China's Secret Playbook For War - General Robert Spalding

1. 0:00 – 0:25

   Intro

   1. GSGeneral Robert Spalding0:00

      You do good, you're rewarded. You get better prices. You get better treatment. You do bad, you're canceled. That's it, period. And so you get your performance built in because everything that you do has immediate consequence on your life. (air whooshing)

   2. CWChris Williamson0:19

      General Spalding, welcome to the show.

   3. GSGeneral Robert Spalding0:22

      Thank you. It's great to be here.

   4. CWChris Williamson0:23

      What do you know about

2. 0:25 – 12:54

   What’s Happening in Shanghai?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:25

      what's happening inside of Shanghai right now?

   2. GSGeneral Robert Spalding0:28

      Well, I mean, I think I'm as informed as everybody else is, which is I'm looking at all the Twitter videos and, uh, and all the articles. So, um, you know, the specifics, it sounds like, you know, it's fairly similar to the Wuhan lockdown where they were keeping people, um, you know, in their, uh, in their, in their apartments. I think the thing that's, um, that they've moved on to is if you're quarantined, like, they just take your pet right away and, and, and, you know, there's no like... I, I think they've gotten more efficient at defining how they implement a lockdown. And, you know, a lot of these decisions that were probably painful in the very beginning, like in Wuhan, like, "What do we do with, about these pets?" They've made the decision, "This is what we're gonna do." And, um, you know, it's, it's basically they've got a checklist now. Uh, one of the things that you, you, um, find out about living in China is there's checklists for everything, right? And you, you, you go through the checklist and you make sure that you're hitting all the things. And, and the checklist now is, you know, pretty, pretty involved. So I think they've perfected what they think a lockdown should be and that's what you're seeing in, in Shanghai.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:37

      Yeah, I've seen videos of bags of cats alive-

   4. GSGeneral Robert Spalding1:41

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:41

      ... in the streets. Uh, I've seen videos of dogs seemingly being sort of killed/imobilized/disposed of, which is...

   6. GSGeneral Robert Spalding1:52

      I think those cats are gonna be disposed of. I think that's... You know, they are alive, but I think they're, they're going to be disposed of is, is the, my, the impression that I've gotten from everything that I've seen.

   7. CWChris Williamson2:02

      What do you think is the reason for doing that? Are they worried that they're a vector of transmission? Are they worried that if you have a pet, you're more likely to go outside and break quarantine?

   8. GSGeneral Robert Spalding2:11

      I, I would, I would imagine that it's, they're a vector, 'cause I mean, pets can get coronavirus. So I, I would imagine they believe it's a vector of transmission. You know, if they're gonna quarantine the people, they're gonna quarantine the pets. Um, they don't really... You know, they, they can't really kill the people, although, you know, uh, when you look at the Uighurs or, or the Falun Gong, you know, they're not, they don't really have a lot of problem with those types of things, but they're, you know, at least at this point, it's just the animals that they're after.

   9. CWChris Williamson2:37

      I saw a tweet that said 25 million people in lockdown in Shanghai, policed by drones that have facial recognition and give orders. People who go out on their balconies without masks are fined directly from their CBDC accounts.

   10. GSGeneral Robert Spalding2:55

       Yeah, I mean, it's awesome, isn't it? I mean, think about it, the, what, you know, the technology that we created in Silicon Valley and you basically... You know, what the Chinese have done is they've taken a systems engineering approach to, uh, society, right? So they wanna, they wanna basically automate how society performs. And, you know, if you think of it, uh, from a manufacturing perspective, for example, you know, we, we, um, talk about Six Sigma, and the idea is that you eliminate all, um, you know, anomalies and you make sure that your, you know, whatever errors that are causing systemic anomalies, you get rid of them. And so, in a sense, they've taken those principles of manufacturing and using the tools of Silicon Valley, which are really this ability to, um, harvest data and mine it and then, and then use it to, to, um, basically cancel those that are outside that are anomalies. They have taken systems engineering and this IT, um, system that we built in the West and combined it to create a way to automate their society, and, and it's performance-based. You do good, you're rewarded. You get, you know, better prices. You get better treatment. You do bad, you're, you're canceled. That's it, period. And so you get your performance built in, um, because everything that you do has immediate consequence on your life. Just like you said with the drones, like, somebody's gonna come there and they're gonna charge your account if you mess up. Now, you know, that's something that's never existed. It's, uh, it's a, it's essentially like the concept of the panopticon, uh, which is a prison, um, that was designed so that at any point a prisoner would think somebody is watching them. And so what they, what you find with these kind of situations when you're always being watched is that people modify their behavior to ensure that, you know, they're not gonna be punished. And, and so what they're trying to get is this digital panopticon where you're always being watched, you know what the rules are, you know if you break the rule you're gonna be punished, and so you get the behaviors. And that's really what they're trying to get. "I want these behaviors. I don't want those behaviors. And I'm going to design a system that, that automatically limits those behaviors."

   11. CWChris Williamson5:20

       Yeah. Well, I mean, with the panopticon, it's kind of like a, a wheel-and-spoke design, right? So in the middle of it-

   12. GSGeneral Robert Spalding5:25

       Right.

   13. CWChris Williamson5:25

       ... you have, uh, potentially one guard sat on a swiveling chair and going out away from him all the way around in 360 degrees are all of the different cells. The difference here is that it's not... Because of how scalable technology is, you don't just need to have one guard that might be looking. You could scale technology to the point where you are always being watched all the time.

   14. GSGeneral Robert Spalding5:47

       Right.

   15. CWChris Williamson5:47

       They're actually in-

   16. GSGeneral Robert Spalding5:47

       Because AI can do it, right?

   17. CWChris Williamson5:49

       Precisely.

   18. GSGeneral Robert Spalding5:49

       You don't need... And the AI never takes a, you know, uh, you know, a, a, a pee break, it never, you know-

   19. CWChris Williamson5:55

       Needs a coffee.

   20. GSGeneral Robert Spalding5:55

       ... never goes on lunch break.

   21. CWChris Williamson5:56

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   22. GSGeneral Robert Spalding5:56

       AI is, like, running, man. It's running in real time. And so, uh, I mean, it... When you think about it from, you know, logically, if you were gonna take an engineer-... an engineer's approach to, um, political science. It's the perfect way that an engineer would design a system because everybody, uh, uh, you know, there, and there's so many of these dystopian movies that take this approach, where you basically just engineer society so that everybody does what they're supposed to. Um, the-

   23. CWChris Williamson6:27

       I mean, it's, it's terrifying, but it is strange, uh, the lack of limits that a bureaucratic, dictatorial regime, uh, opens up in technology. That there are certain areas of technology, how they can be implemented, how they can be integrated with other, uh, elements of society, uh, that when you don't have a democracy and you have fewer human rights, there's a whole new world of, uh, technocratic overreach that can be, can be garnered.

   24. GSGeneral Robert Spalding7:03

       Right. Well, and, and, and the other thing, um, is that, you know, and, and what this has traditionally been and what China has benefited from, its connection to the West, and that is, anomalies aren't always bad. Like you have people that commit crimes, but other anomalies are you invent stuff. You're innovative. You create new things that have never existed before. You know, people go to the moon, you know, you create an iPhone. These are also anomalies, uh, just like doing bad things are anomalies. So the problem is when you start to create this system- systematic approach to, um, you know, society, you're s- you're, you're getting rid of all anomalies. You're not just getting rid of the bad ones, you're also getting rid of a lot of the good ones too. And the way, and the reason China's been able to get away with this is because they can just go to the West, who has the good and the bad, and take the good, leave the bad. And, and, you know, what, what you see happening as a con- uh, as a consequence of coronavirus were a lot of the policies that you're seeing in Shanghai were implemented also in the West, you know, countries in the West that are democracies were basically taking the same policies that China was in terms of lockdowns and, and, and all of these other restrictions. And so what happens is over time, and, and this, so China seeks to be the dominant system in the world and then have all systems look like it, which is kind of the same thing that the US and the UK decided to do after the end of World War II. We think all societies should be democracies because not only, um, we think that's the right way to go, it also protects, you know, our vision of the system in that our democracy isn't coming under threat or pressure from those, uh, nations that think differently. Well, the Chinese think the same way, and so what it's been able to do in the two years of the coronavirus is really slowly begin to move democracies into its form of thinking about the relationship between the state and the individual. You know, the state has power over the individual, and therefore the individual should do whatever the state says without question. This has been how the West has basically, um, adapted to coronavirus. And with things like contact tracing in the West, you're beginning to see the technology be brought in to enable that. Vaccine, um, you know, passports, uh, digital vaccine passports, passports is another thing. So I mean, you're seeing the homogenization of the international order in a way that's completely opposite of how it was envisioned after the end of World War II, uh, between the US and the UK.

   25. CWChris Williamson9:41

       What's happening with famine? I've been seeing tweets and news stories and stuff about famine in Shanghai. Is that true? Got any idea?

   26. GSGeneral Robert Spalding9:49

       Well, I don't know if there's famine, uh, so much as... At l- at least yet, so much as if you're locked up and you can't get to food, you're gonna be, you're gonna be hungry. I mean, I, I l- I lived in, uh, Minot, you know, flying V-52s, and we had a snowstorm one time, and I was in my house for a week, you know? Finally, I had to break out and go get milk and some other things. I mean, I think that's what they're running into is, you know, you, after you're in qu- uh, there's only so much stuff that you're prepared to do (laughs) in quarantine, and then if you can't leave to go get food, that's a problem.

   27. CWChris Williamson10:20

       But surely, the Chinese government must know that this is going to happen, right? You lock people down, you don't allow them to leave to go and get food, there are certain things that you need to do. And I guess maybe as well this is one of the reasons that perhaps the killing of pets... I'm pretty sure that, yeah, vector of transmission will be one of them, but just if you have a pet, it gotta go outside to go to the bathroom-

   28. GSGeneral Robert Spalding10:39

       Good point. Yeah, good point.

   29. CWChris Williamson10:40

       ... needs to have a walk. So I just think there's more and more situations there. Have you got any idea about why it is that there's some videos floating around of the Chinese government or their enforcement agency breaking into people's apartments and tasing them and taking them to sort of COVID isolation facilities? I've seen some awful videos, and you never know on the internet, right? You see a video and you go, "This could be from 2009 during the whatever-

   30. GSGeneral Robert Spalding11:06

       Yeah. (laughs) Right, right.
3. 12:54 – 22:13

   The West’s Double Standards

   1. GSGeneral Robert Spalding12:54

   2. CWChris Williamson12:54

      Does it put into slightly harsher contrast accusations of fascist, totalitarian regime overreach and slavery and modern-day racism and stuff like that? When we do have kind of this very... I mean, look at India, which has a, an explicit caste system, right-

   3. GSGeneral Robert Spalding13:17

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson13:17

      ... which is still unbelievably terrifying. And I've only just started learning about this. Um, and then you have China, where, uh, I mean, the detention camps actually look like they're getting worse, not better now. And it just seems to be this sort of blinkers on view. I noticed that the current, um, Hollywood push, especially from Disney, uh, but the whole Hollywood push around the Don't Say Gay bill from Florida didn't seem to extend to the most recent Harry Potter film, which got released in China and had, uh, the only six seconds of LGBT content in there, which suggested that Dumbledore had previously been in a relationship with this other guy. Uh, they removed that specially for the Chinese edition. So you do have what seems like, uh, double standards, um, either willful, uh, willful ignorance, uh, and/or, uh, outright double standards coming from the West when they're looking at their own world, versus just complete, uh, disregard for what's happening over in China.

   5. GSGeneral Robert Spalding14:20

      Well, I mean, if you think about it, um, and you, and you look at kind of, in particular, not just the end of World War II, the Cold War, but after the end of the Cold War, and say the 30 years after the end of the Cold War, um, and you look at, you know, whose prerogatives, you know, nations around the world, um, listened to, it was America, right? They were list- listening to... I mean, America was, um, the most powerful, had the most powerful economy, the most productive economy. And, um, and that economic heft, uh, and the willingness to use that economic heft to build up other countries like the Marshall Plan or, uh, rebuilding Japan or Korea after... all these countries after World War II. A- and then you realize that over the course of those 30 years, that power, that economic productivity, the supply chain of the world, if you will, has shifted from America to China, now has allowed China to take the mantle of America. And so this idea that, you know, it's... Um, and I... When I lived in Shanghai from 2002 to 2004, you know, all of my neighbors were building, you know, factories in the Shanghai special economic zone, and big companies, big US corporations. And what those business executives would tell me is like, "We're going to change China to be more like America. You know, the more that we're integrated economically with this society, the more China is going to change to be more liberal. They're going to be, you know... they're going to accept our principles and values." And of course, the Chinese Communist Party determined after Tiananmen Square that that was absolutely not going to happen. And so while it was a little bit of hubris on our part, what's actually happened is the reverse has happened, is that now rather than US corporations spreading the values of liberty, democracy, rule of law, free trade, it's that US corporations are now responding to the, to where the, the economic power lies in the world. And they're spreading the same authoritarian or totalitarian principles that China wants to espouse. So it should not be surprising that we're seeing this shift, uh, in our corporate sector and our financial sector away from, "Hey, we're going to promote the, the, the principles of America," to, "We're going to prom- promote the principles of the Chinese Communist Party, because that's where our bread is buttered." So there's, there's a, there's a ti- a, a strong tie between, hey, you're economically powerful, to, hey, you get to, you get to draft the narrative. That's what the Chinese figured out. Like the, the Soviets were like, "Hey, we're gonna, we're gonna go at you with weapons." The Chinese are, "We're gonna go at you with money and eco- and economics and finance, and we're going to use that, and not just, you know, uh, our, the power of our productivity and produc- productive economy, but we're gonna invest in the emerging market economies to the extent that they look towards us, not the US," right? So it's no longer gonna be the US dictating how... what are the principles and rules of the international order. It's China. And so that's what we're seeing play out, you know, on a, on a daily basis.

   6. CWChris Williamson17:32

      What I would agree with is, yes, in terms of the power economically that China has, and also supply chain too, so whether that be downstream or upstream from whatever we need. What I don't think they've managed to do just yet is take on the mantle culturally that America had, right? That sort of cultural leader, people following that way, the American dream. I'm not seeing yet people in the West look to the culture of China outside of the corporate world, uh, and say, "Oh, I want a ch- Chinese fashion and Chinese..." I mean, like K-pop is the closest thing that I've seen to that. Even Japan, I was thinking about this the other day. I'm aware that this, this is not just one homogenous zone over there, but just generally, I've seen Eastern cultural influence seem to wane a little bit. Anime, uh, the sort of the push that we had maybe about sort of 10 to 15 years ago with stuff like Pokemon. Um, I don't know. I... That's been an interesting thing for me to observe.That being said, in developing nations, you know, Belt and Road, um, Initiative stuff, I don't know whether that's the same case. I don't know whether there's some countries in Africa that have received tons and tons of money from China, and not only look to them as saviors and, uh, collaborators financially, but then also perhaps might be sort of, I don't know, praising Chinese cuisine or Chinese fashion or music or whatever.

   7. GSGeneral Robert Spalding19:02

      Well, I mean, I, 'cause I think you're looking at it the wrong way. The Chinese don't need us to adopt their culture. They don't need us to, you know, fall in love with their brands. All they need to do is get the brands that they already know to start spreading the messages that the Chinese want them to spread. So, in other words, when you say, you know, "The Chinese aren't, you know, controlling culture," you're, it's 'cause you're looking for a Chinese company to do it. No, that's not the way of unrestricted warfare. That's not the way (laughs) of war without rules. It's you get the companies that you like to do, to say the things that the Chinese Communist Party wants them to say. So the message, so you're getting the same messenger, it's just the message th- that's coming out of them is different. And so, you know, and, and you're already conditioned to say, "Okay, this is coming from America, so it must be okay." Well, no, it's coming from America, but the message is Chinese. And so, you know, this is, this is why we, you know, and, and, and I, I see this in DC all the time, like, "Oh, the Chinese will never, like, take over." They're not trying to take over in the way that you think. They're not trying to make the face Chinese. They're trying to make the message Chinese.

   8. CWChris Williamson20:14

      So, if you are sufficiently reliant on China for your trade, for your money, for your distribution, they can then have leverage over the things that you do and say back home. You then become a conduit for the message from the CCP. Okay, cool, I understand.

   9. GSGeneral Robert Spalding20:31

      Bingo.

   10. CWChris Williamson20:32

       I understand. Um, I guess an example of that might be that, um, Warner Brothers that produced this new Harry Potter film, that had these seconds of dialogue taken out of them, they had to do that in China. Over time, let's say that they were more reliant, increasingly more reliant on China. China would perhaps say, "Well, actually, we don't just want you to take it out of the Chinese version, but we don't, we don't want it in any version," perhaps.

   11. GSGeneral Robert Spalding20:56

       Right.

   12. CWChris Williamson20:56

       Okay, cool. Fine. So let's-

   13. GSGeneral Robert Spalding20:57

       And that's what Hollywood's been doing, right? And you've seen that. The other thing that you notice, and I, I see this all the time in movies that come out, how many times, you know, in the, in the last 10 years have you watched a movie and the, the, the, the hero coming to rescue, particularly science, science fiction films. It's, you know, 'cause it's set in the future, and it's a Chinese, you know, uh, astronaut, or somebody who turns out-

   14. CWChris Williamson21:20

       Oh, they had a spare...

   15. GSGeneral Robert Spalding21:21

       ... and they're saving the world, right?

   16. CWChris Williamson21:23

       Wasn't that, um, wasn't that the one when, uh, the mars, The Martian, wasn't it that China had the exact rocket that we needed, but it was a second one, and then we were going to finally collaborate, and they were going to come out? I can't rem- That one might have blown up as well. But yeah, I do know, I know exactly the sort of narrative that you're talking about. It's also been a while since we've seen a big blockbuster action movie where China has been the primary enemy.

   17. GSGeneral Robert Spalding21:51

       You never see that. Never. It doesn't happen. In fact, uh, the one time that it was going to happen, which was the re- uh, the remake of Red Dawn, they changed it to the North Koreans. Which, I mean, the North Koreans attacking the United States, are you kidding me? I mean, (laughs) as a plot point, it's like the stupidest thing that, I mean, (laughs)

4. 22:13 – 33:14

   Unrestricted Warfare

   1. GSGeneral Robert Spalding22:13

      it's hilarious.

   2. CWChris Williamson22:15

      You mentioned earlier on Unrestricted Warfare, which is this book from 1999 that I'd never heard of and seems absolutely terrifying. Can you explain what unrestricted warfare is, how it came about, everything else?

   3. GSGeneral Robert Spalding22:29

      Yeah. So it was written by these two PLA, um, Air Force lieutenant colonels, and it was basically their attempt to create a doctrine for how you compete with a more, uh, militarily powerful foe. And it really had to do with the fact that they saw United States, the United States as their number one, um, enemy, but they didn't have the wherewithal to go up against them directly, militarily. How would you, um, how would you deal with that problem? And so there's two trends, um, that they noticed. One was the internet, and, um, it was very early, uh, beginning there, but it was, it was, it was growing rapidly, and the other was globalization. And so essentially they built a military doctrine around how do you, um, how do you exploit the internet and, um, and globalization to, uh, overpower a militarily superior foe. That's, so in military, um, in the military, there's doctrine, and the doctrine is basically based on lessons learned. Of all the conflicts you've had prior, what are those principles that you distill from those lessons learned that allow you to plan for future, uh, conflicts? You know, um, things like mass or surprise or deception. You know, how do you bring those principles into the way that you think about war? What they did is they take, they took that and they built a, uh, a doctrine around how do you use the internet and globalization to basically, almost like the Germans went around the French Maginot Line. How do you bypass the military, which is there to defend the sovereignty and political independence of a society, and go right at the society itself, and begin to attack the society in a way that, number one, um, doesn't highlight you as an enemy, and number two, enables you to gain specific advantage- advantages that your adversary doesn't see happening, right? So it's, it's basically happening in the day-to-day, and you're basically, um, losing your political independence and sovereignty day by day by day as this, uh, conflict unfolds.

   4. CWChris Williamson24:38

      How impressive of a document is this? It seems pretty prescient. It seems like it's been able to predict what was gonna happen. What does it feel like reading it?

   5. GSGeneral Robert Spalding24:51

      Well, I mean, so I read it in '99, and I read it again in 2013, and I, and in '99 I'm like, "This is crazy." In 2013, you, I read it and I'm like, "Oh my God. These guys..." So when you go back to, you know, I flew B-2s, right, so I'm an airman. When you go back into the history of air power and how that became used as a weapon system, uh, very early on, they're like, y- you know, the Army, we didn't have an Air Force in the United States. We had an army, and the army's like, "This thing's useless for military." There were theorists back then saying, "Okay, this is what you can do with an airplane." Bi- guys, like, in the, in the US, General Billy Mitchell, in, um, in Italy, Giulio Douhet, um, they, um, they, uh, theorized that a airplane could be a very powerful weapon. What these guys are saying (laughs) in 1999 is, "Holy smokes, this is the next evolution of we- warfare. Here's the, here is a weapon even more powerful than the airplane, and here's how you use it." So in, in a lot of ways, I got the opportunity, like, I'm, I'm, you know, Billy Mitchell was dead, um, I think when I was born. Um, I'm now getting to see the birth of a whole different kind of warfare that, you know, I al- everything else in the, in, in, in, in kind of air power sense is all history to me, you know, s- things that I read about. This, I'm actually getting, uh, uh, I'm, I'm able to see. And when you go back as an airman and you read the history and you think, like, "How could anybody have ever disagreed with Billy Mitchell?" And then you experience it yourself, 'cause I'm like, "These guys are crazy. They're nuts. There's no way you're gonna ever be able to do this." And then I see over the course of 20 years that that's exactly what's happened. I'm like, "This is, this..." You know, as a, as a military guy, I'm like, "Wow, this is really interesting." Because I, I, I never saw this coming. I lo- I read the document, I thought it was nuts, and it actually came to pass. That is, that's, you know, it's terrifying, because obviously it's successful, but then you gotta say, as a strategist or a military thinker, you're like, "That's pretty cool. I got to, I got to see this unfold in real time and be duped (laughs) into thinking that th- these guys are nuts. They're not, they don't, they don't know what they're talking about."

   6. CWChris Williamson27:19

      Why is it that they were able to see something or have faith in a trajectory that you thought at the time was ridiculous?

   7. GSGeneral Robert Spalding27:27

      I think it has to do with the circumstances of, of what the Chinese Communist Party is. It's primarily a political organization, and so the People's Liberation Army is the party's army. It is the armed component of the Chinese Communist Party. And so when you're a, um, and, you know, Clausewitz says, "War is politics by other means." In other words, I use military force to achieve a political outcome I couldn't have got any other way. Well, but the Chinese don't think that way, and Mao d- didn't think that way, and, you know, through their 5,000 years of history, there's a lot of examples that they think a little bit differently about warfare, and that is, it's much better to achieve your objectives without going to war, because war carries with it the risk of losing everything. And so, you know, I think they were already programmed, you know, so Mao's concept of people's war is embedded into the way the Chinese Communist Party and the People's Liberation Army already think, and that, that, what that is is that politics is war. In other words, it's not war is, um, politics by th- um, other means. Politics is war, and, and, and that's the way you have to approach it, and if you approach it from the standpoint that politics is war, and then you see these tools beginning to, um, materialize that allows you to take your political warfare and export it globally to somebody else that's not even in your borders, and, and, and do that, you know, because the internet and the globalization gives you the power to do that, boom, the same way that the airplane, you know, when paired with the logistics might of the United States, meant that we're the most powerful military on Earth, the, th- these two colonels, lieutenant colonels said, "Okay, if I can take these tools, I can export the way that we think about warfare, which is basically political in nature." How do we undermine the faith and confidence of a society in the governing structure of that society? And then how do we slowly turn those elites of that governing structure to think of the world where, you know, they, um, have the right to be in the leadership position they have?And that by that right, that the individuals below them should just basically do what they say. That becomes the way that they create safety, because ultimately, the Chinese Communist Party, they just want to exist, and if the rest of the world looks like they do, and the people that they're interacting with are the elites of the rest of the countries, and the elites all agree, right? They all agree that they are in charge and everybody should do what they say, they don't care, you know, what your, how you describe that. You can call it American democracy, you can call it the EU democracy. They don't care as long as you have a separation between the individual rights and what the elites are a- allowed to do.

   8. CWChris Williamson30:22

      How do you think that China sees their enemies?

   9. GSGeneral Robert Spalding30:27

      Um, well, they see everybody as, anybody that's outside their (laughs) borders is an enemy, and, um, and, uh, you know, the, the whole adage, "An enemy of my enemy is my friend." So they don't have strong alliances. What they do have is interests, and then they use those interests to play off their enemies, because again, if politics is your way of doing things, then the more that you can get your, uh, what you view as your enemies, um, to go after each other-... the less, the more secure you're going to be. And so, you know, Russia, Iran, North Korea, you know, people think, "Well, they're allies of the Chinese." Well, in a sense they are, but in a sense, the Chinese love it when the Russians, uh, and the, and the Iranians and the North Koreans are basically creating problems for America because the Chinese also see the Russians, the, the In-, the, um, Iranians, and the North Koreans as adversaries, right? They're on their border, um, and they want to, they want them to be distracted. And so getting all of these nations to fight amongst themselves is a perfect, um, is a perfect... And you think about not just, you know, Russia, Iran, North Korea, but if you go to talk to any American ally in Asia, Singapore, the Philippines, right? North or South Korea, what are they, what do they constantly tell American diplomats and, uh, and leaders? "Oh, don't get us to choose. We want, w- we want to do business with China, and we want to have you as a security partner." So ultimately, you're creating this thing where, you know, the United States is not able to grit a coalition to go against China, and China can't see the, an, a, an alliance materialize that can challenge it, right? Because everybody is really unwilling to come together as a group to challenge China. That's exce- essentially what they're trying to work out. So it's fine that China doesn't have allies. What they want to ensure is that nobody else does either, and the way that you do that is you constantly keep this, um, this, this, uh, this friction between and amongst not just Russia, Iran, and North Korea, but also the democracies, particularly where, uh, China is concerned. So one of the things that's happened because of Russia invaded Ukraine is the EU is now looking even more forcefully at, "Hey, how do we deal with China?" One of the things that Chinese have been very, very successful at doing is taking the US and EU and splitting 'em when it comes to China. So they have been very effective at, at splitting apart alliances, particularly when it comes to them, and so they don't need allies if nobody else has allies.

   10. CWChris Williamson33:13

       Yeah,

5. 33:14 – 37:43

   Why Dictatorships are so Efficient

   1. CWChris Williamson33:14

      these, uh, loose coalitions with whoever China has, they're, uh, friendships of convenience rather than genuine alliances that stand there. And I mean, it is kind of like having the playbook open wide, and you can almost see the, the horizon coming a little bit when you think, "Look, just consider everything that China does as purely in its own interests. All that they care about is them. And if you can help them get on their way, then absolutely fine. They're going to be fine for that to happen. However, the second that you can't anymore, they're not going to be bothered, and also they don't mind being ruthless and culling you if needs be." It's, um... The more that I learn about it, the more sort of scary it, it seems. And it is such a effective way to legislate or, or to run a co- a country. I'm not saying that it's, uh, the best thing to do or even a, a, an optimal thing to do for the people that live in it, but you can get a lot done if you're a dictatorship.

   2. GSGeneral Robert Spalding34:16

      Well, uh, that's why Trudeau, you know, (laughs) said, "I wish I could be, you know, have a system like China does." And, and essentially that's what politicians in the West want. They want a system like China, so, because they think they, they can get a lot done. And I think what, you know, at least the framers of theUS Constitution, uh, particularly, uh, guys like Alexander Hamilton that looked at all prior, uh, governing structures and said, "How do we fashion something where nobody can gain ultimate power because ultimate power is corrupting?" You know, this idea is losing favor in the world, and it's losing favor because the most powerful, uh, country in the world is no longer the United States. It's now China, and its ability to move the narrative in its favor means that this lust for liberty that came out of the American Revolution and really found, um, you know, a home in so many nations afterwards, you know. We've been in, in existence over 240 years, but all of that has now lost its luster. And even within the United States, you have the citizens of the United States saying, uh, and, and not without, you know, the Chinese being very, um, involved in how they accelerate that, you know, uh, social, um, unraveling that we are losing that, you know, what I would call, you know, lust for freedom that really motivated our ancestors to create this, this, uh, this system. And so, you know, when I say, you know, China's the most existential threat that, um, um, not just America but democracy has ever faced, I really believe that, because it's not about tanks moving through the Fulda Gap. It's not about the armed might of the Soviet Union. It's really about us losing our lust for the constitutional protections that our ancestors devised because they were concerned about a government having power over the people. You know, we have people like Arnold Schwarzenegger who came from (laughs) former, you know, communist country, comes to the United States, finds enormous wealth saying, "You know, you ought to do exactly what the, um, country says, you know, because of, um..." And you, then freedom, who, who, who wants this freedom? You know, "Everybody should give up their freedom for coronavirus." Well, no. That, the, the Constitution was not designed so that you just give up your freedoms, um, for convenience. It's designed that if you give up your freedoms, then what happens is tyranny. And essentially, you know, once you give, (laughs) once you give a, a politician an inch, they're going to take it a mile.

   3. CWChris Williamson36:59

      I see from a politician's perspective why a-... uh, dictatorship would be so seductive, right? Because a democracy's, it's, there's so much friction. Having to get people to agree, all this voting, all the campaigning, all of the problems with actually getting to hear what people want and then having to be accountable for making sure that you deliver the thing that you, to them, that you said that you were going to give them. Like, it does look, from the outside looking in, if you forget about, um, human welfare and decency and, and f- freedom and liberty and all that stuff, it actually does look like a pretty effortful way to run a country. However, yeah, I, um... It's so, it's so interesting the way that these policies have sort of looped back around.

6. 37:43 – 47:57

   China’s Disinformation Process

   1. CWChris Williamson37:43

      But you talk about the magic shoes of technology. What are you referring to there?

   2. GSGeneral Robert Spalding37:49

      Well, I mean, I think what they are saying is these, um... (smacks lips) When you look at the US in terms of warfare, we had kind of what's called the first offset which was nuclear weapons, um, and, um, and ICBM technology. The second offset was, you know, this use of, uh, GPS, um, stealth, um, with aircraft, uh, networking, computers, and, and we were talking about in, um, in 2013, 2014 at the Pentagon about the third offset. What was the third offset going to be? And I think what, um, it's related to where the internet, where they thought the internet was going, and in particular, this ability to target the individual. So John Worden talks about, um, you know, what you should go after, uh, in terms of attacking a society in order to have a successful military campaign. One of the things that you should not, uh, go after is the population, right? Because rather than... so bombing the population really turns them agai- you know, f- against the people bombing them, not the leaders of the country. If you're trying to create a political outcome, then you need to go after the leaders of the country because they're the ones that are gonna make the political decision based on the pressure you put on them. If you put it on the population, they're just gonna, it's gonna reinforce the, the rule of the political elite because it's going to garner their sup- the people's support against whoever's bombing them. So military force is not a good tool for getting the population behind you. And what these two PLA, uh, colonels, lieutenant colonels saw was, you know, the internet is a way to go after the population at a, on an individual basis. So if I can get you to change your perceptions, your intentions, your behaviors using the internet, now I've got a tool to really change the g- the game of warfare, which is w- warfare being a political endeavor, um, and if you can use populous or populism as a way to go after the ruling elite and you can take these tools that were created in Silicon Valley and go after the population in a way that their perceptions, their intentions, their behaviors are modified in such a way that, you know, now, like... And they, here's an example of the way that we used, um, uh, force in, in, uh, the Kosovo War. So we basically, in a nutshell, went after the assets of the elite supporting Milošević, and we took, we started just taking away. Night after night, we were sending B-2s to Belgrade and other parts of Serbia to take away their assets and, and pret- pretty quickly they realized, "Hey, I'm not gonna have anything i- if we don't stop this," and, and Milošević ended up, um, being tried for war crimes. Well, you can also go after the population using the internet and begin to get these same kind of outcomes, and that's what the Chinese... So when you talk about the magic shoes of technology, you know, we're moving from, you know, how do you take a, an airplane and make it the ultimate weapon on Earth, um, for, you know, using force to get a political outcome, to how do I take this, you know, information technology and use that as a weapon to get my outcome and at far less risk and at far less cost? And instead of targeting the elites, which I'm doing with the, the, the military force, I'm targeting the population, and all I want to do is get them, number one, to not be, um, aligned, you know, as one cohesive whole, and number two, you know, the, the narratives that they believe are, you know, less and less supporting of the governing structure of that system they're in. So it's a perfect... If you think about it, you know, it's a perfect, it's a perfect technology, and that's what, you know, that's what they were talking about.

   3. CWChris Williamson41:59

      You've just described the last five years of media communications.

   4. GSGeneral Robert Spalding42:04

      Bingo.

   5. CWChris Williamson42:05

      That's what it's felt like, you know? A lack of trust in the officials that are supposed to run the cou- the country, uh, a lack of faith in the organizations that are supposed to dispense the news and the media to us, uh, a lack of understanding or even agreement around what true means, uh, a lack of faith that the other people that are in the country agree with you or want the same things that are good for the country, a lack of agreement about what is good for the country, mutual fractioning and distaste and... Yeah, I mean, so I learned about the, uh, Internet Research Agency, Russia's sort of cyber disinformation unit, and that seemed pretty sophisticated. Just how aggressive and mature is China's disinformation process?

   6. GSGeneral Robert Spalding42:52

      Well, I mean, it's, it's, it's, uh, I mean, the Russians are like... I mean, it's like trying to compare, you know, um, uh, you know, J. Paul Getty and, you know, some guy that runs a local convenience store.... you know, so the guy who runs the local convenience store, he may have a little bit of throwaway, but it's not like a Getty. And, you know, so that's the different- So they have the same kind of, you know, maybe intent in terms of what they're trying to do, but Getty can do it on a much bigger scale. And that's the thing with China. Um, the other thing, you know, where the mede- media is involved, go look at who the top five media companies are in the United States, and then go look at who their shareholders are. And then go look at who th- those shareholders and look at their relationships with China, and you begin to see the, the, the problem, right? So that's the global, the globalization part.

   7. CWChris Williamson43:44

      Have you ever seen the, um, map of Disney and how much stuff it owns? You can go and look online, and there's a super high-quality image. The reason it needs to be super high quality is that when you look at it normal sized, everything's in type 0.1 font, and you zoom in and you realize that you thought you were getting a varied meal. No, you're not getting a varied meal. It's all coming from the same tree at the very, very top.

   8. GSGeneral Robert Spalding44:09

      Right. And that's essentially what's happening with the media. And, um, you know, it's, it's, it's a, it's a tra- it's, it's a travesty. It's, it's, it's a tragedy too. It is, you know, we look at the media as the fourth estate in, in the United States, and it's supposed to be the honest broker. It's supposed to step in and say, "Okay, this is what the government's telling you. (laughs) This is what's actually going on." Because anybody that's done policy, uh, in Washington, DC can tell you that policy comes from corporate and comes from financial institutions. It doesn't come from, you know, the, um, good intentions of, uh, c- uh, citizen servants that come, citizen servants that come to Washington, DC. I mean, they may come with this idea of they're gonna change things. Um, if they do- if they don't, um, lose that lust for serving the people, what they end up doing, I've seen a lot of people do this, they just end up leaving. They're like, "I'm so frustrated. I can't get anything done. Uh, people don't care." And the ones that s- end up staying, they stay because they become enriched by it. And so, in many ways, and there's a good book, um, Catherine Gale, um, who was a businesswoman, uh, in, in Wisconsin, had a food company, um, had an epiphany one day when she was working on a strategy for her company. And so she wrote this book called The Politics Industry. And so if you look at China as kind of a one-party, um, authoritarian system, you know, Catherine Gale makes a very compelling argument that America has become a dual-party, uh, authoritarian system where the parties actually fight, um, not amongst each other, um, they fight amongst others, right? So they're basically, um, the idea that the, the Democrats and the Republicans don't, uh, agree on the issues is more or less the theater that's put on that allows them to have the control over the policy that actually gets made. And so, um, and it, when you think about it from a, just a foreign policy sense, um, having been in this for a long time, in national security policy, you see that, um, whether you're on the Democratic side or the Republican side, those policies tend to be pretty similar. And then when you get right down to brass tacks, like, how are we gonna do telecom policy in the United States? How are we gonna do energy policy in the United States? You know, there's a lot of, um, there's a lot of industry influence on how those things get done. You know, so, uh, it, it-

   9. CWChris Williamson46:39

      Are you saying that the, that the left and right is performative disagreement?

   10. GSGeneral Robert Spalding46:43

       It's performative disagreement in order to prevent the, um, you know, any kind of real change that benefits those that aren't in the ruling elite, i- is, is the best way to... And, and, and I, you know, having seen this on the policy side and seeing how effective, um, that corporations were and financial institutions were in getting what they want and how ineffective, you know, the average citizen was in getting what they want, it just really brought home to me the power of, you know, how we've, we've basically used the rules, um, to, uh, create a duopoly in the United States. So there's an appearance of, um, you know, that you have a choice, but in reality, a lot of these people are, um, have, uh, in some respects, they're incentivized to maintain the system as is because they profit from it.

   11. CWChris Williamson47:45

       Well, the illusion of choice is a great way to make people feel like there's nothing to rise up against. The problem isn't the system writ large. The problem is those Democrats or those Republicans or whatever. Talking about

7. 47:57 – 56:56

   Chinese Military Strategy

   1. CWChris Williamson47:57

      the, um, the military spending earlier on, China had a strategy of, of limited military spending for a while, didn't it?

   2. GSGeneral Robert Spalding48:06

      Well, I mean, I don't know what you mean by limited. Uh, you know, there's, um... I, I guess in the sense that, uh, it did study the Soviet Union, and it did realize that the, the mistake the Soviets made were, were to spend 40% of GDP on the military. So, um, limited, yes. Um, I guess what, what they would, what they were trying to do is make sure that... Um, the social contract in China is, is, is this. If you agree to give up your liberties, um, to have anything to say with how the country's run, we endeavor as the Chinese Communist Party to provide for you, you know, to provide a, a job. Um, and, uh, as long as you give up those liberties, that's the social contract. And so in order to do that, you know, they ma- they kept, uh, military spending at a modest level. That being said, you know, they don't spend on R&D 'cause they steal everything. And, um, the-... the, um, renminbi is such that, you know, the purchasing power parody with regard to the US and China means that every dollar, you know, sp- you know, every yuan spent is like, you know, $6, six American dollars. And so I think, you know, while yes, they have, you know, uh, in- in- in aggregate they've spent less year over year than the United States, considerably less, I think what they get out of it is a lot more. And, um, and really, their- their goal was not so much to be a military power until the time was right, right? So they didn't... Until they had grown the predict- productivity of their soc- society sufficiently, you know. Now, they... What they saw after World War II is the US had the supply chain. You- you- y- own the supply chain, you dictate to the world. They wanted to own the supply chain, now they do, now they can start to build their military, which you're seeing that start to accelerate.

   3. CWChris Williamson50:10

      They've- they've just started to expand, right?

   4. GSGeneral Robert Spalding50:12

      Right, right.

   5. CWChris Williamson50:12

      So it looks like they're really aggressively... Are they, uh, looking for, getting ready for a conventional conflict, do you think?

   6. GSGeneral Robert Spalding50:19

      Oh, yeah. They're gonna invade Taiwan. That's coming. It's n- without a doubt. And- and the- the power that and might that they have, uh, accrued over the last 20 years is staggering. It is... I mean, uh, I'm not kidding when, you know, you could basically cover every square inch of Taiwan with the weaponry that they've developed and over those times.

   7. CWChris Williamson50:41

      It's gonna make, uh, Putin's invasion of Ukraine look paltry.

   8. GSGeneral Robert Spalding50:44

      Oh, my God. It's... Uh, the- the... And- and they don't care about the people, right? So if you don't care about the people, all you want is the land, 'cause it- 'cause it fits your narrative, you know, what you promised to the Chinese people, "Hey, you keep us in power, we're gonna restore us to greatness," one of them is- is basically getting back Taiwan. You know, they- they have the buil-... And, you know, any base that we have in the region will be leveled to dust if we get in the way. I just don't think people realize how much they've built over the last, you know, 20, 30 years. It's just... And it's amazing. It's incredible.

   9. CWChris Williamson51:17

      What's happening in the South China Sea at the moment?

   10. GSGeneral Robert Spalding51:20

       Well, I mean, part of the South China Sea is controlling the resources of the South China Sea, but also being able to have... Um, so back in the '80s, uh, the Chinese Communist Party gave an order to the PLA, "Hey, um, uh, we want you to take the-"

   11. CWChris Williamson51:36

       I'm sorry, what's the PLA?

   12. GSGeneral Robert Spalding51:38

       The People's Liberation Army.

   13. CWChris Williamson51:39

       Sorry.

   14. GSGeneral Robert Spalding51:39

       The military.

   15. CWChris Williamson51:40

       Yep.

   16. GSGeneral Robert Spalding51:40

       So they gave an order to the military to control the South China Sea, and, um, what the PLA, uh, came back and said is like, "We don't have the resources." Like, you know, "In order for us to maintain control of the South China Sea, you know, we would need to have aircraft carriers. We don't have aircraft carriers. We don't have a navy. Um, we just don't have the resources." And so, the South China Sea islands were really fulfilling an order that the PLA had received, you know, decades earlier, and the- the Chi- that China just had, finally had the resources to actually go out and build. And so they just built them four aircraft carriers that don't move, and now they, now they have the- the planes, they have the ships, they have the fuel, they have the logistics, they have everything they need to be sustained down there and control it. The other thing that... The other challenge in terms of, um, that China has with regard to, uh, Taiwan, is they know that they can be cut off from resources. Energy resources, raw materials. So they built the Belt and Road Initiative, which is essentially a way, and- and- and they describe it as, "We're gonna look west." And what- what that means is, you know, bringing oil through the Strait of Malacca is really how they get energy. Well, that can easily be, um, blockaded by submarines, right? So now how do I get my energy? Well, I wanna have this Belt and Road Initiative that allows me to go into Pakistan, go into Iran, go into, um, North Africa and Middle East and get my resources another way so that the- you can't block me out in the Strait of Malacca. It's also has to do with Russia, Eastern, um, East, uh, um, uh, Central, um, Asia. It's really getting all the resources, uh, from there and- and allowing the- the Chinese to really have an alternative source, uh, for raw materials and energy and food when they invade Taiwan. So when you look at what happened when Russia invaded Ukraine, part of the benefit that the Chinese get to see in watching the Russians u- invade Ukraine is to see the response of the West, right? What are the things that the West does? Because what th- what China wanted to do is, "If I can see that response, then I know what to plan for." And so when-

   17. CWChris Williamson53:57

       Oh, you think that's, that was a dry run for Taiwan?

   18. GSGeneral Robert Spalding54:00

       I- I think it's a dry run for Taiwan, and- and that's why... You think about it from the Chinese perspective, that's why... 'Cause Sh- uh, Putin went to Xi and basically Xi said, "Hey, wait until after the Olympics." But he got the green light from Xi. What Xi wanted out that was to see, you know, how the, not just how the Russian military performed, um, because I would say that the- the Chinese military, much more professional, much more, uh, much better equipped, much better trained than the Russians, but it's also like, how the W- how is the West going to react? And in some (laughs) ... You know, I'm just sitting back as a strategist, right? I'm watching this play out, I'm like... And you know, you're like, "Okay, this really, this... A bad thing's gonna happen over here, and I have this, you know, bad thing happening right here." And you're like, "Should I go in guns blazing here and let that guy know that's gonna be a even a bigger problem, know what my guns are?" You know, you're looking at this and you're like watching it happen in real time, like, "Why are we showing them this?" Right? We should not be... It should not be go- guns blazes, because Russia's not the power. They've got an economy less than the size of Texas.... China's the power. They are basically getting all... And we're- we've taken out the playbook and- and thrown the whole thing at Russia, and now we have nothing left. And not only that, but now China's beginning to take its- its kind of, the way it looks at its sphere of the world, and beginning to create the mechanisms so when they move into Taiwan, we're gonna be like, "Eh, can't do that one. Eh, can't do that one. Eh, can't do that one," and we're just gonna be sitting there. And- and people are gonna be upset. They're gonna be frustrated. Like, "Why can we not do something?" Well, the reason we can't do anything is 'cause we showed all our cards vis-a-vis Russia. And I'm- thi- I'm not saying this as, "Hey, we shouldn't support Ukraine." I'm just telling you, what we've done is we've gaven- we've given the Chinese the keys to victory, uh, over Taiwan without ever having to really break a sweat. I mean, that's the thing that scares me.

   19. CWChris Williamson56:15

       Dude, this is one of those videos that resurfaces online three years later-

   20. GSGeneral Robert Spalding56:20

       (laughs)

   21. CWChris Williamson56:20

       ... in the middle of a crisis, and everybody goes, "The- the signs were there. The signs were there. This- this... Everybody knew it." And you go, "Uh, okay." Uh, I- I... It really is... It's a combination of awe and dread that I kind of look at, um, what China's able to do, right? It is unbelievably sophisticated, and- a- and- and very, very impressive. The only problem is that it's being used to facilitate a regime that a lot of us don't want to have happen. Um, it's- it is pretty, pretty scary. One of the other things that I thought about, and I've seen

8. 56:56 – 1:04:06

   The Fentanyl Crisis

   1. CWChris Williamson56:56

      stories on, was their role in the fentanyl crisis that was happening in America. How- how sophisticated s- or purposeful was that?

   2. GSGeneral Robert Spalding57:06

      Well, um, the- the beauty of China, again, the- the systems engineering to society, right? Getting people to do thing that are in their own interests, and, um, and making sure that the things that they- they don't do, they don't do, because they know there will be consequences. So, it doesn't matter where you're going in the world today. If you're getting fentanyl, it comes from the same place. It comes from China, and it comes from, not from, you know, like in, uh, like in the US Midwest, where you got a guy, uh, in a- in a trailer house out in the middle of nowhere, you know, blowing himself up. It's coming in factories, right? They're making it in factories. And so- and so y- you're like, "Well, how is it that China doesn't have a fentanyl problem? If that's the source, how is it there's no fentanyl problem in China?" Well, very easy. The- the Chinese know if they're making fentanyl, they can make all they want, and they can profit off it all they want. Just don't sell it, uh, in China or they end up dead. So- and so really, um, but the Chinese, they have a really... In- when it comes to how you make your money, they don't care as long as it doesn't impact the party, right? If you don't- if you- if you're- if you don't impact the party, then, then you'll have at it. If it actually helps the party, even better. So, if you can get rich and it helps the party, even better. Uh, one of the most sick examples of this is organ harvesting in Chinese prisons. Who are- who are having their, uh, organs harvested? Healthy people. Who are the healthy people? They're religious dissidents, the Falun Gong, the- the Uyghurs, right? So, you get in there, you live a healthy lifestyle, you're a good, um, you know, uh, uh, candidate for organ transplant. Boom, you're dead. Let's take your organs- organs and sell them. Guess what? The people that run the prisons and the hospitals get to make, you know, the thous- the tens of thousands of dollars for- from selling your organs, okay? So, they get rich, but the, you know, the party gets rid of their- uh, their enemy, which is, you know, these religious, what they call religious fanatics. Sick, terrible, but, you know, and- and it works in the system. Fentanyl is the same way. You have the- the- the Chinese pharmaceutical companies s- making the- making the drugs, selling it through the triads and the cartels, and re-

   3. CWChris Williamson59:30

      So, that's the distribution mechanism. 'Cause I was wondering-

   4. GSGeneral Robert Spalding59:32

      Yeah.

   5. CWChris Williamson59:32

      ... how it is that China gets it out of their country and into America.

   6. GSGeneral Robert Spalding59:37

      Yeah. So, uh, the triads are a big part of it. Um, Sam Cooper, who's a, um, a- a- an investigative journalist in Canada wrote a good book, Willful Blindness, talks about, you know, you know, how it works, at least in Canada. I wish he'd come in the United States and- and- and- and do the same thing. Um, and then, because in the United States it's killing people, you know, great. And the way... So, this is why this warfare, this type of warfare is so effective. The DOJ, the FBI, they look at drugs as ab- abhorrent behavior, you know. It's- it's- it's criminal behavior. It's behavior outside the norm. Remember we said we're gonna, China's gonna systemize things and were gonna get rid of abhorrent behavior. Our system basically expects citizens to act, you know, you know, in, you know, in can-, in- i- i- in, uh, in the- in the best... They- they- they expect citizens to be lawful, right? They expect sys- citizens to act in their own best interests, which also happen to be in the best interests of the society. And therefore, the only ones that are gonna be doing these bad things are people that are bad. And so, let's create a system that where everybody's trusted, and then the bad people, we just go after and we catch them. They're criminals and we lock them up. Well, when you look at that and you say, "Hey, um, you know, this is just criminal behavior, but it's supported by a system that's systemic," then you don't have the, either the perception or the tools to deal with it. And the- the analogy that I, um, that I like to use is, you know, I tell people, I say, "What if your- what if your, you know, dad came home and he said, 'Hey, we got a big anthill in the backyard. I want you to get rid of the anthill.'"... and you go out there and you set up an ambush point where the ants are walking by and you start killing ants. And your dad comes home later in the afternoon and he says, "Well, how did ... Did you get rid of the anthill?" Uh, like, "How, how successful have you been?" And you say, "Well, um," you say, "I, you know, I had set up this ambush point and I was killi- I'm 100% effect. Every ant has come by this, this in the last, you know, several hours. I've killed every ... I'm 100% effective. I'm, I'm really doing a good job, Dad." And he's like, "But the anthill's still there." Right? So, it's the same thing for, um, for FBI. If they lock up a criminal, boom, win, you know? And my stick- statistics are, I keep locking up more and more criminals. But are you slowing the flow of fentanyl to the United States? No, they're not. It's actually increasing. So, what's going on there? Well, it's a sys- systemic thing. And o- so in order to get, you know, the Chinese Communist Party runs everything in China. In order to get the Chinese Communist Party to stop shipping fentanyl to the United States, it has to be painful on the elites. And what (laughs) the Chinese have done is when you inflict pain on the Chinese elites, you're also inflicting pain on your own elites, right? We move the supply chain over there. So, the way that you get the Chinese to stop shipping you fentanyl is you say, "You're not gonna ship anything to this country until the fentanyl stops," right? What happens? Your own elites come to you and say, "We can't have that 'cause I'm gonna lose money." Right? So, you, right away, you've cut off any ability that you have to solve this problem because it's a systemic problem. People in China are getting rich. People in America are dying. That means that you're doing well individually, the party's doing well 'cause it sees the US as an enemy. And we've created a system that, that really prevents us from doing anything about it, other than, just like we were talking about between Republicans and Democrats, uh, in a performative basis, right? The FBI can try it out, "Hey, we, we arrested these three people." Uh, or, "We got the Chinese to arrest three people," which by the way, are out in two weeks. So, it's, it, it, it's, it's, it's warfare on a different label, and you have to basically take a step back and say ... And when I ... So, when I, uh, went to China, I did not think this way. I completely believed that our relationship with China was a net good. I wanted to go back to China and work there. And it wasn't until I really started to understand the Chinese Communist Party when I was working in the Pentagon later on, um, that I really began to see, you have to look at the problem differently. If you don't look at the problem differently, then slowly, you know, what those businesses in, in Shanghai were telling me that, "We're gonna make China into us." No, they're gonna make us into them. And that's, that's the

9. 1:04:06 – 1:06:42

   Weakening Enemies by Deception

   1. GSGeneral Robert Spalding1:04:06

      problem.

   2. CWChris Williamson1:04:07

      You've got this quote from Sun Tzu on how to deploy a stealth war in your book, and it says, "All warfare is based on deception. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt." He advocates using spies and agents to study and demoralize the enemy to the point when an attack comes, the end, the outcome is decided. "Attack a defeated enemy," he counsels, "the army is the coup de grace." Hearing that makes me pretty scared, and it also makes me think that, I'm guessing if we got to the stage where China actually declared a war, it would already be too late.

   3. GSGeneral Robert Spalding1:04:40

      Yeah, it would be, we would basically capitulate. I mean, that's their goal, is to basically say, you know, uh, uh, things are over. But, you know, that being said, they're, they're pretty good at just, you know, so if wars, if the way we think of war, it's a political out, uh, you're, it's, it's politics by other means. If slowly, you're getting the political outcomes that you want, and so by the, by the point where you, you know, would need to go to war, you already find that your, your adversary agrees with you, there is no point for war. And, and so, you know, things that, to them, that blow my mind, like just blow my mind, um, that I found out in the last two years is Imperial College of London, you know, which puts out, put out the, um, epidemiology model that said, you know, all these people are gonna die from coronavirus. Now, I looked at that model and I compared it to the data coming out of Italy. Italy was very hard, hard-hit very ear- early on with the coronavirus, but the model was so out of whack from what the data you were actually seeing in, in Italy. I'm like, "This is crazy. This is not, this, these, this numb- the model is not correct." Well, the model is what was used to basically get us to accept that lockdowns and all these other measures are required. What blew my mind and what I didn't know, uh, until Michael Singer had done the research and presented it to me, is that in 2015, Xi Jinping had gone to the Imperial College of London, that the Chinese Communist Party was giving them tens of million dollars, that Neil Ferguson, the epidemiologist that was putting out the models, was basically on the pir- payroll of the Chinese Communist Party. You want to talk about deception? I mean, that's beautiful. It's beautiful. You get your, the fear that you want to create comes right out of your enemy's own mouth. I mean, that's, that is sophistication.

   4. CWChris Williamson1:06:35

      Dude, it's terrifying. It's terrifying. You've blown my mind today. I really, really enjoyed the book. If people want to keep up to date

10. 1:06:42 – 1:07:21

    Where to Find General Spalding

    1. CWChris Williamson1:06:42

       with what you do and find out more, where should they go?

    2. GSGeneral Robert Spalding1:06:45

       I'm on Twitter @Robert_Spalding, no U in Spalding. Um, I'm on, uh, I'm on, um, LinkedIn and, uh, and Instagram General Spalding. Uh, generalspalding.com is my website, and, uh, and you'll see the book there.

    3. CWChris Williamson1:06:59

       General Spalding, I appreciate you. Thank you.

    4. GSGeneral Robert Spalding1:07:02

       Thank you.

    5. CWChris Williamson1:07:03

       What's happening, people? Thank you very much for tuning in. If you enjoyed that episode, then press here for a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last few weeks. And don't forget to subscribe. Peace.

Episode duration: 1:07:22