STRAT | Week of November 25, 2024 | Revolutionizing Warfare: The Future of Drones and AI on the Battlefield

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From the Mutual Broadcasting System, this is STRAT Strategic Risk Assessment Talk.

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Now, retired Marine intelligence officer and globally recognized risk expert Hal Kaemfer.

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All right, welcome back to strat.

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That we've got a lot of, I think that famous saying that was attributed to George Bush that he'd actually say, but I think Wal Ferrell said it was strategery.

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And we're going to talk about some law strategic assessment going around the world and I'm going to focus on a few things in particular.

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But I'm going to start out by talking about Ukraine's strategic challenge, if you will.

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And there were some big things that happened, some big changes.

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Obviously one of the biggest changes we were waiting for for a long time was that the U.S.

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finally, the Biden White House finally made the decision to allow those longer range weapons that we have, the atacms, the ATACMS missiles, those army, you know, those advanced tactical missiles that the army has that they use that can go out 95, almost 200 miles, allowed the Ukrainians to use that on Russian territory.

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That's about 300 kilometers.

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Ironically, when they made that, made that change of policy, they also said, and we're limiting it to 300km, which I could have had to smile.

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Well, that is the max range of the weapon.

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So yeah, that makes sense.

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The other thing it did that we found out about a day or two later was it also was a green light to the British and the French with their Scalp and Storm Shadow cruise missiles that they could use those as well.

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And since those missiles incorporate US Technology, proprietary US Technology, they were deferring to the United States to change its policy before they were being used.

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And they were used immediately to great effect.

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The Ukrainians used a taco missiles to hit an army depot which reportedly caused devastating damage to that depot, causing some significant losses of what Russians would consider critically needed ammunition for their battles up north, particularly in Kursk.

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And then the Storm Shadow missiles were used on what was kind of, it sounded like on a command post and a big command post.

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And right after that there was a report that the senior, a senior or the senior North Korean general that was assigned with those North Korean forces have been injured, seriously injured.

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And frankly, a lot of times when they say they may have been injured or seriously injured, that's kind of code talk where they may be dead, but they don't want to admit that they were killed in the attack.

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We'll find out just how badly this general was hurt.

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But if they hit the senior North Korean general, you can be assured that there were probably a lot of senior Russian officers, potentially Russian generals that were in close proximity to wherever he was.

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So both of these things had immediate effect.

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And you did see an immediate effect with Russia.

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Okay, Russia turned right around and they launched the thing.

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This, they, you know, initially the result reports came out that this was an ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile.

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Well, that is certainly not needed.

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Still a significant ballistic missile that they had modified.

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So they, they have a faster burning rocket, if you will, that gives them more speed.

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Hence they keep calling it hypersonic, which I always find with ballistic missiles of this type.

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Isn't that kind of a wasted phrase?

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Because they all travel speeds that one could call hypersonic.

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But anyway, but it was called hypersonic and they use that to attack Deep Rope in Ukraine.

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And they also, this missile looks like it was a modified ICBM that had multiple independent reentry vehicle or MERV capability, which is why if you see the video on tv, you'll see what looks like multiple warheads coming down, hitting all at the same time.

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Well, that is MRVs, they have multiple reentry vehicles or multiple little warheads, if you will, that shoot off.

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And this was conventional.

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There was no nuclear stuff.

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But obviously the inference was backing up what they've been saying, which is, you know, that basically this decision by the Biden White House was reckless.

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And, and, and they also putting out a bunch of information ops or psyops to make it sound like a mentally enfeebled Biden made this crazy decision which could lead to World War 3 and all this stuff.

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This is typical Russian psychological operations, trying to reach out to the body politic, if you will.

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The western nations like the US and Europe, but they put all this stuff out there to make it look like it was something bigger than it actually was.

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That is much more weapon than what they need to use tactically or operationally in Ukraine, a lot more than whatever's required to whatever they want to do.

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But they used it.

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All right, and they call this missile on reshnik.

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But it's not really clear if this is really a new missile or just a rewickering of an old missile.

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In fact, it looks like a rewickering of old missile, something called a RS26 Rubiz missile, which was earlier thought to be an ICBM that may have been re wickered into this missile.

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By the way, areshnik in Russian means hazel tree.

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I find that kind of interesting.

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I'm probably inferring the hazelnut.

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But anyway, they did that.

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They did this big attack.

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The attack was back on November 20th.

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And it was also accompanied by some other missile attacks they used using bombers and MiG31, which is one of their most advanced fighter bomber capable, a standalone or a singular attack used, were shot down.

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Now Russia will say that there's no way that this new missile, this IRBM can be shot down.

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That's not really clear.

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What is clear is they aimed at a city where they probably didn't have some of our more advanced air defense systems like Nasums or Patriot missile battery.

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So it got in there, but they're creating that.

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Another thing that happened this recently is the Biden White House did something that was, I want to say for some surprising.

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In: 1997

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And part of this came in.

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The wave of the Cold War is over.

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Big wars like that are a thing of the past.

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We're not going to have to worry about it.

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And one of the things that came out of the Cold War and still a legacy of World War I and even going back to World War II was the gazillion, a plethora, if you will, of landmines that were left over in these wars where they were not really accurately recorded as to where they were or if that recorded was done, it was lost to the ages.

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So nobody knew.

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And so you found places like Southeast Asia and elsewhere around the world where there are the minefields that were not really well recorded.

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And of course the problem is that people go out there, they do things.

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Farmers go out in these fields and occasionally step on a landmine that was laid, you know, 10, 20, 30 more years ago and blow themselves up or worse, a child will go out there and come across these things.

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In some cases they may think that some of them, they would think they were a toy or sign this treaty.

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The Russia did not sign this treaty, but the US this week said, hey look, we're going to release, we're going to send anti personnel.

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One of the reasons is, well, two reasons.

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Number one, Russia is using anti personnel landmines, extended loans.

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The other reason is that Russia knows Ukraine doesn't employ these mines.

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So instead of leading these big attacks with armor they have been using, these are often called meat wave attacks where they literally just throw the infantry into fire and they get cut down.

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suffering horrendous losses,: 1500

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Just a stunning amount of troops that are being wiped out in these just mindless kamikaze style attacks, if you will, that the Russians have been employing, well, if they have anti personnel mines out there, the thought is that once they start running into these anti personnel mines and they realize that they're get basically disrupted, they will change up their tactics, it'll slow them down and it'll slow down their offensive across the board.

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So that was a decision that was made and we'll see what effect it has on the battlefield.

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But it is interesting, we'll also see what effect it has on the international scene because frankly, there is a lot of pushback.

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nations is very much for that: 1997

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Other countries are signatories to that treaty.

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But it is an issue of modern warfare, which is, it's a capability, it's been a capability that's been around for a long time.

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This is not some pseudoscience thing.

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And when you talk about conflict and warfare, you can make these, you know, these, you know, these strong moral arguments about this type of weapon is wrong and certainly has a lot of things are written in these ideas of, you know, we should fight nicer wars, if you will, we should not use certain weapons in certain ways or not use certain weapons at all.

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Syria uses chemical weapons.

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Well, that's banned on multiple levels, but they've been using chemical weapons on their own people for some time.

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Saddam Hussein, Iraq, used chemical weapons on his own people for some time.

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And so some of these weapons are banned that they're not supposed to use, they use anyway.

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And it does get to that issue of, okay, so we have a treaty that no one's complying with.

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What should we do?

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And that's a big issue.

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Now another thing that came up this recently is an interesting number.

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80% of the casualties that Ukrainian is able to inflict on the Russians, 80% of those are now being accomplished by drones.

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If there was any academic debate about the effect of drones on the battlefield, I would hope that's been put to bed by now.

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It's not to say that the war in Ukraine is a drone war per se, unquote, but it is a war that is dominated by drones at a tactical, through the operational, some would even say more strategic level.

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Short range drones, first person view, FPV drones down at the small unit squad level.

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That's, you know, what's, what's around that bunker, what is in that trench line, what's over that hill, what's in that tree line.

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And doing some of the things we see with drone racing, where they zip in there so fast that, and going in through buildings and just revolutionizing Urban warfare, in terms of how that's been fought, these are significant changes that we're seeing.

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And so 80% of those, and also Ukraine, they've been doing a lot of work with semi autonomous, not completely autonomous, but semi.

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See a target, they can mark it and take that out.

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Yep.

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Hit that trench line, whatever it is.

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That the drone will then figure out a way to best prosecute taking out that target.

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Exactly when they're going to put these drones out in mass production.

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And that this could cause a.

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What I would say is this, if that happens in Ukraine, and I have every reason to believe it will, it is going to revolutionize not just the Ukrainian battlefield.

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All right, it's going to be used to great effect on the Ukrainian battlefield, but it is going to revolutionize warfare worldwide.

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It is going to revolutionize counterinsurgency and counterterrorism worldwide.

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It is going to revolutionize terrorism, what terrorists do worldwide.

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It is going to revolutionize what criminals do, smuggling things like narcotics and weapons and doing all kinds of things that they currently do worldwide.

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And it's going to revolutionize law enforcement and security operations, whether public security, private security worldwide in a much more profound way.

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So I'm not saying that they're going to copy exactly what the Ukrainians are doing, but I am saying the Ukrainians are doing something at the strategic and operational level, incorporating this technology in a way that we have not seen before.

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And it is going to have some huge effects, some second and third order effects which go well beyond the headlines of what they're, what they're doing and what they're planning.

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And it's not that this, this technology does exist.

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It is out there, it is being used.

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Drone technology, artificial intelligence dominates the news cycle.

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Constant discussions on this.

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But it is changing the way that we deal with drones.

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We employ drones, and it's part of this whole AI revolution in terms of what's taking place maybe on the cusp of a big change in the background on South Korea, is that they want to become a major player in the international arms market.

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One of the things that's been burgeoning up over the last decade, some would say one to two decades, but certainly over the last decade, is this capability to build some high end weapon systems, a capability to build a lot of ammunition.

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Part of that was the requirements just on the peninsula themselves, dealing with the North Korean, the omnipresent North Korean threat, this huge potential invasion that may happen.

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And I have done military operations in North Korea going back a very, very long time.

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And I will Tell you that it's always been a very tense peninsula in terms of military confrontation and also in terms of COVID activity that goes on.

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Not just the North Koreans, but the Chinese intelligence is in there extensively.

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Russian intelligence is in there extensively.

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It is a busy, busy place, let's just put it that way.

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One of the things that's come out with this big push and there's about 10 to 11,000 North Korean troops that are in Russia, they're going there.

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There are reports it's been getting a lot of play in South Korea.

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A North Korean soldier and his entire unit was pretty much wiped out trying to fight the Ukrainians.

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And I'm assuming they were used probably in one of these meat wave type of attacks, which, you know, one could argue that was a gross misapplication of military manpower, military capability.

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Whatever the reason, they did not do well.

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But there's now reports, and Secretary of Defense Austin has basically said that they're going to be used much more extensively across the board.

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So he's expecting to see that.

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And also that air defense, some very advanced weaponry capabilities, dealing with missiles and other things back to North Korea to include air defense capabilities as well.

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More advanced air defense capabilities.

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Anyway, what this does mean is that South Korea is looking at what it should do now officially.

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If you look on Wikipedia, you have in its.

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It'll say a little over 3 million.

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Okay.

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The reality is it may be closer to five and a half or more million rounds.

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Some of the rounds are older.

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Korea, Reese, for example, NATO countries.

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And then those NATO countries can either use that ammunition to recharge their war reserves and then send the ammunition in their war reserves directly to Ukraine, or they can do something where eventually that ammunition makes it over to Ukraine directly.

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However they do that, it looks like there's a lot of ammunition over there.

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And it's not.

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It's not unrealistic.

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Some would say it's already been going on that hundreds of thousands of rounds of South Korean ammunition has made its way into either backstopping ammunition shipments going into Ukraine or going to Ukraine indirectly.

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But now there's a lot more pressure to do this because of what Russia is doing with North Korea.

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And whereas the president of South Korea, President Yoon, doesn't appear to be in a hurry to make a decision like this.

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It could happen.

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And of course, the other thing is we're looking at this major ground war.

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They've got things like tanks, artillery, and other things that they would love to see showcased in actual combat operations.

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So there is a dollar and cents Reason to sell.

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Another thing I want to point out is hybrid warfare.

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This is called gray zone activities.

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In many cases, we see things such as ships at sea that do not broadcast on their AIs, their automated identification system, which was not meant to track ships as to where they are, so much as to be a safety thing to tell other ships in the area, hey, here I am.

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Don't run into me.

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All right?

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That was the purpose of AIs.

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AIs has since kind of grown into the system that's supposed to identify ships.

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But there is no legal obligation for ships to broadcast their position on AIs.

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In fact, in Gulf of Aden, Baba Van Dam Strait, there was recognized that the Houthis were literally tracking the AIs signals of commercial ships and using those to target those commercial ships.

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Well, real simple, commercial ships and other ships in the area just quit broadcasting AIs.

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That was a safety issue for them, which is it was unsafe to broadcast their AIs systems in that area, which made a lot of sense.

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So they, so they did.

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They stopped doing that.

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And that's an issue with the Russians with their tankers.

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They've been employing this dark tanker fleet, if you will, which a lot of them are really unsafe, old, poorly maintained tankers.

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It truly an environmental disaster, you know, rolling across the seas, if you will, that now doesn't even tell other ships in the area where they are.

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That's been happening a lot.

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So that's.

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This whole gray zone activity has been happening.

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But this last week, we saw reports coming out that a couple of major fiber optic cables were severed in the Baltic.

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This follows on fiber optic cables that have been severed elsewhere to include the Baltic area in the past.

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And this includes underwater pipelines that have had also been damaged under mysterious circumstances to include in the Baltic.

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All right, so this is a, this is a big issue now.

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What's come out of this is the suspicion has been falling on about two or three Chinese ships that were in that area and were right around where those cables were severed.

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And Germany has come out and said that they see this as clearly as being sabotage.

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They didn't say it was Russia was behind the whole thing, but the inference is that Russia was kind of behind the whole thing.

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And the, and the other inference is that the Chinese and the Russians may be working together to sever these cables.

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Now, I don't think it's a, it's a surprised that these cables are connecting the new NATO countries of Scandinavia with the old NATO countries down in mainland Europe or mainland main part of Europe, in this case, between Sweden and Germany that these cables were cut.

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In fact, one of the cables was a truly critical piece of the digital nations network that connects those countries, that connects Europe, if you will, with those with Scandinavia.

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So it has huge implications.

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One of the ships, one of the Chinese, a bulk carrier Chinese ships, the Yiping 3, it was being tracked by the Danish Navy, it went up to the Danish Straits and it is basically being tracked very closely by Denmark to find out what exactly is going on.

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Just to remind everyone, 99% of global digital communications goes via fiber optic cables under the oceans.

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It's not via satellite, it's not via some other way.

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So when you're talking about fiber optic cables, this is a big deal.

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The other thing too is China is not new to the concept of cutting off fiber optic cables.

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This is something they've been doing routinely in the South China Sea.

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It got to be like a regular thing with some of the outer islands that Taiwan owns that Chinese ships would go out there and cut the cables, the fiber optic cables go to those islands.

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One of the islands actually went so far as to build this rather extensive satellite, digital satellite communications array simply because their fiber optic cables kept getting cut so often that they wanted to maintain some level of communications in anticipation that the Chinese would cut their cables again.

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And so the Chinese are not new to the concept of doing this, the Russians are.

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And by the way, sometimes these cables get cut to things that been similar incidents.

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There was In October of: 2023

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Ten months later there was a Hong Kong based and by the way Hong Kong part of China, whatever illusion that Hong Kong is and part of the People's Republic of China is long ago changed.

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Hong Kong Richard tanker had damaged, damaged in European storm may have been tied to that as well.

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So this is not the first time we've seen this.

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By the way, it was pointed out that the Chinese story that, that their anchor, that was an anchor, it was an accident and stuff.

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The storm doesn't really bear fruit because when they went back and looked, there were absolutely no storms in the area on the day that they said it would have happened.

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So it was obvious that the Chinese were making up a story on that previous incident and that's why they're really focusing on the Chinese on this.

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Let me talk about, let me switch down south to the Middle east, all right.

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And let's talk about Israel, Iran, the axis of resistance.

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What's going on there?

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You may have seen that Iran announced, in fact they announced it this last, late this last week on Friday, that it was activating its new advanced centrifuges.

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Well, now, what are centrifuges?

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Well, centrifuges, obviously, for those who are aware, like, yes, they move very quickly.

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They.

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And what it is, is part of the process whereby uranium is enriched, as in a nuclear program, in this case Iran's nuclear program.

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And they have been targeted before.

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In fact, the very famous cyber attack which occurred against Iran, which caused the centrifuges to literally destroy themselves.

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So it's been a big issue.

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Now, this comes right on the heels of a United nations report by its nuclear watchdog agency, which criticized Iran for not cooperating with the UN in that regard.

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And Iran has said that they're going to.

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There's a lot of some advanced centrifuges, different types that they're going to be using.

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And well, one of the things with this conflict, and particularly with what happened with the last Israeli strike, which was a fairly significant widespread strike against Iran in response to a fairly big strike by Iran against Israel, was that it may trigger Iran.

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Iran may sit back and say, hmm, and this was the hope that they would sit back and say, hmm, maybe we shouldn't do anything to provoke the Israelis anymore.

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Maybe we're more vulnerable to Israeli attack than we want to let on.

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And here's the thing.

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Israel is not going to invade Iran.

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Israel has no designs on taking Iranian territory.

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First off, it's geographically something that just ain't going to happen.

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They're not even close to each other, geographically speaking.

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There's, there's countries between them, a lot of terrain, and I'm kind of familiar with a lot of terrain between them and between Israel and Iran.

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So that wasn't going to happen anytime soon.

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And I would say not going to happen, period.

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So that wasn't something there.

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But Iran needs to maintain for their, for the regime.

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They need to maintain the idea that they are opposed to Israel, that they want to see the destruction of Israel.

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And there is this, you know, this pervasive myth story, if you will, that has been out there for many years, that Israel is the last European colony.

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And that's because so many of the Israeli citizens either, well, not so much they themselves, but certainly their parents or grandparents, many of them came over from Europe after the Holocaust and moved into Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:25:29

So there is a lot of this Ashkenazi Jews that are Israeli citizens, a lot of European, European, I'd say European Jews, I guess the way to put it, that have moved back to Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:25:41

And so this Whole pervasive thing throughout the Middle east that all this is nothing more than a European colonial thing.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:25:48

And that's why Israel's there.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:25:49

And hence, hence you have a number of countries that were dedicated to basically destroying Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:25:55

And now that's changed a lot.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:25:57

Obviously some of these extremist groups like Hezbollah based in Lebanon and in Hamas in the Gaza Strip, to a lesser extent the west bank still, that is their mantra.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:06

They want to destroy Israel and Iran would like to destroy Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:11

All right, so Iran has been assessed many times being very close to having the capability of possibly making a nuclear weapon.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:20

And so this is getting a lot of focus and a lot of attention.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:23

The US and other countries have said, no, we can't have this extremist, very dangerous regime in Iran with nuclear weapons.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:33

And what this, the implications are that if they do develop a nuclear weapon, if they test a nuclear weapon or do something like that, this will put a strong imperative on the US and other countries, not just Israel, to deal with this threat.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:50

And that brings us back to B2 bombers.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:26:53

B2 bombers were used against the Houthi rebels not too long ago in October, actually launched from the United States.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:00

They're not something we normally base overseas, maybe in Guam, all right, but not anywhere close to bombers came out of the US really long legs, as you can imagine.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:14

These flight legs are extremely long.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:17

And one of the things that B2S can do is not just drop nuclear weapons, but they drop some conventional weapons, very unique, very big, which are truly bunker, the ultimate bunker busters, if you will.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:31

These are weapons that bore into wave effect that will, that will destroy underground facilities, nuclear program.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:37

Israel does not have B2 bombers.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:40

We're the only country, the U.S.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:41

the only country has B2 bombers.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:43

And we have recently used those bombers in the Middle east against a proxy that was targeting not just ships, but actually targeting US Military craft or targeting our US Navy ships.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:27:59

We have used those bombers in that area.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:01

So the statement is made that, hey, don't ignore the fact that we have this capability, which the Israelis don't, that could be turned to the stealth bomber capability to go after your hard to hit nuclear sites.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:16

And of course, Israel has done some things to make it very clear that those nuclear facilities are vulnerable to air attack.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:25

And so I just kind of want to bring that up.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:27

That's something we're going to watch very closely to see what's going on because it's possible that that that can happen.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:33

The other thing I think that's interesting too is that things are coming into place very quickly for a possible ceasefire in Lebanon, not in Gaza, but in Lebanon.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:43

N Security Council Resolution: 1701

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:54

The UN peacekeepers there weren't doing anything.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:28:57

And one of the things that will come out after this war is done, it's already starting to come out, is just how pervasive the Hezbollah terrorist paramilitary presence was in that area that was supposed to be demilitarized from Hezbollah paramilitary presence.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:14

And they're finding caches of weapons.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:16

They found a huge cachet of Russian weapons, Russian supplied weapons.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:21

Whether those came through Syria or from Iran to Hezbollah or directly from Russia, that's still to be figured out.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:28

But they found this massive cache of weapons that they were using that they put there in a school, a schoolyard, which is under international law, a protected site that's been targeted.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:43

They found these weapons going in there.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:44

And obviously it goes back to what was the Lebanese army doing?

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:49

What were these international peacekeepers doing that Hezbollah was basically running amok in this area where they weren't supposed to be.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:29:56

So with that said, the Israelis have gone through, largely forced out, the Hezbollah presence in that region.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:04

They have really debilitated.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:06

In fact, this last week or two weeks, they said that basically the military structure, basically the Israelis have been saying that Hezbollah has been militarily defeated, if you will.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:22

Now, that doesn't mean they've stopped fighting.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:24

It doesn't mean they don't have a lot of capabilities.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:25

They still fire missiles.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:27

But it does mean that it's been dramatically degraded across the board, degraded to the point where certainly those in Lebanese armed forces are probably looking at this, saying this might be a bit of a strategic inflection point for us.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:43

They no longer outnumber us, they no longer outgun us.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:46

There might be a way for the government of Lebanon, they kind of regain control over this areas that were previously completely controlled by Hezbollah.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:30:58

So I'm not saying that this, if you will, the ceasefire is going to happen right away, but I am saying there's been a lot of progress between what Hezbollah and Lebanon have agreed to with the US proposal and what Israel requires in order to maintain security and that they won't be targeted from that area of southern Lebanon.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:18

So there's a lot going on.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:19

This thing is kind of rolling out across the board.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:22

One of the things that is interesting is that Israel really isn't thrilled with having France as part of the peacekeeping force.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:32

And there's some feeling that the French have been A lot of different levels.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:36

There's been some antagonism between the French and Israel, but also the feeling is that France has been too permissive in the past of letting Hezbollah do things.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:46

And Lebanon is saying absolutely no, Brits, that Britain can't be part of it, as they feel that Britain is too close of an ally to Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:56

So I find that rather interesting.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:31:57

So there's some issues there that still have to be kind of worked out in that regard.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:02

Now, what can we take from all of this?

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:05

What we can kind of take is that there might be a pathway, way for Lebanon to kind of research its territorial integrity and its distinct sovereign status.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:19

And it might be that we see a different relationship emerging between Lebanon and Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:26

Not surprisingly, if you look at Lebanon, they go, where is our biggest threat?

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:30

Certainly they look at Syria, but Syria has been so debilitated by the civil war that they're not the threat that they were, say, 10 or 20 years ago.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:39

Israel is where it is.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:41

And obviously they see Israel as a significant threat.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:44

And they say, would they invade?

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:46

Well, Israel has abated yet again.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:48

So, yes, they are a threat to them.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:50

But with that, with whatever comes out of this agreement, there might be a very different relationship that emerges.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:32:58

And I would point to there is an area of exclusive economic zones that was highly disputed between Lebanon and Israel, and it's an area of gas and oil production that has gas and oil production potential in that area.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:33:14

And Lebanon and Israel, after many years of, let's just say, some tough words back and forth and a lot of antagonism on this issue, eventually worked out an agreement on how this is going to work out.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:33:26

And I think that they're based on the success at sea, they might have success on the ground that really could change the strategic relationship.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:33:37

What Israel would probably want to see in Lebanon is a very strong Lebanese government that could contain these extremist factions within its territory, like Hezbollah and certainly any remaining Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad factions that pose a terrorist threat or a current military threat or military threat to Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:02

That's what they would like to see.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:04

They would like to see probably the Lebanese government as it is envisioned, as it is basically stated in its constitution, where it is a sort of a.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:15

It's a balance between ethnicities, between religions.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:20

As a multiethnic, you know, a country with multiple religions that doesn't pose this extremist ideology that wants to destroy Israel.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:29

That's what they would like to see.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:31

And certainly the potential to put that in place is there.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:34

Thank you for listening to another podcast of Strat.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:37

We have had what is truly a strategic risk assessment talk.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:42

We've covered a big chunk of the world.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:44

We've talked about the Middle East.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:45

We've talked about Europe.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:46

We've talked about global implications to go into the South China Sea.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:50

That's pretty much a good chunk of the world right there.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:34:53

We've talked about the US and literally US Military assets that could potentially be engaged in the Middle east being launched in the United States.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:35:03

So I, I will tell you that this was a big talk, a lot hopefully, to think about and look forward to our next Strat that will be coming out next week.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:35:13

But thanks again.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:35:14

By the way, if you want to catch me more frequently, not every day, but I'm on very regularly on Fox Live now, their digital streaming service, and regularly on News Nation and catch me on those two networks and then a variety of local television stations, primarily on the west coast or the Southwest.

Hal Kaemfer: 00:35:36

So thanks again and thanks for listening to Strat.