Kitbag Conversations - Proto Kitbag 11: Five Eyes on China

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

This week we are joined by Alcon S2 (@alcon.s2), a New Zealand based intelligence page dedicated to covering the INDO-PACIFIC area of responsibility (AOR). Alcon S2 and I reference our time as analysts in the Pacific theater to discuss: - Chinese expansion under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) - Interoperability between FVEY (AUS, CAN, US, UK, NZ)  - Conventional warfare in the Pacific  - and fun personal stories in the military 

Hello everyone and welcome back. This week we are joined by Ulkan S2, a New Zealand based intelligence and information page that you may have seen floating around Instagram. So Ulkan, how are you doing today? Good, mate. How are you doing today? Good mate. How are you? Yeah, I'm pretty good. So if you could just do a quick little background of who you are, why you

started the page, you know, those, those P's and Q's. Sure. No worries. Firstly, mate, thanks for having me. Um, big fan of the podcast. I've listened to a few episodes now and kind of got the gist of how you do things and what we talk about but it's been really interesting especially the last ones with I think Lethal Minds Journal and Grey Dynamics, those are two really good ones but a bit about

myself then. So I spent just under 15 years with the New Zealand Army. I wasn't always intelligent, I actually started off within logistics and then I changed later on into my career. I finished my career as a senior NCO, so a staff sergeant, which I think is around kind of like the E7, E8 mark with you guys if we look at it comparatively. Yeah, and so I had a pretty good career, so saw Operation Service in the Middle East a couple of times, deployed all around the southwest Pacific,

so got a good idea of what's happening in that space and then finished my career with support to special operations which was another eye-opening experience in itself. So that's me, which was another eye-opening experience in itself. So that's me, that's kind of my background. And then why I started Orcon S2. I started it for kind of like selfish reasons initially. So the last post that I had in the army, I was at the School of Military Intelligence. So of course, by nature of that post, it's not really operational. So you lose kind of access, you lose your essay and what's happening in the world, because you're kind of focusing on doctrine, right? So I wanted to kind of stay up to date with what's happening in the Pacific and

and all the things that I used to look at and just kind of stay somewhat relevant in that space. And I thought an Instagram page would be kind of just a fun and engaging way for me to do that rather than just spending my free time reading news reports. And I didn't really have a plan for it, but it's kind of organically grown into what it is today with, you know, at the moment, I think over 7000 followers, which is a massive surprise to me especially because what I focus on is quite niche and it's not really, it doesn't really cover the sexy topics such as like what's happening in Ukraine and all that kind of cool stuff but yeah so just focusing

on illuminating the Indo-Pacific and as well as Australia and New Zealand defense affairs. So I've got a relatively strong following and New Zealand Defence Affairs. So I've got a relatively strong following with Australia and New Zealand service people. But I think my biggest audience is of course, by nature of what the platform is, is the state. So it's really good to have commentary from people's state side.

You know, and I just love the community that my page is attracted and all the engagement that I get and the messages that people send is attracted and all the engagement that I get and the messages that people send me, I get some really good gin and something I find really funny is the pace that I run and your page as well and that kind of little community. I feel like I've got more engagement

with the wider intelligence community than I kind of did when I was serving. Because I mean, when you deploy or when you work in certain operations, you kind of get stuck, gets thrown into a skiff or a talk and that's kind of where your engagement starts and that's kind of where your engagement is. But on this space, I've kind of got free reign to just talk to anyone I want and get some really good information or, you know, albeit it is open source, so you kind of have to take everything with a grain of salt. But I think a lot of it is quite credible, which is, you know, albeit it is open source, so you kind of have to take everything with a grain of salt, but I think a lot of it is quite credible,

which is, you know, which is cool. Yeah, man, it's one of those things I... Oh, sorry, go ahead. No, anyway, you go, you go. Austin is just going to say that, like yourself, I started off essentially to keep my analytical writing up, and it just grew legs and ran. And so I was like, oh, well, I guess I should do something with this.

So the community engagement is really fun. It's you get a wide variety of interesting messages day in and day out. So, yeah, yeah, it's, um, it's really cool. And I think, uh, one of the light, the most recent posts I did, I posted somebody's write-up that they did on China and the workings of the CCP and all that kind of thing and even that's really cool because I provide a platform now for other people to have a voice and kind of broadcast what they do and it's just yeah it's great, I really enjoy doing it even though it does take up a lot of my time Yeah, that's great. I really enjoy doing it, even though it does take up a lot of my time.

And I think moving forward and turning it into something else or involving it, I don't really know what it's going to turn into or I don't really have a plan. But I do want to start up my own podcast at some point, as well as build a website and kind of just drive some traffic through there. I've been in discussions with a few people regarding taking my skills into the private sector as well so it'd be kind of cool to just to get that space and yeah who knows. Honestly like the future is just a website based on how Instagram works and their new algorithm that's coming out, the censoring everything from the word death to the word Russia. It's everything in between is about to get censored. So a website is definitely a smart, smart move in a podcast is definitely just a good way to keep your reach going and can't really censor a podcast unless it's deleted.

deleted. So yeah, yeah. What's interesting about you yourself is there's not a lot of individuals from New Zealand doing this. I think you're the only one that I've seen at least come out of that region. Of course Australia has a couple really good pages, but you're the only one that I've seen from New Zealand talking about essentially what's going on in the Indo-Pacific. Yeah, yeah. And that's um, I mean that's another reason why I started it because I was actually looking for those kind of social media pages and I couldn't find any. I was like, okay, fire out, I'll just start one myself and see what happens. And yeah, so here we are today. Yeah, I've had a few people reach out to me from New Zealand, and they've been talking to me about starting their own one. And it's like, man, the more the merrier, just get on board

and just find your niche or just do exactly the same thing as I'm doing. More people focusing on this region, it can't hurt. It's only a good thing. So yeah, really encourage anyone who's got the time and the motivation to do it, then you just get amongst it. So you said you deploy throughout the Pacific itself and I spent some time out there.

I'm pretty sure we had the same focal point. It was China, what they're doing. Are you dialed into the Belt and Road Initiative or what did you really focus on so we can use that as a launching point? So yeah, we focused on a lot of, so this is when I was in intelligence. We focused on a lot of what was going on in the Pacific and by nature of the region, you know, China is a big player there. So kind of keeping tabs on what's going on in that space. on in that space. I'm sort of familiar with the Belt and Road Initiative and what it means for the Pacific. I know that China signed up 10 Pacific Island nations to the Belt and Road Initiative and since then you've seen China move into the region using their influence and expanding their influence via soft power and through trade and now you're seeing them try and sign up at least these security partnerships with that

most recent big one at least in the Solomon Islands so yeah probably can talk about that for a while I think it's a massive issue And it's probably one of the biggest ones. Yeah. Yeah. And when I was in, I would always look at like day one, you check in and they're like, all right, by the way, get really spun up on this because this is what we're doing. And so there was, because I was in the Marine Corps, our whole goal was EABO. And they're like, this is how we counter a Chinese essential, essentially like a peer-to-peer conflict in the Pacific and that was our whole goal but then the soft power angle of the Belt and Road Initiative was number one if not number one then it was a hard number two and just

looking at countries like Vietnam and how they are pretty much the focal point in Southeast Asia at least that don't want to be a part of it. So China is surrounding them with their fishing vessels and so their local militias and it's we have the Spratly Islands and the nine dash line in the South China Sea everything's going on there and for big listeners you don't know that's where a lot of international commerce moves through. So it's the Strait of Gibraltar, Gaza, Cape of Good Hope, and then the South China Sea, where there's a lot of oil reserves. And China's really trying to take a hold of that because to them, they say, oh, well, it has China in the name, so it must be mine. It's a very like almost elementary way of

looking at it. It's very school like being on a school zone. But yeah, that's how they're looking at it. It says China, so it must be mine. And so they're building their military, they're building their Navy and they're sending their ships down there. And what's really interesting is the US or the UN could go, oh, well, the South China Sea is not yours. It's international water.

They went, okay, what if I move a hill from the border of Pakistan and drop it into the Pacific? Let's see what happens there. Oh, it's my territory because I put it there and then they put a SAM system there and a small base and a runway and essentially you have just a movable aircraft carrier hanging out in the South China Sea and then who's right next to them? The Vietnamese. So they're getting surrounded and that's not even mentioning what's going on with the Philippines because they have their own uncertainty and they have their own kind of wishy-washy government but then the Chinese are using Duarte's uneasiness I guess with the U.S. to do whatever they want but he also wants to be independent. He's

very much a third party stuck in between the two powers in the region. So it's, I mean, that was a lot of topics at once just kind of thrown out there, but there's a lot going on just in that part of the world itself. This may be talking about Africa or the Indian Ocean area. Yeah. I mean, like for your listeners, or just if they jump on Google, if anyone's, if anyone's on your computer right now, jump on Google and just type in shipping heat map and Google images and you'll see the amount of trade that goes through East China, South China Sea and that whole region. So, you know, even economically, if China controls that and they've got an unconscious

in military, you know, they pretty much dictate who goes through that, what trade goes through that cut people off economically, which would be massive. And that's massive for the Pacific as well, because you know, New Zealand, Australia, a lot of our trade goes through there, especially with China being the number one trade partner. That's huge. And then with China, establishing that security pact with the Solomon Islands, that's almost like our gateway to the rest of the world.

So yeah, it's massive and economics plays a massive part of it. And we're trying to building up in the South China Sea amongst all those islands as you said, you know, you don't need a carrier if you've just got an island there with all the capability on it. And I honestly do think that this problem set is probably one of the most important, if not the most important, and you know, there's probably a bit of bias in that. But I'm, you know, looking ahead into the future, it's going to be the next boiling point. And it's going to be massive, especially if a conflict kicks off with Taiwan. Well, 100%.

And I'm fairly certain that the Russian invasion of Ukraine definitely put a highlight on China's goals into Taiwan going, well, the Taiwanese are only going to learn from what the Ukrainians did. So either A, they're going to have to accelerate their military and modernization and getting ready to do the battle drills to get ready to go into Taiwan. And that's just going to be a whole mess. And then at that point, if the US just came out and said that they, hey, they're going to defend Taiwan, then that's just, that's going to be a mess entirely. And so outside of, because back in, back in what the eighties, nineties, in early 2000s, there wasn't really a friction inside the Pacific itself. I mean, there was the East to more crisis back in the late nineties, but that

was pretty much just a humanitarian mission between Australia and New Zealand against just pro Indonesia militia groups on the other side of an island. And so that was pretty much it. But as China modernizes, it's, it's, it's almost like there's a naval arms race going on. Because once the Indians got an aircraft carrier, they got the, what was it called? They got the British aircraft carrier that fought in the Falkland Warp. And then the Chinese went, oh, well, I need an aircraft carrier. So they bought the Russian one that was developed by the Soviet Union, the whole thing. But then, because Japan, which is a great power in the region, but is militarily restricted because of the post-World War II agreement, they started building those quasi helicopter carriers where it was just a destroyer with a flat deck

and they were like, oh, well, we could just put an F-35 on this and it still meets the dimensions of a destroyer. So then the Chinese were, well, I guess I need, I guess I need more aircraft carriers. So then Australia goes, well, I know that we are a huge, we are a huge target in the region. So then they started building their own amphibious landing craft that can bear a class helicopter, and then it's almost like there's a military

arms race in the Pacific that no one really wants to acknowledge. But yeah, where New Zealand comes in is like you said, the Solomon islands is that's because for the listeners, New Zealand's arm or military is relatively smaller than most NATO or 5I nations. So would that be your like in case of any kind of war or anything? Do you think that would be where New Zealand itself focuses on or since there's such an economic bond between China and New Zealand, do you think there would be a different kind of friction between them and say the US and Australia?

Yeah, so this is one of the great dilemmas that I think the government has or will have in the near future. It's whether if something kicks off, right? Do does New Zealand stay neutral in order to kind of appease China and maintain our economy and keep our economy going or do we, you know, have some short term pain to realign ourselves back with the West and try and look through those partners in terms of trade and also align more with the West militarily to kind of counter China. So at the moment, New Zealand's kind of walking that tightrope between the two. And you see that a lot of the rhetoric coming out of the government, which is fine and it's expected. But at the same time, I'm also noticing a really slow shift back towards the West, which is a good thing. I mean, you know, we've got the Prime Minister

attending the NATO summit, which is great, and she's establishing a whole bunch of different trade things there. Doesn't really have a military focus, but even just having that presence is really good and being included in those conversations is really good for our country. And as you said, our military is really small small I think across the entire defence force maybe I don't know 10,000 people maybe I don't know I haven't seen the latest numbers but I know that's kind of around where it was sitting when I left and you know we've got yeah a super small way yeah yeah so you know when we talk about punching above our weight, I think we really do and New Zealand doesn't have the best or the most capability, but what we do have,

you know, I think we do have a good punch and we provide some really good people and that's the biggest capability, I suppose. I think our training is second to none across all services services no matter no matter where you serve with that special operations you know in the front line intelligence whatever. Yeah I think we've got some really good people and they get after it but it's just a capability and the political appetite towards our military is still quite low as well but I do think that'll change in the future. quite low as well but I do think that will change in the future.

Interesting yeah I know that there was especially with Australia since they're essentially just a massive force in the region not because of military just by territory itself it's just a huge it's it's a continent it massive. And so they have a large lava territory to defend. And so just knowing that their military is not large either. And so they're playing more of a, I wouldn't say defensive position, but they're doing a lot of what is even the term, it's, they're working a lot with the US. Because I know when I was in, I work with, uh, Australians a few times and they were very, very, uh, dialed into what was going on in the region. I mean, they would go out and surf and they were really cool guys, but they were like, Oh, I, I'm, they're very serious. And so it's real quick, real quick. Is there any like, cause I know in New Zealand, did they send guys to the war on terror, like Iraq and Afghanistan?

Because I know they did a little bit, but I don't know to what reach or to what extent. Yeah, yeah. We've, you know, we had a decent deployment in Afghanistan for over 10 years and had different, you know, elements in Iraq here and there during different things. So yeah, we've definitely had a presence in the Middle East. As far as I'm aware, there's nothing there anymore, at least in

Afghanistan and Iraq, maybe something called elements, I don't know. But there's, you know, we've got a few other people in different parts of the Middle East. But yeah, we've definitely withdrawn our footprint from that region, but we did have a footprint there and we did do some good things there. But now, you know, with all the events happening in the Pacific, that's where we're definitely realigning. So which leads me to the next point. Australia, New Zealand, the US, Japan, South Korea, they all sent individuals and members of the military over to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. China hasn't fought a conventional war in 75 years. So they can have the biggest military in the region, but tactically, they're very reliant on that former Soviet doctrine, which we are seeing in Ukraine is not doing too well. So when it comes to a peer to peer fights or a conventional conflict in the Pacific, that would, it's going to get very messy, very fast simply because

there's these untrained conscripts getting thrown into the meat grinder. And they will essentially be that common as human wave until just pushing against the defense of Taiwan or Vietnam, if you will will or any country that kind of comes into conflict with China. I think the closest they've come in the last 20 years is throwing rocks at Indians on the border. That's as close as they've come to any kind of kinetic activity. Yeah, I love those videos. It's hilarious. There were like one Indian soldier was injured and I was like, no, he what? He got hurt by a rock. That's Yeah, it's like a mess of brawler. It's funny.

Oh yeah, it's such a gentleman's agreement to say, okay, I'm going to put my weapon down and we're going to sell this like settle what you're in. You're in this little valley that nobody wants. But anyways, it's yeah. Yeah. So speaking conventionally, the Chinese don't have any doctrine to kind of play on. They could have war games all they want, but we know if it's a former Soviet or just, you know, communist or Chinese, any, any kind of thought that's applied to the authoritarian type of military, whatever failures they learned, they're going to cover it up and tell their officers, yeah, we're good. So if the entirety of essentially the Pacific went out and got dirty and learned some mistakes and went, yeah, we're

going to learn from this. And they implemented that in their day to day doctrine. It's, if you said second to none, if there's going to be a small contingent of New Zealanders or Australians or Americans fighting against the Chinese quantity, quality over quantity usually succeeds. So yeah, Chinese, quality over quantity usually succeeds. Yeah, for sure. And it's because I think the quality of Western militaries and the people, it's certainly a force multiply, right? Compared to the conscript soldiers that China and Russia probably fields. But in saying that though, we can't forget that, that China's,

you know, they're almost certainly watching Ukraine, Russia very carefully adjusting their doctrine, their TDPs and what they do. But you know, you're right, they haven't fought a conventional war in a long, long time. And they certainly haven't fought a modern war. So if they were to invade Taiwan Taiwan I think it'd be really interesting it'd be really interesting how they how they go about that. They keep building the those amphibious landing craft and they have three aircraft carriers now I saw and it's it's it's building the military but it all comes down to application. If they don't know how to land a ship, I mean, you could have all the Marine brigades you want,

but if they don't know how to actually have a rally point and then move to Caesar objectives, it's not really going to pay off. And I mean, even the Russians had Afghanistan in the 80s and then Chechnya 1 and 2 and then Georgia and now this. I mean, they were at least building towards what they have going on now but looking at China big picture I think that's they might know this and be cognizant of what's going on which is why they're really reliant on soft power and the Belt and Road Initiative and just economically going oh I don't need to win today because if America runs in four years and essentially the world follows what America is doing I just got to wait till the next guy shows up and they're probably going to be a little more because if America runs in four years and essentially the world follows what America's doing,

I just got to wait till the next guy shows up and they're probably going to be a little more leaning on me. So, yeah. Yes. Another thing I've seen and you might have seen this is, and this is in Australia, that the Chinese foreign exchange student program in colleges within Australia ramped up a lot in the second half of the 2000s, in the early 2010s, around the time that Xi Jinping became president, which is very center guys over there collect every single thing you can. So, yes. Yeah, it's, they get a lot of moving in one direction. Yeah, I think there's a lot of reports. I remember when that all came out and there's a lot of reports online with CCP, quote unquote, spies in New Zealand academic institutions.

So, yeah, I think that's a pretty well-known report and I don't know, assessment as well that that is taking place. And I think it's a pretty well-known report and I don't know assessment as well that that is taking place and I think it's pretty credible because I know the CCP has a really extensive reach for like into like Chinese diaspora around the world and I'll be careful what I say here but I'll be careful what I say here, but I don't know, there's certain organizations, certain people within the Chinese community, they almost certainly have those links back to the CCP, whether that's indirect collection and feeding that information back or directed intelligence operations. So I believe it's happening and this is all based off the reports that I'm reading online. And I don't know how much they're gaining from the New Zealand institutions but certainly

the bigger countries, Australia, even I don't know if it's happening in the US, but you know, you have a lot of research and development, I assume going on in universities and you know, when they're looking at that stuff, emerging technology, you know, that's a perfect place to, to take that information back to the homeland, reverse engineer, build on it. that information back to the homeland reverse engineer build on it. Well the big thing that I look at it as is you send say you're China and you say I really want the world to ease up on I'm an authoritarian dictatorship and Chairman Mao's not that good so I'm going to flood their markets and their college campuses where it's a melting pot of ideas and cultures and whatnot and say just promote the idea that yeah China's pretty. So if you start doing that in many locations with the same script for every single individual in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada, Mexico, this really going to sway the voters opinion in this, because America and the West is all democratic and relies on votes. It's all going to sway the voters opinion on, oh, the Chinese aren't that bad, but completely take

out a context of say, uh, G five being implanted for cell service or the geopolitical ramifications of being too reliant on the Chinese because they could just at any point go, Oh, well, I bought all your debt. So give me, you know, the South Southern Island. It's, it could do that. And yeah, it's more of a soft power move and promoting their own like something like TikTok which is a Chinese based tool and they figured out the Western mind and how to essentially manipulate it and all they have to do is go, oh you don't like you, do you want to use TikTok? Well it comes from from China, so we're not that bad. I mean, we have our own Instagram, it's this. So, regardless of gray man and briefs

or any report that comes out saying, get rid of TikTok. It's not good, but. Yeah, TikTok's a funny one. Like personally, I love a good TikTok video because I think there's some hilarious videos out there. But at the same time, I don't have an account, I don't post on it or anything like that. And it's these reports of those links back to China and it being a massive data hoovering platform. And you're right, they can easily manipulate the West, at least the youth of the West through the algorithm.

So it's massively powerful, but you know, it's not going to go away. TikTok is not going away. People aren't going to stop using TikTok. It's just the way it is. Yeah, it's already embedded within society. It's already in the zeitgeist. It's not going anywhere. It's like Vine. Everyone went, wow, I really want another Vine. So I, so I got a more of a touchy question for you. And it's kind of one that's been lingering for a few years. So we have Five Eye, which is essentially all the Anglo-Saxon, English-speaking nations are on one intelligence platform. They all work together. They share information. There's a running joke

within the military, the US military, at least within the last few years, saying that it's essentially Four Eye in Australia or New Zealand's just the the honorable mention. So what's your stance on that? Yeah, I've heard that thrown around and being from New Zealand. I know I can I can agree with where it comes from because we're not when we're certainly not the biggest player on the world stage and and we've only got so many people and so much resource to contribute essentially. But we are the country along with Australia but I think more so New Zealand that has a better

understanding and a better awareness of the Pacific, especially the Southwest Pacific and the Pacific Island nations. And that's not just because of where we're located, but it's also the cultural ties that we share with those countries. So New Zealand has you know, our indigenous people, the Māori people, they share a lot of cultural ties with the Pacific Island nations, right? So through that alone, we've already got those really, really strong bonds. And that's why there's those natural partnerships between us and those nations. And we're in those kind of countries align more with us before they would align with a country like China. So in that respect, yeah,

so in that respect, we offer in that respect we offer a lot of value right but I guess when we're talking about projecting further afield and further around the world that's kind of where we run into that issue because we don't, I mean yeah as I said we're a small country man and we can only do so much with the capability that we have but when we do support our partners around the world as I've said previously, we punch above our weight or at least we try to and we certainly do add value and I can attest to that through the people that I've worked with and the feedback that I've got from our Five Eye partners towards some of the analysts that I've worked with as well. So yeah, I understand where that seems to come from and it's a bit of a laugh and

I think it's just an all good guess to be honest. Yeah, it's been when I was in I work with New Zealanders and Brits and Canadians and essentially everyone in the Five Guy bubble and it was just a running joke. And I was like, I've never actually met a, an analyst in the New Zealand military. So I have to ask him because I feel like they're more dialed in outside of say a, a grunt or I think you guys call them diggers. There's that just Australia. Yeah.

That's more Aussies. We sort of do, but yeah, it's more grunts. I think. Yeah. Yeah. That was just a question thrown around. And I figured it was a good time to ask. But moving on big picture next 20 years, next 25 years, because China has the 2049 project. And they have to take Taiwan by 2049, because that's the 100 year anniversary of the communist Chinese goal. Like that's 100% what they need, but you can't pacify an entire country in 20

minutes, it's going to take years. And so do you see, so there's like option A where the Chinese just completely invade and they annex the island and they go to a complete war with the Pacific nations and it just spirals from there. Or B, do they put so much pressure on the state of Taiwan that the Taiwanese people just go, it makes more sense to join them. So let them just, I don't care what happened in Hong Kong or Macau, I understand, but it might be different. Do you think that the people of Taiwan will accept it or you think because of

the current administration they're just going to double down and go, no, I think we're going to fight to the end. I think you could probably almost combine both of those colors or those courses of action, right? So the second one, you know, having the situation with the people, you could almost have that as a precursor to full blown invasion, you know, just wear the populace down until you get, you know, some sort of populace support within, within Taiwan, because they're so worn down, they're just over it. And then you come in, you're like, OK, we're going to liberate you, whatever, same kind of thing is what's happening in Ukraine. So, yeah, I mean, I think that could be a possibility, but it's so complex, man. Like, I read so many articles on, you know, what war with Taiwan would look like,

you know, what's going to happen. And there's so many different opinions out there. There's so many, so much different analysis out there. It's just hard to pick one course of action. So even in so I don't know if you would have seen the video of the UK Chief of Army talking about we're in a 1937 kind of scenario at the moment, you know, which the indicator there is, is that's implying that in two years, we're going to be at the start of World War Three.

And so even then, like now you've got some people saying that, or assessing, OK, we're going to be at war in maybe two years or maybe five years. It's such a hard one to assess. I can't really put a number on it, to be honest. But I think going back to your previous question, I definitely see combining those two colors is feasible. Okay that makes I mean I can see that but yeah after several generations of because their initial battle cry was retake the mainland and by the 70s the UN went you're never

getting it back so we're just going to hand over the seat of the state of China to the CCP not the state of nationalist China and or the Republic of Taiwan Taiwan is this called now and be like, all right, this is it. And so that idea of being outnumbered, where you might've seen it when Ukraine got invaded, or actually goes back to when the West was leaving Afghanistan, the Chinese flew over Taiwan, and we're handing out leaflets saying, Hey, look how the West treats their Afghanistan, the Chinese flew over Taiwan and were handing out leaflets saying, hey, look how the West treats their allies, you're next. So it's if you just get that seed planted in the back of every youth's mind going, no, I don't want to fucking die for a lost cause, we're going to lose. So why wouldn't we accept it?

Yeah. And it's what that leads me to another point where a war in the Pacific would not be initially tanks and planes and grunts running across open fields like it is in Ukraine. It's going to be a lot of ship movements. So do you see the age of the aircraft carrier being over because of all these ballistic missiles that are coming out, they call them carrier killers. They could just smoke an entire enterprise class aircraft carrier from the 80s. I mean, the Chinese seem to be stopping their production of aircraft carriers because I think they see ahead of the curve going, I don't really see what's going on.

It's more of a symbol at this point of a cultural Chinese owned this region. And that's why the British sent their queen Elizabeth over to Singapore. It's Hey, we're here. Which was honestly just out of left field move for them. But yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, I don't have a naval background, but I do see there's still a role to play for carriers, you know, in the future war in the Pacific. There will certainly be a multi domain kind of conflict of conflict, however when you talk about boots on the ground, you know, when you're fighting in the islands you'll see a lot of

jungle warfare and that kind of stuff but yeah it'll certainly be missiles, ships, destroyers and I do think that there's still a place for carriers as well. Maybe not to the extent as what we've seen in the past, especially in recent years. But yeah, I do think there'll still be a role for carriers, especially if you've got to project air power and things like that. Because if you're going to, even if you forward stage into the Pacific if you've somehow got hold of a country's airfield like in a country like Samoa or Tonga but you know that infrastructure that organic infrastructure there is still quite limited so I think it's still more

feasible to utilize a carrier but again that comes with its own risks and vulnerabilities especially when you're talking about missiles and things like that but me personally I still think there's a role there but this is certainly a land-based point of view because I don't have the expertise to talk about naval warfare or missiles and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. I agree with. Yeah, I agree with what you're saying. It's like everyone's saying the age of the tank is over.

Cause if you got blown up in Ukraine, like, no, that's still an intimidating thought of a tank rolling down the road in Europe, a grunt with an M4. You're like, no, I'm not stopping that. It's the aircraft carrier is big and the US Navy is what larger than the next 10 combined based on tonnage. So it's ships are fierce just to begin with. And if you have three carriers in the Pacific and they can each carry 80 aircraft or 80 fixed wing aircraft, that's, that's 80 different items you have to watch out for say if it's a C to C based battle or just essentially taking control of any airspace because you need to have control

the airspace before you move in with your ground forces in any kind of conventional conflict. So that's interesting. I definitely don't think it's over, but I think there might take a backseat here soon. Based on just the rapid industrialization, not industrialization, but the modernization of technology and especially coming out of China, because they just, they steal everything is a good way to put it. And it's, we have a saying in the US is that great value value branch like F18s and whatnot. Is the US, are they still building carriers and things like that? What's the approach that the US is taking now? So they're still building carriers and they take, don't quote me, but maybe six years to make. So it's no longer that one year rotation that was in World War II where you can just throw a bunch of steel together and put a flat deck on it and kick it out. It takes several years because the nuclear power. And so you have a lot going on, but the U S also has several smaller ships like cruisers, frigates, these kinds of things floating around and so I was not on the, I was not on a Navy ship

when I was in Asia but there was the Marine Corps that their whole thing is they're the first line of defense when it comes to the Pacific so that's their backyard cults really based on heritage going back to World War II and whatnot. They're like we fight on islands, we're amphibious, that whole thing so they're really pivoting back to that. So they ditched tanks, they ditched they're already, they've really gone back to a very light infantry based organization where you could have rapid mobilization across any kind of domain. So based on if they're coming on via MV-22 Ospreys or if they're coming on via landing craft, they can deploy really rapidly, really quickly and then get up and move. So the US military or just I can't speak on

the army but I know that the Marine Corps have come up with something called EABO where essentially their goal is to take islands and hinder freedom of navigation in the ocean. So they just sit down sit down they implant their anti-air anti-ship missiles and they're like all right well come get it and so at that point when I was reading all these, when I was still in, I was going, didn't the Japanese try this and we just went around? So that was the first idea, but looking more into it, it makes more sense to just block. And so you could bottleneck entire fleets into one area and then engage them with your aircraft, these kind of things and just essentially smoke as many warships as you can while the Marine Corps seizes objectives across

the Pacific and so that's on each island chain and without going way into the weeds and some not chill things it's essentially the Marine Corps whole job is to soak up as many bullets as you can until the Army and the rest and the first Marine division show up. So that's any Marine that's out in like Guam forward is like you're counting your days. And so outside of that, you have someone like the army who is in Korea and their big adversary is North Korea, who fairly certain that in any case of any Chinese friction, they are going to head south very fast. So it's almost expected. And so that kind of leads me into a thought that's been bouncing around for a while. Would the Chinese just assume control of North Korea, just get rid of Kim? Or would they let

them kind of be this wild card to keep the US entertained while the Chinese are pushing, what is this, West? Yeah, while they're pushing East. What do you think? I don't think the CCP would assume control of North Korean government. North Korean government. I don't typically focus on North Korea but I can't really see that happening just by nature of the North Korean government and that whole institution, how it's essentially like a, it's almost like a cult really, they've got their whole country under the thumb, believing in this whole different way of life in this year. Um, so I can't see the Chinese taking that over. Um, however, they will, you know, I might likely be a proxy almost,

if you know what I mean. Um, yeah, I don't see China taking over, but just by nature of what North Korea is and what the government is, like, I just can't see that happening. Yeah, it would definitely be a domino effect. Once yeah, once China does that moves at all towards Taiwan, it would rapidly become a like I said, domino effect. And I'm fairly certain that there's a lot of young Japanese individuals who are really eager for round three. So they are, I work with the Japanese

quite often and they were very professional and very mean. So I can't imagine them just going against the Chinese again. So yeah, I think, um, yeah, the only exposure I had to Japanese was I deployed on a RIMPAC back in 2014, I think. So I worked with a bunch of Japanese there, and they're really, really cool people and really conventional. Yeah, a lot of other countries, you know, working with the Marines, that was awesome too. And going off topic now, but even just being on RIMPAC, you know, that was like the first time other than when I was in Afghanistan where I really had an appreciation of, you know, conventional power that the states and other countries have and the presence that is in the Pacific, even just being at Pearl Harbor with all these different, I think, I don't think China was there but yeah, just having all these different countries there, it was massive. It was a really cool experience, but I've fully gone off topic now. Yeah. It's speaking of RIMPAC.

So China was never, I'm sure you know, but for the listeners, China was never invited to RIMPAC because nobody could trust them. They were going to spy and be Chinese. And then we invited them one year and I want to say it was in like 2012, 13 or 14, one of those. And immediately they just got caught spying and they're like, well, now you're banned again. It's and so, but for anyone listening, RIMPAC is essentially a big military joint exercise between all the nations within the Pacific Rim to train together and to really build that geopolitical alliances and make everyone be friendly with each other and go like hey shake hands kiss babies one of those things but yeah everyone knows subconsciously that the whole plan

and the whole goal of RIMPAC is just in case the Chinese get frisky so yeah yeah so um so yeah China was there in 2014, which is when I was on that exercise. I remember, I remember seeing their flag. Um, but yeah, as you said, you know, then they get caught, um, spying. And even since then, you know, even since then, when there's major exercises and you can read about this online, you know, there's always reports of a Chinese Sigan ship, you know, just following off the horizon, just hovering data essentially. Yeah, they're like, I know what you're doing. Yeah. A Chinese ship just happens to show up off the coast of Okinawa. I wonder what you're looking

for. It's not fish. So yeah. Yeah. I think the last one I read was an Australian exercise on Talisman Sabre Which is again China were off the coast And that's why it's kind of I got asked the question as well like what What's gonna happen on this RIMPAC? I just made the same assessment, right? I'll be like, well, I wouldn't be surprised if China showed up with one of their ships just off the coast and just tracking along behind and just monitoring and doing what they do. Oh, yeah, there's, yeah, China is trying to learn as much as they can. So they're just sitting down with a textbook going, okay, learning from everyone from the US

pullout of Afghanistan, 20 years of war on terror, the Russians, they're reading, re reading, of course, our old organic doctrine, but they say the rapid rapidly modernized in the military, but they're taking notes from everyone. So in a conventional conflict, it's going to be, you might have an 80% solution of what they might do. But then that 15% is well, I'm not really sure because Chinese don't say anything. is, well, I'm not really sure because Chinese don't say anything. So, and I think I mentioned that last week with great dynamics, but a nation like China, they have the second largest military budget on the planet and the largest military in the world, but their stated numbers are likely incredibly fudged and fake. Yeah, even their military spending, like what they officially put out there is probably drastically lower than what they actually spend on their military. But yeah, so you never know what the real numbers are or what they're really up to, aside from what they put out officially or what you can get off social media.

But yeah, hey, one thing I wanted to mention now that we're on the back end of this conversation, I think it was one of the things you brought up in your last one, oh no, the one with Leaf and Wine's journal, and you're talking about being an analyst in the military, where you kind of show up to a posting or a unit and you're talking about being an analyst in the military, where you kind of show up to a posting or a unit and you're just expected to be the instant SME on a particular problem. I was like, I listened to that, I was like, that is so true. And then you just spend your time just reading and just like being fed through fire hose of all this information

and just trying to almost fake it till you make it a that well that's my experience at least and then you eventually get there. But yeah, you know, once you're, once you're, yeah, once you're dialed into like an 80% solution or 75% solution, you move and you go to a different AO and you've go to a completely different command and they're like, Oh, you looked at China. I don't care about that. We're really involved in what's going on in the Horn of Africa. You're like, that means nothing to me. They're like, well, about it because you have a brief in two weeks and you're like, thank you. So yeah.

Yeah. And like, and now I'm working now, you know, I'm outside the military, but I'm still, you know, working within government. And you've got these these analysts that have been looking at the same thing for four years, right. And to me, that's like, that's a true SME. And they just like, yeah, and in the Cyclopedia, in terms of the particular problem set, but you know, when you go to that military, it's totally different. So I think my last deployment, you know, I showed up in theater and we're looking at this particular problem set.

I had my little week handover and then I was into it and I was going to these meetings and these working groups just expected to add value from the get go and oh my gosh, just like, just like that feeling like you kind of know, but you still got so much to learn. It's so typical way. So typical of the military. Or the worst is you show up in your first few weeks and you give a little cub or a dub or anything to the commander and you sit down you do the wave tops and he goes I already know this and you're like oh anyway yeah yeah that's yeah that's another one. So in the uh the Marine Corps I don't

know about the army or any of the other branches, but our first basic all source game is called an Intel specialist. And then the joke is like, what do we specialize in? Because our posts are only two years. So, yeah, yeah, that was the same two to three years. I mean, you're off to something else. But if you don't read less, you're like, well, then it's all a waste. So, yeah, yeah, that's so true.

But I think even when you're like, when you're briefing commanders and things like that, I think that that issue when you when you're bringing command and they're like, oh, I already know this or you kind of just assuming that they already know everything, I think that's that's just a gimmick with first, the gimmick with initial postings in the first few months but I think once you start building those relationships with command, you start knowing and talking to them and understanding their questions and what they need to know, it gets a lot better and I think that's a real cool thing when you've got those kind of relationships with the command. Oh yeah of, you start to build that personal relationship.

And if you're the chief or the specific individual that focuses on this area, say you're the, you're the AFV guy and you're like, cool, I know everything about the AFV. And so people will start coming to you and you build that relationship or if you give your, your pre-mission brief to your guys and then the back end you do your, because you were in the army. I'm sure you had those, those readouts after like a patrol or a brief and you're like, okay, what'd you guys see? And you sit down there and you know, like they might want dip, you know, they might want a cigarette. So then that's how you build friends, but that's just people skills at that point. So yeah, what's most interesting, and this is just from my experiences working with the other branches,

because you're so pigeonholed into your experiences. Like, oh, well, the Marine Corps acts like this. And then you go to work with the Navy and you tell them about what's going on in Syria and they go, well, that's a pickle. And you're like, what? That wasn't what? Sure. Yeah.

That's not, that's not like that has, that's not even an answer. Yeah. What, um, what kind of training do you, do you guys go through as part of the Marine Corps and intelligence? So the first three months are boot camp of course and then you have a month of combat training which is every Marine or rifleman or whatever and then there's a three-month intelligence course where they just go over IPV and collections and coins just the wave types of what you know I'm sure you have it you have the pub and it's just intelligence and coins, just the wave tops of what, you know, I'm sure you have it. You have the pub and it's just intelligence. And so you just read it top to back and there

you go. And then sometimes they have more specialized schools where they're, you can be an instructor trainer, but once you leave the schoolhouse, it's pretty much up to you about how good you want to be. Yeah. And the Marine Corps is very small. It's the smallest branch. It's very underfunded. And every single year it goes. The motto is do more with less because we don't have anything. So all of our subs is stamped US Army and we're the last to get everything. Which is changing because the Marine Corps was like, tanks cost a lot of money, get rid of them. We don't need them. Planes are already, we don't need them. So they're cutting money and not putting it into better equipment and whatnot. They're like, let's actually get our Intel analysts to intelligence schools, go work with the Air Force, go learn what's going on over there. So yeah,

but in terms for us, it's pretty much just, do you want to be good at your job? Do you want to be credible? Or do you want to get out and just go, yeah, it was a job? What about you? Yeah, we're kind of the same so you know you go through the basic training and all that kind of stuff and you do your initial three months intelligence training which again it's essentially three months of IPB focusing on conventional and and contemporary operations and then yeah from there you've got continuation training as you progress through your career but as you said it's up to you if you want to be good or be as good as you can be or you can just coast through your career and you know not really add any value but still progress as it

seems to be in the military sometimes. I mean you know you can specialize in different disciplines which is cool and go into different schools and maybe do a few comments with government and do all kinds of cool things. But, um, yeah, I think they're very similar. It probably is, because I met Brit analysts and, you know, Canadian, and I think it's pretty streamlined across the board. It's just like, hey, here it is. Because I don't, it, you know, just sitting there working with all of them, all of we all wear the same uniform, essentially. It's yeah, it's all, it's all Marpet. Not Marpet. It's outside of the Marine Corps. It's all just a multi-cam and it's like, yeah, the Brits have their L86 and the

Australians have the, the Cyrock, but it's like, yeah, essentially it's across the board and I think it goes back to five Eye where the idea is be very hand over hand redundant, where you could take a Kiwi and drop them in the Marine Jock and go, yeah, just figure it out. And they're like, yeah, cool. I just, uh, you know, lead me on and we'll go from there, but I think it has something to do with Five Eye. So, yeah, it's all, it's all pretty much aligned.

Uh, yeah. Yeah. The reason why I asked is because I think just having these kind of conversations between people who have similar experiences is really important, especially for things on like podcasts and with audiences that you have and that I have because a lot of the time and this is something that I've noticed is when you listen to you know military-centric podcasts and all that kind of stuff a lot of it's around you know special operations and just really high-speed individuals or

people who have done these amazing things but there's not a lot of conversation between you know just the everyday kind of soldier or analyst or whatever just having the conversation and where a listener can also relate to those experiences and get value that way rather than listening to these people you know there's really really good people that are doing things that you know a lot of people probably won't and won't probably ever do so yeah that's kind of why I ask is just to kind of get the message out there and that kind of conversation. Yeah, I guess bring some lore out. Yeah, it's fun.

The speaking about the SF guys, like, yeah, they're really sexy, but that's 1% of the military. That's not a lot of guys. Yeah. So and yeah, of course, they do the really cool things and they do their raids and i mean marines have marsok and the army have sf rangers and then and delta and they everyone has their own little branch and so that has that you know that history that goes behind it but they're like no one really goes man i would really like to see what a Marine from one seven has to say. Yeah, that's like what's going on.

That's like this, this kind of like personally what I'd like to hear sometimes in a podcast. And that's why when I go back talking about doing my own one, I think that's kind of what I'm going to align towards. I'm just going to have those conversations with those kind of people because I think everyone's got a story to tell, right? Everyone's got some really good experiences and really good knowledge to pass on but it's not always drawn out because you know we're always listening to these other you know the one percenters which nothing wrong with that at all but I think there's always there always a space for everyone to kind of share their story as well. I think it has something to do with nobody, well not nobody, but I don't think a lot of, you know, Army grunts from the 82nd, 2nd Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division have want to talk about their drinking in their barracks room and watching tv they're like oh yeah do you want to hear about the time i went to uh the woods for a week yeah yeah so true it's um did uh but yeah you ever have the

opportunity to go to 29 Palms California? No no i never did um that's where i have to but yeah oh yeah so you probably know then that's that's where I met a lot of Brits and Australians and Canadians is where the joint training center and a lot of five I NATO countries train there because it's a big sandbox and you can do whatever you want. But it's a great way that this is so there's this little bar called the Warriors Club and everyone just goes there and it's on Camp Wilson. So there's 29 homes in the back. There's the training area, there's an airfield. There's a little hooch called Camp

Wilson. But anyways, there's a warrior club and everyone shows up and it was really funny to see that, you know, in the U S you can't drink until you're 21. And so all the younger guys would just go back and watch TV, but the Brits could drink whatever they wanted and they didn't have a drink limit. So they would get absolutely hammered every single night. They would only drink Rippets and, you know, monsters go out, out every single Marine combat, try out the bar again. And the Australians are like, What the fuck is wrong with these guys? You're like, we're over here trying to like pace ourselves. And it was just funny to sit down like, tell me anything, just let's talk about anything. Let's really get to know each other

because we're supposed to be friends. So yeah, it was always really, or, uh, yeah, it was just fun seeing those guys. And so when that funny report came out, you probably read it last year where, uh, us Royal Marine commandos destroy us Marine Corps infantry. And I was like, I can see that. It's got a pretty bad ass. So, yeah, yeah, it's always fun working with the Brits. I, um, they know how to have a good time.

Um, but yeah, I'm not sorry, Matt. I don't mean to get all philosophical. I know it's fine. I think we got about like 15 minutes left. I thought that was a really good talking point that you raised on your previous podcast around life as an analyst in the military and the struggles that we face. around life as an analyst in the military and the struggles that we face. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it's the same in your military where it's like, if the mission goes well, uh, thank you or there's no thank you, but if it goes back, they're like, Hey, Intel, what the fuck?

So, yeah, it's, it's like a, it's a, it's a thankless child. Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. Yeah, mate. Yeah, sorry about that. It's all good. Anyways, any other lingering questions? No, I just thought I'd bring that up. I think also, I might as well talk about it.

Well, I've got the mic. It's just, I think you wanted to talk about, you know, New Zealand's plan moving forward in the Pacific. And I think it's probably a good thing to talk about, especially as a lot of listeners are from the States. And I don't know if you get many New Zealand listeners, but even I think New Zealanders should probably know this as well. But

actually, I took a look and they're the six most listened to country. So Oh, nice. Good audience. The Germans listened to country. So Oh, nice. Good audience. We're behind the Germans for some reason. But yeah, so in 2021, the Ministry of Defence in New Zealand released their defence assessment. And out of that, you know, it dropped out kind of, I think, four, no, five key

conclusions. And one of them was, you know, there dropped out kind of, I think, four, no, five key conclusions. And one of them was, you know, there are two kind of challenges that New Zealand faces, right, and this is where we're kind of aligning our defence, a strategic competition in the Pacific and impacts of climate change, and both are going hand in hand, especially in the Pacific. And another thing that the defence assessment notices is that there's no indication of these kind of trends slowing down or decreasing. Essentially it's only ramping up, it's only going to ramp up over the next several years. And if that's just left to happen and that's just left to happen and let it run its course. It poses a threat to New Zealand's sovereignty and you know the rules-based order especially in the Pacific and that kind of thing

so it certainly harms our interests and we have a lot of interest in the Pacific. And so this kind of feeds into New Zealand's defense policy where it shifts from risk management to more deliberate forward-thinking kind of projection at least into the Pacific. So I talked about previously you know our involvement in the Middle East and we've kind of moved away from that and now we're realigning to the Pacific and that's where we're going to start projecting again to the Pacific and that's where we're going to start projecting again and working with those nations. And the fourth one being, I think we talked about, as New Zealanders do know, a small nation, we don't have a lot to provide but we need to concentrate what we do have and prioritize our effort. So that feeds into the Pacific regions of what first going around our sovereignty and

the economic exclusion zone and then moving ahead into the Pacific so it's kind of focusing our efforts in those two spaces and the Pacific is where again we want to have the biggest impact and the fifth one that's when we look to project further, that's back looking back into the Middle East, into Europe, you know, having our government seems intelligence, logistics support and to places like Europe to support Ukraine and having some of our artillerymen train Ukrainian artillery on the L-119. So that's kind of like the fifth priority. But the first four priorities, it essentially dictates our realignment back into the Pacific. And that's kind of where New Zealand is focused. And any capability that we do have, any capability that we're bringing online into the future, that will certainly be aligned to what we can provide and project into that region. New Zealand Defence Force is procuring I think the P8, is that the Poseidon? P8? I think so yeah. Yeah, I think we've got four of them and that's going to enable us to conduct

those kind of missions and the places like South China Sea and East China Sea so we can provide more value there, but also that'll provide heaps in terms of Pacific as well. So I guess long story short from a policy perspective, it's all realigning to the Pacific man. Like we're gonna be big, big plays into the Southwest Pacific. And you'll certainly see, well, hopefully see us working more with, you know, Australia, hopefully the Marine Corps. Yeah. So that's kind of where we're focusing.

Do you think there's any indication of New Zealand military growing or you think they're just going to round out and just become a more professional force? Yeah, so I think one of the strategies, at least when I left, it was to grow the army to we've got a reasonable army. So 5,500 people of regular soldiers. Again, that's really small, but for a country like New Zealand, with our defense budget and the political appetite towards the military, I think that's quite significant. So that's kind of where we're growing in that respect. And then we're still bringing online different bits and pieces of capability. So I do think that New Zealand will grow even if it's quite small, but Australia is certainly procuring a lot of new capability. You know you

see things like the submarine deal that they had now they're realigning under I can't think what that partnership is with the Brits and the US and the US yeah yeah yeah so yeah we're definitely definitely expanding man but Australia is certainly leading the charge there, which is cool to see. That is really interesting. It's just cool to see that there's no stagnation. There's no like, well, guess we got to take it. It's cool to see that everyone's actually like being proactive of what's going on and not being behind the curve or like minus one as we put it but last thing man real quick Anzac is that still like a term thrown around or is that just more of like an Anzac day heritage we just it's one day we just kind of let it run no mate that's still a term that um that's still

thrown around heaps and whenever we were doing anything joint with the Aussies you know we kind of we call that an Anzac contingent, or even if that's not officially termed Anzac, it's still what the soldiers in sailors in the air may kind of like to fall under, the Anzac banner. And I think, you know, we're in Australia and New Zealand, we're deployed to Iraq, training, you know, Iraqi soldiers to go off and fight ISIS. I'm pretty sure there was ANZAC somewhere in the title there, because they were doing a joint kind of thing.

So yeah, it's certainly a banner that we're still proud of and we still use. It's not exclusive to ANZAC Day, which is equivalent to your guys Veterans Day I suppose. Yeah man still a lot of history behind that, a lot of national pride from both countries. Yeah I definitely had to ask because I'm definitely a fan of the term and the history and everything that goes into it but I didn't know if it was still like a rich current culture because I know like anyone can throw away like oh the American Expeditionary Force from World War I that doesn't mean anything to us anymore but it's it's just a really cool term have you ever heard of the whiskey Anzac it's pretty good whiskey and that it's it's a drink whiskey and it's just no Anzac but it's it's pretty good. I highly recommend it No, I haven't

Yeah, I love the whiskey. Yeah But okay. All right. Well all kind of really appreciate you coming on right about that time For the listeners go on Instagram to follow my all con s2 and Twitter at all con Intel, right? Yep, that's the one All right. Well, hey man, I really appreciate it Awesome, man. Thanks for having me. Yeah it's been great this is my first podcast so hopefully I didn't cook it too much but it's been fun man it's been a good chat. It's been a real good time and you didn't botch it at all but all right So Thanks for watching!