Joe Rogan Experience #1226 - Mike Baker

Baker explains that agencies like the CIA are funded through classified lines buried inside the Defense Department budget, financing everything from the U‑2 program to current tech and intelligence operations that rarely see public scrutiny.

He argues that when senior officials publish memoirs revealing sensitive history, it implicitly encourages lower-level operators and SEALs to write tell-all books, weakening the traditional ‘silent professional’ ethos and risking sources and methods.

Baker is ambivalent about endless deployments but stresses that a rapid withdrawal would leave Kurdish partners exposed to Turkish attack and likely allow ISIS to morph and reconstitute, repeating post-Iraq mistakes.

He frames Huawei and Chinese cyber-espionage as deliberate tools in a state strategy to control information infrastructure globally, including embedding telecom hardware in NATO allies’ systems to gain access to Western communications.

Baker notes that anti-satellite and cyber capabilities can blind or cripple an opponent’s communications and surveillance, making initiatives like a ‘Space Force’ less absurd when viewed in the context of Chinese and Russian investments in these areas.