms what the hawks have been saying, [00:38:00] that these diplomatic overtures don't actually signal any sort of change in Chinese foreign policy. It gives a lot of momentum for people like on the China Select Committee to go after China more. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's definitely something that validates a lot of what the more hawkish tone in, in Washington has been by China just so frequently doing this.

I mean there I've read that there was no real chance that this would go undetected. It's a big mystery, and I go back to what you were saying in the beginning, like internally in China, probably some heads were a roll, because there has to be some sort of

Ryan Kellogg: mishap. Massive mistake. But it seems comprehensive too, because they're talking about balloons and.

Latin America too. Like this is a major, they were launching a bunch of these surveillance balloons over North and South America, I guess, well at the time where you have this major global initiative led by she [00:39:00] on, you know, opening back up and re-engaging diplomacy and, you know, these thawing relations mm-hmm.

with the us. Yeah. It's just, it's wild..

Anita Kellogg: It is wild. I don't have anything more to say about it. Did we mention that the most recent news is they had shot this balloon down over the

Ryan Kellogg: Atlantic? Yeah. And so that's, I mean, on the domestic US side, of course Republicans have been making hay that it wasn't shot immediately when it was detected.

I, I don't know where I'm landing on it, but seeing the video of how it is descending now, it's carrying, it is a massive payload. It's the size of three buses. I don't know how much it weighs. And it's, and it was Montana too, so I keep going back. , there's hardly anybody in Montana. But now you let it drift over to more populated areas that drift over North Carolina and South Carolina.

So they waited till it was over the Atlantic Ocean to Yeah, to shoot it down. I think

Anita Kellogg: there was a reasonable risk of hitting people on the ground and I think it makes sense to wait until it's over the

Ryan Kellogg: ocean. Yeah. And then I [00:40:00] wonder, because obviously the best thing to do would be to recover it. Mm-hmm. And then to show the world.

Chinese government's line that this, we, we have the proof, this is the evidence. They were collecting this data from what's being stored in the cargo area of the, of the,

Anita Kellogg: I imagine they want it for intelligence too.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, yeah. For all of those things. But I mean, like I said, it didn't seem like it was coming out again, I just saw this video like this.

I could, some it, some it, so I'm make all this conjecture. But yeah, they, they have vessels that try to recover it where we'll still hit at such a speed, it's going to just damage it. It'll sink immediately. I don't know, but I'd be real curious to see if they're able to recover it. I

Anita Kellogg: would have to think the intention is to recover it.

Yeah, I

Ryan Kellogg: would. I would think so. Well, it'll be interesting. Yeah, definitely will. So

Anita Kellogg: it's a story. Pay attention to and just as kind of fascinating and baffling. Totally baffling. Yep. So also in the news this week was quite extraordinarily the US expanding military presence in the [00:41:00] Philippines. And without knowing the history of the US military in the Philippines, it might not.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, because it's not a good , it's not a good history. Sorry, you can me turn the colonial period. Sorry. Right.

Anita Kellogg: No. So if you know that, you know like how it's a really big deal that the Philippines Yeah. Yeah. Are allowed, allowing the United States to expand this presence. The agreement is to put military equipment and build facilities is as in as many as nine locations around the Philippines.

And this would be the biggest increase in American military presence in the country in 30 years, which that was the point at where American soldiers left the Philippines, the last ones in the 1990s. And because of. The American presence, the country's constitution now bars foreign troops from being permanently based there.

So the goal is so frequently when we see bases of this, this kind, they're usually air bases, but that is not supposed to be the case in the Philippines. The Pentagon's aim is to get at least one site that [00:42:00] each of the US armed forces, the Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force can launch from. Obviously this would greatly booster the US' ability to defend Taiwan, and that is what most of the attention has been on.

It also constrains China's armed forces in the area, certainly the building of these islands to claim territory in the South China Sea. And then there's talk though. How much is this about containing China? Is this an another phase heading towards a new Cold War, or is this just with the US Says it is and sort of just being, preparing in case.

Of increased Chinese aggressiveness,

Ryan Kellogg: but it is, it is defined as almost like a surge capacity. Mm-hmm. . So these bases would only be utilized in time of conflict around Taiwan, or would it result immediately in a,

Anita Kellogg: well, they'll mili [00:43:00] presence, there will immediately be an increased military presence on the ground.

Because they have to build them.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But then in terms of permanently stationed troops, that would be limited unless a conflict, right.

Anita Kellogg: I don't know how that works for the Constitution where it says you can't have Right. This foreign troops, but obviously there would be enough manpower there to maintain these locations and whatever needs to be done to host these various services for being able to launch a campaign against China and Taiwan.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I mean, I think it's, it's huge. I mean, I was reading that. , you know, given the, the spread out nature of the Philippines island chain that you have an island that essentially is only a hundred miles. Mm-hmm. away from Taiwan to the south. And then of course Japan. A lot of people don't realize how far, you know, the island chain, you know, have the main islands, but then you have a lot of smaller islands that stretch [00:44:00] considerably far down to the south.

So you have kind of in that proximity, these artificial aircraft carriers in the form of islands mm-hmm. that the US can stage operations from. Mm-hmm. . So I think it's, yeah, it's, it's a great positive development for the defense of, of Taiwan.

Anita Kellogg: So a lot of people are saying to, does this weaken our idea of strategic ambiguity over Taiwan, where we won't officially say that we would defend Taiwan militarily.

But in essence we do say

Ryan Kellogg: that. Yeah. Well, Biden said it like five times at this point, and then Republicans are very much pushing for the end of that strategic ambiguity. So I think, yeah, technically we're still under it, but in practical reality, everything that's being communicated to China is that we will defend Taiwan.

Anita Kellogg: I think that's still a good place. I think you have to still maintain that ambiguity just because of the need to not [00:45:00] formally recognize Taiwan as an independent country. Right, right. But making it clear to China as we're doing that we absolutely will defend it from any sort of military

Ryan Kellogg: overture. Yeah.

And we're taking these material substantial actions in order to do so. So I think that that is a good positive development.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. I think it's strong deterrence. I'm also interested though, in what sense they're trying to, in interfere with activities in the South China Sea. If that will allow them to do so

Ryan Kellogg: or not?

I don't know. I mean, I see this as the chickens coming home in de roost for China, who's been very aggressive, you know, particularly around Philippines, around both oil mineral rights, around fishing boundaries, just all these sort of territorial disputes. And of course, you know, where the dashed red line extends in China's minds crosses the territorial waters of so many countries.

Philippines being one [00:46:00] of the bigger ones. But Vietnam as well, that this is a natural consequence of the wolf diplomacy that's so dominated. Mm-hmm. , since she has come to power. So if it serves as. , you know, kind of a counter to that. The other thing I don't know is beyond kind of the artificial reef islands mm-hmm.

that they constructed during the Obama administration, and those have obviously been fully expanded and militarized fully, which they said they wouldn't do. If there's any other, I, I don't think there are any other construction activities going on to create more of these around the only action they've kind of taken, I've forgotten the name of the island that was close to Australia.

That's the only place where China's kind of gained traction within the Pacific. The Spratley Island. The Spratley Islands, yeah. Yeah. But beyond that, yeah. I mean, it feels like diplomatically, this is really the consequences of the more aggressive posture that China has taken over the last 10 years [00:47:00] or so.

Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So it's also in this context of new tensions with China now, and I don't know, it's, it's definitely concerning. I mean, I totally agree with what's happening in the Philippines. I'm just saying all these events leading to increased tensions is, is concerning.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. But I think it's, it's good. And it, and it goes back to that idea of the nations there want the us to have a presence to balance that out.

And, and that hasn't necessarily been there. in the period before when all these threats were happening and now the US is there and Philippines given the, the history, given the colonial history given their own constitution, probably part of it. We don't really go into the detail, we didn't do the, the background reading on, but you know the previous president mm-hmm.

who's pretty contentious figure. Mm-hmm. is out of power now. Di they Duarte Yeah. It created this opportunity essentially. Yeah. And so I'm glad to see that the US was able to, to kind of capitalize on that. Yeah. So a

Anita Kellogg: [00:48:00] lot of people do think the new President Makos is signaling closer ties with the United States over China.

Yeah. Unlike the previous president. You know, as for countries wanting the US presence there, I mean it, it's notable that the Philippines actually has a territorial dispute with China. that has gone through international channels of dispute resolution favoring the Philippines. Hmm mm-hmm. . But China refuses to accept it, of course.

Right. And they actually sanction the Philippines at one point. Hmm. Over it. I think countries, most countries have very, are still very divided over China and the United States. I mean, there was another article that I didn't read thoroughly about how Indonesia is moving closer to China than the United States.

Yeah, yeah. So it's pretty complicated dynamic in this area.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. No, and I think, I don't think most nations in the region want any single [00:49:00] nation to dominate. They just want the balance. They want the presence of the two superpowers to balance each other off. That's what's most profit. to them and their security.

Except that increased

Anita Kellogg: military means.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. The chance of conflict coming out and pulling them in in some way. So I'm

Anita Kellogg: pretty sure they

Ryan Kellogg: don't want that. Right. But they also don't want to be dominated and become a tributary state to China. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So definitely, as you said, significant and I think it's really good to signal that this is another way that we can practically defend Taiwan.

Mm-hmm. , that we don't think that we would lose some conflict to China, which some people had been saying for a while. But just these increased tensions make me nervous. And the more military power you have close to each other, the more chance

Ryan Kellogg: for accidents to Yeah. Occur. Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: So, very briefly, one other place that the Biden administration is looking to, to help.[00:50:00]

Shift networks of semiconductor and other critical technology supply chains is to India. And on that note, administration officials had hosted this week a delegation of Indian officials and US industry executives seeking to facilitate technology development in investment in India as part of a broader US push to cultivate alternatives to China.

But you know, there's definitely, as much as we are trying to build this alliance with India in diverting particularly technology supply chains, using India's expertise in these areas, there's a lot of tensions too between India and the United States. You know, India's not on board with not supporting Russia, as we've said many times.

And so the US has been very frustrated by its neutrality and that it's buying so much from Russia and helping it hurt those sanctions that the US and then. India [00:51:00] has a lot of frustration of the H one B visa cap that the United States has, and so there's a lot of hope, I think, but I think it'll take a long time before we actually see much fruition of this goal or idea.

Ryan Kellogg: I think there is that opportunity there just because there is alignment around China, particularly in India, and there's no other regional ally, you know, within that quad that has the future potential in terms of economic capacity, in terms of maybe future military capacity that India brings the table.

I mean, India now, you know, one's the most populous country in the world. Two is the fastest growing economy in the world, so it's going to grow faster based on I M F estimates than China is. I think it's project at 6%. Obviously we're going to have the disagreements, but I think we also acknowledge. or should acknowledge that [00:52:00] India has its own interest, national interest, and you know, energy being a huge component of that for a growing economy, that it needs cheap sources of energy to power its development going forward.

So I, I feel like that that can be worked around just because there is that alignment around China. And that's by far the biggest thing strategically that the US wants from India.

Anita Kellogg: I wonder how much economic alignment there is around China because India is actually dramatically increased its trade with China.

so it's not working on des shoring with China or anything. And so one of the things I've just found really interesting because you have all these territorial conflicts, but Indian exports to China make up a large part of its economy.

Ryan Kellogg: And I, I get there's, there's always that disconnect between the rhetoric where China's enemy number one, it's absolutely lambasted and [00:53:00] targeted by the BMP, so the Modi’s political party on social media in India.

But the reality is there's money to be made. It's China economic interest of, right, right.

Anita Kellogg: I just think that's, that's notable. I don't remember the import numbers, I just remember the export numbers. I was looking at India, China very specifically, so that's why I have those numbers in my head. But when we're talking about creating these supply chains that avoid China, it's just kind of interesting because to what extent does India want supply chains that avoid China?

It's not necessarily, I mean they want the opportunity from the United States, whatever they can get, but I don't know they would be enthusiastic about any plans that would prevent them from, from selling to China.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. No, and I think it is, it's, you know, I mean I think what we'd be looking for is more that fringe shoring and shifting out supply chain.

Our supply chains where we can from India. I don't know how much we [00:54:00] can put demands on India. We want maybe around advanced technology, but I don't know how much, I doubt we're offshoring, you know, a lot of these to India. Because I don't think India really has the capacity for the takeover stuff that like Taiwan or South Korea, were these more advanced economies are doing anyway.

Yeah.

Anita Kellogg: We want them to build more semiconductors. That was specifically mentioned.

Ryan Kellogg: Probably low end

Anita Kellogg: semiconductors. Well, just because they don't have the capacity, right? Yeah. But they would like to see more of that. But then would India say, okay, we won't sell it to the Chinese. I don't think that's true.

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, for the low, what do we, is there severe restrictions on low end semiconductor finance?

Anita Kellogg: No, but I'm just saying as we're building this industry in India, if, if it actually goes ahead with those sort of plans Yeah. Then it's not guaranteed that China is on, uh, India would be on the same page of restricting imports

Ryan Kellogg: to China. Yeah, I mean, I think, I think we'll have to find areas where we have agreement.

And one thing that really stands in my mind that. From the climate change [00:55:00] perspective is that India has not met its targets for carbon reduction or for switching off coal plants. So you're continuing to build new coal plants bringing those to, to the grid. We've really pushed them on moving to natural gas, buying us L n g imports.

So is that like an area of negotiation where, okay, if we can push them in this direction, maybe we give up on like the H1B issue? You know, it'd have to be like this give and take in terms of interest or around issues around with China there. I know, but this is all kind of the part of that, that negotiation and, and diplomacy, what we can, what we can get.

But I think there's the opportunity there and the broad alignment around China from a strategic perspective. and the fact they're a member of the quad I think is important. So I think you can, you can work with somebody like India, but I think it, it's naive to think, oh, they can be a hundred percent aligned.

Like on things like the Ukraine where their relationship with Russia, given the historical [00:56:00] context that their military is, you know, 80% dependent. Mm-hmm. On exiled equipment. One of those

Anita Kellogg: articles talked about the US trying to provide those alternatives, but I don't think they get the historical nature of those ties and how important those still remain and how difficult it would be to, to shift that away.

Ryan Kellogg: It's something I think is, it's more about the economic tier. I think as India moves up, becomes wealthier, if they can maintain a 6% growth, they're going to get wealthier over time. They see how garbage the Russian equipment is, they're going to be able to upgrade and the US should be able to take advantage of that and sell them like we do to the Middle East.

Sell them the higher end aerospace and defense equipment. I

Anita Kellogg: guess this is the hope. . Yeah. I don't know if there's a lot of fruition. I mean, India's definitely aligned with us on military against China. Yeah. Like that's the hundred

Ryan Kellogg: percent, which is the most critical element.

Anita Kellogg: Right. But don't expect them to be aligned on economic objectives.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Which is always, I only talked [00:57:00] about this before. I always seems a little silly that we would expect that, but no

Anita Kellogg: matter how many tensions there are between Indian and China, it's going to go after the Chinese market. And furthermore, I think really these meetings are to interest us corporations and seeing what opportunities there are.

So I think this is similar to when we talked about Janet Yellen going to Africa and bringing along industry executives. I mean, there isn't like there's a whole lot of negotiations going on. Oh, sure, sure. Yeah. Right. This is about, okay, we're giving you the opportunity to try to entice some American companies to invest in your country, right.

With this overall objective. Yep. I think that pretty thoroughly covers that. For our last story, there was an Israeli drone strike on a military facility in Iran.

Ryan Kellogg: Right. So yeah, this happened on February 1st and it was led [00:58:00] by Israel's Intelligence Agency, Mossad, and they carried out a drone strike in I Han Iran.

The facility purpose wasn't directly known, but the, the city itself is a known home to Iran's production and r and d of medium range ballistic missiles. So, and we have some detail on this because Iran has put a lot of effort in it together with their nuclear program, which has gotten more press. But for instance, last year, general Kenneth McKenzie testified to Congress that Iran has been heavily investing over the last five to seven years in ballistic missiles.

And it currently has an inventory of at least nine. That may be capable of carrying and detonating a nuclear weapon. So obviously this is high concern to Israel. Israel of course, views Iran and its nuclear program as an existential threat to the state of Israel. [00:59:00] So it's been part of this drone strike is actually part of a larger pattern that we've seen where they've conducted clandestine operations, sometimes in conjunction with the U S's C I A to disrupt.

I think the most famous of that was the Stuxnet virus, which specifically was targeting the centrifuges for uranium enrichment within Iran. But all of this is about trying to slow down Iran's nuclear weapons development. But in reality, you know, The end of the treaty between the US, Iran, and, and European powers that the Trump administration backed out of Iran has been going full steam ahead on its enrichment program to the point where, according to the un, they have enough enriched uranium essentially to build several nuclear weapons.

That being said, most analysts think that bringing it to a working weapon that could be put on top of a ballistic [01:00:00] missile is probably still two years off. But in terms of the physical material itself, they're, they're there that they could have that within weeks for a nuclear weapon.

Anita Kellogg: My main commentary on this is the one that I've been making every time we bring up this issue, which is everyone thinks I'm crazy, but I, I think there's a non-zero risk of war with Iran.

Ryan Kellogg: Oh, no, I don't think he may think that's,

Anita Kellogg: they think that's like, that's crazy when I say it. I mean, I think that's a real RI risk, and I don't Oh, absolutely. See anyone ever hardly talking about it.

Ryan Kellogg: I mean, I think it's just, it's one of those where it's, there's too much on the US' plate. There's too much on the White House's plate between Ukraine and China.

The fact that Israel is, is Cushing ahead and Iran is on this timeframe, and honestly it makes sense from a state survival perspective. I mean, we've seen that with North Korea. We saw all the counter examples [01:01:00] during the period in of Middle East conflict around, you know, Iraq didn't have nuclear weapons.

Saddam Hussein captured, executed Libya. Kaddafi didn't have nuclear weapons captured and murdered by his own people. I mean, there's obviously well weapons, right? That was Oh yeah, yeah. That was even worse. Yeah. He gave up. He gave up and he sort of researched towards weapons of mass destruction, was still overthrown and killed by his own people.

So there is zero incentive for. The Iranian regime to not pursue nuclear weapons in the most aggressive way, because that's key to their, their survival.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. So as long as Israel is determined to risk, you know, military casualties over preventing that, it just seems really easy how that gets spill over to war.

I'm wondering if there's a way, Iran, to get all the building blocks in place, but not actually build the weapon,

Ryan Kellogg: I don't think, because you have to [01:02:00] have the weapon, you have to detonate and, and demonstrate it, just like Kim Jong Un did in North Korea to show that you are a nuclear state, you've demonstrated that you can detonate it.

They're not at the ability yet where they've, I mean, obviously they've been testing ballistic missiles themselves, but you don't fully demonstrate that. But the fact that you're launching these, you're showing the, you're demonstrating that yes, we can strike you credibly, so leave us alone. Right.

Anita Kellogg: So I think it depends on what threshold does Iran get to that Israel says it needs to inflict major damage on the program.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah, I think we're fast approaching that and I think that's why it was interesting to see. So the nuclear deal itself, as we've talked about in some of our earlier episodes, Basically I had little chance, you know, coming into the Biden administration and really it's on life support and I think most [01:03:00] people recognize it as essentially dead at this point.

And it's just, a lot of it is the politics for it are absolutely untenable given, you know, one Iran’s crackdown on the protests mm-hmm. that we saw in the fall and winter. And its open support of Russia as we mm-hmm. we talked about earlier in the episode. So given that, you know, the US Israel and the Netanyahu administration coming in, kind of made a concerted diplomatic effort to push for a joint military drill.

I think essentially because the nuclear deal is on life support, although the State Department hasn't given like completely. Hope away from that. Not everyone seems like that. We saw on January 26th a major joint military drill carried out in the Mediterranean. So the biggest one of its nature between US and Israel, all the various branches participated.

And you know, it wasn't called this, but essentially it was [01:04:00] everything that was needed for an assault, a sustained assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. So the fact that you're taking it to that level is certainly sending a signal to Iran that the US and Israel and Biden's come out and said this as well, that it's unacceptable for Iran to be a nuclear power.

So I, it just seems like we're setting ourselves up fully for, yeah, there's going to be a top gun type strike on Iran's nuclear facilities at some point in the new future.

Anita Kellogg: So, I mean, this is why I think the conflict with Iran worries me. I think there's a higher likelihood of this happening and not knowing where it will go and escalate to, in the immediate term, right?

Where I think it's less likely that China's going to invade Taiwan.

Ryan Kellogg: Oh yeah, no, I'm, I'm a hundred percent there. Yeah, for sure. This is by far the more likely event, and a lot of it has to do with the state of the regime. I mean, the [01:05:00] Iranian regime. We didn't talk about the protest, which have unfortunately died down because the, the crackdown has been pretty severe.

I mean, over 500 protestors have been gunned down in the streets. They're currently facing sham trials for select number of them. So four have been executed after essentially 15 minutes. Testimonies and trials. Another 18 are on death row. So the regime has shown the willingness to spill blood in the streets to defend it, but the support there, and I think the mask is off, the economy is in, in shambles.

There is kind of that underlying there, but there's just that fear because they still have full control on state violence. So yeah, it's, it is hard to see exactly. Yeah. How, how this is all going to. Play out. But it certainly seems like the regime itself is going to be willing to move forward. There's not going to be, again, that Deus ex machina moving, [01:06:00] removing the regime from power and that they're key to survival as far as they see it, as far as they've have observed historically from their neighbors is to possess nuclear weapons.

So yeah, it seems like you're fully on a head-on collision that is, is coming in the near term.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, exactly. So that's what I worry about. You know, who doesn't talk about Iran and this possibility conflict?

Ryan Kellogg: Military . That's odd considering they just carried out a major exercise on January 26th. ,

Anita Kellogg: I mean, at least that's where I work.

Iran is never mentioned ever, but yeah, you guys barely

Ryan Kellogg: mentioned Ukraine. It's all focused on China. . I

Anita Kellogg: know. I just am always like, you know, Ty's not our only threat, right? There are more immediate threats that could happen and you know, maybe they just feel like on a smaller scale they feel so completely confident that you're prepared for that.

[01:07:00] But I still think it's weird that we never talk about it.

Ryan Kellogg: Yeah. Yeah. That one a hundred percent. Yeah. And depending on who wins the White House in 2024 too, I mean, I think I see that Ron DeSantis has a very different foreign policy. It's much more aligned with like the Mon Mike Pompeo with the more very hawkish anti-Iran part with, when you combine that with the whole Netanyahu, which you know, there was Atlantic Council reporting.

I thought the most interesting part about that in terms of the weakness of Israel's policy around Iran is anything domestically that. Netanyahu tries to focus and trying to push forward this issue of finally settling the Iran problem is the whole wag the dog suspicion that'll immediately arise.

Because, you know, we talked about in episode 23, actually the, the one that you did the interview with, with Sarah Dansk about Netanyahu is facing kind of [01:08:00] like Trump facing numerous prosecutions or investigations. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. The only thing protecting him from prosecution is the fact that he's Prime Minister and he's trying to disassemble the judiciary power to be able to prosecute him.

So, yeah, it's just, it just seems like there's multiple motivations potentially heading in a direction where conflict with Iran is highly likely because the domestic pressures potentially from all three partners by 2024, could all be aligned where conflict is in everybody's interest.

Anita Kellogg: Yeah. It's worrisome.

Yeah. So much to worry about .

Ryan Kellogg: Hey, may you live in interesting times. That's the, it is the Chinese primary, right? .

Anita Kellogg: Yeah, that's true. We, we don't even include domestic politics in that. I know for sure. So you ready to end the show? Yeah. Anything that's episode. Episode. Well, I think this [01:09:00] brings us to the end of this episode of Kellogg's Global Politics.

You can visit our website at www.kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and follow us on Twitter @Global Kellogg or me @arkellogg.

Ryan Kellogg: You can also reach us by email, so anita@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com and myself, ryan@kelloggsglobalpolitics.com. And as always, please see the show notes for all the articles we mentioned in this episode.

And if you like the show, please take the time to tell your friends, share it on your social sites. It's a simple, quick, and free way to support the show. Thanks everyone. Thanks. Bye.