a madrasa had been taught history related to Muslim Glory they could tell you about Muhammad gauri Muhammad ghasni but if you question them about Ranjit Singh um World War II about the British you know in Northwest Frontier they hadn't heard about all that um they were convinced in their superiority as fighting people uh they had a bit of a disdain for the Hindu called your baniya and the background is that you know most of their Villages right up till Kabul right uphill Central Asia and the the guy who the Hindu generally was the Banias oh you're not the fighting man so very impression was that you're not a good fighter very cocky about his own fighting ability um but were they good Fighters they were good Fighters because of they were good Fighters because of training no because motivation aggression of their commitment to what they believed in have you got fighters and in my time in my time the flotsam which had being kicked out of


time the flotsam which had being kicked out of Afghanistan after the Soviets left that bond which was Footloose or then diverted into Kashmir so the bunch which came in were very seasoned Fighters uh if you got into a firefight with them you could see that this guy is not a novice you see if he has an experienced uh combat man one can tell from Maneuvers from the way you maneuver the may you fire what sort of an opposition you're up against from the way you file right right you can you can see the guy's nervous what how accurate is this fire how do they engage you experienced soldiers will tell you very easily oh I'm up against the novice this punch is not going to stand and fight so all this comes with experience I mean the point is this Bunch used to fight you exactly the way you were fighting you would fire single rounds we would fire double tap the the SF doesn't believe in generally doesn't believe in automatic


doesn't believe in generally doesn't believe in automatic fire what do you believe in accurate fire you know when you switch the lever and you go thorough or empty the magazine and you know it's all over the place and you put another magazine you nobody does that it's discouraged okay idly it's discouraged it's more pinpointed accuracy firing Precision is more important ammunition is important you've got to save it um what you see is what you fire at unless such a suppressing fire whatever so this Bunch you could see their fire was accurate they would control their ammunition and uh well they would fight till the end there was no surrender of any kind of in those days came in later who are not good Fighters oh good Fighters they are that's a one-way mission okay like they're coming to you to die themselves yes it's a one-way Mission he's not going back are there ever any hand-to-hand combat scenarios not not in my case but I know people who've had who had


my case but I know people who've had who had who've had that experience they live to tell the tale they're late yeah how do you I know I know a friend of mine a very close friend of mine who chased the militant who turned around and leveled his um AK and fire and it was a misfire one in a million million million chance and then you know they wrestled on the on the on the road in the darkness how big was your friend I think it's about shorter than me but she's all right and versus the militant who I don't know but you know I I just recall that he he's a Pakistan or whatever I guess he's carrying a small um that book and then he said you know are you gonna give me any information she might just shoot me sub finish me I have no interrogation nothing at all you were shot immediately but you know he was she was very lucky very lucky luck is very important luck is important everything in life but it manifests


important luck is important everything in life but it manifests itself more strongly in the in the profession of arms yeah so bad luck and bad luck could be as bad as getting shot or or maimed or injured um and I I remember in my time there were four officers who were known for their luck I mean they were fine officers all for SF um one left the Army is uh sold this company retired at 48 a very wealthy man the other is still serving as a major general and two are dead Walia is one of them then another toss mate of mine both are dead but the talk was generally these chaps are going out contact is a minute [ __ ] your weapons so and so is leading something some [ __ ] is going to hit fat for sure so luck is very important you can keep making the effort but if you're not lucky you're not getting the game hmm what is it about being out there in the field up there on a mountain away from civilization that the average


on a mountain away from civilization that the average civilian will never understand I'm asking you a question about food I'm asking questions about hunting I'm asking you questions about what it feels like being really out there in nature what does it do to the mind like probably you know right from your first experience too some really memorable experience because I've had special forces soldiers come on and say they've seen some of the most beautiful places in the world out there I've had some people come and say they've eaten things that they would never eat ever and I've had people come and say that they've seen things which they didn't expect to see no no so ranveer if you're talking about the scenery of course you go and see places which which I don't think so even the locals go and see you end up seeing things I mean I remember this border transporter operation into Burma they were Teak trees which would practically you know maybe 20 meters and 20 feet in diameter a huge thick Burma


20 feet in diameter a huge thick Burma Teak trees there must have been easily five seven six hundred years old I've seen Theodore Forest extremely extremely huge trees and there were views of course there were there were sunsets in there sunrises which were beautiful um it depends what your state of mind is are you getting that chance to appreciate you can always get that chance it's not that there's a firefight happening all the time and and especially when you're going into your target area where you're laying in Ambush stuff like that but it's it's hard it's a hard life when you're out we don't light a fire there is no tea it's it's food that you carry that you have for the next three days four days it's raining it's cold and it's it's not it's not comfortable um but there is a certain amount of training there is a certain amount of culture that this is the way you operate you know the difference is you have a traveler for example and


the difference is you have a traveler for example and a hunter traveler goes along in a jungle on a path he comes across a wild animal he shoots it Carries On Hunter will go inside to hunt there's a difference Special Forces by Nature because they don't hold ground they have that that hunting ability which means if you need to get game you need to go out you need to be seeking which means there's so much time you need to spend out constantly out and it takes a lot of effort to get a man you know it's and luck is not going to be on your side every time you step out so you see these contacts but the effort that goes in to get that 30 seconds of contact hours and hours and days and days and nights and nights spent just toiling up hills sitting in ambushes sitting in the cold till you get that one minute two minute 60 second contact firefight couple of kills but the effort is too much um when I was there the place


is too much um when I was there the place was steaming with militants you know radio set used to be like a it was like a cricket commentary you know you start eight o'clock in the morning and you'd hear this chatter militant chapter all over the place um and in the evening the last report would be given to this Pakistani chat there so coming to your point great places but sometimes you have so much weight sometimes you've been walking 13 hours 14 hours 15 hours the radio operator starts sitting down is struggling with the weight it starts staining later stages I started carrying a camera I said you know I'm seeing something which I'll never see again and I should capture it no and I did manage to capture um a big fire fight I mean it's very difficult to see that there's a firefight happening because those old cameras which you get in you know dungaree but there's a house burning and a couple of bodies lying around some militants lying around or whatever it's


lying around some militants lying around or whatever it's worth is there a reality of Kashmir that you would like to highlight for the urban Indian youth listening into this podcast because again a lot of them only get their information from news sources which I feel in the modern day you can't rely on so what does a soldier have to say who served there and I'm sure you're also in touch with the soldiers who are currently serving there as far as I understand the situation from soldiers it's gotten cleaner over time and it's heading towards a place of the conflict being resolved to a certain degree but what's the truth I often tell this to people I've been called for a couple of other talks and I often tell people that you go to Kashmir now you can sail down in a Shakara you can go anywhere you feel like and you tend to forget the effort the toil the loss of blood that has gone into making this where you cannot go anywhere in


gone into making this where you cannot go anywhere in Kashmir it's so peaceful so safe barring pulwama and you know they've always been a Hot Belt and the example I gave is um that in my time you when you crust patni top you cocked your weapon and you started scanning the hillside and I recall the SP guara coming to call on us in the low lab and like you would call on someone you'd probably carry a box of chocolates sweets or whatever flowers drops in any scanning grenades lose ammunition and the reaction from the officer standing there is and many left you know The Parting Gift he was given some empty vaccines a pistol or whatever now I just give this example look at look at the culture then the SP is calling on you and instead of getting any mithai or anything this guy's presenting ordinance arms ammunition or whatever and the joke used to be in in the lulab that be careful when you till your land because you don't know


when you till your land because you don't know whose cache you might just unearth every man has gone every boy of fighting age has gone across and got trained and carried a weapon it was backed with weapons the Bucky that really pushed in a lot of stuff a lot of stuff but from those days till now what an amazing change and it's been a gradual cleanup so it's taken it's taken a lot of time do you have a timeline on when Kashmir will be conflict-free or are we not looking at a conflict-free no 370s come in which has been removed and that has not been viewed by a lot of people locally as something which is good for them and it takes only a decade I think before they see the benefits of coming of things coming in from the center the elections have to happen they need to then have a bunch of politicians or leaders who look at the larger interest of the of the state so far just the three four families who are playing around


far just the three four families who are playing around treating it as their own victim um it was more economics of politics money is being pumped in money is going to a few pockets militancy is on just cut it on and on and on nobody wants to stir the pot this is still the part now and I think we should see moment the mindset changes woman the average kashmiri understands that integrating with the rest of the country matters and and I think it'll change it's already changing there's been a couple of changes in my own mind over the course of doing so many military podcasts one is that each episode builds perspective in a very deep way uh and that perspective has taught me that our nation is guarded by the best of the best like I think the Indian population as a whole kind of underestimates the power of its own Armed Forces in general I would especially like to highlight Special Forces here but Armed Forces in general but one of the strongest militaries


in general but one of the strongest militaries in the world the second big change is I have become aware of the dangers around me and my family and I'm speaking here as a very Primal version of myself in terms of we don't live in a completely safe world but the fact that we have the kind of armed forces we have it gives a lot of civilians hope and security like we feel like we're in a safe country well I'm glad to hear that yes and you know I think with the podcast this is the intention I wish to put out the truth out there so so firstly uh big salutum so I am not standing no I salute you also ranveer for doing a good job you're doing more branding than the Army does for itself and if through your broadcast podcast you have a bunch of youngsters who join the Army save the nation you've done it if you've got a distribution Channel like this you better use it for the right stuff I think it's a


use it for the right stuff I think it's a it's a good thing you were doing here it's a good thing that you're doing and I'm told I'm so in my time there used to be just four five three four five people volunteering for the SF in the entire passing out 3-400 carrots now I'm told the response is much better there's a lot of bunch of youngsters who want to join the SF yeah very good I mean we're just adding to the strong branding of the strong product which is the military but uh that's one thing I want to thank you for for serving our nation as a soldier sir but the other thing is on a very human level thanks for the brotherly conversation this is a lot of fun speaking to you uh very easy to speak to and uh I thought I knew a lot about the S7 that I made people like you just keep adding layers so what I gained from today's conversation is um the whole emotional side of it honestly


is um the whole emotional side of it honestly not too many people speaking yeah that's that's always there in the SS yeah there's an emotional side also yeah and that's what's in it for a lot of listeners who probably may not ever join the military but are learning from every word that you speak so so you've done a huge thing by like helping a lot of young dudes with the healing process that's what I'll say thank you very much it's been a pleasure talking to you like people enjoy I enjoy this and I hope to have you on the show again very soon thank you very much that was the episode for today what I will definitely say is that when we do these para SF podcasts when we do the military podcast we can't give you guys the entire unfiltered conversation because sometimes it's a little too long that's why the unfiltered sections of this particular episode just like all our episodes are uploaded on TRS Clips our highlights channel for this podcast I'll be


our highlights channel for this podcast I'll be linking it down below I'll also be linking some of our other special forces episodes I hope you enjoy them for more episodes just like this make sure you follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world with every military episode I learn a little bit more about the military but I think we've reached a point now where I want suggestions from you in terms of questions what are the aspects of the military life what you want covered on PRS let us know drop your suggestions and we'll be back soon [Music] thank you


even when it comes to India Indian news channels Etc they also essentially parrot the Western perspective you will see two three Indian channels that are uh covering geopolitics especially the Russia Ukraine conflict and the Taiwan angle also they have certain reporters on the ground in the conflict Zone they are always in Ukrainian Health territory you will never see an Indian reporter on Russian Health territory why don't they give us a balanced perspective you will always see the Ukrainian perspective and the Western perspective why don't they give us a balanced perspective let's look at where the funding comes from uh Putin is in survival mode he knows that he has the entire might of the West arrayed against him he knows that he is a very unreliable partner in XI jinpig and the Chinese Communist Party Russia and China are actually long-term enemies they are long-term adversaries and very serious adversaries but currently they are forced to cooperate because they have a bigger common enemy you know it's going to be


bigger common enemy you know it's going to be Stellar I highly recommend you watch the prequel episode if you haven't already that one is all about India under Narendra Modi India from a geopolitical perspective this one is a sort of October 2022 geopolitical update keep in mind we recorded this podcast before the situation in Ukraine Got a little more heated up so maybe it lacks a few updates but overall from a global scale all your geopolitical updates can be found in this particular episode of course if it's abhiji chavra it's going to be a blockbuster episode for more episodes like this make sure you follow us on Spotify every episode's available on Spotify 48 hours before it's available anywhere else in the world AC on TRS let's go foreign [Music] politics update with abhiji chawla how are you sir I'm very well thank you for having me okay um you know because we did a prequel episode to this where we introduced India's role on the global stage in terms of where


India's role on the global stage in terms of where India is going both from a national level and on an international level I think we have a lot of international listeners when it comes to this particular episode lots of people want to know the Indian perspective on geopolitics from someone like yourself sir let's begin with a spicy question when we're in this kind of a geopolitical scenario where so many things are evolving this fast do the Spy networks also become that much more activated every country has its own secret service its own spy networks we just spoke about the KGB before we started rolling you said something interesting I'd love for you to repeat what you said and kind of expand on that thought so the KGB was the intelligence service of the USSR it was an absolutely Elite Force and the question is does it still exist well I'm sure it has been rebranded as something else but obviously it will still exist because the the Russians do need intelligence about what's happening in the world you need to


about what's happening in the world you need to anticipate what's coming towards you in the coming days months Etc and that's where intelligence comes in so these days you don't you may not have that much of uh spies on with boats on the ground in various places but you have signals intelligence you have cyber intelligence and all that so all that is the way to go in the 21st century in the 2020s every nation has cyber warfare and cyber Espionage capabilities and that is the name of the game mainly these days obviously you will also have human intelligence human they call it you know yeah people who are embedded in other nations and people who are your folks with somebody else's passport perhaps all these things are there so that's that's the old Playbook but today it's all about cyber warfare cyber Espionage and all that so all of these things the inter mesh and that's what produces the intelligence that a country needs to anticipate future threats yeah I'm sure as technology is getting


future threats yeah I'm sure as technology is getting closer to the human body it's also difficult to maintain those old playbooks like there's so much data available about each of us on the internet like I'm sure Facebook Twitter Google there has to be some work they're doing with the government in terms of a data transfer I'm sure they're kind of almost bullied into it perhaps mainly probably by the US government I'm sure in saying that um do you do you actually believe that this whole old school spy system of uh Espionage and all that doesn't exist do you think it's there I think it would have evolved significantly because in the old days what people would do is that they would steal someone's passport then replace the image and do some forgery and then they would use that today you have electronic measures in past passports it's it's almost impossible to forge a passport now and it's very hard to disguise yourself with a wig or something and take a fake passport and go to other other


and take a fake passport and go to other other nations so it's become really difficult to play that old game using the 1980s 1990s Playbook right so today what you would have is you would have compromised people in other nations maybe you compromise Somebody by maybe honey trapping them or maybe by getting them to do something criminal in the and expand a little bit on high trapping honey trapping is the one of the oldest uh one of the oldest uh play the thing in the Playbook right it's when you compromise Somebody by interrupting them in a sexual affair with a member of the opposite sex or maybe the same sex it depends right so it's the it's one of the oldest uh please in the Playbook right so it's it's something that happens on a routine basis even today I'm sure and the one of the famous cases is the Israeli who was a technician in the Demona nuclear power plant and he exposed Israel's nuclear secrets to the world and the


Israel's nuclear secrets to the world and the Israelis they honey trapped him and they were able to get him back into Israel and imprison him for whatever he had done he was a nuclear traitor essentially you have more details on this one yeah it's an interesting story I may not remember the entire story but yeah would you like me to go into that yeah yeah sure Israel has Israel is a nuclear weapons power right but it's always maintained this strategic ambiguity they're not they're neither accept nor deny they neither confirmed nor deny that they have nuclear weapons but it's known now that they do have it so they have this uh they have a facility in a place called The Mona near the town of beer Shiva in the Negev region southern region of Israel where there is a nuclear uh facility and that's where they have been producing those nuclear weapons most likely tactical nuclear weapons their stockpile would be nearly a hundred possibly nuclear weapons most likely did this in the 1960s


nuclear weapons most likely did this in the 1960s 1970s I think it was in the 1970s or 80s somewhere around that that this individual was employed as a technician over there and I think he took photographs secretly of what was going on inside this nuclear weapons plant and then he traveled to the West Was it Italy was it the UK I'm not maybe the UK it was and then he sold those photographs to I believe it was the news of the world or one of the media Outlets then he spent some time in Australia he converted to Christianity he took up the name name David Crossman or something so he was a fugitive from Israel he was wanted by the Israelis for his prison and eventually the Israelis were able to Honey Trap him with a Mossad operative pretending to be a Charming young lady and they were able to get him out of the UK into some other European country maybe maybe Italy it was maybe and from there from there they were able to exfiltrate him


there from there they were able to exfiltrate him back into Israel and they were able to prosecute him wow okay uh how do you exfiltrate someone I'm assuming that the lady would have told him I would come vacation with me in Italy and when he entered the hotel room there's the Israeli Army just coming and getting you yeah typically what you do is you kidnap somebody from some location where there is not much surveillance then you would typically drug them for instance there is a very famous case of Adolf Eichmann who was one of the major Nazi criminals who was hiding away living a very nice life in Argentina the mosad tracked him to that place and they sent a team to exfiltrate him there the choice of either other Eichmann or Joseph Mengele but they decided to take out either so they kidnapped him they drugged him sedated him and then they sent an Israeli plane on a diplomatic or some Mission over there and then they pretended like he's an Israeli who is highly


they pretended like he's an Israeli who is highly drunk and they have to carry him back into the plane wow and that's how they were able to get him out that's crazy um wow now we'll actually move into the geopolitical angle of this uh whole podcast uh do you want to just touch upon where Israel is at because after this we're going to do a whole Israel 101 episode because there's a lot to learn about that Nation uh where does Israel stand in this whole geopolitical game of the world because I'm sure the listeners have heard our other podcasts we've spoken about America India Russia Afghanistan Pakistan Sri Lanka will be touching upon them in this episode as well what's Israel's role in like uh this whole game well Israel is a nuclear weapons power in the Middle East it's on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean it has how many neighbors it has Egypt it has Syria it has Jordan it has Lebanon and Saudi Arabia as well uh in the in the Gulf in


as well uh in the in the Gulf in the South and it has typically historically had a very adversarial relationship with its neighbors it's fought at least three or four Wars with them it's come out on top each time uh it's always been this conflict about territory it's one territory that two parties seek it's the Arabs and the Israelis and the Israelis uh have always come out on top so it's a very strategically located nation in this region very powerful Nation they uh they have always lived under a state of Siege essentially always under existential threat that's why they've developed a very powerful a very powerful military very powerful cyber capabilities and all that this is a pure intellect game it is yeah in a sense it's an intellectual game but it's also a Warriors game it's a warrior mentality it's a Siege mentality that we can be annihilated at any time and we always have to be ready for that if if there's an invasion next next morning we need


if there's an invasion next next morning we need to be ready for that do you think the Holocaust played a role in creating this mentality in the first place yes to a large extent they they made this wow that it will never happen again to us you know the Holocaust and anything like that so the Jews need their own Homeland that's what led to the creation of the Jewish homeland in Israel in 1948 and it's it's a very major power in the Middle East they they the neighbors have tried to destroy time and time again it's withstood the test of time it's obviously been aided by the West it's it's the major Ally is the United States the United States states has aided Israel lots of times in a variety of means material means uh weapons in intelligence and whatnot but they also have this very powerful intelligence agency called the Mossad they also have the shin Beth which is the internal uh intelligence agency within Israel the West Bank Gaza all that and uh so yeah they are


Bank Gaza all that and uh so yeah they are at the top of the game and they essentially help in balancing the Middle East the Middle East has always been in this state of strife you know the Middle East crisis has been going on since the end of the second world war maybe the first world war and it's essentially something that the West has engineered by creating these artificial boundaries between nations the artificially created Nations like Iraq Saudi Arabia and so on so forth so it's always unstable an Israel kind of balances that why don't you talk about this lack of stability in the Middle East like let's go get into this uh part of the podcast what happened historically what's happening now so the Middle East historically if you go back a couple of centuries was part of the Ottoman Empire the Ottoman Empire was this massively powerful Empire based out of Constantinople Istanbul and it encompassed the Middle East it also encompassed significant parts of Europe and the ruler


also encompassed significant parts of Europe and the ruler was the Ottoman Sultan the Khalif right now in the 19th century the Ottoman Empire began becoming decrepit weak internally right the the the steel went out of the spine The Harem and the eunuchs took over in the court and the military Affairs were left to various Governors Etc so there was this massive weakness that started creeping in in the 19th century the Europeans called the Ottoman Empire they called turkey the sick ban of Europe right so there were all these tribal factions in the Middle East the hashemite the hashemite uh faction the syrians lots of the different tribal factions in the Middle East that sought independence from the Turkish yolk from the ottoman yolk why because everybody wants to rule themselves they the Arabs did not want to be ruled by Turks determination autonomy all that and it's also about power control Prestige of wealth all those things yeah why should they be


of wealth all those things yeah why should they be wealthy at our expense let's or let's keep our web for horses and that sort of thing then the first world war happened turkey sided with Germany It Was Defeated it was nearly partitioned and broken apart but Mustafa Kamal ensured that the West Was Defeated and he created a small smaller nation of turkey out of it in the second half of the first World War the British promised the ruler of Mecca that they would support an independent Arabian Nation a Saudi Arabia essentially yeah if they provided support to the British against the Ottoman Empire so the British fomented these divisions they they all divide and Rule policy yeah what was in Saudi Arabia back then oil but what was it as a country like what was it called I I there was a region called the trans Jordan there was a region called there was a meccan kingdom okay various kingdoms were there tinier countries smaller yeah smaller but they took one of these


smaller yeah smaller but they took one of these guys as their client and they promised him the entire peninsula in essentially the interpreting peninsula in exchange for support to the British against the Ottoman Empire because until that time the Ottoman Empire Still ruled over this region and the British sought this because of the very strategic Swiss Canal right so they want they had already taken ownership of Suez in the Suez Canal region from the Egyptians because the Egyptian economy was you know engineered into near bankruptcy and that's why the ruler of Egypt was forced to sell his stake in the Suez Canal complete to the British and the the British took over The Source Canada was built in 1859 or 69 or something like that very rookie inputable this is for people uh who are hearing the words Canal for the first time basically uh your Naval trade is very important for your economy and the naval trade for the British especially when they're importing things from India and Asia in general they


importing things from India and Asia in general they would have to go around South Africa which is a much more dangerous sea route uh this piracy there is uh storms etc etc Suez Canal gives you a shortcut so massive shortcut yeah uh it saves money it ensures safety etc etc it's just an easier way of uh Naval trade let's get back to AC so the Swiss Canal was called the spinal cord of the British Empire that's how they connected to India that's how they stole and plundered the wealth out of India and transferred it to the UK so Suez was strategically vital to the British Empire to the continuation of the British Empire and for that they needed access and control to the surrounding regions like the Arabian Peninsula the Middle East all that so they fomented these uh problems these these rewards against the Ottoman Empire Etc then the Ottoman Empire crumbled at the end of world war one which is when these various kingdoms were formed so the


is when these various kingdoms were formed so the British created the this Mandate of of Palestine I think they called it and they they created this artificial nation of Iraq so Iraq is almost 50 percent Shia and the shias and sunnis have long-standing uh disputes that go back almost more than a thousand years right so they created this art the Western Powers have this tendency to create artificial Nations by drawing straight lines on the map so if you look at Africa it's all straight lines yeah and that's the sign from a geopolitical perspective of a returnation up for you I can finish it up for your future that's what the listeners should know so what this does is that it divides communities across Nations and it puts communities that historically don't belong together in the same nation that causes problems long term very long-term problems that's what you see in Iraq that's what you see across the Middle East even Saudi Arabia essentially is is artificially created Nation it's never been one


is is artificially created Nation it's never been one nation the way it is today you know and the in the Saudi the the house of Saud is again essentially a client state it was a client state of the UK later on it become a client state of the US which is which it in some ways still is and so on it's all about oil it's all about the resources of the of the region and so on when did they figure that there's oil in the Gulf I think this began in the 19th century if I'm not mistaken you know okay oil exploration became a big thing they called it Black Gold it was so valuable that's when the uh entire world's economy started begin started being driven by oil later you had super tankers so I'm fast forwarding a little bit more but after the second world war the the super tankers started being used and Suez the sewage cattle was too narrow for that so they had to still go around the Cape of Good Hope South Africa


still go around the Cape of Good Hope South Africa what what is the Super Tank a super tanker is a massive ship it's all it's sometimes larger than an aircraft carrier really yes and it's purely used for oil yes it has these small compartments in which you keep oil it's not a big large compartment because when the oil sloshes it can keep the ship over so they make the smaller compartments small cells but it's essentially fully filled with oil wow massive massive ships okay and that's what they use to transport oil they also had pipelines which went through Asia but mostly super tankers and these super tankers eventually were made so big they could not go through the sewage Canal so they had to anyway go through the uh Cape of Good Hope route but that's a that's an aside so all of these things were happening the first world war saw the fragmentation of Ottoman Empire the nascent creation of what would later on become Israel and that's where all the


later on become Israel and that's where all the territorial disputes started two communities two sets of people seeking the same territory it was once called the land of the Philistines later it was called Palestine the British Mandate of Palestine they started settling Jews there after World War II they had suffered the Holocaust and they sought a Jewish nation in 1948 the first big problem was given to the U.N which had just been formed here's your big problem deal with it and then the the nation of Israel was created and the same day it was created all the neighbors attacked which was the 1948 Arab Israeli War which Israel succeeded in winning it was a drawn out conflict it did not end immediately but the Israelis succeeded in surviving and defeating the Arab neighbors then there were multiple conflicts along down the line um let's talk about uh the U.N you just mentioned the U.N everyone knows what uh you think about the U.N what the general public thinks about the U.N


U.N what the general public thinks about the U.N which is that it's a failed organization they've not done their job they've not done the job that they were built for uh yes maybe they've you know kind of helped with world peace in a few situations couldn't stop the Iraq War couldn't stop the Afghanistan War I couldn't stop the suffering in Syria couldn't stop the suffering uh in so many other parts of the world this Ukraine Russia situation for example what's the 2022 perspective on the U.N because a lot of people don't take it seriously anymore and I remember you when I was growing up we had this moral United Nations thing in school I was so disenchanted with it because fortunately at that point I had a few relatives who were like yourself geopolitical observers who had always bitched about the U.N so I wasn't even inclined towards going into it uh I in fact I remember when uh the pandemic broke out the who gave some guidelines which


broke out the who gave some guidelines which turned out to be false I don't take that organization seriously we've had someone on the show who's worked to the UN and the thing I observed over that person is that they were deeply diplomatic and after the podcast a person told me that yeah it's because I've worked in the Union as a culture of the U.N that we're always taught to say the right things and not sometimes a complete truth but not to hide information but I just like to know what AC says so let's take the who let's take UNICEF let's take these organizations they have a certain budget annual budget now how is this budget used let's take the UNICEF for instance United Nations International children's emergency fund unfortunately a significant slice of the budget goes into salaries of the high-ranking officials into their hotel stays into the travel which is always first class not even business class and so on it's like any other NGO scam most ngos in India are money making businesses


scam most ngos in India are money making businesses you get money and you use most of that to fund the running of the organization and the salaries and the Comforts and the luxuries of the people who are running the show similarly the UN also has this problem a significant problem that a significant percentage of the money goes into these unnecessary activities and it's not really used in where it should be used that's just one criticism that I can offer but let's begin with what the UN is it is the successor of the League of Nations there was an organization called the League of Nations which was created I think in the early 20th century I don't quote me on that maybe before that maybe somewhere around that but we had something called the League of Nations now when the second world war started going in favor of the allies they created something called the United Nations and they offered membership to anybody who declared war on Germany so all kinds of small Nations started declaring war in Germany without actually sending


small Nations started declaring war in Germany without actually sending a single soldier there and they all became the founding members of the United Nations yes so what the U.N is represents the global geopolitical scenario and situation at the end of 1945 45 at the end of the second World War and the five permanent Representatives the five permanent seats at the U.N security Council are the five Victors of World War II India was offered that but India refused multiple times for whatever reason I don't know only the great Shri magnificent answer that so China was given India's Place position but in China was essentially in a way one of the winners of World War II because they yeah so because they were able to evict Japan from Chinese territory and so on so it was the the club of winners the ones who had won World War II and its sole purpose was to consolidate their gains geopolitical gains and power gains so only five nations got the veto power other nations are in the second class level


power other nations are in the second class level second category second rung these are the five that ruled the world and even today there they continue to rule the world even though the geopolitical scenario no longer represents how the world was in 1945 right so there's many nations have demanded that the United Nations needs to be reformed it needs to reflect 21st century realities but the ones who are The veto power keep on rejecting that they keep on making the right noise that yes we agree that maybe in the future we should reform we should consider reforming the U.N security Council and so on maybe we should induct new nations without us without a veto power that sort of thing you know just token representation and so on so it it represents an obsolete world order it has never really worked for peace it it when you have a multilateral organization no matter what it is whether it is the Shanghai cooperation organization or you have NATO or whatever the EU or the UN it always acts as an instrument of


or the UN it always acts as an instrument of power projection of the most powerful member of the of the block in the U.N it was typically the U.S and the USSR and it was kind of balanced in a certain way but overall the Western nations were more powerful after the dissolution and disintegration of the USSR Russia took its place but Russia was a much more diminished Nation yeah so today the U.N is a place where typically it's China and the US that why for Primacy and the Chinese have penetrated infiltrated deep into the UN bureaucracy they control a lot of the bureaucracy they have bureaucrats and and officials in all kinds of high positions and they indulge in what is called low fare they create various laws that the wording of the laws and those are typically created in such a way that it slightly benefits China every time and you add that up over time it becomes significantly Pro China the entire world order so that is what China is doing right


world order so that is what China is doing right now and the U.S seems to be dropping the ball when it comes to the U.N so anyhow the U.N is the currently uh something that represents an obsolete World Order what do you mean dropping the ball because the U.S is kind of allowing China to infiltrate deep into the U.N and influence the decision-making and the and the and the in the formulation of the language of various laws and rules and resolutions Etc which when you when you change a word to something else it it can have a significant impact on the way uh the world works when it comes to the at the highest level in the U.N what's the why or why are they doing that if they're actually going up against each other there's like Smackdown versus Raw you know no man that's bad reference but you know what I mean so uh the Chinese have something called a concept called total warfare so typically Warfare was about Army Air Force Navy now we also have the space


Army Air Force Navy now we also have the space Dimension the Chinese use information in that they have cyber in that and they also have lawfare so when it comes to the international law of the sea and various International laws that are set that are constructed and set forth by the United Nations it's a process that's always in motion there's always something that's been amended that is being amended certain resolutions that are being passed and all that and when you have high ranking bureaucrats and officials that are Chinese Nationals who are deeply involved in doing this it can tilt the wording of these laws in China's favor it can tilt various decisions in China's favor typically in the past it was all English-speaking people who had these high positions typically Americans or British officials or people from Norway or whatever from the Western Bloc now the Chinese are taking over slowly slowly and the Americans have somehow allowed this to happen they have not pushed back against this and that's what I mean by they have been


this and that's what I mean by they have been dropping the ball when it comes to this what do you think is the reason like what's the Deep State thinking I don't I all I can say is that there is a crisis of leadership leadership in the U.S they have lost what it takes to stay a world power they are still a world power you may have a crisis of leadership you may have bad leaders but you can still remain a major power for the next hundred years look at the Modern Empire as soon as Emperor Ashok died the Empire started trembling then you had his son dashrath then his grandson somebody who kind of revived the Empire and then it disintegrated within a century or so but it was still an empire for more than 100 years after he died Ashok was the last great emperor and samprati was the last good Emperor but it still lasted for a while so the U.S seems to be in that decline process they no longer have those


in that decline process they no longer have those strong leaders in in place and that's what we are seeing it's a gradual but visible decline of American Primacy and Supremacy in the world what is the future of the UN like in 2022 with this war happening right in front of us whatever the reasons for the war maybe and we've discussed those on some episodes well I mean it's a failure of that organization on a global scale why do people take their organization seriously even now why is it still considered a matter of prestige to be attending something at the U.N is it just the inertia of past repute what why is the hype about it I'm you know even when people will listen to uh this particular podcast where we're talking about the UN um there will be that what's it called cognitive dissonance like extremists talking about this Global organization but what's the truth like what's going to happen over the next 10 news I think the U.N will last another 10 20


news I think the U.N will last another 10 20 years perhaps uh it will last until the next major Global power upheaval you mean a war maybe a war or maybe a complete collapse of whatever power structure we have right now right now we are seeing a bifurcation of the world order the Chinese along with the Russians are creating a whole separate parallel system right they are creating their own uh infrastructure they're creating their own Trade Network they're creating their own Reserve currency that's what they would like to do they would like the Chinese Yuan to be the global Reserve currency instead of the US dollar the Americans are pushing back so there is a special that's happening right now we are seeing a bifurcation of the global order the Chinese are taking along the African nations with them they are bribing various dictators to come along with China the Americans are pulling the entire EU in the NATO into their orbit they want India to come into their orbit so there is now eventually one side will give


orbit so there is now eventually one side will give way when that happens the UN May either stop being relevant or it may be reconstructed reformulated or built again from the ground up and the entire order may change in the U.N security Council or whatever or maybe China will start its own version of the U.N it is possible they are they have already started the SEO the Shanghai cooperation organization the Asian development bank they are trying to position themselves as the next Global superpower will they succeed or not that is still something we need to see but this tussle is something that we are that's very visible right now so many questions here but let's talk about China a little bit specifically as a full-blown topic I think this deserves its own podcast so we'll just touch up on it slightly from an economic perspective from a hot War perspective about what's happening in Taiwan as well and from a reality perspective in terms of this whole angle about one child policy leading to an aging population therefore


about one child policy leading to an aging population therefore the productivity is lesser therefore maybe they're not growing at the rate they were growing at Once Upon a Time what's the reality of China in the modern day because I have a really really intelligent friend who's traveled all over Africa she is an investor in startups and she told me that um so even in terms of startup she's a web 3 based investor and for those people who don't understand what web3 is it's the evolution of the internet so web one was websites where you uh just went on the website to read articles or whatever think of yahoo.com a cartoonnetwork.com where you you were just absorbing articles from the internet blogs web 2 is where you engage with the internet social media Facebook Instagram Twitter where you as a user putting in things into the internet and you're helping grow the internet but the downside of web2 is that all your information is kind of sucked away into the massive servers of these few powerful companies which


the massive servers of these few powerful companies which makes these few powerful companies more powerful than World governments also uh because power is the ability to just switch off uh you know someone's voice like Twitter Switched Off Donald Trump's voice the president of the USA just switched it off so who's more powerful you the president of the USA or this one Web Two organization maybe the one who controls the web to organization yeah which is why Elon is probably trying to buy it with the kind of money he has I don't know where that deal is at right now but um I know for a fact that Elon spoken was very publicly he's a supporter of web3 obviously as we know he's probably trying to turn Twitter which is this big Juggernaut built using web 2 protocols into a web 3 company a web 3 is where um a user engages with um the internet but sort of with a mask on where the company doesn't have that much data on the user they probably have an identity like an ID of


user they probably have an identity like an ID of the user but they don't have much else no personal information yeah it's decentralized yeah which in the long term for The Human Experience leads to um you being able to protect your information and you protecting yourself from the algorithms that do alter your perspectives if you're right-wing personal making more right wing if you're a left-wing person making more left wing if you hate a certain group of people make you hate that group of people even more and algorithms are a massive pandemic in the modern day that's what people fail to understand web 3 is healthy for the human race and the startup World believes in web 3 and usually the startup world knows where the world of technology and therefore where human civilization is headed all this is important from a geopolitical perspective she told me that uh China is very big on web 3 protocols but in a slightly skewed manner they have their own cryptocurrency which is the digital Yuan and they're trying to ensure that


the digital Yuan and they're trying to ensure that the digital yuan is going to replace the dollar the thing is all of us have grown up in a world where dollar is the Supreme currency and everything is pitted against the dollar now we're seeing a decline of America uh love you to touch upon the economic decline as well this whole excessive dollar printing thing that the America has gone about um the truth is that the Supreme Global Currency regularly changes before the dollar it was gold uh and it might change into the digital Yuan so what you said about China kind of building its own version of the UN they are also seeing the Playbook that USA used of keeping their currency at the top and having every other currency pitted against it and they gradually kind of slicing pieces of other economies and making them sort of uh modern day colonies of themselves we've seen this with Sri Lanka Pakistan lots of third world countries um I'd love for the AC version of everything that I just said this


the AC version of everything that I just said this was just an intro for the listeners what's the geopolitical impact of cryptocurrencies China the decline of the dollar Etc cryptocurrencies are a very good idea so web 3 is about the decentralized internet it's all about the uh the blockchain economy and the blockchain infrastructure so on the blockchain all of your information is secure it is not centralized in any one place no company owns your information or your data and when you transact with a company let's say you have a decentralized version of Twitter you have a blockchain version of Facebook or whatever you don't have to create an ID and password each time or all of these various websites you have one identity on the blockchain and that's what you use to interact with on all all the various other uh entities social media whatever companies that are built on the blockchain just one second so I'm not going to explain the context here I'm going to link one of my past videos explaining the 101 about


link one of my past videos explaining the 101 about blockchain and crypto for those people who didn't understand all these terms right it's very simple but to head into the deeper parts of the podcast you need to have basic understanding so we will link a YouTube video down below AC please continue right so when you are interacting with various entities on the blockchain you're you're giving information only on a need to know basis you don't have to give extra information right so that's why uh if you have a currency that's built on the blockchain it's it's uh it gives you more power it means that one nation doesn't own the currency it cannot switch off the force at the tap to the currency it cannot arbitrarily increase the value or devalue the currency it's all based on the market right so that's why cryptocurrencies are good now Bitcoin is the first cryptocurrency that we know of it's kind of been crashing off late cryptocurrency has been crashing of late then you have the ethereum blockchain which is


of late then you have the ethereum blockchain which is built on top of the of the Bitcoin block blockchain or the original blockchain and it the ethereum system is actually kind of centralized it's not truly decentralized it's it's a a fake decentralized blockchain and there are problems with that so now when you speak about the Chinese you want the digital Yuan the Chinese are building their own infrastructure on the blockchain in but that's going to be kind of centralized and controlled by China so it's not truly decentralized they're going to the trend they're like yeah we're also free building I go we have three protocols let's decentralized but actually the power still with the Chinese Communist party yes so there are lots of blockchain applications right now but many of them are still not truly decentralized most of them are even today owned by various individuals or or organizations that are typically located in Silicon Valley and the Chinese are trying to do the same thing with their version of the blockchain infrastructure so we


with their version of the blockchain infrastructure so we have to be we are still in the wild west days of web 3. um is it fair to say that basically when you have a digital Yuan as the number one currency the advantage it gives you over the dollar is that it's a digital currency therefore you're also taking Digital Data off of your users that's what I was told by this lady that the point of introducing the digital yuan in African countries is for people to register themselves as a Trader of digital yuan's and when they register themselves they have a lot of data on those users and therefore the long-term data gives you power which will give you control over them so that would depend on how they it they are doing this if they have their own blockchain then you would have to register on that blockchain which would give the Chinese the access to all the data of the users but if it is the Bitcoin blockchain which may be decentralized it may be on on computers


may be decentralized it may be on on computers all across the world then the Chinese may not be able to control that so it's kind of complex it's kind of technical there is this uh there are various companies one is binance which I believe is based out of China which may be kind of based in China you know it's so it's kind of dodgy so you your data is secure only if it is globally distributed right if it is really decentralized some of these blockchain you can create your own blockchain you can code your own blockchain and implement it and then if people uh create their own stuff on that then you actually own that data it's like that so the Chinese may be doing that I'm not exactly sure where they are and if they have created their own blockchain infrastructure and if they have the servers only in China in which case it is not genuinely decentralized it's actually all centralized in China so there are these geopolitical games being played right now if the Chinese do


games being played right now if the Chinese do succeed in making the digital Yuan widely accepted then it means that they don't need it's it's essentially borderless so they can take out the data of people in the US or any other country right which is kind of why India has been Banning various Chinese apps because they suck out data from from Indian users and all that so right now we are in the wild west days of blockchain people still don't know which blockchain is doing what whether it is truly decentralized or not ethereum does look like it's decentralized but it's not truly decentralized and many of the blockchain applications are actually centralized in Silicon Valley so that's where we are so that is one of the newer geopolitical tussles that's happening blockchain blockchain three base okay um do you think the digital Yuan will replace the dollar as the world's Premier currency what's happening with the dollar why don't you give a bit of context on this whole overprinting angle uh


a bit of context on this whole overprinting angle uh etc etc so what is a currency note it's a promise it's a promise that this let's say one dollar note has a certain amount of value it's just a piece of paper but if you go to the US government you go give them that it it represents some genuine real world value originally all currency paper currency was backed by gold right the US dollar was was once held to the gold standard until Richard Nixon uh unlinked the US dollar from gold how he just announced that the US dollar will no longer be backed by gold he said it was temporary but it became permanent because America had that much power they had that much power there was a there was a run on the Dollar on the dollar because uh the price was going down and people were worried that the US dollar May no longer be reliable so they were going to the U.S government and asking for gold in exchange for dollars and the US government was going to


exchange for dollars and the US government was going to very rapidly run out of gold this was in the 1970s when Richard Nixon was in power so then he de-linked the US dollar from gold and it became what's called a fiat currency so it's it's a floating currency then it was linked to the price of petroleum it became known as a petrol petrol so today the ruble is linked to the price of gold each Ruble is equivalent to a certain amount of gold I don't remember how much it is but it's equivalent to Gold so each currency note represents a certain amount of value now if you print excessive amounts of currency then you have the currency flooding the market which means there is too much of it and that's why its value goes down now the U.S dollar is the world's Reserve currency it's accepted everywhere in the world you go to a shop in Bombay Mumbai you give a dollar it's gonna work people will accept it because it's something that people


work people will accept it because it's something that people regard as very valuable right so if the US government prints lots of dollars they can vacuum clean the world's resources in exchange for paper money right let's say they want uh they want coal from somewhere let's say they want to buy steel from Africa let's say they want to buy a million tons of lithium from various African countries all they have to do is print a few dollars give them that paper money and get lithium in exchange it's got a very large scale con man play it's a massive scam isn't it in a sense it's a scam you're printing paper money and you're getting real resources in exchange for that but when you print that much paper currency it's gonna cause the value of the currency to crash that's called inflation that's inflation we are witnessing inflation globally because of this over printing of the US dollar that's the cost that you pay to play this Corning game yes so what it does is that


this Corning game yes so what it does is that it makes certain people very rich but overall the nation suffers who becomes rich the ones who are controlling the economy the Deep State because they it's literally that problem of hey bro if currency is printed why can't I just print Pokemon become richer those guys are actually playing that game but what they're doing is they're not becoming rich they are stiffening off the world's resources in exchange for this paper currency so the US oligarchs the ones who are rich really rich the the ones who are at 100 billion plus they are becoming richer when the whole world's economy is is kind of going down the mega billionaires the American oligarchs are getting richer and richer and richer the Illuminati the Illuminati but go on yeah so that is the game that the US has been playing for the past two three years they have printed like I think today you have 80 more U.S currency in circulation than you had in 2018. that's a


circulation than you had in 2018. that's a massive amount of dollars they were printed and that is and then the the inflation and the recession is a natural consequence and outcome of that also opposed this Russia Ukraine war situation it's changed the way Global Powers operate when it comes to money so uh because of the sanctions put on Russia uh it kind of led to a whole shift in how uh Russia kind of Trades as well uh do you want to give a narrative about how this is linked to the dollar because the sanctions will put on Russia to harm it in turn the ruble's value actually went up yes so what the Americans did was they imposed every imaginable sanction possible on the Russians and we're talking about 2022 2022 April onwards so when the the sanctions were imposed the price of the Russian Ruble plummeted it like crashed then what the Russians did is they announced that the Russian Ruble now has a gold standard every Ruble is equivalent to a


a gold standard every Ruble is equivalent to a certain amount of gold versus what earlier earlier it was a fiat currency just like the dollar like you do what you want yeah devaluate or or upvaluate or whatever but now each Ruble is guaranteed to be equivalent to certain price a certain amount of gold that made the ruble valuable it became a proxy for actual gold and when something is in demand its price goes up so it had crashed but then it became its price went higher than what it was before The Invasion began so that I think the Russians had had anticipated what the Americans were going to do and they immediately linked the Russia Russian Ruble to the price of gold and that's why the Russian Ruble is now stronger most likely as of today than what it was before The Invasion so that's one of the one of the strongest measures they were able to take and it it worked why don't other countries do this uh because it it helps to manipulate the


this uh because it it helps to manipulate the price of currency for your geopolitical reasons if you want to purchase oil at a certain price if you print more currency then you can get a beneficial price if your currency is valued low then it is it is valuable in the import export business if your currency is valued higher than your exports are are less lucrative and so on so for the longest time the Chinese kept their currency price price lower than what it should have been in order to uh get more money from the ex from their exports and so on so it helps if your currency is something you can manipulate the price you can manipulate right so that's why they don't do it what's the future of the dollar uh if the American Empire declines then the dollar will lose value it will no longer be considered to be valuable today people covet US dollars if the if this trend continues of U.S power declining then soon maybe the Euro could become more valuable


then soon maybe the Euro could become more valuable maybe the ruble could be maybe become more better maybe the the Chinese one maybe even the rupee who knows there are various other uh combinations that are being put up now the India and Saudi Arabia may have a rupee real trade soon for gold you know these various mechanisms are right now being thought about and conceived and even discussed bilaterally by various Nations so it could happen this is economics on a very intense scale probably a little bit beyond my current understanding something I want to dive into much more going forward but if you're actually talking about a reality where the US dollar has declined how far do you think that is according to your geopolitical observations or is it unpredictable it is unpredictable the Americans may still be able to reverse the trend if they stop printing dollars and if they can again ensure that the the their Stranglehold on the oil trade does not dissipate right now most of the oil trade


not dissipate right now most of the oil trade is done in dollars so that's why the dollar has the world's Primacy that's why it's the world's Reserve currency because until very recently all trade in oil was done exclusively in U.S dollars that's why that is the real reason why the US dollar was so valuable but now there are other nations that are beginning to trade in oil maybe in Euros maybe in Iran maybe in rupee Riyal maybe in Rubles there are various other mechanisms that are being created right now if the Americans are not able to prevent that then maybe in a decade or so the U.S dollar will lose significant amount of value perhaps you know it could happen stupid rookie but also smart question it's an engineering based question why aren't people using renewable energy like why is oil still so significantly valued or are we kind of seeing a shift in Mankind's behavioral patterns a renewable energy is a very good idea but it is still very expensive


a very good idea but it is still very expensive okay let's say you want to generate electricity from solar cells from solar panels solar panels their price needs to go down significantly in order to be as uh affordable as let's say cheap coal or cheap gas or cheap oil you're also a scientist so I'm asking the scientist in you this um how far are we from that reality 20 years maybe maybe 20 to 50 years okay that far okay because let's let's look at it from the hard power perspective you have tanks you have destroyers Naval destroyers you have fighter planes you have strategic bombers can you power them with electricity Lithium-ion batteries or whatever battery no the entire technology is built upon the combustion of hydrocarbons of oil of kerosene of aviation fuel right in the case of of ships some other form of fuel and so on in the case of Tanks you know diesel most likely you cannot replace these mechanisms with Lithium-ion batteries and and get the same


with Lithium-ion batteries and and get the same explosive acceleration and things like that even today as of today in 2022 we don't have any reliable plane that operates only on electricity right so it's going we are still a long way away from having the same performance as a Sukhoi 30 as a Tejas fighter jet a jet as a F-35 with electricity with Lithium-ion batteries as opposed to what we have today with the evasion fuel so that's why we are still far away from that okay let's get back to talking about uh hard power specifically Ukraine and Russia what's happening now as we are recording this it's September 2022. what's happening in September 2022 other than assassination attempts on Putin and his uh core of leadership and who's who's in charge of the assassination attempts is it obviously Ukraine oh are we talking about something else well it's never you never you never supposed to know these things it's always done via multiple proxies so I


things it's always done via multiple proxies so I am sure Mr Putin knows who's behind all this uh it could be Ukraine it could be like whoever is controlling Ukraine Big Daddy of Ukraine it could be uh most likely everything is being done overall as a U.S Russia tussle so whatever we are witnessing is various manifestations of that rivalry and that tussle right so the assassination attempt on Alexander Dugan who is one of the major uh thought leaders in Russia it unfortunately killed his daughter so that obviously is a manifestation of the bigger U.S Russia rivalry and enmity now what's happening in Ukraine uh recently we are seeing reports in the western media in social media that the ukrainians have launched a massive offensive on her son in various parts of uh various territories that the Russians had captured and maybe be apparently they have captured big pieces of territory can we rely upon these Western media reports I'm not quite sure so what I do is


reports I'm not quite sure so what I do is I look at the the and the whatever is unfolding on a month by month or or quarter by quarter basis and then at the end of every three months I look at the map what's the map saying right now and what is the entire 360 degree perspective of the media telling us because right now we are seeing the news reports only from the Western perspective even when it comes to India Indian news channels Etc they also essentially parrot the Western perspective you will see two three Indian channels that are uh covering geopolitics especially the Russia Ukraine conflict and the Taiwan angle also they have certain reporters on the ground in the conflict Zone they are always in Ukrainian Health territory you will never see an Indian reporter on Russian Health territory why don't they give us a balanced perspective you will always see the Ukrainian perspective and the Western perspective why don't they give us a balanced perspective let's look at where the funding comes from


perspective let's look at where the funding comes from okay so again all of the money follow the money all the media Outlets are financed by some from somewhere by someone follow the money I will know why it's happening why what's happening is happening media and news today is always flavored there is no plain vanilla news it's always flavored in a certain direction they've always landed all news in some ways propaganda today that's why it's so hard to understand what's really happening and it's very very hard for me to believe any one perspective I try to get a complete 360 degree perspective even that is hard because now the entire media whether it's social media Twitter Facebook or whatever it's all slanted like 89 or 93 in in favor of the West you have a Chinese presence but even the Chinese reporting cannot be trusted because it's all propaganda so all news essentially is propaganda that's why you have to look at it from a three three month three month perspective and you


from a three three month three month perspective and you have to be obsessed with a particular subject to really know the truth like you don't know what you don't know yeah I was talking to some friends of mine and they asked me what's my biggest learning from my career I said this that we don't know what we don't know like we don't know who's right who's wrong uh this is all just guesswork but what do you do in a world like this as a human being what what's your suggestion Twitter I would say look at every single possible source of information there are certain underground sources of information which may even be more strongly biased like for example telegram channels telegram channels are actually pure propaganda but what you should do is look at the Russian propaganda look at the Ukraine propaganda look at the American propaganda look at all three angles maybe even Chinese propaganda and then try to use your intelligence whatever you have and if you have an understanding of the patterns of history and


you have an understanding of the patterns of history and geopolitics based on all of this data and we understand another patterns you can form your own picture but it may not be completely correct but you may get a better understanding from that so that's what I would do I typically don't follow the day-to-day proceedings of this war obsessively but I do look at it from a big picture perspective from a quarter to quarter perspective so what I am seeing is that Russia is employing the good old tied tried and tested slow war strategy in Ukraine their objective is to ensure that Ukraine is never a threat for them again Ukraine was the second largest nation in Europe it had an armed Force combined Armed Force greater than France plus Germany put together it was a massive threat for Russia especially after the 2016 maidan coup which is a color Revolution orchestrated by the U.S completely undemocratic and unconstitutional removal of the elected government in replaced by American puppet we know that which is zelinsky


by American puppet we know that which is zelinsky uh it was zelinsky's predecessor but now with zelinsky zelinski is a better guy because he's a good director he's acting as the president so uh that's what's happening so the who was the last straw for Russia the coup meant that there was going to be a NATO presence right at Russia's borders imagine if Russia has a presence right on the American Border in Mexico or Canada or or Cuba would the Americans ever tolerate that no so that it's the same scenario for Russia they could not allow that to happen it was a red line that simply they could not allow the Americans to cross and that's why the conflict was triggered off it's not an unprovoked conflict it has a long history of provocations from the NATO uh side and finally the Russians they also knew what was coming and I'm sure they were preparing for this for the past 10 years right what's Putin's current state of mind according to you uh Putin is


current state of mind according to you uh Putin is in survival mode he knows that he has the entire might of the West arrayed against him he knows that he is a very unreliable partner in Xi Jinping in the Chinese Communist Party Russia and China are actually long-term enemies they are long-term adversaries and very serious adversaries but currently they are forced to cooperate because they have a bigger common enemy so that is Mr Putin's perspective he has to juggle all these problems he has this massive existential threat the West would like to see nothing more than Mr Putin assassinated and Russia broken up right it's an existential threat just the way the Israelis have had an existential threat for the longest time so that's the threat that comes from the West for Mr Putin and then there is Russia which is an unreliable partner the Russians would also want in the long term to see Russia annihilated uh the the Chinese the Chinese would also like to see in the long run once they deal with


to see in the long run once they deal with America they would like to see Russia annihilated and Russia and China have nearly gone to nuclear war in the past in the 1960s there was this massive border issue there were very major border clashes bigger than what we have with China hundreds of soldiers died on each side the Russians had actually decided they'd taken the decision to Nuke China it is the Americans who intervened and said that this will lead to nuclear war we will not allow you to Nuke China and that's what the Russians did not do that so the Americans saved China that border issue was later resolved but that is simply a dormant matter the Chinese will reopen it when they feel the time is right so Russia and China are long-term adversaries they simply cannot coexist together when you have a common border you cannot be friends what will happen if Putin actually dies he most likely will have a succession plan the it is it is Paramount in any Empire in any


is it is Paramount in any Empire in any Nation to have a clear plan of succession because if you don't have it it's going to lead to Civil War so he will not announce it to the world but he will most likely have chosen at least one or two people who will most likely succeed him and his choice will be very clear he doesn't want to have two people who are equally uh strong contenders he will have Mary's line of succession very clear we don't know who it's going to be but in case he dies I am sure that he will have a successor ready to step into his shoes Okay um what's happening in Sri lankano like a small update small historical context and small prediction about the future from you if possible so Sri Lanka uh has been ruled by one clan one family for the for the past I don't know close to two decades the rajapaksa family in various manifestations there are like three or four other four brothers there's Mahindra there


or four other four brothers there's Mahindra there is basil there is gotabaya and there's one more I believe and then there are various relatives of theirs there is who is uh mahindra's son and so on so forth this one family has been essentially ruling this nation this little island as their own personal fiefdom for more than a decade the Tamil LTT was was defeated in 2009 I believe that's when uh prabhakaran was finally uh dealt with and so on and the whole island was then governed by by the Sri Lanka government from Colombo so this family has run the economy into the ground the economy has essentially collapsed uh because of their economic policies then they have fled the nation they have gone somewhere in Exile and there is now some kind of government in place who's the current prime minister I don't even remember his name whoever he is he is essentially an agent of the West and now they are taking loans most likely from the IMF or


are taking loans most likely from the IMF or the World Bank and when you take loans from the IMF for the World Bank you're swallowing poison because they're gonna tell you exactly how to use the money which means you're compromising your nation more what do you think that how is like what will they make Sri Lanka do the policies the economic policies will make the nation essentially sold out to the West okay it'll become a colony of America yes in a variety of ways not overtly but covered but didn't Sri Lanka sell its ports to China as well yes they did indulge in this diplomacy with China the the the debt trap diplomacy so what the Chinese do is that they buy out dictators the rajapaksas were essentially a dictatory family so what they do is they will give the dictator a big massive Hefty sum of money which actually is small in the big perspective in exchange for that they will take a Chinese loan which has oppressive repayment terms


take a Chinese loan which has oppressive repayment terms which typically the country cannot afford to repay and when you can't repaid the other term will be that you have to give away that land on a 99-year lease or essentially outright in in exchange for the loan to China so that's how the Chinese were able to acquire the port which they currently operate so that is the standard classic debt trap diplomacy that the Chinese employ in various parts of the world third world African nations and also in Sri Lanka so a small part of Sri Lanka is now controlled by the Chinese The Humble report in the south of the country and of course the Sri Lankans are now taking loans from the IMF they must have done that in the past as well every time you take a loan a small amount of your sovereignty is sold to the West that's what happens what is sovereignty sovereignty means your control over the country when Freedom the freedom yes or a government is supposed to have complete


yes or a government is supposed to have complete Authority and control over whatever happens in the country when you take a loan from the IMF they're gonna start telling you that you're gonna do this over here you're gonna do this over here this amount of money will be used for this industry you're gonna allow this much Western investment in your in your nation the government may have a policy that no not more than thirty percent of a company can be sold or can be acquired by a western power or a western company but because of the IMF terms they will allow more than 50 that sort of thing that's how you slowly gradually lose sovereignty and control over your country tree you know people think that after the age of Imperialism all this has just stopped like colonization has just stopped but history repeats itself and we're at the brink of history repeating itself in terms of we are seeing modern day colonization here very similar to what the English and the French were doing in India in the


English and the French were doing in India in the 1800s early 1800s where they had their anglo-french Wars yes yeah so uh I mean that's effectively what's happening but from a less hot or perspective more economic perspective probably in the Battleground called Sri Lanka uh what's the future of this country now according to you uh the country is not facing a very good future I do not see a lot of economic growth and development in the country and uh the country could be in the future have Chinese influence American influence Western influence unless India intervenes at some point in time and bails out the whole nation which is something we should do in the future in exchange for reintegration of Sri Lanka with India because Sri Lanka and India we are the same people the same culture the same history same everything right so in the future that could be on the cards I think the Sri Lankan people would be happy to see uh that maybe we should leave it to the people of Sri Lanka we


leave it to the people of Sri Lanka we should give them the offer that we are offering you this in exchange for that and it's up to them to choose to be in servitude to the West into China or maybe reintegrated with India that's something that could happen in the next a long term future maybe 20 years or so but the near-term future Sri Lanka doesn't have a very good future it's not going to do well economically and uh yeah there's all kinds of Crisis going on there there is a lack of Patrol there is a lack of electricity generation there's not enough diesel to generate electricity for the nation uh there's a food grains crisis they adopted uh organic agriculture they did away with pesticides on the on the on the recommendation of some Indian lady if I get her name thankfully I don't want to name her here anyhow she recommended that Sri Lanka should go completely organic do away with uh with with the pesticides and with uh fertilizers


uh with with the pesticides and with uh fertilizers and all that and because of that the agricultural output plummeted and crashed and now they have to import basic foodstuffs from other countries India was help India has been helping Sri Lanka with that India has offered more than a billion dollars worth of credit to Sri Lanka but it's still not enough So eventually somebody's gonna have to build them out um do you watch cricket I do okay you know recently we had the Asia cup yes Sri Lanka won it good for them yeah I'm glad to see that um there was a meme circulating before the Asia cup that why is this cup named [Laughter] quite early International listeners means the United subcontinent which India has been from time to time during various Empires during the modern Empire during the kushan empire Empire from time to time India has been United the entire subcontinent um so yeah that is what we mean by akanda Bharat the unified subcontinent which the way


akanda Bharat the unified subcontinent which the way it should be and it will be again maybe in the future so that's what it did that's that's brutal truth is borders keep changing historical perspective absolutely borders are never constant borders keep changing that's the story of History they always keep changing and they will change the future if anyone's ever kind of got spectacles in their life if their eyes have developed myopia what basically happens is you're able to see things nearby and you can't see things far away that clearly this is called having a myopic Viewpoint in the world and most of society 2099 of people you meet have a myopic view on both Nations and on borders and I'd probably also say Patriot autism they're a very fixed perspective about these things because of the narratives they've been given culturally while growing up my point of saying this is that borders will change during our lifetimes as well it's just a matter of one war like happening keeping


just a matter of one war like happening keeping this perspective of war in mind we have to talk a little bit about Pakistan we have a lot of Pakistani listeners um it's such a complex topic um what's happening in that country especially with the Taliban taking over Afghanistan uh I believe this economic colonization is happening in pockets in Pakistan as well through China uh what's the 360 degree viewpoint see Pakistan's economy is not doing well typically if you see Pakistan is usually a weekend away from collapse the economy but it's always bailed out by the IMF or by China or by the US somebody keeps building Pakistan out from a scientific perspective what do you mean you see numbers go hitting a certain threshold Pakistan has a lot of debt it has to repay the debt and Pakistan's GDP output Etc is not very significant right and uh let's let's make this simpler when you say debt they've taken loans from a lot of different entities and they don't have many exports


lot of different entities and they don't have many exports they have very little expose they export almost nothing uh they don't produce much of value that's why that's what I mean that the annual GDP isn't significant at all it's not even a billion dollars as far as as far as I recall they have massive debts that they've taken from China from the World Bank from the IMF if I'm not mistaken maybe some other places as well right and the entire nation is run by an entity called the Pakistan Army it's not a democratic Nation typically every nation has an Army in this case you have an army that owns a nation right and the Army has controlling interest in various businesses across the country whatever is produced of value in the country typically serves to enrich the generals and not the nation not the people of Pakistan there are so many any of so many schisms in Pakistani Society whether it is religious schisms whether it is the brutal oppression of minorities whether it is the


brutal oppression of minorities whether it is the regional problems a place like Balochistan which is so rich in resources natural resources but none of those natural resources are the the value of that is none of it is reinvested in the in the province the people are dirt poor they're oppressed they have been forcibly annexed into Pakistan they had declared independence Mr Gina next Balochistan you have issues in the Northwest Frontier province in Khyber Patrol that is essentially historically it should be reunited with Afghanistan I mean because of the ethnic makeup of the region you have Sindh which has been for the longest time crying out for Independence GS in the movement they have issues all across the place so there are so many problems in Pakistan recently we had this catastrophic floods from which the country is still reeling yeah which has a like devastated the country I think more than half the country was under under water for for some point for some time and uh lots of people have lost


for some time and uh lots of people have lost their livelihoods their their houses their lives in some cases a lot of infrastructure has been washed away Bridges roads all that who's going to rebuild that but where does the money come from and then there's like you said the Chinese angle they own parts of Pakistan now they've essentially colonized parts of Pakistan Balochistan they have very strong presence there because of the the port the guadar port there they're building they have been building various infrastructure to Aid their geopolitical uh Ambitions through Pakistan through Pakistan occupied Kashmir as well and so on so there are all these problems in Pakistan how do I say Pakistan I see Pakistan as an artificially created nation which is temporary in nature the British created Pakistan to further geopolitical interest to ensure that India is always counterbalanced by this this hostile nation which has been created on religious grounds right then when the British Empire declined after 1956 the Americans took over and they started financing Pakistan for the same reasons for


they started financing Pakistan for the same reasons for the same great game that they were playing in the region they had a new impetus to Aid Pakistan after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan so that's when the entire terrorism business started right that the Americans were aiding were essentially terrorists Osama Bin Laden he was termed as a freedom fighter by the new know Washington Post New York Times one of the major American newspapers and Outlet right and the Americans essentially financed Pakistani terrorism in Afghanistan and India for a few decades until the first decade of the 21st century as well then after the withdrew from Afghanistan they no longer had much use of Pakistan that's when the Chinese angle came in and the Chinese started supporting the Pakistan Army so Pakistan how do I see it I see it as a temporary nation that has been created artificially it is a hotbed of terrorism it represents nothing good I have nothing against the people of Pakistan I wish them well I wish them peace and


Pakistan I wish them well I wish them peace and happiness and prosperity them and their children and future Generations but Pakistan needs to be dismantled Pakistan needs to be dismantled should go back into Afghanistan with the Afghan Homeland Balochistan should be made independent sins should be made independent Punjab Pakistani Punjab can be independent in the poked by the sun needs to return to India and then we will have peace once we have dealt with the Pakistani army and neutralize that evil proxy force of other nations and of course we'll have to deal with the nuclear angle as well because somebody has to uh neutralize those nukes that the pakistanis have so I have no animated with the people of Pakistan they are our people they are the same blood as us they have the same history the same ancestry is us they are our brothers and sisters I wish them well but Pakistan as a nation needs to be it's it it needs to be dealt with properly um yeah and again


to be dealt with properly um yeah and again when we're doing these Pakistan Center episodes Our intention is to never offend pakistanis but always trying to give 360 degree perspectives on DRS uh keeping that in mind so 2022 what's happening with the Taliban specifically I feel like probably more than the Indian military the Taliban is a threat to Pakistan right now and uh when I hung out with pakistanis in Dubai fantastic people and I've heard so many of them say that we love hanging out with Indians but when we're hanging out with Afghans there's always some cold energy there's a cold Vibe I don't know what that is historically but I mean I I have an idea through our podcast but what's happening there right now in September 2022 what's the impact of the Taliban on Pakistan or in just Afghanistan in general right so the Taliban took over power in Afghanistan in August 2021 and we had a podcast at the time about the matter so what they


podcast at the time about the matter so what they have done subsequently is they have Consolidated their Rule and their hold over the nation whatever uh problems were there in the country like opposition to them they essentially have more or less neutralized that and they their intention is to rule the nation the rule Afghanistan as they see fit as per Sharia law and it looks like most Afghans want that Afghans don't mind whatever law is there as long as there is law in order in relative peace prosperity may come later and they the Taliban seeks Indian help for that now when it comes to Afghanistan Pakistan relations there is a massive potential for problems because there is a massive border dispute left over from the British era right so when Maharaja Ranjit Singh uh created the Sikh Empire came to power there was a period of massive oppression in Northern India through the abdali Empire of Afghanistan they perpetrated horrific atrocities in Northern India in Kashmir all those regions when


in Northern India in Kashmir all those regions when Maharaja rajit Singh came to power he evicted the Afghans from Kashmir he freed the land and he evicted them from various parts of Punjab and he even conquered Pashto territories and that was the border of the Sikh Empire after Maharaja Ranjit Singh died the British very rapidly took over the Sikh Empire and that the border of the Maharaja Ranjit Singh's Empire was made the official border of India and Afghanistan by the British and then you had various uh uh problems as a cause of that but after the partition of Indian Pakistan that became the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan so a significant amount of question ethnicity ethnic territory became part of of Pakistan and that is the Schism between Pakistan and Afghanistan the Afghans seek to reunite the territory with their own country the people who live in in Northwest Frontier Province they wish to be reunited with their Brethren and sister in in


reunited with their Brethren and sister in in Afghanistan they do not feel like they are pakistanis Pakistan is dominated by just one one uh ethnic Community which is the punjabis the Pakistani punjabis and everybody else resents that so there is a simmering border dispute with between Afghanistan and Pakistan the Taliban are Pashto nationalists they were created by the Pakistani isi during Venus time and the isi always tried to put a religious angle on the Taliban right but the Taliban have morphed into a Pashto nationalists and they seek a redressal of the historical Grievances and that's why Pakistan and Afghanistan are not going to be friends every person knows that Pakistan Pakistan holds Pashto territory and that's why there are these cold Vibes and sometimes outright outbreaks of hostility environments between Afghans and and pakistanis so that's the deal um specifically about Afghanistan the Taliban what's happening in Afghanistan what's happening right now and do you think that


what's happening right now and do you think that talban is kind of looking outward very actively that's going to be our next thing to do other Taliban is still not powerful enough to actually do any damage to Pakistan the Pakistan Pakistan Army is very powerful compared compared to the the Taliban regime they have nukes and they have air force or helicopters the Taliban doesn't have any of that so the Taliban for the next decade I would say is they will want to consolidate their own Afghanistan they will want to enforce and bureaucratize the rules and laws and everything they have enforced a real law and whatever that would become like the de facto overall thing and uh they have modified the education system girls are maybe not allowed to study Beyond a certain level whatever there is a worldview it's for them to rule the country in whatever way they see fit I don't think that we have to tell them what to do it's their business let them do it so the


do it's their business let them do it so the Taliban are not powerful enough to actually pose a genuine challenge to Pakistan but there are border skirmishes there are border hostilities there is firing from both sides of the Border sometimes the Taliban takes over a Pakistani position sometimes the pakistanis retaliate with the Air Force because they have the superior power that's what's going on there's not going to be peace along that long piece of real estate and uh in the future who knows what can happen the Taliban have the asymmetric advantage of being Adept in Guerrilla tactics and in what you would call terrorism terrorist tactics they can do that they are very good at that they may in the future do that against Pakistan if the Pakistan is open too many hostilities and relations between India and Afghanistan are kind of warm that the Indian government has been trading Afghan military personnel even after the Taliban took over recently I saw a news report of an entire aircraft full of


a news report of an entire aircraft full of trained Afghan military personnel Landing in Kabul from India just a couple of months ago during the Taliban regime the Indian consulates Etc have been opened full security given by the Taliban even when Kabul fell in August last year Indians were not harmed not a single Indian was harmed everybody was given a a free uh passage to the airport and every Indian was allowed to go back to India unharmed and with full security so Taliban you know when this entire thing happened when the country fell to the Taliban most Indian observers were saying this is a disaster for India it's gonna create problems in Kashmir there's going to be an outbreak of terrorism nothing has happened nothing whatsoever the Taliban do not see India as an elimination they may not love India they will certainly not love India I certainly not love India it's a religious thing okay right but they hate Pakistan more than India and they have no


they hate Pakistan more than India and they have no enemity with India for the simple reason that India has invested so much in Afghanistan not in the sense of enriching Warlords and corrupt politicians but India has invested billions of dollars in projects that helped the ordinary men women and child in Afghanistan why long-term Goodwill and long term this we are now reaping the rewards of that geopolitically where is India geopolitically now September 2022 India is now recognized as a major power not a superpower but is a major regional power and one of the major powers in the world it is recognized this way grudgingly most most western Nations don't like it but they can no longer ignore the fact that India is now something that really matters and once India starts building a proper Navy it's gonna matter even more because we Overlook the entire massive real estate of the Indian Ocean that will happen that will happen we are now constructing various frigates missile boats submarines it's