“NATO Is Dead” — Robert Pape on Iran and the New Power Map

[00:00:00] The calm before the storm can be very unsettling, especially when it's not your first storm. Welcome to Part 6 of our ongoing series, The Escalation Trap, with Professor Robert Pape from the University of Chicago, here on At the Waters Edge. If you've enjoyed this content, please like, subscribe, and share with a friend. With that, let's get to Professor Robert Pape. Well, Professor, good morning and welcome back. How are you doing today, sir? I'm doing great, Scott. Good to be with you again.

[00:00:28] Pleasure as always. So, let's see, this past week, we almost had more talks in Pakistan than we didn't. Iran's accusing the U.S. of piracy after we've seized more ships, not only in the Gulf, but around the world. And then in a strange turn of events, which I still can't fully explain, Israel has actually sent parts of its Iron Dome system with the IDF to the United Arab Emirates, which I believe is the first time Israel's deployed Iron Dome outside its geographic territory.

[00:00:57] Really interested to find out more about what threw up that personally. But in a lot of ways, this past week seems like it's been interesting for how much we haven't seen happen yet. What's your take on it? Yeah, that's right. So, what you are seeing here is basically Donald Trump has tried as hard as I think a president in his position can try to come up with a third way. So, I've been explaining we're to work in the road.

[00:01:26] Either Iran is going to become an emerging fourth center of world power or we're going to go on the track of escalation. And then, of course, people say, well, no, both of those are not good outcomes for the United States. So, can we find a third way? Well, that third way would be a negotiation with Iran where there's some sort of a fig leaf,

[00:01:47] some sort of a faith-saving gesture by Iran to allow Trump to declare victory and basically try to call the whole thing off in one way or another. And what you are seeing is Trump has extended the deadline for the ceasefire unilaterally. Iran has not agreed to that. Iran actually, and I'm going to talk about this in a moment, sent some negotiators to go to Pakistan.

[00:02:15] And then Trump said, oh, that's absolutely great. He'll just send his negotiators to Pakistan. And then it turned out that the Iranian negotiators went to somewhere else. And I'll explain that in a minute. But this was not about meeting with the Americans whatsoever. And so what you were seeing, and then Donald Trump said, well, OK, but just call me. So that's the, so what you're seeing here is President Trump really is, I think, trying to find this other way.

[00:02:44] But he wants a faith-saving way out. He wants in some way to say it's a result of his pressure and so forth. And Iran is just simply not doing that. They're not, they're actually going out of their way to make it impossible for Donald Trump to spin things. It takes a lot, by the way. But they're doing it.

[00:03:09] They're making it impossible for Trump to spin this as he's got control of the situation. And somehow Iran is dancing to his tune, dot, dot, dot. Now, what that is doing for President Trump is that means that third way is just not there. And so what he's doing is he is also moving the third carrier in.

[00:03:33] So just very important to understand that Donald Trump has not frozen military deployments to the Gulf. He's, he's trying to find that third way here, but he has also then moved the third carrier in. And that's very important to understand that we're moving down that, that, down that road. Now, what is Iran doing? Well, Trump has been trying to find a third way.

[00:04:00] They're building the path of the fourth center of world power, Scott. So what they're doing is they had a, apparently a plan here. It's I only know what's in the media, but a plan for their negotiators to first go to Pakistan, then go to Russia, where apparently they're meeting this morning. And then to come back to Oman here.

[00:04:23] And remember, Oman was in the 10-point plan where there were going to be some splitting of tolls here, which, of course, if you see the geography, it makes sense that you could try to try to do that. So I think what you are seeing is Iran is moving down the pathway of, now, incrementally, of course. It's not going to become the fourth center of world power overnight, but it is moving down the pathway of what I said in the New York Times op-ed in my briefing. They're building alliances.

[00:04:53] They're building strength. They're building—now, what this will mean here, it's not—we need to wait a little bit and see. I mean, we can kind of imagine what is at issue here, but I think we need to understand this is not concessions to the United States. This is about power politics of the first order.

[00:05:14] And so what those talks with those three—you know, Iran and now the three—are going to likely be about are various ways to offset the pressure of the economic blockade, and then also to have more preparation if the United States goes the track of escalation, you see. So these are the most obvious things that are the goals of Iran.

[00:05:43] I don't think you need, you know, sort of intel on this. But then where they're—how they're moving in detail, that's what will be revealed over time. But that's really the—I think the context to understand this. Now, in terms of, like, say, offsetting economic pressure, and I gave this big briefing yesterday on the Substack, it's very important to understand that Pakistan is geographically adjacent to Iran.

[00:06:12] So if you wanted to find a land route here to offset the blockade, which is, of course, a natural thing any state would consider, Pakistan's just right there. So it's not very far. In fact, Pakistan has ports in Karachi here. So you're talking about trying to get whatever you would get through Karachi.

[00:06:38] Now, the—I mean, I'm just saying most—this would be an obvious set of things to at least consider. Well, Pakistan also has massive tie-ins with China. Oh, yeah. So if you're trying to reach that global power, Pakistan's the through that. Right around the border areas of Balochistan, or the Balochistan areas— so the map is Iran is here, Pakistan is here. I don't know which way it makes sense for your folks to understand this here. I guess it wouldn't be—yeah, and I'll just do it this way.

[00:07:06] But then Balochistan is that right—that province of Pakistan that's right there smack adjacent, and that is where the Chinese contractors have gone in for their own development purposes in the last several years here. And, of course, Karachi is, again, this port. What makes this all, like, you know, makes sense, like, for, you know, the development

[00:07:35] and, you know, the economic part of this is this port of Karachi. You see what I mean? So you have a way out. You have a way to get stuff out here. And then, of course, you could do some things over there. There's some air transport that is possible here as well. But that's a very obvious thing. Now, Pakistan may not be up for that. But it may also be something that evolves over time. They don't have to be up for that like this second.

[00:08:03] But I wouldn't be surprised that's not something, certainly at least in the back of the Iranian mind, of how do you offset this? Now, with Russia here, you have a little bit different situation. Now, of course, you'd be talking about trying to find ways to offset the economic stuff with Russia as well. That's not absolutely impossible. But, of course, Russia has provided military intelligence to Iran.

[00:08:28] So Iran, that has been the number one military ally of Iran in this conflict to this point in time. And so what you could be talking about with Russia are ways that if you can get America to end its blockade through one agreement or another, you end up getting Russia to somehow backstop that with some kind of additional military commitment.

[00:08:57] And it wouldn't take a lot here, but it would be meaningful because Russia has thousands of nuclear weapons. So you're not likely to go messing with killing Russians here, just like they're not likely. America is not likely to go messing, killing, bombing Karachi anytime soon. So these areas that Iran is building around and Pakistan also has nuclear weapons. We need to understand.

[00:09:24] So you've got Iran talking to two nuclear weapon states here. And now whatever comes out of that, that's up, of course, to the weapons Pakistan and Russia. But the very fact they're having the talks is not good for America because we're not there. OK, so that's the bottom line. They're talking without us in the room and we're not there. And so we can eavesdrop all we want.

[00:09:50] And then Oman, of course, again, back to the idea that if you can lift this blockade through hooker by crook or whatever, OK, you end up then back to the issue that they've been pretty blunt about, which is the tolls, which is the power, which is a symbolic step for their power, prestige, and then also money that actually matters.

[00:10:13] And then that would be, again, so what I am seeing is this, you know, I published this in The New York Times as a plausible scenario here. And what you were seeing is you're starting to see the beginnings of this actual emerging set of arrangements. It's going to happen in baby steps here. And so that's what I think you're seeing there, Scott.

[00:10:40] Are there any states that benefit in an obvious way from Iran being a fourth center of power? Because Pakistan is a very interesting example. But, you know, the amount of time and effort the current Pakistani regime has invested into cozying up to Trump. And there's a lot of historical stuff there to dig into. It's not it's not clear if they would actually benefit from Iran being a fourth center of power.

[00:11:01] The second bar for all of these states is in filling the power vacuum of America's dwindling power in the Persian Gulf. So America's power is going down. That creates like some vacuum here. And therefore, you can just think about this as how do you fill that vacuum? You see what I mean? And Pakistan has been interested in this for some time, not just with this war.

[00:11:31] That's why they have this a couple of years ago. They built a agreed to a public security relationship with Saudi Arabia. So Saudi Arabia, too, has been concerned about this. So what you are seeing is when they talk about like Gulf states playing both sides and so forth, what you see is, well, Saudi Arabia is trying to see what they can get from, say, Israel or what they can get from the United States, maybe AI.

[00:12:00] But they're also keeping an eye on the fact that Donald Trump here is not a reliable, certainly not a reliable military ally. And therefore, what they did is they built, had at least on paper, security guarantee from Pakistan. Well, Pakistan's got those nuclear weapons, we need to understand. And then that means that Pakistan has some geopolitical value. States love to grow their power and influence.

[00:12:29] This is really just, you know, geopolitics 101. It's not a specific theory of realism. It's just the way it is. And so what you see is Pakistan, if they can find a way to gain a little bit more influence in the Persian Gulf, they're going to take it. And as America, so this idea that America will just simply withdraw from the world and the rest of the world will be as it is and not react is just wrong.

[00:12:57] It will react and it will react in ways that are effectively building different influence networks that do not include America. And therefore, that means diminishing America. So that's really what it's, you know, this debate about alliances, institutions has been

[00:13:18] framed as essentially, you know, primacy versus liberal institutionalism, which is all about like norms and wealth. Well, this has been a false dichotomy from the beginning. Okay. And so this is just, uh, it's, it's, there's some truth to that. I teach this in IR through all the time. I understand the logics in the books and so forth, but the bottom line is, um, in order

[00:13:44] for America to have, to be number one in the world, the most likely way you're going to do that is with these, uh, alliance relationships in the three parts of the world that matter the most for the world's economy. And that's Europe, the Middle East and China. Now that we have, uh, 1990, we were 26% of the world's GDP today. We're about the same 26% of the world's GDP.

[00:14:15] Europe fell by a third. Europe fell by a third. So the more we complain about them, uh, taking advantage of us. No, no, no. We take an advantage of Europe. It's not the other. This is what the real truth is. And we're just simply, you know, this is like the velvet glove over the male fist. Yeah. You're, yeah. We're uncle sucker as we're making money on your back. Okay. So we can complain about this all we want, but if we, if we diminish these relationships,

[00:14:44] uh, number one, we're going to have a hard time using Europe as an aircraft carrier to launch our influence other places in the world. But more, even more importantly here, others are going to fill that vacuum. This is not going to be a situation where it's just where it is today. We pull back and somehow we're taking advantage of all this and the rest of the world stays as it is. No, that's not what's going to happen. What's going to happen is the world will adjust to America's detriment.

[00:15:14] And that is a huge problem going forward because once you unglue these things, as we're seeing in the Persian Gulf. So this idea that, yeah, Donald Trump can go try this. Yeah. Let's just give it a shot and see what happens when we topple, try to topple this. Yeah. And if it doesn't work, no harm, no foul. We're just going to go back to where it is. We're going to go invade Cuba next or something.

[00:15:38] No, you're really creating this massive instability, these massive power vacuums, and the other states are going to fill them. So when we look at how this is impacting alliances, Europe's an interesting case study because common wisdom right now, and there's definitely something to it, is that the way America's treating Europe right now is destroying the NATO alliance. It'll never recover. Europe's got to go its own way. But if we look at that in the context of shifting into a multipolar world where Russia is resurgent,

[00:16:08] you know, if Europe's GDP is dropping that much and their population is essentially stagnant or falling, can Europe survive without an American alliance? Can it actually effectively balance against Russia? So in a way, are the events with Iran and America's approach to its European allies both making the alliance between America and Europe more strained but also more essential? Well, I think NATO's dead, Scott. I think we're just writing its obituary here.

[00:16:36] But I think what you're going to see as NATO dies and what NATO is just for, and I know the military audience you have will probably know this, but I just want to say it more clearly. It's not just a political alliance. It's literally an organization where when Article 5 is declared, which is the warfighting part of NATO, an American general is on top and effectively commands the militaries of the other states.

[00:17:04] That is, the militaries of the other states effectively salute like they did with General Eisenhower in World War II, where he's the five-star and everybody else. Now, there will be pushing and pulling for sure and so forth. But America will have the biggest say in what actually happens militarily, and that is to America's interest without a doubt. Well, that has now, when I say NATO is dead, I mean the idea that you would have an Article

[00:17:32] 5 situation where the Brits and the Germans, the French are not really part of Article 5 here. They just kind of go along as a codicil. But the others will just simply salute to General Cain, that's just not happening here. We have kind of explained to the world that we'll wreck you. And once that happens, I just don't think this is going to be the case. And by the way, that applied to their nuclear weapons as well.

[00:17:58] So that's why France didn't want to really be officially part of Article 5. They want to kind of go along, but they still want to have their own control of their nuclear weapons. So this is really quite a thing that we have kind of broken here. It's not just a matter of, we're going to now put all this back together. Because when we tell the Europeans, we don't want to send our navies into the Persian Gulf. You come send your navy into the Persian Gulf.

[00:18:24] That's exactly the problem now with Article 5, which is we're basically going to fight to the last dead European here. So this is not going to work out here for the future. Now, what does that then mean geopolitically here? So you see Russia is on the march and they're determined. They're expanding and they're determined now they're having a hard time because Ukraine is turning out to be a tougher nut to crack than they thought here because it's actually quite a strong country.

[00:18:54] It's not Iran's strong, but it is quite strong here. But as this goes forward, I think you really will start to see challenges. It's called coordination problems or collective action problems here technically among the Western Europeans all of the 1930s. They're going to start to get nervous here, especially, see, what we did with the German

[00:19:20] army with NATO is we literally took its head off where we run the German army. You see what I mean? Well, after World War II, that builds a lot of confidence. There are some reasons for that soon. Yeah. Yeah. Well, same with the Japanese. Okay. So you start to put now independence here where they're actually not just spending more money, but they're buying their own weapons. You turn this into the 1930s. You're going to get some nervousness here.

[00:19:49] Like who's really running the show? And you see Macron in France. He's been long trying to be the leader here. Well, this was like to go. I mean, you can try, but Britain's not necessarily up for Macron running the show. And the Germans may not be up for Macron running the show. And Macron may not be up for the vice versa. So these are all the advantages to go to Russia here. So this may not, you know, work, you know, this, this may be a not change like tomorrow,

[00:20:18] but these are the dynamics that were essentially stopped by NATO, those institutions and so forth. Those are, those are going to come on glue here. And they're that future here. And by the way, I just want to give a reference here to Mearsheimer. So I'm Mearsheimer's first graduate student. We don't normally talk about each other's work here, but I do think people should go back and read

[00:20:48] his piece called Back to the Future, which is what he wrote in the opening days when the Cold War was just ending. It's an international security article. It's not really fully captured in his book, Tragedy. So you think, you know what you, you haven't really seen the original geopolitics piece by Mearsheimer. This was his first one actually. And it's called Back to the Future. And you'll see it's either 1990 or 91 in international security.

[00:21:16] And it posits what the world looks like without NATO. And you'll see it basically very quickly means German nuclear weapons. That's going to create quite an issue here as we go forward. How exactly is Germany going to think about Russia's nuclear weapons without its own nuclear weapons as this thing unfolds? The Mearsheimer's really got, I think, quite the this is the this is the baseline expectations, Scott.

[00:21:45] It might not be a perfect prediction. Now, the big challenge for John, of course, is that he wrote that 35 years ago and it didn't happen. But so people say, oh, well, it didn't happen that well. No. OK, we wrote we've managed to eek out NATO over all that time and it created problems, of course. I'm not saying that it was a it was all good. But that analysis is still really the bedrock for what to expect here.

[00:22:10] And it's really just it's it's it's really hard to see this going a different way, because once you take that institutional layer off and nobody is confident in America. Well, what are they going to do? Just let Russia, you know, sort of run ragged over them? No, they're going to they're going to do things here. And Russia can start to, you know, and this is going to be really tricky with all of its way. We're moving away from the war in Iran.

[00:22:37] But this war in Iran, this is causing all of these areas to come unglued here. And we can also usefully talk about Asia here because maybe Trump's going to go to Asia. This is going to cause, you know, President Xi. Does Trump want Xi to stop putting that Iran's money in its banks, for example, here? What is President Xi is going to say? What are you going to give me? And he's going to say Taiwan.

[00:23:06] He's not going to say, I want I want a Xi tower in Washington, D.C. Yeah, this is what Xi is up for. Xi is up for Taiwan. Yeah, I want a Xi tower in Taipei. Let's go. Exactly. It's going to be. Have you ever been to Taipei? No, but my friends have. It's beautiful. There's a there's a tower called Taipei 101, which was built by one of the giant billionaires who went to the University of Chicago. And I won't go look it up. So it is.

[00:23:36] I had to meet the man once. It's like, oh, my God. I mean, these are these uber, uber powerful people in the world. So he built Taipei 101. And his picture is up there in it. It's 101 story building. And it's so I think what Xi wants is Taipei 202. I mean, if you're going to ask for something, may as well ask for the world, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll turn it with the time that we have left turning back to the war with Iran. You know, yeah.

[00:24:06] We do the thought experiment like say I'm a joint planner. I've got this third aircraft carrier coming in. I'm getting ready for all these different contingencies. I've got to anticipate, you know, what Iran might do in response to anything I might do. Are there certain actions as a planner that I might decide to take that would trigger an escalation against U.S. forces in the region?

[00:24:29] Are there certain activities that if the U.S. does A, Iran's going to go after U.S. forces directly and that I should be anticipating what those are now? Well, the most likely so I laid out a kind of a conceptual framework for this nearer term escalation ladder after the ceasefire ends, which is where now I call the first stage here I call demonstration attacks.

[00:24:56] And that's what you're really seeing with these firings on, you know, Iran firing on some ships here. And then you're seeing the U.S. is boarding and seizing some ships. What this is, is the demonstration use of force. You call it gunboat diplomacy maybe. But it's demonstration use of force. And that is for basically sending credibility. So when the U.S. says turn your ship around, I guess we're up to like 38 of them or so that have turned around, it's pretty credible.

[00:25:25] Because if you don't, you're going to get these giant holes in your engine block. So it's been very, very credible. And the same with the Iranians. So this is not like the war is over and there's no kinetic use of force. There has been kinetic use of force, but it's at that demonstration level, which has actually been fairly effective in terms of both sides now mutually shutting down the strait.

[00:25:49] There's almost, there's tiny number of any ships now going through this, this strait. It used to be, you know, we had 5, 10 or 15 going through on a given day. We're down to like ones or twos at most. So we're way, we really, really shut down the strait. Now, the next stage though is escalation. You say the planners here. So what you could start to imagine is you got those fastboats here from a case of Iran.

[00:26:15] So what you could start to imagine is President Trump starts to say, well, what I want to do is I want to start to erode the military, the tactical power of Iran. And you start attacking where those fastboats come out of here. The shore facilities is the coastal facilities and so forth here, which I would imagine. I mean, I don't have the classified, but I really can't quite fathom. We have no idea. I think we probably have a pretty good idea exactly where they are.

[00:26:45] And we probably soak up all this information and study it obsessively like I did. So you do that. But then what you're going to end up doing is breaking a threshold. So that's the big thing to tell the planners is in order to diminish this kinetically, what you're talking about is going on shore and you're now breaking a threshold.

[00:27:08] So these are these, the way the escalation stages really go, Scott, is it's best thought of as there is a threshold here. And you're like salami slicing a threshold. And that is so it's not really it could go all at once. But more common is this incremental. And what that incremental is, is salami slicing thresholds in an escalation ladder.

[00:27:35] And it's done by the planners here at CENCOM. Those are the folks who will actually execute the salami slicing of the threshold. Now, where the pressure comes from, the orders, of course, will come from Donald Trump and the White House here. And I think it will come from him, not so much Hakeseth here. But this will be the issue as he's just going as he's going forward.

[00:27:59] Does he want to try to, again, look for this way to reexert his authority, his control, which he has lost enormously? It's embarrassing that. I mean, what the Iranians just did, they totally humiliated him. We're sending our folks to meet with you. Oh, that's all good. We're gone. We're not even here. Go, go, go enjoy the dinner. You know, we're not even here. So that's a maximum amount of, you know.

[00:28:26] That's the biggest spit in the face I think America's had in several decades, actually. Yeah, that I'm not really. Even Putin's more polite when he wants to flip us the bird. Yep. That's what exactly happened there. And so I didn't want to say those words, but that's what I'm thinking. That's OK. I'll say them for you. Thank you, because it's, you know, I'm still that professor and tell my wife we never swear. And then we find ourselves doing it. So the problem is here that that's what happened.

[00:28:50] So you can see that is a, it's got to be like right on the edge of thinking about those kind of, those kind of tactics. But what that will then mean is a quid pro quo here and maybe double quid pro quo, two tits for a tat. So what we saw with Suleiman, the assassination in 2020, it was January 2020, of the Iranian commander here, was not tit for tat by Iran.

[00:29:18] It was a half a tit for a tat. So what happened is we knocked out a big deal dude. And what they did is they said, hey, we're going to launch some missiles, empty that building. And so we didn't, we, they launched the 19 missiles, but they didn't actually end up hurting anybody except getting around the building. So nobody died. Well, that was a half a tit for tat. So what they're deliberately doing is showing restraint. The idea they couldn't have killed people is wrong.

[00:29:47] They're showing political restraint. That's where the Supreme leader, the guy we killed, was probably negotiating this with the IRCG, probably wants to really hammer hard. Some of the civilians, no, let's kind of find a way out of this. So you see the Supreme leader is balancing. That's probably what he was doing multiple times. And that happened, that half tit for a tat strategy by Iran when Israel was attacking. So you saw, but then now the Supreme leader's dead and you're not seeing half tit for a tat.

[00:30:17] You're seeing two tits for a tat. So what you're, what you saw from the get-go here, soon as that Supreme leader was knocked out of the system here, you're seeing a major doubling down escalation on the part of Iran. And that's what you need to expect here. So, and that would most likely then be, where would you expect that? Especially as you just described the UAE. The UAE is going to, is, would be right at the top of their target set here.

[00:30:45] Because you, you start hitting on their side here. They're going to start to think if they probably can't really reach our carrier. I suspect our destroyers and carriers will be kind of out of there, unable to be reached. Here, most likely what they will do is cross their own salami slice thresholds with the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

[00:31:08] That's really where the game, there's going to be a great game here where Iran is very much going to want to topple the governments of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. They're going to want to weaken Donald Trump. They probably don't think they can knock him out of office, but they think they can probably weaken him through the midterms.

[00:31:31] Here with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, they're probably thinking actually toppling the governments, not in a day, but over time. So when you say, why would Israel offer parts of the Iron Dome in this unprecedented act? It's evidence I'm right. It's evidence I don't have the classified information of the eavesdropping. All I have is like, what is the obvious thing to do?

[00:31:55] And the obvious thing if you're Iran is the leadership that was most driven to topple your government in Iran was coming out of Saudi Arabia and the UAE here. And the others were just kind of going along for the ride as far as we can tell. So that is what you would do. So you would knock them out. And I think that Israel is showing some support for the UAE.

[00:32:22] Now, whether this will ultimately matter and how much it's going to matter, we'll have to see. I mean, some of it turns on the tactical details of whether there's enough interceptors to actually matter. Some of it turns on the counterproductive way.

[00:32:38] The more Israel gets its nose stuck in the UAE, trying to defend the UAE, the more this opens covert action for Iran to bottom up, try to topple the leaders from the bottom up. So those leaders are between a rock and a hard place for real. And this isn't going away anytime soon.

[00:33:01] And so I really think that that's what you're seeing here is the emergence of the fear that Iran's next step is going. Well, one of the next steps over the next six or eight months, not a week, is to topple the governments in the UAE and Saudi Arabia. So just think about that. They've gotten a straight of hormones, OK, that world's economy is going over this roller coaster.

[00:33:26] Not quite a cliff, but a kind of couple down in the roller coaster, the way I'm explaining it. And the world is blaming who? Donald Trump and Netanyahu. Those are the folks that are getting blamed here, not Iran. Well, what would you do as you were Iran? You'd solidify your warfighting alliance here with Pakistan, Russia, Oman. You start to go next step here.

[00:33:52] You're going to start thinking about how do you expand your influence on the other side of the Persian Gulf here. And that doesn't just mean with more missile attacks. That means political control, political control. And and so this is the world we've moved into. And so far, Israel has done a little bit. OK, but I still don't see any real strategy coming out of the I see reaction on the part of the White House.

[00:34:19] But I think that this is just, you know, we're in power politics for real. You know, Donald Trump kept telling us he can handle it better than anybody else. We'll start handling it, sir. OK, because this is the real thing now. We're not we're not we're not playing. You know, this is not about we're just going to walk away and get your 36 percent on MAGA to keep loving, which they will do, by the way. I and especially the assassination. It's like, oh, my God, I was on Newsmax. I mean, there is absolutely no doubt.

[00:34:48] And by the way, Donald Trump handled that magnificently. So I'm here. I am constantly complaining about the man. But I do want to say that the last thing we want is President Trump to be harmed in any way. And and he handled this as with with unbelievable calm. And he actually reached out with an olive branch to the Democrats here. Now, it's it may not last. So I'm not going to I don't want to overread this.

[00:35:15] But at the same time, that is something that the Democrats should be following up on. And I was on MSNBC here essentially explaining that to them. So so I'm I'm I've been fortunate that I've been, you know, able to speak on multiple different platforms here. And I find that quite an honor because I don't know anybody else who's doing that. And it's really something because I I'm not really changing the message. I'm trying to stick to what would be good for America.

[00:35:44] America. And I'm just really and I just think we need to see the last thing that would have been good for America was that guy to get in that room with that ammo. And that those folks were packed in like sardines here. And almost every bullet would have probably found a person here. This was not good. This would be good. Now, that was definitely a better crisis resolution than we've seen with other theaters of crises. But the audience here certainly appreciates the free chicken that you're providing.

[00:36:14] So thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely, Scott. And I really do appreciate what our men and women are doing here and the way we are handling this with so much professionalism and so forth. Just imagine, Scott, what would happen if we didn't have this uber professional military right now. So just I mean, we sort of we've come to take it for granted, I have to say. OK, because you grew up in this military here.

[00:36:43] I came, you know, I started here the studies in the 1980s when things are coming out of the Vietnam War with a oh, my goodness gracious. You know, the quality of the folks going in the military was just unbelievable. You you just couldn't. And it was just every way you turn. It was a challenge. And the military took all that for decades on as a real mission. And they really changed things here.

[00:37:10] You had joint all these different issues we're now taking for granted. And that's not perfect, of course. But my goodness gracious. Imagine what the world would be like in the Iran War with a discombobulated military here. Yeah. One thing I don't think people appreciate and I didn't fully appreciate it until I started working with so many other foreign militaries is that the U.S. military is uniquely obsessed with the idea of civilian control. Yeah. Like that is a cultural constant. And I've not seen that in like other countries.

[00:37:40] It's begrudgingly accepted that it's a necessary part of the system. But the U.S. military is so hyper obsessed with civilian control. That's like the one constant. You see it in the founding of West Point. You see it in one of the big things, which, you know, I don't want to get too soapy about this. But when George Washington basically steps down and doesn't become a king here, he was also the military commander.

[00:38:05] So this was it's not just about, you know, the way it's often described because our presidents do occasionally talk about this. But we also should see it a bit from a more military lens. You know, this is we have there's there's many states in history where the military commander Cromwell, for example, just becomes tries to become the politically dominant center. And and that's just not what happened in our country right from the get go.

[00:38:35] And and I think some of this is because of how our country was formed here. Some of it is just simply luck here that, you know, when we hear our leaders and I see them a lot behind closed doors. They're just they're just so much more reasonable in front of all the cameras. In fact, I somebody was was was was explaining we should just take the cameras out of the Senate.

[00:39:04] Just literally not let the you could do everything else. Just no cameras in the world would be a lot better. But I think that the the fact is that that that quality of character is something that is really, really absolutely critical. And in the military, you of all the places where we have character and leadership right now, I think it's most in the military.

[00:39:29] I see it most there than I I don't want to name the other sectors of our country. But I mean, my goodness here. I think that's really Congress. I'm sorry that that slip out. No, it's broader than that. It's got broader than that. It's it's a real I mean, broader than that. And so I just think that the that's something that you're seeing.

[00:39:52] And I just can't you know, I think this is really one of the things that will keep us as we go into these midterm. So you're going to start to hear me. I have a book coming out in a few months called Our Own Worst Enemy. Scott, it's all about American political violence and focusing on that for five years. One of the things that's going to help us here is this like unbelievable commitment to civilian control.

[00:40:19] So I hear I got my friend with an appearance. Yes. Yes, she's here. Let's see the two and a half year old. Come on. You guys. Oh, my goodness. Now, what is it? It's a he. It's a he. This is she's a she. But she's got a five year old brother named. Oh, my gosh. Do you want to wave to daddy's friend? Daddy's friend. Daddy. Oh, my goodness. Oh, that is so great. That is so great. Well, this is what we need. The future.

[00:40:49] Yes. Do it all in real time. All right. We need to hold you off camera real quick so I can do a sign off. OK, because mommy said you're not allowed to be in camera. You got probably all the audience here laughing with me because we all many of us have been in exactly this situation. You got gummies? Yeah. All right. Yeah. We're going to try to bribe. We're going to do everything we can. Oh, yeah. I put two packs of gummies in a cup. Bowl of goldfish. Your favorite show. Oh, yeah. Everything. Oh, my goodness. Yeah.

[00:41:19] Yeah. Full bribe. I took her outside to wear out first. We're the Lion King. We're the Lion King. Oh, my goodness gracious. All right. Well, she's returning to her show. But thank you so much for talking to us this morning. Looking forward to checking in again next week. Looking forward to it in the future, Scott. And thank you and all of our folks in uniform. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.