Andrew Bustamante: CIA Spy | Lex Fridman Podcast #310

Andrew Bustamante 0:00 Mossad will do anything. Mossad has no qualms doing what it takes to ensure the survival of every Israeli citizen around the world. Most other countries will stop at some point, but Mossad doesn't do that.

Lex Fridman 0:17 The following is a conversation with Andrew Bustamante, former CIA covert intelligence officer and US Air Force combat veteran, including the job of operational targeting, encrypted communications, and launch operations for 200 nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles. Andrew's over seven years as a CIA spy have given him a skill set and a perspective on the world that is fascinating to explore. This is the Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Andrew Bustamante.

Lex Fridman 0:56 The Central Intelligence Agency was formed almost 75 years ago. What is the mission of the CIA? How does it work?

Andrew Bustamante 1:04 The mission of the CIA is to collect intelligence from around the world that supports a national security mission and be the central repository for all other intelligence agencies so that it's one collective source where all intelligence can be synthesized and then passed forward to the decision-makers.

Lex Fridman 1:23 That doesn't include domestic intelligence. It's primarily looking outward, outside the United States.

Andrew Bustamante 1:29 Correct. CIA is the foreign intelligence, uh, collection, uh, kingspoke, if you will. FBI does domestic and then Department of Homeland Security does domestic. Law enforcement essentially handles all things domestic. Uh, intelligence is not law enforcement, so we technically cannot work inside the United States.

Lex Fridman 1:50 Is there clear lines to be drawn between, like you just said, the FBI... CIA, FBI, and the other US intelligence agencies like the DIA, Defense Intelligence Agency, Department of Homeland Security, NSA, National Security Ag- Agency, and, and there's a list, there's a list of-

Andrew Bustamante 2:08 There's a list of about 33 different intelligence organizations. Yeah, you're exactly right.

Lex Fridman 2:11 So like the Army, the Navy has a, all, all the different organizations have their own intelligence groups. So is there, is there clear lines here to be drawn? Or is the CIA the, the giant integrator of all of these?

Andrew Bustamante 2:23 Uh, it's a little bit of both, to be honest. So yes, there are absolutely lines, and more so than the lines, there are lines that divide what our primary mission is. Everything's gotta be prioritized. That's one of the benefits and the s- and the super powers of the United States, is we prioritize everything. So different intelligence organizations are prioritized to collect certain types of intelligence. And then within the confines of how they collect, they're also given unique authorities. Authorities are a term that's directed by the executive branch. Different agencies have different authorities to execute missions in different ways. FBI can't execute the same way CIA executes, and CIA can't execute the same way NGA, uh, ex- executes. But then at the end, (clears throat) excuse me, when it's all collected, then yes, CIA still acts as a final synthesizing repository to create what's known as the President's Daily Brief, the PDB. The only way CIA can create the PDB is by being the single s- source of all source intelligence from around the IC, the inter- the intelligence community, which are those 30 some odd and always changing, uh, organizations that are sponsored for intelligence operations.

Lex Fridman 3:36 What is the PDB, the President's Daily Brief look like? How long is it? What does it contain?

Andrew Bustamante 3:40 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 3:41 Uh, is it-

Andrew Bustamante 3:41 So first of all, it looks like the most expensive book report you can ever imagine. It's got its own binder. It's all very high-end. It feels important. It looks important. It's not like a cheap Trapper Keeper. Um, it's somewhere between, I would give it probably between 50 and 125 pages a day. It's produced every day around 2:00 in the morning by a dedicated group of analysts, and, uh, and each page is essentially w- a, a short paragraph to a few paragraphs about a priority happening that affects national security from around the world. The president rarely gets to the entire briefing in a day. He relies on a briefer instead to prioritize what inside the briefing needs to be shared with the president, 'cause some days the PDB will get briefed in 10 minutes and some days it'll be briefed over the course of two hours. It depends on the president's schedule.

Lex Fridman 4:32 How much competition is there for the first page? And, uh, so, uh, w- how much jockeying there is for attention, uh, for g- I, I imagine for all the different intelligence agencies, and within the CIA, there's probably different groups that are modular and they're all care about different nations or different, uh, cases, and h- how... Is there... Do you understand (sighs) how much competition there is for the attention, for the limited attention of the president?

Andrew Bustamante 5:01 You're 100% correct in how the agency and how officers and managers at the agency handle the PDB. There's a ton of competition. Everybody wants to be the first on the radar. Everybody wants to be on the first page. The thing that we're not baking into the equation is the president's interests. The president dictates what's on the first page of his PDB, and he will tell them usually the day before, "I wanna see this on the first page tomorrow. Bring this to me in the beginning. I, I don't wanna hear about what's happening in Mozambique. I don't really care about what's happening in Saudi Arabia. I wanna see one, two, three." And regardless of whether or not those are the three biggest things in the world, the president's the executive. He's the one. He's the ultimate customer. So we do what the custo- what the customer says. That has backfired in the past. If you haven't already started seeing how that could go wrong, (laughs) that has backfired in the past, but that is essentially what happens when you serve in the executive branch. You serve the executive.

Lex Fridman 5:55 So what's the role, the director of the CIA versus the president? What's that dance like? So the, the president really leads......the focus of the CIA?

Andrew Bustamante 6:06 The president is the commander-in-chief for the military. But the ch- the executive, the president is also the executive for the entirety of the intelligence community. So he's the c- the ultimate customer. If you look at it like a business, the customer, the person spending the money is the president, and the director is the CEO. So if the s- if the director doesn't create what the president wants, there's gonna be a new director. That's why the director of CIA is a presidential appointed position. Sometimes they're extremely qualified intelligence professionals, sometimes they're just professional politicians or soldiers that get put into that seat because the president trusts them to do what he wants them to do, another, uh, gaping area that causes problems, but that's still the way it is.

Lex Fridman 6:54 So you think this is a problematic configuration of the whole system or-

Andrew Bustamante 6:58 Massive flaw in the system. It is a massive flaw in the system because if you're essentially appointing a director to do what you want them to do, then you're assigning a crony, and that's what we define corruption as within the United States. And inside the United States, we say, "If you pick somebody outside of merit, for any other reason other than merit, then it's cronyism or it's nepotism." Here, that's exactly what our structure is built on. All presidential appointees are appointed on something other than merit.

Lex Fridman 7:25 So for an intelligence agency to be effective, it has to discover the truth and communicate that truth. And maybe if you're appointing the director of that agency, you're not, they're less likely to communicate the truth to you unless the truth aligns perfectly with your desired world view.

Andrew Bustamante 7:41 Well, not necessarily perfectly because there are other steps, right? They have to be a, they have to go in front of Congress and they have to have the support of, of multiple legislatures, uh, or legislators. But they, they're, th- the challenge is that the short list of people who even get the opportunity aren't a meritorious list. It's a short list based off of who the president is picking or who the would-be president is picking. Now I think we've proven that an intelligence organization can be ex- an intelligence organization can be extremely effective even within the flawed system.

Lex Fridman 8:12 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 8:13 The challenge is how much more effective could we be if we improved? And that's, I think that's the challenge that faces a lot of the US government. I think that's a challenge that has resulted in what we see today when it comes to the decline of American power and American influence, the rise of foreign influence, the ty- uh, authoritarian powers, um, and a s- a shrinking US economy, a growing Chinese economy, and it's just we have questions, hard questions we need to ask ourselves about how we're gonna handle the future.

Lex Fridman 8:45 What aspect of that communication between the president and the CIA could be fixed to, to help, um, fix the problems that you're referring to in terms of the decline of American power?

Andrew Bustamante 8:57 So when you talk about the president wanting to prioritize what the president cares about, that immediately shows a, a break between what actually matters to the long-term success of the United States versus what happen, what benefits the short-term success of the current president.

Lex Fridman 9:16 Because any president is just a human being and has a very narrow focus. A narrow focus is not a long-term calculation.

Andrew Bustamante 9:24 Exactly. What's the maximum amount of years a president can be president? Eight.

Lex Fridman 9:28 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 9:29 He has to be re- he or she.

Lex Fridman 9:30 In the United States.

Andrew Bustamante 9:31 (laughs) In the United States, according to our current Constitution.

Lex Fridman 9:34 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 9:35 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 9:36 (laughs)

Andrew Bustamante 9:36 But they, they're very limited, uh, in terms of what they have to prioritize. And then, uh, if you look at a four-year cycle, two years of that is essentially preparing for the next election cycle. So that's only two years of really quality attention you get from the president, who is the chief executive of all the intelligence community. So the most important thing to them is not always the most important thing to the long-term survival of the United States.

Lex Fridman 10:00 What do you make of the hostile relationship that, to me, at least, stands out of the presidents between Donald Trump and the CIA? Was that a very kind of a personal bickering ... I mean, is there something interesting to you about the dynamics between that particular president and that particular instantiation of the intelligence agency?

Andrew Bustamante 10:19 Man, there were lots of things fascinating to me about that, that relationship. So first-

Lex Fridman 10:24 What's the good and the bad? Sorry to interrupt.

Andrew Bustamante 10:26 So let me start with the good first 'cause there's a lot of people who don't think there was any good. So the good thing is we saw that the president, who's the chief customer, the executive to the CIA, when the president doesn't want to hear what CIA has to say, he's not gonna listen. I think that's an important lesson for everyone to, to take home. If the president doesn't care what you have to say, he's gonna take funding away or she will take funding away. They're gonna take attention away. They're going, they're going to shut down your operations, your missions. They're gonna kill the careers of the people working there. Think about that. For the four years that President Trump was the president, basically everybody at CIA, their career was put on a pause. Some people's careers were ended. Some people voluntarily left their career there because they found themselves working for a single customer that didn't want what they had to produce.

Lex Fridman 11:22 So for people who don't know, uh, Donald Trump did not display significant, deep interest in the output. Uh, he-

Andrew Bustamante 11:29 He did not trust it. Yeah.

Lex Fridman 11:30 He was a disinterested customer...

Andrew Bustamante 11:32 Exactly right. He, he-

Lex Fridman 11:33 ...of the information. (laughs)

Andrew Bustamante 11:34 And then what do disinterested customers do? They go find someone else to create their product. And that's exactly what Donald Trump did, and he did it through the private intelligence world, funding private intelligence companies to run their own operations that brought him the information he cared about when CIA wouldn't. It also didn't help that CIA stepped outside of their confines, right? CIA is supposed to collect foreign intelligence and not comment on domestic matters. They went way outside of that, uh, when they started challenging the president, when they started questioning the results, when they started, uh, publicly-... claiming Russian influence, that's all something the FBI could have handled by itself, the Justice Department could have handled by itself. CIA had no place to contribute to that conversation, and when they did, all they did was undermine the relationship they had with their primary customer.

Lex Fridman 12:21 Let me sort of focus in on this relationship, uh, between the president or the leader and the intelligence agency, and look outside the United States.

Lex Fridman 12:34 It seems like authoritarian regimes or regimes throughout history, if you look at Stalin and Hitler, if you look at today with Vladimir Putin, the negative effects of power corrupting the mind of a leader, uh, manifests itself is that they start to get bad information from the intelligence agencies. So th- this kind of thing that you're talking about, over time, they start hearing information they wanna, they want to hear. The agency starts producing only, um, the kind of information they want to hear, and their, the leader's worldview starts becoming distorted to where the propaganda they generate is also the thing that the intelligence agencies provide to them. And so they start getting this, they start believing their own propaganda and they start getting a distorted view of the world. Sorry for this sort of, uh-

Andrew Bustamante 13:25 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 13:26 ... walking through in a weird way, but I guess I wanna ask, do you think, let's look at Vladimir Putin specifically, do you think he's getting accurate information about the world? Do you think he knows the truth of the world, whether that's the war in Ukraine, whether that's the behavior of the other nations in NATO, the United States in general? What do you think?

Andrew Bustamante 13:49 It's rare that I'll talk about just thinking. It's, I, I prefer to share my assessment, why I assess things a certain way, rather than just what's my random opinion. In my assessment, Vladimir Putin is winning. Russia is winning. They're winning in Ukraine, but they're also winning the battle of influence against the West, they're winning in the face of economic sanctions, they're winning. Empirically, when you look at the math, they're winning. So when you ask me whether or not Putin is getting good information from his intelligence services, when I look at my overall assessment of multiple data points, he must be getting good information. Do I know how or why? I do not. I don't know how or why it works there. I don't know how such deep cronyism, such deep corruption can possibly yield true real results, and yet somehow there are real results happening. So it's either excessive waste and an accidental win, or there really is a system and a process there that's functioning.

Lex Fridman 14:50 So this winning idea is very interesting. In what way, short term and long term, is Russia winning? Some people say there was a miscalculation of the way the invasion happened. Uh, there was an assumption that you would be able to successfully take Kiev, you'd be able to successfully capture the east, the south, and the north of Ukraine, and with what now appears to be significantly insufficient troops, spread way too thin across way too large of a front. So that seems to be, like, an intelligence failure, and, uh, and that doesn't seem to be, like, winning. In another way it doesn't seem like winning, if we put aside the human cost of war, it doesn't seem like winning because the hearts and minds of the West were completely on the side of Ukraine. This particular leader in Volodymyr Zelensky captured the attention of the world and the hearts and minds of Europe, the West, and many other nations throughout the world, both financially, in terms of military equipment, and in terms of sort of social and cultural and emotional support for the independence fight of this nation. That seems to be like a miscalculation. S- so against that pushback, why do you think there's still kernels of, uh, winning in this on the Russian side?

Andrew Bustamante 16:20 What you're laying out isn't incorrect, and the miscalculations are not unexpected. Anybody who's been to a military college, including the Army War College in Pennsylvania where so many of our military leaders, uh, are brought up, when you look at the conflict in Ukraine, it fits the exact mold of what an effective long-term military conflict, protracted military conflict, would and should look like for military dominance. Now, did Zelensky and did the, did the Ukrainians shock the world? Absolutely. But in that, they also shocked American intelligence, which, like you said, miscalculated. The whole world miscalculated how the Ukrainians would respond. Putin did not move in there accidentally. He had an assessment, he had high likelihood of a certain outcome, and that outcome did not happen. Why did he have that calculation? Because in 2014, it worked. He invaded, uh, he took Crimea in, in 14 days, he basically created, uh, a, uh, an infiltration campaign that turned key leaders over in the first few days of the conflict. So essentially there was no conflict. It worked in 2008 when he took Georgia. Nobody talks about that. He invaded Georgia the exact same s- same way and it worked. So in 2008 it worked, in 2014 it worked, there was no reason to believe it wasn't going to work again. So he just carried out the same campaign. But this time, something was different. That was a miscalculation, for sure, on the part of Putin, and the reason that there was no support from the West... 'cause let's not forget, there is no support. There is nothing other than the Lend Lease Act, which is putting r- Ukraine in massive debt right now to the West. That's the only form of support they're getting from NATO or the United States.... so if somebody believed Ukraine would win, if somebody believed Ukraine had a chance, they would have gotten more material support than just debt. And we can jump into that anytime you want to. But the whole world miscalculated, everybody thought Russia was going to win in 14 days. I- I said that they would win in 14 days because that was the predominant calculation. Once the first invasion didn't work, then the military does what professional militaries do, man, they- they re-evaluate, they re-or- reorganize leaders, and then they cha- they take a new approach. You saw three approaches. The first two did not work. The first two campaigns against Ukraine did not work the way they were supposed to work. The third has worked exactly like it's supposed to work. You don't need Kiev to win Ukraine, you don't need hearts and minds to win Ukraine. What you need-

Lex Fridman 18:57 What's the third then?

Andrew Bustamante 18:57 Yeah, what you need is control of- of natural resources, which they're taking in the east, and you need access to the heartbeat, the- the blood flow of food and money into the country, which they're taking in the south. The fact that Ukraine had to go to the negotiation table with Russia and Turkey in order to get exports out of the Black Sea approved again demonstrates just how much Ukraine is losing. The- the aggressor had a seat at the negotiation table to allow Ukraine the ability to even export one of its top exports. If Russia would have said no, then they would not have had that. Russia has... That's like someone holding your throat, it's like somebody holding your jugular vein and saying, "If- if you don't do what I tell you to do, then I'm not gonna let you breathe, or I'm not gonna let blood flow to your brain."

Lex Fridman 19:50 So do you think it's possible that Russia takes the south of Ukraine, it takes, um... So starting from Mariupol, the Kherson region...

Andrew Bustamante 20:03 All the way to Odesa.

Lex Fridman 20:04 All the way to Odesa.

Andrew Bustamante 20:05 And into- into, uh, Moldova. I believe all of that will happen before the fall.

Lex Fridman 20:12 The fall of this year?

Andrew Bustamante 20:13 The fall of this year. Before winter hits Europe, NATO wants, Germany needs to be able to have sanctions lifted so they can tap into Russian power. There's no way they can have those sanctions lifted unless Russia wins, and Russia also knows that all of Europe, all of NATO is the true- the true people feeling the pain of the war outside of Ukraine are the NATO countries because they're so heavily reliant on Russia and as they have supported American sanctions against Russia, their people feel the pain. Economically, their people feel the pain. What are they gonna do in the winter? Because without Russian gas, their- their people are gonna freeze to death.

Lex Fridman 20:56 Ukrainian people?

Andrew Bustamante 20:58 People all over NATO. I... U- Ukraine, everybody knows Ukraine's at risk, everybody knows Ukrainians are dying. The game of war isn't played just, it isn't even played majoritively by the people who are fighting. The game of war is played by everyone else. It's an economic game, it's not a military game.

Lex Fridman 21:16 The flow of resources and energy, attention-

Andrew Bustamante 21:19 Exactly right.

Lex Fridman 21:21 I was on the front, in the Kherson region, this very area that you're referring to and I spoke to a lot of people and those, the morale is incredibly high and I don't think the people in that region, soldiers, vol- volunteer soldiers, civilians, are going to give up that land without dying.

Andrew Bustamante 21:47 I agree with you.

Lex Fridman 21:48 I mean, in order to take Odesa, it would require h- huge amount of ar- artillery and slaughter of civilians essentially.

Andrew Bustamante 22:00 They're not gonna use artillery in Odesa because Odesa's too important to Russian culture. Um, it's gonna be even uglier than that. It's going to be clearing of streets, clearing of buildings, person by person, troop by troop. It'll be a lot like what it was in Mariupol.

Lex Fridman 22:16 Just shooting at civilians?

Andrew Bustamante 22:18 Because they can't afford to just do bombing raids, because they're gonna destroy cultural, uh, significant architecture that's just too important to the Russian culture, and that's gonna demoralize their own Russian people.

Lex Fridman 22:29 I have to do a lot of thinking to try to understand what I even feel. I- I don't know, but... In terms of information, the thing that the soldiers are saying, the- the Russian soldiers are saying, the thing the Russian soldiers really believe is that they're freeing, they're liberating the Ukrainian people from Nazis.

Andrew Bustamante 22:52 Mm.

Lex Fridman 22:54 And they believe this. They...

Andrew Bustamante 22:56 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 22:56 Because I visited Ukraine, I spoke to over a 100, probably a couple of 100 Ukrainian people from different walks of life. It feels like the Russian soldiers at least ar- under a cloud of propaganda. They're not operating on a clear view of the whole world, and, uh, given all that, I just don't see Russia taking the south without committing war crimes, and if Vladimir Putin is aware of what's happening in terms of the treatment of civilians, I don't see him pushing forward all the way to take the south because that's not going to be, um, effective strategy for him to win the hearts and minds of these people.

Andrew Bustamante 23:54 Autocracies don't need to win hearts and minds. That's a staunchly democratic point of view. Hearts and minds mean very little to people who understand core basic needs and, uh, and-...true power. You don't see Xi Jinping worrying about hearts and minds in China. You don't see, uh, you don't see it in North Korea. You don't see it in the, in Congo. You don't see it in most of the world. Hearts and minds are a luxury. In reality, what people need is food, water, power. They need income to be able to secure a lifestyle. It's, it is absolutely sad. I am not, in any way, shape, or s- uh, form, saying that my assessment on this is, is enriching or enlightening or, or, uh, hopeful. It's just fact. It's just calculatable, empirical evidence. If Putin loses in Ukraine, the losses, the influential losses, the economic losses, the lives lost, the power lost, is too great. So it is better for him to push and push and push through war crimes, through everything else. War crimes are something defined by the international court system. The international court system has Russia as part of its board. And the international court system is largely powerless outs- when it comes to enforcing its own outcomes. So the real risk/gain scenario here for, for Russia is, is, is significantly in favor of gain over risk. The other thing that I think is important to talk about is we, everybody is trapped in the middle of a gigantic information war. Yes, there's battlefield bullets and cannons and tanks. But there's also a massive inf- informational war. The same narrative that you see these ground troops in Ukraine, these Russian ground troops in Ukraine believing they're clearing the land of Nazis, that information is being fed to them from their own home country. I don't know why people seem to think that the information that they're reading in English is any more or less true. The enti- every piece of news coming out of the West, every piece of information coming out in the English language is also a giant narrative, being shared intentionally to try to undermine the mor- the morale and the faithfulness of English-speaking Russians, which somebody somewhere knows exactly how many of those there are. So we have to recognize that we're not getting true information from other side, because there is a strategic value in making sure that there is just the right amount of mis or disinformation out there. Not because someone's trying to lie to Americans, but because someone is trying to influence the way English-speaking Russians think. And in that world, that's exactly why you see so many news, uh, articles cited to anonymous sources, government officials who do not want to be named. There's no, nothing that links back responsibility there, right? There's nothing that can go to court there. Uh, but this, the information still gets released, and that's, that's enough to make Ukrainians believe that the United States is gonna help them, or that the West is gonna help them. It's enough to make Russians think that, that they're going to lose, and maybe they should just un- they should just give up now and leave from the battlefield now. We have to understand, we are in the middle of a giant information war.

Lex Fridman 27:24 Maybe you can correct me, but it feels like in the English-speaking world, it's harder to control, it's harder to, to fight the information war, because of, you know, some people say there's not really a freedom of speech in this country, but I think, uh, if you compare, there's a lot more freedom of speech, and it's just harder to control narratives when there's a bunch of, um, guerrilla journalists that are able...

Andrew Bustamante 27:49 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 27:49 ...to just publish anything they want on Twitter or any- anything. It's just harder to control narratives.

Andrew Bustamante 27:54 So people don't understand what freedom of speech is. That's the first major problem. And it's, it's shameful how many people in the United States do not understand what freedom of speech actually protects. So that aside, you're absolutely right. Fighting the information war in the West is extremely difficult, because anyone with a blog, anyone with a Twitter account, anyone, I mean, anyone can call themselves a journalist, essentially. We live in a world, we live in a country where people read the headline and they completely bypass the author line, and they go straight into the content, and then they decide whether the content's real or not based on how they feel, instead of based on empirical, measurable evidence.

Lex Fridman 28:35 So you mentioned the Lend Lease Act and the support of the United States, support of Ukraine by the United States. Are you skeptical to the level of support that the United States is providing and is going to provide over, over time?

Andrew Bustamante 28:50 The strategy that the United States has taken to support Ukraine is similar to the strategy we took to support Great Britain during World War II. Uh, the, the enactment of the Lend Lease Act is a perfect example of that. The Lend Lease Act means that we are lending or leasing equipment to the Ukrainian government in exchange for future payment. So every time a rocket is launched, every time a drone crashes into a tank, that's, that's a bill that Ukraine is, is just racking up. It's like when you go to a restaurant and you start drinking shots. Sometime the bill will come due. This is exactly what we did when, uh, Europe and when Great Britain was in the face of, uh, Nazi invasion, we signed the same thing into, into motion. Do you know that, that the UK did not pay off the debt from World War II until 2020? They've been paying that debt since the end of World War II. So what we're doing is we're indebting Ukraine against the promise that perhaps they will secure their freedom, which nobody seems to want to talk about what freedom is actually gonna look like for Ukrainians, right? What are the true handful of outcomes, the realistic outcomes that could come of this, and what, which of those outcomes really looks like freedom to them? Uh, especially in the face of the fact that they're going to be trillions of dollars in debt to the West for supplying them with the training and the weapons and the food and the med kits and everything else that we're giving them, because noth- none of it's free. It's all coming due. It's all, "We're a democracy, but we're also..."...a capitalist country. We, we can't afford to just give things away for free, but we can give things away at a discount, we can give things a- away layaway, but the, the bill will come due. And unfortunately, that is not part of the conversation that's being had with the American people.

Lex Fridman 30:33 So, debt is a way to establish some level of control.

Andrew Bustamante 30:37 Power.

Lex Fridman 30:38 It's power. That said, having a, a very close relationship between Ukraine and the United States does not seem to be a, uh, um, a negative possibility, when Ukrainians think about their future in terms of freedom. That's one thing, and, uh, the other, there's some aspect of this war that I- I've just noticed, that, um, one of the people I talked to said that, uh, all great nations, uh, have a independence war.

Andrew Bustamante 31:08 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 31:08 Have to have a war for their independence. In order, there's something, it's dark, but there's something about war just being a catalyst for finding your own identity as a nation. So you can have leaders, you can have sort of signed documents, you can have all this kind of stuff, but there's something about war that really brings the country together, and actually try to figure out what is at the core of the spirit of the people that defines this country, and they see this war as that, as the independence war to define the heart of what the country is. So, there's a- there's been, before the war, before this invasion, there was, uh, a lot of factions in the country. There was, um, a lot of, uh, influence from oligarchs and corruption and so on. A lot of that was the factions were brought together under one umbrella, uh, effectively, to become one nation because of this invasion. So they see that as a positive direction for the de- defining of what a free democratic country looks like after the war. At- in their perspective, after the war is won.

Andrew Bustamante 32:14 It's a difficult situation, because I'm trying to make sure that, that you and all, everybody listening understands that what's happening in Ukraine, among Ukrainians, is noble and brave and courageous, and beyond the expectations of anyone. The fact is, there is no material support coming from the outside. The American in- the American Revolution was won because of French involvement, French ships, French troops, French generals, French military might. The independence of, of, uh, Communist China was won through Russian support, Russian generals, Russian troops on the ground fighting with the communists. That's how revolutions are won. That's how independent countries are born. Ukraine doesn't get any of that. Th- no one is stepping into that, because we live in a world right now where there simply is no economic benefit to the parties in power to support Ukraine to that level. And war is a game of economics. The economic benefit of Ukraine is crystal clear in favor of Russia, which is why Putin cannot lose. He will not let himself lose. Uh, short of something completely unexpected, right? I'm talking 60%, 70% probability Ukraine loses, but there's still 20%, 30% probability of the unimaginable happening. Who knows what that might be? An oligarch assassinates Putin, or a nuclear bomb goes off somewhere, or who knows what, right? There's still a chance that something unexpected will happen and, and change the tide of the war. But when it comes down to the core calculus here, Ukraine is the agricultural bed to support a future Russia. Russia knows, they know they have to have Ukraine. They know that they have to have it to protect themselves against military pressure from the West, they have to have it for agricultural reasons, they have major, uh, oil and natural gas pipelines that flow through eastern Ukraine. They s- they cannot let Ukraine fall outside of their sphere of influence. They cannot. The United States doesn't really have any economic vested interest in Ukraine. Ideologics, uh, you know, ideological points of view and promises aside, there's no economic benefit. And the same thing goes for NATO. NATO has no economic investment in Ukraine. Ukrainian output, Ukrainian, uh, uh, food goes to the Middle East and Africa. It doesn't go to Europe. So the whole, the, the side, the West siding with Ukraine is exclusively ideological, and it's putting them in a place where they fight a war with Russia so the whole world can see Russia's capabilities. Ukraine is a, as sad as it is to say, man, Ukraine is a pawn on a table for superpowers to calculate each other's capacities. Right now, we've only talked about Russia and the United States. We haven't even talked about Iran, we haven't even talked about China, right? It is a pawn on a table. This is a chicken fight so that people get to watch and see what the other trainers are doing.

Lex Fridman 35:29 Well, a lot of people might have said the same thing about the United States back in the in- the independence fight, so there is, there is possibilities, as you've said. We're not, uh, saying 0% chance, and it could be a reasonably high percent chance that this becomes one of the great democratic nations that the 21st century is remembered by.

Andrew Bustamante 35:50 Absolutely.

Lex Fridman 35:50 And so, um, you said American support, so ideologically, first of all, you don't assign much long-term power to that, that US could support Ukraine purely on ideological grounds.

Andrew Bustamante 36:09 Just look in the last four years, the last three years. Do you remember what happened in Hong Kong right before COVID? China swooped into Hong Kong, violently-...beating protestors, killing them in the street, imprisoning people without just- without just cause. And Hong Kong was a democracy. And the whole world stood by and let it happen. And then what happened in Afghanistan just a year ago? And the whole world stood by and let the Taliban take power again, after 20 years of loss. This, we are showing a repeatable point of view. We will talk. American politicians, American administrations, we will say a lot of things, we will promise a lot of ideological, pro-democracy, rah-rah statements. We will say it. But when it comes down to putting our own people, our own economy, our own GDP at risk, we step away from that fight.

Lex Fridman 37:09 America is currently supplying military equipment to Ukraine.

Andrew Bustamante 37:13 Absolutely.

Lex Fridman 37:13 And a lot of that military equipment has actually been the thing that turned the tides of war, uh, a couple of times already. Currently, that's the Highmar systems. So you mentioned sort of Putin can't afford to lose, but winning can look a different way.

Andrew Bustamante 37:30 Correct.

Lex Fridman 37:30 So you've kind of defined so on... At- at this moment, um, the prediction is that winning looks like capturing not just the east, but the south of Ukraine. But you could have narratives of winning that return back to the, uh, what was it? The beginning of this year, before the invasion.

Andrew Bustamante 37:49 Correct.

Lex Fridman 37:50 That Crimea is still with Russia, there is some kind of negotiated thing about Donbas where it still stays with Ukraine, but it, there is some-

Andrew Bustamante 37:59 Puppet government, or-

Lex Fridman 38:00 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 38:00 ...yeah, just like-

Lex Fridman 38:01 Something like-

Andrew Bustamante 38:01 ...that's what they have in Georgia right now.

Lex Fridman 38:03 And that could still be defined through mechanisms-

Andrew Bustamante 38:07 As Russia winning.

Lex Fridman 38:08 ...as Russia winning for Russia, and then for Ukraine, as Ukraine winning. Uh, and, and for the West, as, uh, democracy winning, and you kind of ne- negotiate. I mean, that seems to be how geopolitics works is-

Andrew Bustamante 38:22 Correct.

Lex Fridman 38:22 ...everybody can walk away with a win-win story, and then the world progresses-

Andrew Bustamante 38:27 Correct.

Lex Fridman 38:28 ...with, with lessons learned.

Andrew Bustamante 38:29 That's the high likely. That's the most probable outcome. The most probable outcome is that Ukraine remains, in air quotes, a "sovereign" nation. It's not going to be truly sovereign, because it will become, it will, uh, have to have new government put in place. Zelensky will, it's extremely unlikely he will be president, because he has gone too far to demonstrate his power over the people and his ability to separate the Ukrainian people from the, uh, autocratic power of Russia. So he would have to be, uh, unseated. Whether he goes into exile or whether he is peacefully left alone is all gonna be part of the negotiations. But the thing, the thing to keep in mind also is that a negotiated peace really just means a negotiated cease fire. We've seen this happen all over the world. North Korea and South Korea are technically still just in negotiated cease power. What you end up having is Russia will allow Ukraine to call itself Ukraine, to operate independently, to have their own debt to the United States. Russia doesn't want to take on that debt. Uh, and then, in exchange for that, they will have firmer guidelines as to how NATO can engage with Ukraine. And then that becomes an example for all the other former Soviet satellite states, which are all required economically by Russia, not required economically by the West. And then you end up seeing how it just, you can see how the whole thing plays out once you realize that the keystone is Ukraine.

Lex Fridman 40:00 There is something about Ukraine, the deep support by the Ukrainian people of America, that is in contrast with, for example, Afghanistan. That it seems like, ideologically, Ukraine could be a beacon of freedom used in narratives by the United States to fight geopolitical wars in that part of the world, that they would be a good partner for this idea of democracy, of freedom, uh, of all the values that America stands for. They're a good partner. And then so it's valuable if you sort of have a cynical pragmatic view-

Andrew Bustamante 40:38 (laughs) .

Lex Fridman 40:38 ...sort of like Henry Kissinger type of view, it's valuable to have them as a partner, so valuable that it makes sense to support them in achieving a negotiated cease fire that's on the side of Ukraine. But because of this particular leader, this particular culture, this particular dynamics of how the war unrolled, and things like Twitter and the way digital communication currently works, it just seems like this is a powerful symbol of freedom that's useful for the United States, if we're sort of to take the pragmatic view. Don't you think it, it's possible that, uh, United States supports Ukraine financially, militarily enough for it to get an advantage in this war?

Andrew Bustamante 41:25 I think they've already got an advantage in the war. The fact that the war is still going on demonstrates the asymmetrical advantage. The fact that Russia has stepped up to the negotiating table with them several times without just turning to Chechen, Che- I mean, you remember what happened in Chechnya. Without turning to Chechnya levels, just mass blind destruction, which was another Putin war. To see that those things have happened demonstrates the asymmetric advantage that the West is given. I think the, the true way to look at the benefit of Ukraine as a, uh, a shining example of freedom in Europe for the West isn't to understand whether or not they could. They absolutely could. It's the question of how valuable is that in Europe? How valuable is Ukraine? Which before January, before February, nobody even thought about Ukraine, and the people who did know about Ukraine knew that it was a extremely corrupt former Soviet state.... with 20% of its national population self-identifying as Russian. Like, U- there's a reason Putin went into Ukraine. There's a reason he's been promising he would go into Ukraine for the better part of a decade, because th- the circumstances were aligned. It was a corrupt country that self-identified as Russian in many ways. It was a, it was supposed to be an easier of multiple marks in terms of the former Soviet satellite states to go after. That's all part of the miscalculation that the rest of the world saw too, when we thought it would fall quickly. So to think that it could be a shining h- a shining example of freedom is accurate. But is it as shining a star as Germany? Is it as shining a star as the UK? Is it as shining a star as Romania? Is it as shining a star as, uh, as France? Like, it's got a lot of demo- democratic freedom based countries in Europe to compete against to be the shi- the shining stellar example. And in exchange, uh, on counterpoint to that, it has an extreme amount of strategic value to Russia, which has no interest in making it a shining star of the example of, of democracy and freedom.

Lex Fridman 43:38 Outside of resource, in terms of the shininess of the star, I would argue yes, if you look at how much it captivated the attention of the world.

Andrew Bustamante 43:46 The attention of the world has made no material difference, man. That's what I'm saying.

Lex Fridman 43:50 Well, th- that's your estimation, but you... A- are you sure we can, we can't, um... If you can convert that into political influence, into money, don't you think attention is money?

Andrew Bustamante 44:03 Attention is money in democracies and capitalist countries, yes.

Lex Fridman 44:08 Which serves as a counterweight to sort of authoritarian regimes. So for, for Putin, resources matter. For the United States, also resources matter, but the attention and, uh, the belief of the people also matter, because y- that's how you attain and maintain political power.

Andrew Bustamante 44:24 So going to that exact example, then I would highlight that our current administration has the lowest approval ratings of any president in history. So if people were very fond of the war going on in Ukraine, wouldn't that counterbalance some of our upset, some of the dissent coming from the economy and some of the dissent coming from, from the, the Great Recession and, or the second great, or the great resignation in whatever's happening with the draw, with the down stock market? You would think that people would feel like they're sacrificing for something, if they really believed that Ukraine mattered, that they would s- they would stand next to the president who is, who is so staunchly driving and leading the West against this conflict.

Lex Fridman 45:06 Well, I think the opposition to this particular president, I personally believe, has less to do with the policies and more to do with a lot of the other human factors. Uh, uh, and-

Andrew Bustamante 45:19 But again, empirically, this is... I look at things through a very empirical lens, a very, a very cold fact-based lens. And there are multiple data points that suggest that the American people ideologically sympathize with Ukraine, but they really just want their gas prices to go down. They really just want to be able to pay less money at the grocery store for their food. And they most definitely don't want their sons and daughters to die in exchange for Ukrainian freedom.

Lex Fridman 45:46 It does hurt me to see the politicization of this war as well. I think that has, that's, maybe has to do with the kind of calculation you're referring to. But it seems like it doesn't. It seems like there's a cynical, whatever takes attention of the media for the moment, the, the red team chooses one side and the blue team chooses another. And then, um, I think, correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the Democrats went into full, like, support of Ukraine on the ideolo- logical side, and then I guess Republicans are saying, "Why are we wasting money? The prices are, the, the gas prices are going up." That's, that's a very crude kind of analysis, but they basically pick whatever argument on whatever side. And now more and more and more, this particular war in Ukraine is becoming a kind of pawn in a game of politics that's, uh, first the midterm elections then building up towards the presidential elections, and st- stops being about the philosophical, the social, the geopolitical aspects, parameters of this war, and more about just, like, whatever the heck captivates Twitter and we're gonna use that for politics.

Andrew Bustamante 46:59 You're right in the sense of the fact that it's... I wouldn't say that the red team and the blue team picked opposite sides on this. What I would say is that media discovered that talking about Ukraine wasn't as profitable as talking about something else. People simply, the American people who read media or who watch media, they simply became bored reading about news that didn't seem to be changing much. And we've turned back into wanting to read about our own economy, and we wanted to hear more about cryptocurrency, and we wanted to hear more about the Kardashians, and that's, that's what we care about, so that's what media writes about. That's how a capitalist market driven world works, and that's how the United States works. That's why in both red papers and blue papers, red sources and blue sources, you don't see Ukraine being mentioned very much. If anything, I would say that your Republicans are probably more in support of what's happening in Ukraine right now because we're creating new weapons systems, our military is getting stronger, we're sending these mili- We get to test military systems in combat in Ukraine. That's priceless. In the world of the military, the military industrial complex, being able to field test, combat test a, a weapon without having to sacrifice your own people is incredibly valuable. You get all the data, you get all the performance metrics, but you don't have to put yourself at risk. That is one of the major benefits of what we're seeing from supporting Ukraine with weapons and with troops. The long term benefit to what will come of this for the United States...... practically speaking, in the lens of national security, through military readiness, through, uh, future economic benefits, those are super strong. The geopolitical fight is- is essentially moot, because Ukraine is not a geopolitical player. It was not for- for 70 years, and after this conflict is over, it will not again. Just think about what you were just saying with the American people's attention span, to Twitter and whatever's currently going on. If the Ukraine conflict resolved itself today, in either- in any direction, how many weeks do you think before no one talked about Ukraine anymore? Do you think we would make it two weeks? Or do you think we'd make it maybe seven days? It would be headline news for one or two days, and then we'd be on to something else. It's just an unfortunate reality of how the world works in a capitalist democracy.

Lex Fridman 49:23 (sighs) Yeah. It just breaks my heart how much, you know, I know that there's Yemen and Syria and ...

Andrew Bustamante 49:32 That nobody talks about anymore. Still raging conflicts going on.

Lex Fridman 49:37 It just, it breaks my heart how much generational hatred is born. I happen to be from, uh, my family is from Ukraine and from Russia, and so for me, just personally, it's a part of the world I care about in terms of its history. I, because I speak the language, I can appreciate the beauty of the literature, the music, the art, the- the cultural history of the 20th century, through all the dark times, through all the- the hell of, um, the dark sides of author- authoritarian regimes, the destruction of war, there is still just a beauty that I'm able to appreciate, that I can't appreciate about China, Brazil, other countries, because I don't speak their language. This one, I can appreciate. And so, in that way, this is personally really painful to me to see so much of that history, the beauty in that history suffocated by the hatred that is borne through this kind of geopolitical game, uh, fought mostly by the politicians, the leaders.

Andrew Bustamante 50:40 People are beautiful. And that's what you're talking about. People are just ... People are beautiful creatures. Culture, and art, and- and science, like these are beautiful, beautiful things that come about because of human beings. And the thing that gives me hope is that no matter what conflict the world has seen, and we've seen some devastating, horrible crimes against humanity already. We saw nuclear bombs go off in Japan. We saw, we saw genocide happen in Rwanda. We've seen horrible things happen. But people persevere. Language, culture, art, science, they all persevere. They all shine through. Some of the most ... People don't even realize how gorgeous the architecture and the culture is inside Iran. People have no idea. Chinese people in the rural parts of China are some of the kindest, most amazing people you'll ever meet. And Korean art and Korean dance, Korean drumming. (laughs) I know nobody has ever even heard of Korean drumming. Korean drumming is this magical, beautiful thing. And the North in North Korea does it better than anybody in the world. Taekwondo in North Korea is just ex- ex- exceptional to watch.

Lex Fridman 51:58 In North Korea?

Andrew Bustamante 51:59 In North Korea. Nobody knows these things.

Lex Fridman 52:00 How do you know about taekwondo-

Andrew Bustamante 52:01 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 52:01 ... in North Korea? I have questions.

Andrew Bustamante 52:03 (laughs) But my-

Lex Fridman 52:04 That's fascinating. That's- that's a, like people don't think about that, but the culture, the beauty of the people still flourishes even in the toughest of places.

Andrew Bustamante 52:11 Absolutely. And- and we always will. We always will, because that is what people do. And that is- that is just the truth of it. And it breaks my heart to see travesties that people commit against people, but whether you're looking at a micro level, like what happens with shootings here in the United States, or whether you look at a macro level, like geopolitical power exchanges and intra- and interstate conflicts like what you see in Syria and what you see in Ukraine, those are disgusting, terrible things. War is a terrible thing. That is a famous quote. Uh, but people will persevere. People will come through.

Lex Fridman 52:53 I hope so. I hope so. And I hope we don't do something, um, that I'll probably also ask you about later on, is things that, um, destroy the possibility of perseverance, which is things like nuclear war. Things- things that can do such tremendous, uh, damage that we- we- we will never recover. But yeah, I- I ... Amidst your pragmatic pessimism-

Andrew Bustamante 53:21 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 53:22 ... I think both you and I have a kind of, uh, maybe small flame of optimism in there about the perseverance of the human species in general.

Lex Fridman 53:30 Let me ask you about intelligence agencies outside of the CIA. Can you illuminate, um, what is the most powerful intelligence agency in the world? The CIA, the FSB, formerly the KGB, the MI6, Mossad. Uh, I've gotten a chance to interact with a lot of Israelis, uh, while in Ukraine. Just incredible people, (laughs) you know, in terms of both training and skill and just all, uh, uh, every fron- American soldiers too, just, um, American military is incredible. I just, uh, the- the competence and skill of the military, uh, in the United States, I- Israel I got to interact, in Ukrainian as well, it's just-

Andrew Bustamante 54:13 It's striking.

Lex Fridman 54:13 It's striking. It's beautiful. I- I just love people, I love carpenters, or people that are just extremely good at their job, and that take pride-

Andrew Bustamante 54:20 Mm-hmm.

Lex Fridman 54:20 ... in their craftsmanship. It's, uh, it's beautiful to see. And I imagine the same kind of thing happens inside of intelligence agencies as well, that we don't get to appreciate because of the secrecy. Same thing with like Lockheed Martin. I interviewed the- the CTO of Lockheed Martin. It breaks my heart, as a person who loves engineering-... um, because of the cover of secrecy, we'll never get to know some of the incredible engineering that happens inside of Lockheed Martin and Boeing-

Andrew Bustamante 54:45 Boeing. Raytheon.

Lex Fridman 54:46 Yeah. Um, you know, there's kind of this idea that these are, uh, you know, people have conspiracy theories and they kind of assign evil to these companies in some, to some part. But I think there's beautiful people inside those companies, brilliant people, and, uh, some incredible science and engineering is happening there. Anyway, that said, the CIA, the FSB, the MI6, Mossad, China. I know very little about the...

Andrew Bustamante 55:13 MSS, Ministry of State Security.

Lex Fridman 55:14 I don't, I don't know how much you know. (laughs)

Andrew Bustamante 55:17 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 55:17 Uh, or just other intelligence agencies in India, Pakistan. I've also heard-

Andrew Bustamante 55:21 Yep. RAW is powerful and so is ISS, or, uh, ISSI.

Lex Fridman 55:26 And then of, of course European nations and Germany-

Andrew Bustamante 55:29 Right.

Lex Fridman 55:29 ... and France. And, yeah. So, um, what can you say about the power, the influence of the different intelligence agencies within their nation and outside?

Andrew Bustamante 55:37 Yeah. So to answer your question, uh, your original question, "Which is the most powerful?" I'm gonna have to give you a few different answers. So the most powerful intelligence organization in the world in terms of reach is the Chinese MSS, the Ministry of State Security. Because they have created a single solitary intelligence service that has global reach and is integrated with Chinese culture. So that essentially every Chinese person anywhere in the world is an informant to the MSS because it all, that's their way of serving the s- this, the Middle Kingdom, Zhōngguó, the Central Kingdom, the Chinese word for China. So they're the strongest, they're, they're ex- the, the most powerful intelligence service in terms of reach. Most assets, most informants, most intelligence.

Lex Fridman 56:27 So it's, it's deeply integrated with the citizenry.

Andrew Bustamante 56:29 Correct. With their culture. You know what a Chinese person who lives in Syria thinks of themself as? A Chinese person. Do you know what a Chinese person, a Chinese national living in the United States thinks of themself as? A Chinese person, right? Americans living abroad often think of ourselves as expats, expatriates, living on the local economy, embracing the local culture. That is not how Chinese people view traveling around the world.

Lex Fridman 56:52 And by the way, if I may mention, I believe the way Mossad operates is similar kind of thing because people from Israel living abroad still think of themselves as Jewish and Israeli-

Andrew Bustamante 57:07 First.

Lex Fridman 57:08 ... yeah, first. So that allows you to integrate the-

Andrew Bustamante 57:11 Culture and yep, the faith-based aspects. Exactly right.

Lex Fridman 57:14 But the number of people-

Andrew Bustamante 57:15 Bingo.

Lex Fridman 57:15 ... in Israel is much, much smaller (laughs) than-

Andrew Bustamante 57:17 Exactly right.

Lex Fridman 57:17 ... the number of people in China.

Andrew Bustamante 57:18 So when it comes to reach, China wins that game.

Lex Fridman 57:21 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 57:21 When it comes to professional capability, it's, it's the CIA by far because budget wise, capability wise, weapon system wise, modern technology wise, CIA is the leader around the world, which is why every other intelligence organization out there wants to partner with CIA. They want to learn from CIA, they want to train with CIA. They want to, they wanna partner on counter-narcotics and counter-drug and counter-terrorism and counter-Uyghur, you name it. People wanna partner with CIA. So CIA is the most powerful in terms of capability and wealth. And then you've got the idea... You've got, uh, tech. So tech alone, meaning, uh, corporate espionage, uh, economic espionage, nothing beats, nothing beats DGSE in France. They're the top. Uh, they've got a massive budget that almost goes exclusively to stealing foreign secrets. They're the biggest threat to the United States, even above Russia and above China. DGSE in France is a massively powerful intelligence organization, but they are so exclusively focused on a handful of types of intelligence collection that nobody even really thinks that they exist. And then in terms of just terrifying violence, you have Mossad. Mossad will do anything. Mossad has no qualms doing what it takes to ensure the survival of every Israeli citizen around the world. Most other countries will stop at some point, but Mossad doesn't do that.

Lex Fridman 58:51 So it's the lines you're willing to cross.

Andrew Bustamante 58:54 And the reasons that you're willing to cross them. You know, there's... The CIA will let an American stay in jail in Russia unlawfully and seek a diplomatic solution. I mean, the United States has let people... There, there are two gentlemen in, from the 1950s who were imprisoned in China for 20 years waiting for diplomatic solutions to their release. So that's, it's... We do not kill to save a citizen. The- but Mossad will.

Lex Fridman 59:26 And then they'll, they'll not just kill, they'll, like, do large scale infiltration. They'll go (laughs) -

Andrew Bustamante 59:31 They do amazing things. There is no... They, they sh- they spare no expense because it's a demonstration to their own people. Again, going back to the whole idea of influence. Every intelligence operation that sees the light of day has two purposes. The first purpose is the intelligence operation. But if it was just the intelligence operation, it would stay secret forever. The second purpose of every successful intelligence operation, when they become public, it's to send a signal to the world, "If you work against us, we will do this to you. If you work for us, we will take care of you in this way." It's a massive information campaign.

Lex Fridman 1:00:11 Do, do you think in that way CIA is not doing a good job? Because there's, you know, the FSB perhaps much less so GRU, but the, the KGB did this well, uh, which is to send a signal like basically communicate that this is a terrifying organization with a lot of power. And so Mossad is doing a good job of that.

Andrew Bustamante 1:00:35 Correct.

Lex Fridman 1:00:36 So this, this psychological information warfare. Um,

Lex Fridman 1:00:40 and it seems like the CIA...... also has, has a lot of, kind of, myths about it, conspiracy theories about it, but much less so than the other agencies.

Andrew Bustamante 1:00:52 CIA does a good job of playing to the mythos. So when, uh, General Petraeus used to be the director of CIA, 2010-

Lex Fridman 1:00:59 And, and your workout partner.

Andrew Bustamante 1:01:00 And my workout partner.

Lex Fridman 1:01:01 I, I read about this.

Andrew Bustamante 1:01:02 So I, I loved and hated those workouts with Petraeus because he is a physical beast. He's a strong, fit, a- at the time, 60-something-year-old man.

Lex Fridman 1:01:11 Let me take a tangent on that-

Andrew Bustamante 1:01:12 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:01:13 ... because he's coming on this podcast.

Andrew Bustamante 1:01:14 Oh, excellent, man.

Lex Fridman 1:01:15 (laughs) So, uh, can you say what you learned from the man, uh, in terms of ... Or like what you think is interesting and powerful and inspiring about the way he sees the world, or maybe what you learned in terms of how to get, uh, strong in the gym-

Andrew Bustamante 1:01:32 Yeah. Two, two things.

Lex Fridman 1:01:33 ... or anything about life? Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:01:34 Two things right away, and one of them I was going to share with you anyway, so I'm glad that you asked the question. So the first is that, uh, on our runs, and man he runs fast, and we would go for six-mile runs through Bangkok, and, uh, and he talked openly about ... I asked him, "How do you keep this, this mys- this mystery, this epic mythology about your fitness and your strength, how do you keep all of this alive with the troops?" And he had this amazing answer, and he was like, "I don't talk about it. Myths are born not from somebody orchestrating the myth, but from the source of the myth simply being secretive." So he's like, "I don't talk about it. I've never talked about it. I've never exacerbated it. I just do what I do, and I let the troops talk." And he's like, "When it's in favor, when it goes in favor of, of discipline and loyalty and commitment, I let it run. If it starts getting destructive or damaging, then I have my, my leadership team step in to fix it." But when it comes to the, the mythos, the myth of him being super-powered soldier, that's what he wants every soldier to be, so he lets it run, and he was fanta- ... It was so enlightening when he told me, "When there's a myth that benefits you, you just let it go. You let it happen, because it gets you further without you doing any work. It costs no investment from you."

Lex Fridman 1:02:56 So the catalyst of the virality of the myth is just being mysterious and ...

Andrew Bustamante 1:03:00 And that's what CIA does well, to go back to your first question. What does CIA do? They don't answer any questions. They don't say anything. And wherever the myth goes, the myth goes, whether it's that they sold drugs or used child prostitutes or whatever else. Wherever the myth goes, they let it go, because, at the end of the day, everybody sits back and says, "Wow, I really just don't know." Now the second thing that I learned from Petraeus, and I- I really am a big fan of Petraeus. I know he made personal mistakes. You don't get to be that powerful without making personal mistakes. But when I worked out with him, the one thing that, that my, uh, the one thing that my commanding officer told me not to ask about ... He was like, "Never ask the general about his family." I'm a family guy, so as soon as I met General Petraeus, one of the first things I asked him was, "Hey, what was it like raising a family and being the commander of forces in the Middle East? Like, you weren't with your family very much." And the thing I love about the guy, he didn't bite off my head, he didn't snap at me, he didn't do anything. He openly admitted that he regretted some of the decisions that he made because he had to sacrifice his family to get there. Relationships with his children, uh, a- absentee father, missing birthdays, missing ... We j- we all say, we all say how sad it is to miss birthdays and miss anniversaries, yada, yada, yada. Everybody knows what that feels like. Even businesspeople know what that feels like. The actual pain that we're talking about is when you're not there to handle your 13-year-old's questions when a boy breaks up with her, or what you're, when you're not there to handle the bloody lip that your nine-year-old comes back with from their first encounter with a bully. Those are the truly heartbreaking moments that a parent lives and dies by. He missed almost all of those because he was fighting a war that we forgot and we gave up on 20 years later, right? It's ... He's so honest about that, um, and it was really inspiring to me to be told not to ask that question, and when I broke that guidance, he didn't reprimand me. He just, he was authentic, and it was absolutely one of the big decisions that helped me leave CIA on my own in 2014.

Lex Fridman 1:05:10 And he was honest on the sacrifice you make, an-

Andrew Bustamante 1:05:14 The, the same man, the same man who just taught me a lesson about letting a myth live, that same guy was willing to be so authentic about this personal mistake.

Lex Fridman 1:05:27 I like complicated people like that.

Andrew Bustamante 1:05:30 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:05:30 So what did you, um, what do you make of that calculation of family versus job? You've given a lot of your life and passion to the CIA, to that work. It, uh, you've spoken positively about that, that world, the good it does, um, and yet you're also a family man and you value that. What's that calculation like? What's that trade-off like for you?

Andrew Bustamante 1:05:56 I mean, for me, the calculation is very clear. It's family. I left CIA because I chose my family, and when my son was born, my, my wife and I found out that we were pregnant while we were still on mission. We were a tandem couple. My wife is also a former CIA officer undercover like me. We were operating together overseas. We got the positive pregnancy tests like so many people do, and, uh, and she cried. My wife was a badass. I was just ... (laughs) I was like the accidental spy, but my wife was really good at what she does, and, uh, and she cried, and she was like, "What, what do we do now? Like, it's what we've always wanted, a child, but we're in this thing right now. There's no space for a child." So long story short, um...... we had our baby, we- the CIA brought us back to have the baby. And when we started having the conversations about, "Hey, what, what do we do next?" 'Cause we're not the type of people to want to just sit around and be domestic. Uh, "What do we do next? But keep in mind, we have a child now. So here's some of our suggestions. We could do this and we can do that. Let us get our child to a place where we can put them into an international school, or we can get him into some sort of program where we have the- we can both operate together again during the day." Um, but CIA just had no, they had no patience for that conversation. There was no... Family is not their priority. So the fact that we were a- a tandem couple, two officers, two operators trying to have a baby was irrelevant to them. So when they didn't play with us, when they did nothing to help us, uh, prioritize parenthood as part of our overall experience, that's when we knew that they never would, and what good is it to commit yourself to a career if the career is always going to challenge the thing that you value most? And that was the calculation that we made to leave CIA. Not everybody makes that calculation. And a big part of why I am so vocal about my time at CIA is because I am immensely appreciative of the men and women who, to this day, have failed marriages and poor relationships with their children because they chose national security, they chose protecting America over their own family, um, and they've done it even though it's made them ab- you know, abuse alcohol and abuse substances, and who, and they've gotten themselves, they've got periminal g- permanent diseases and issues from living and working abroad. It's just ins- it's insane the sacrifice that officers make to keep America free, and I'm just not one of those people. I chose family.

Lex Fridman 1:08:41 You said that your wife misses it. Do you miss it?

Andrew Bustamante 1:08:45 We both miss it. We miss it for different reasons. We miss it for similar reasons, I guess, but we miss it in different ways. The people, the people at CIA are just amazing. They're, they're people that... They're everyday people, like the guy and the gal next door, but so smart and so dedicated and so courageous about what they do and how they do it. I mean, this, the sacrifices they make are massive. More massive than the sacrifices I made. So I was always inspired and impressed by the people around me. So both my wife and I absolutely miss the people. My wife misses the work because you know, everything, when you're inside, it's all... I mean, we had, we had top secret, we had TS/SCI clearances at the time. I had a CAT VI/CAT XII, which makes me nuclear cleared. My wife had other privy clearances that allowed her to look into, you know, areas that were, uh, specialized. But there was not... There wasn't a headline that went out that we couldn't fact check with a click of a few buttons.

Lex Fridman 1:09:43 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:09:44 And she misses that 'cause she loved that kind of knowledge.

Lex Fridman 1:09:46 And now you're just one of us living in the, you know, the cloud of mystery-

Andrew Bustamante 1:09:51 Exactly.

Lex Fridman 1:09:52 ... not really knowing anything about what's going on.

Andrew Bustamante 1:09:54 Exactly. But for me, I've always been the person that likes operating. And you know what you still get to do when you leave CIA? You still get to operate. Operating is just working with people. It's understanding how people think, predicting their actions, driving their, their direction of their thoughts, persuading them, winning negotiations. Like, it's... You still get to do that. You do that every day.

Lex Fridman 1:10:15 And you can apply that in all kinds

Lex Fridman 1:10:17 of domains. Well, let me ask you on that, you were a covert CIA intelligence officer for several years. Maybe can you tell me the story of how it all began? How were you recruited and what did the job entail, to the degree you can speak about it?

Andrew Bustamante 1:10:34 Feel free to direct me if I'm getting too boring or if the-

Lex Fridman 1:10:36 No.

Andrew Bustamante 1:10:36 ... if the conv- (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:10:37 Every aspect of this is super exciting.

Andrew Bustamante 1:10:40 So, uh, so I was leaving the United States Air Force in 2007. Uh, I was a, uh, I was a lieutenant getting ready to pin on captain. My five years was up, and I was a very bad fit for the US Air Force. I, I was an Air Force Academy graduate, not by choice, but by lack of opportunity, lack of, lack of options otherwise. So I forced myself through the Academy, barely graduated with a 2.4 GPA, and then went on... The Air Force taught me how to fly, and then the Air Force taught me about nuclear weapons, and I ended up, uh, as a, as a nuclear missile commander in Montana, and I chose to leave the Air Force because I didn't like shaving my face, I didn't like having short hair, and I most definitely didn't like shining my shoes, and I did not want to be one of the people in charge of nuclear weapons. So when I found myself as a person in charge of 200 nuclear weapons, I knew that I was going down the wrong road.

Lex Fridman 1:11:34 I have questions about this, and more importantly, I have questions about your hair. So you had short hair at the time?

Andrew Bustamante 1:11:40 (laughs) I had... Yeah, you have to. Military regulations, you can't have hair longer than one inch.

Lex Fridman 1:11:44 Okay. And this, the beautiful hair you have now, that, that, that came to be in the CIA or after?

Andrew Bustamante 1:11:52 This... So I discovered I had messy hair in CIA 'cause I used to, uh, I used to go muj. We called it muj. I used to go Mujahideen style, big burly beard and crazy wacky hair-

Lex Fridman 1:12:03 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:12:03 ... because an ambiguously brown guy with a big beard and long hair can go anywhere in the world without anyone even noticing him. They either think that he's a janitor or they think that he's, like, some forgotten part of history, but nobody ever thinks that that guy is a spy. So it was the perfect... For me, it was one of my favorite, uh, disguises. It's what's known as a level two disguise. One of my favorite disguises to don was just dilapidated brown guy. (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:12:35 (laughs) Uh, can you actually... We'll just take a million tangents. What, what's a level two disguise?

Andrew Bustamante 1:12:40 (laughing)

Lex Fridman 1:12:40 Uh, what, what's a... What are the different levels of disguise? What are the disguises?

Andrew Bustamante 1:12:44 Yeah, there's three levels of disguise, by and large. Level one is what we also know, what we also call light disguise. So that's essentially......you put on sunglasses and a ball cap and, and that's a disguise. You look different than you normally look.

Lex Fridman 1:12:57 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Bustamante 1:12:57 So it's just different enough that someone who's never seen you before, someone who literally has to see you just from a picture on the internet, they may not recognize you. It's why you see celebrities walk around with ball caps and oversized jackets and baseball hats, 'cause they just need to not look like they look in the tabloid or not look like they look in TV. That's level one.

Lex Fridman 1:13:17 Mm-hmm.

Andrew Bustamante 1:13:18 Uh, let me jump from level one to level three. Level three is all of your prosthetics, all the stuff you see in Mission Impossible, your fake ears, your fake faces, your fat suits, your stilts inside your le- your feet. Uh, all that's level three. Whenever they make any kind of prosthetic disguise, that's a level three disguise because prosthetics are very damning if you are caught with a prosthetic. If you're caught wearing a Sudden, wearing a baseball hat and sunglasses, nobody is gonna say you're a spy. But when you're caught with a custom-made, you know, nose, uh, prosthetic that changes the way your face looks, or when someone pops out a fake jaw and they see that your top teeth don't look like they did, uh, in this prosthetic, then all of a sudden you've got some very difficult questions to ask or to answer. So level three is extremely dangerous. Level one is not dangerous. Level two is long term disguise. Level two is all the things that you can do to permanently change the way you look for a long period of time so that whether you're aggressed in the street, or whether someone breaks into your hotel room or whatever, it's real. So maybe that's, uh, maybe you get a tattoo. Maybe you cut your hair short. Maybe you grow your hair long. Maybe you go bald. Maybe you start wearing glasses. Well, glasses are technically a prosthetic, but, uh, uh, you can... You... If you have teeth pulled, if you gain 20 pounds, really gain 20 pounds or lose 15 pounds, whatever you might do, all of that is considered level two. It's designed for a long term mission so that people believe you are who you say you are in that disguise.

Lex Fridman 1:14:53 A lot of that is physical characteristics.

Andrew Bustamante 1:14:55 Correct.

Lex Fridman 1:14:55 What about like, um, you know what actors do, which is the, um-

Andrew Bustamante 1:15:01 Method acting?

Lex Fridman 1:15:02 Yeah, the method acting sort of developing a backstory in your own mind and then you start, um, you know, pretending that you host a podcast-

Andrew Bustamante 1:15:13 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:15:14 ...and teach at a university and then do research and so on j- just so that people can believe-

Andrew Bustamante 1:15:19 Yeah.

Lex Fridman 1:15:20 ...that you're not actually an agent. Uh, what, what... Is that part of the disguise levels or no?

Andrew Bustamante 1:15:24 So yes, disguise has to do with physical character traits. That's what a disguise is. What you're talking about is known as a cover legend. When you go undercover, what you claim to be, who you claim to be, that's called your legend, your cover legend. Every disguise would theoretically have its own cover legend. Even if it's just to describe why you're wearing what you're wearing-

Lex Fridman 1:15:45 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:15:45 ...it's all a cover. So the method acting, this is a fantastic point that I don't get to make very often so I'm glad you asked. The difference between CIA officers in the field and method actors is that method actors try to become the character. They try to shed all vestiges of who they really are and become the character. And that's part of what makes them so amazing but it's also part of what, like, makes them m- mentally unstable over long periods of time. It's part of what feeds their depression, their anxiety, their personal issues because they, they lose sight of who they really are. Field officers don't get that luxury. We have to always, always remember we are a covert CIA intelligence officer collecting secrets in the field. We have to remember that. So we're taught a very specific skill to compartmentalize our true self separately but make that true self the true identity. So then we can still live and act and s- and, uh, effectively carry out our cover legend without ever losing sight, without ever losing that compass true north of who we actually are. And then we can compartmentalize and secure all the information that we need, retain it, remember it, but then return to our true self when we, when we get back to a position of safety.

Lex Fridman 1:17:03 Is it possible to do that? So I, I, I just have kind of anecdotal evidence for myself. I really try to be the exact same person in all conditions, which makes it very easy. Like if you're not lying, it makes it very easy to, first of all, to, to exist, but also to communicate a kind of authenticity and genuineness which I think is really important. Like trust and integrity around trust is extremely important to me. It's the thing that opens doors and maintains relationships. And I tend to think, like when I was in Ukraine, so many doors just opened to the h- like, very sort of high security areas and everywhere else too. Like I've just interacted with some incredible people without any kind of concerns, you know, who is this guy? (laughs) Is he gonna spread any... You know, all that kind of stuff and I, I tend to believe that you're able to communicate a trustworthiness somehow if, if you just are who you are. And, and I think, I suppose method actors are trying to achieve that by becoming something and they can... I, I just feel like there is very subtle cues that are extremely difficult to fake. Like you really have to become that person, be that person. But you're saying as a CIA agent, you have to remember that you are there to collect information. Do you think that gives you away?

Andrew Bustamante 1:18:31 So one of the flaws in your argument is that you keep referring to how you feel. "I feel this, I feel that. I feel like this, I feel like that." That feeling is a predictable character trait of all human beings. It's a pink matter, uh, uh, we call it pink matter. It's a cognitive trait.... you are not alone in trusting your feelings. All people trust their feelings. But because what CIA teaches us is how to systematically create artificial relationships, where we're the one in control of the source that is giving us intelligence. And the core element to being able to control a relationship is understanding the pink matter truth of feelings. What all people feel becomes their point of view on what reality is. So when you understand and you learn how to manipulate what people feel, then you can essentially direct them to feel any way you want them to feel. So if you want them to feel like they can trust you, you can make them feel that way. If you want them to feel like you're a good guy or a bad guy, if you want them to feel like they should give you secrets even though their government tells them not to, you can do that. There are men who make women feel like they love th- they love them and just so that the woman will sleep with them. There are women who make men feel like they love them just so the men will give them their money. Manipulation is a, is a core behavioral trait of all the human species, because we all understand to some level how powerful feelings are, but feelings are not the same thing as logical, rational thought. They're two different sides of the brain. What CIA teaches us how to do is systematically tap into the right side, emotional side of the brain, so that we can quickly get past all of the stuff you were just saying. All of the, "Well, don't you have to be convincing?" and "Don't you have to really know your story?" and "Don't you have to be able to defend it?", "Don't you have to have authenticity?" and "Don't you have to have, uh, genuine, uh, genuine feelings?" Yes, all of those things are true if you're having a genuine relationship. But in an artificial relationship, there's ways to bypass all of that and get right to the heart of making someone feel comfortable and safe.

Lex Fridman 1:20:35 I guess the question I, I'm asking, and the thing I was implying, is that creating an artificial relationship is ex- an extremely difficult skill to accomplish the level, like, how good I am at being me and creating a feeling in another person that I create. For you to do that artificially, that's gotta be, you gotta be r- uh, my sense is you gotta be really damn good at that kind of thing.

Andrew Bustamante 1:21:03 (laughs)

Lex Fridman 1:21:03 I, I would venture to say, it's, I mean (laughs) , I don't know how to measure how difficult the thing is, but especially when you're communicating with people whose job depends on forming trusting relationships, they're gonna smell bullshit. Um, and to, to get, get past that bullshit detector is tough. It's a tough skill.

Andrew Bustamante 1:21:28 Well, it's interesting.

Lex Fridman 1:21:29 (laughs)

Andrew Bustamante 1:21:29 So I would, I would say that, um-

Lex Fridman 1:21:31 Or maybe I'm wrong, actually, on that.

Andrew Bustamante 1:21:32 I would say that once you understand the system, it's not that hard. It makes a lot of sense. But I would also say that to your, to your exact point, you are right that people smell bullshit. People smell bullshit. But here's the thing, if you come in smelling like goat shit, you still smell like shit, but you don't smell like bullshit. So they don't count you out right away. And if you come in smelling like rotten tomatoes, or if you come in smelling like lavender, or if you come in smelling like vanilla, or if you come in without any smell at all, all that matters is that you don't smell like bullshit. Here's the thing that's, that's one of the secret sauces of CIA. When you look and act like a spy, people think you're a spy. If you look and act in any other way, you know what they never ever think you are? A spy. They might think you're an idiot. They might think you're a, they might think you're trailer trash. They might think that you're a, a migrant worker, but they never think you're a spy.

Lex Fridman 1:22:30 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:22:30 And that's what's, that lesson in everyday life is immensely powerful. If you're trying to, if you're trying to take your boss's job, as long as you don't ever look like the bo- the employee who's trying to take the boss's job, the boss is focused on all the employees who are trying to take his job. Everybody's prioritizing, whether they know it or not. The goal is to just not be the one that they're targeting. Target them without them knowing you're targeting them.

Lex Fridman 1:22:54 So people just, when they meet you, they put you in a bin, and if you want to avoid being put in a particular bin, just don't act like the person that will be, uh, j- just show some kind of characteristics that bin you in some other way.

Andrew Bustamante 1:23:07 Exactly right. You have to be in a bin. Just choose the bin.

Lex Fridman 1:23:10 (laughs)

Andrew Bustamante 1:23:11 All right.

Lex Fridman 1:23:12 So how, uh... You, knowing these

Lex Fridman 1:23:16 methods, when you talk to people, especially in civilian life, how do you know who's lying to you and not?

Andrew Bustamante 1:23:22 That gets to be more into the trained skill side of things. There's body cues. There's micro-expressions. I'm not a big fan of... I don't believe that micro-expressions alone do anything. I also don't believe that micro-expressions without an eff- without an effective baseline do anything. So don't for a second think that I'm... All the people out there pitching that you can tell if someone's lying to you just by looking at their face, it's all, it's all baloney. In my world, that's baloney.

Lex Fridman 1:23:47 Like the way you move your eyes or something like that?

Andrew Bustamante 1:23:50 Without knowing a baseline, without knowing-

Lex Fridman 1:23:51 For that individual.

Andrew Bustamante 1:23:52 ... for that individual, then you actually don't know. And an individual's baseline is based on education, culture, life experience, you name it, right?

Lex Fridman 1:23:58 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:23:58 So this, it's huge. But when you combine facial expressions with body movements, body language, non-verbal cues, and you add on top of that effective elicitation techniques that you are in control of, now you have a more robust platform to tell if someone's lying to you.

Lex Fridman 1:24:16 So there, there's like a set of like interrogation trajectories you can go down that can help you figure out a person.

Andrew Bustamante 1:24:26 Technically, they're interview, interview-

Lex Fridman 1:24:29 Interview. Like this podcast.

Andrew Bustamante 1:24:29 ... concepts. Correct. Because an interrogation, an interrogation is something very different than an interview. In, in the world of professionals, an interrogation is very different.

Lex Fridman 1:24:37 What's the difference? The, the nature of how relaxed the thing is, or what?

Andrew Bustamante 1:24:40 So in an interrogation, there's a clear pattern of dominance. There's no equality.

Lex Fridman 1:24:45 Got it.

Andrew Bustamante 1:24:45 Also, there's no escape. You are there until the interrogator is done with you, right? Anybody who's ever been reprimanded by mom and dad knows what an interrogation feels like. Anybody who's ever been called into the principal's office or the boss's office, that's what interrogation feels like. You don't leave until the boss says you can leave. And you're there to say, to answer questions the boss asks questions. An interview is an equal exchange of ideas. You are in control of this interview....for sure. But if we were having coffee, I could take control if I wanted to take control. If I wanted to ask you personal questions, I would. If I wanted to talk to you about your background, I could.

Lex Fridman 1:25:17 Why am I in control of this interview exactly?

Andrew Bustamante 1:25:19 Because the person in control is the person asking questions.

Lex Fridman 1:25:23 Ah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:25:23 Always.

Lex Fridman 1:25:23 I'm sitting here, as you've spoken about. Uh, my power here is I'm the quiet one listening.

Andrew Bustamante 1:25:29 (laughs) You're exactly right.

Lex Fridman 1:25:31 Yes. Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:25:31 Guess where this conversation goes?

Lex Fridman 1:25:33 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:25:33 Anywhere you choose to take it, because you're the one asking questions. Every time I answer a question, I am creating a pattern of obedience to you, which subliminally, subconsciously makes me that much more apt to answer your questions.

Lex Fridman 1:25:45 Of course, you can always turn that and ask, start asking me questions that should, you know... Uh, so but you're saying that there's through this con- this, through conversation, you can call it interviewing, you can start to, you can start to see, um, see cracks in the story of the person, and the degree to which they exaggerate or lie or, uh, to see how much they could be trusted, that kind of stuff.

Andrew Bustamante 1:26:13 What I'm saying is that through a conversation, you develop a baseline, right?

Lex Fridman 1:26:16 Ah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:26:16 Like, even just in the last, the last, the first part of our conversation, we've-

Lex Fridman 1:26:20 Yeah.

Andrew Bustamante 1:26:20 ...I've been able to create some baseline elements about you. You've been able to create baseline elements about me. Maybe they're just not front of mind. From those baselines, now we can push through more intentional questions to test-

Lex Fridman 1:26:34 Got it.

Andrew Bustamante 1:26:35 ...to test whether or not the person is being truthful, because they're operating within their baseline, or if you are triggering, uh, sensitivities outside of their baseline, and then you can start to see their tells.

Lex Fridman 1:26:45 That's fascinating. Yeah. Baseline, like, uh, even, even, like, yeah, the tells, right? The, the eye contact. Like, you, you've probably already formed a baseline that I d- um, I have trouble making eye contact. And so, like, so if you ask me difficult questions and I'm