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Jan. 26, 2023 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
43:50
Mike Shelby of Forward Observer joins Mike Adams with analysis of China vs. Taiwan...
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Alright, welcome folks to today's featured interview.
I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon.com, and today we're joined by a first-time guest, but I'm a long-time fan of the work of this individual and his group, which is called Forward Observer, and the website is forwardobserver.com.
And this gentleman joining us, his name is Mike Shelby, and he's a former Intel analyst, worked for the U.S. Army.
And he and his sort of colleagues there, who are, a lot of them are special ops guys, are former special ops.
They offer an independent analysis at the strategic level, typically, of what's happening in the world, pretty much unfiltered through any government or any political lens, just trying to give you a straight-up analysis of what's happening geopolitically and strategically and also with wars that are going on. just trying to give you a straight-up analysis of what's So that's the scoop.
Here we go.
Mike Shelby, thank you so much, sir, for joining us today.
It's a great honor to have you on.
Hey, Mike, thanks for having me.
Absolutely.
Now, did I get the intro pretty much correct, or is there anything you want to add or take away from what I said?
Yeah, it's spot on.
I just think it's important.
I mean, there's just so much information coming out that's filtered through government approved talking points.
And that just does not help the American people.
It helps the elites.
And what we're trying to do is provide the same high level of intelligence that's available to senior decision makers, but provide that to Americans so that they can better prepare for the future.
Yeah, absolutely.
I think there's a lot of value in that.
I also want to mention you have a YouTube channel.
It's also called Forward Observer.
And you post a lot of video clips there.
And you said to me before we started, you have a daily live stream for subscribers as well.
Is that correct?
We do.
We publish a report every morning at 8 a.m., and then at 9, we go live for subscribers and talk our way through the report, provide a little more analysis and background on the day's topics.
Okay, fantastic.
Now, I guess you get asked this question and answer this in whatever way you're comfortable, but...
Is this all open source intelligence?
Is it media intel?
Is it guys on the ground feeding you stuff from different regions of the world?
Is it a combination?
Where are you getting the info overall, to the extent that you can speak about it?
Sure.
Yeah, it's mostly open source.
We monitor a lot of foreign media sources as well.
And on occasion, we reach out to friends.
I'm not going to jail, and neither is anyone else, for producing classified information, of course.
Sure.
But yeah, a little bit of extra color on what's actually happening on the ground in places.
We provide that to the extent that we can.
Yeah, well, these days, apparently there's classified information in every house and garage of every former official, especially if you own a Corvette for some reason.
But I understand.
You practice operational security, obviously, to protect the lives of the men and women in uniform.
And I respect that, too.
So don't interpret.
I'm not going to obviously try to push for anything that would compromise that, nor would you offer it.
But I just want to be clear about that for all of our listeners.
So given that situation, then, do you talk publicly about roughly how large is your organization or how many analysts or observers that you have or how big is your team?
Or is that okay to talk about?
I don't know.
Yeah, sure.
One, two, three, four.
We're up to six full-time analysts now.
And we've got a couple of part-time guys working for us.
And yeah, I tell you, there's a real hunger out there for people who want the ground truth.
And so, yeah, we've been able to bring on some real studs onto the team and grow over the past several years.
Yeah, okay, that's fantastic.
Really great to hear.
Now, let's talk about, I do want to talk about China and Taiwan, of course, and I want to ask you about US power grid sabotage, but I want to start with Ukraine, Russia, and one of the most frustrating things about that whole scenario has been that, of course, the Russian propaganda side is Difficult to believe, but the Ukraine propaganda side has been insane.
And then the U.S. State Department propaganda side.
So you have this triangle, these three points of disinfo.
And how do you sort through any of that?
Yeah, determining what is accurate is very difficult.
And it's not just what's accurate, because decisions change and thinking changes.
And I think a big part of the problem is on the U.S. side, you know, we've heard U.S. officials come out and say, oh, we're not doing this for Ukraine.
We're not going to do that for Ukraine.
And now we're giving them Abrams tanks, which was not a possibility, you know, three plus months ago.
So I think part of it is just the chaos of decision making.
And I don't know if that's cloudy thinking or divergent opinions or just the inability to stick to a strategic game plan.
But decisions are changing.
And that I mean, that makes the situation fluid.
And so beyond the propaganda, it can be difficult to tell what's going to happen tomorrow, much less three to six months from now.
Do you find that and this is my opinion, but I want your reaction to it, that the players in today's Biden administration and the State Department in particular, they seem very inexperienced and incompetent compared to almost any, even like the George Bush administration.
Those people were more competent whether or not you agree with their politics They were very competent.
The Reagan administration, even the Clinton administration, The people in the State Department were way more competent in my opinion.
Would you agree or disagree with that broad characterization?
Well, yes, I think there is a competency issue.
But also, the Bush administration was coming from a point of strength.
I mean, maybe the United States was never as strong as it was during the global war on terror period in the beginning.
And I think in some ways the United States is weaker today relative to the rise of other countries.
And so maybe part of its competence, the other part is just it's a much more challenging environment.
We're going up against nation states who have multi-year, multi-decade strategic plans that they are sticking to.
And those plans include undermining and eventually toppling the United States as the world's dominant power.
it's they've moved from checkers to chess here, I think.
Mm-hmm.
And how big of a factor do you think is the concern about munitions, the U.S. munitions stockpile being deployed in Ukraine and not being able to be quickly replaced?
In other words, years of manufacturing to replace things like artillery rounds and so on.
I think the thinking in the D.C. defense establishment is that they have years of I think that's what they're anticipating.
I think they have been relatively comfortable providing arms and munitions to Ukraine.
And, you know, on the expectation that, oh, the U.S. industrial complex, military industrial complex, and defense contractors are going to be able to churn out more munitions before we need them with China.
Due to inflation and supply chain problems, we know defense contractors, they've told Congress directly, this is a multi-year problem, and our costs are increasing.
The production is going to take a lot longer than you think.
And so I think that's been part of the problem here, is the anticipation that China won't do anything until 2025 or 27, and we've got time.
That may not be the case.
Well, and I'm thinking, as you're saying that, specifically for munitions manufacturing in the United States, you've got at least three major problems.
One is, of course, the microchip supply out of Taiwan.
The second problem is the labor shortage in America, that is the lack of Americans willing to work in a munitions factory.
And then thirdly, you have the commodities supply chain shortage, which was caused in part by, frankly, Western nations cutting off Russia from the SWIFT system, and transactional, global transactions for commodities such as aluminum, copper, zinc, global transactions for commodities such as aluminum, copper, zinc, iron, or as well the deindustrialization of Europe due to the shutdown of energy supply and the destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline.
You have a shutdown of 70 to 80% of the metals smelting operations across Europe.
So aren't all those major factors that would affect munitions manufacturing in the United States?
Yes, and also rare earth minerals, or now they're called rare earth materials.
And, you know, the United States has just been handcuffed on energy and on rare earths, on smelting, on all the domestic production that, and I'm not a cheerleader here for the military industrial complex, but they really have been handcuffed on the production side, and now we're just facing the reality here.
When you say handcuffed, you mean what?
Through economic policies.
Oh, okay.
Regulation, yeah.
Yeah, right.
And I think some of this, you know, mining, for example, is critical for the rare earths.
And I remember under the Trump administration, there was an effort to try to create more nationalistic independence for many of those elements.
That was only partially achieved, however, right?
And China still provides the bulk of rare earths We're good to go.
Yeah, we've also seen a lot of protectionism from a lot of these minerals as well as countries realize, hey, if we're going to have any hope for any kind of industrial manufacturing base, then we need these things too.
Yeah.
That's right, yeah.
We've seen a lot of announcements of other countries exactly saying we're going to limit exports, including food exports or fertilizer exports.
I've seen that quite a bit around the world.
Yeah, Mexico nationalized their lithium production as well, state-controlled, and we've seen a lot of that.
Hey, Mike, how come we don't have...
All electric tanks, I ask on behalf of Greta Thunberg, who may be listening.
Yeah, well, I don't think there's batteries large enough to power these tanks for any period of time, but...
Well, that does seem to be an issue.
The snow plows also in New York that were electric snow plows that didn't last more than a few hours in the snow.
So there you go.
That's why we don't have electric tractors and electric fighter jets either, it seems.
So the military needs diesel.
Needs rubber, needs combustion engines, needs commodities.
And it seems to me that all of these things are kind of on the attack list, the target list of, you know, the climate people.
So don't politics inevitably kind of get intermixed into military readiness?
Yeah, I mean, Clausewitz said that war is just an extension of politics.
And I think a really good example, and, you know, I mean, people have been talking about this for years, but Russia pushing green energy in Europe to make that entire continent energy dependent on Russia.
And so it's, you know, it's an indirect method of conflict here, you know.
Really asymmetric.
And yeah, you don't have to be so much worried about killing the other side's troops if they can't get bullets or they can't get fuel for their tanks or they can't get the materials needed to actually fight a war.
So, by the way, I'm glad you brought that up.
In what ways did Russia help push green energy transition in Europe?
Well, through information operations, I think, I'm not an expert on this, but my understanding is they supported green environmental groups, and they're responsible, I think, partially for shutting down European nuclear power plants, and a bunch of new construction was blocked as a result of environmental policies.
So, yeah, I'm not a European oil and energy guy, but that's my understanding is that Russian information operations help to achieve that state, which is to Russia's great benefit.
Well, since you brought that up, let me bring in something perhaps even more controversial and, you know, feel free to...
Answer it in whatever way you wish.
But my understanding also is that China has been, through apps like TikTok, has been pushing a lot of the transgenderism agenda in the United States, or at least amplifying that message.
And that this kind of the LGBT programming, if you will, or building acceptance among the younger population Has resulted in a kind of feminization of men who would otherwise normally have been perhaps more amenable to military recruitment and that this may be feeding into the difficulty of reaching military recruitment goals in the United States while at the same time China has been banning feminization or
depictions of feminized men in Chinese culture.
Does that make sense or am I talking crazy there?
Yeah, I mean, you're on track.
Yuri Bezmenov warned about this back in the 70s or 80s, how specifically Soviet, but Eastern campaigns, information operations to target and destroy the morale of the West.
And you do that by attacking the culture.
And this is the asymmetric indirect method.
Hey, they don't have to go out and kill U.S. troops if the young people are no longer joining the military.
Right, right.
Because it's kind of like what you said.
If Russia is sort of pushing Europe to transition to green energy and move away from fossil fuels, and we saw the Netherlands just announced that they are shutting down the largest natural gas field in Europe, the largest one, which seems crazy to me, given that Nord Stream isn't working currently.
But...
Then in the US, cultural attacks or cultural changes, it's more than just the anti-war movement.
It's kind of like the anti-men movement.
It's an anti-masculine kind of movement.
And then on top of that, restriction of rare earth minerals access.
So if you're China or Russia, you're kind of hitting the enemy, which would be the West, through so many fronts that there are challenges to get anything done from a military point of view, it seems.
Yeah, it kind of just goes back to China being at war with the United States now for decades, and we're slowly coming around to that.
And China practices something called elite capture.
They do this all over the world in the United States as well.
They're doing it in Taiwan right now.
And that's where they pay off key influencers in foreign countries, key politicians and other personnel.
And they say, hey, don't say anything bad about China.
We'll keep paying you, but you have to stop.
You have to oppose certain anti-Chinese policies.
And they use corruption.
So this is not just like, hey, we'll – there's just so much Chinese money flowing in through foreign direct investments, through critical infrastructure funding.
And they always find ways to make sure the right people get paid.
And so this elite capture is part of the Chinese war kind of against the world, but specifically against the United States.
I shudder to think how many key decision makers and government officials are on some form of Chinese payroll.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, and we saw that it has infested the states through governorships.
Quite a lot of the governors are in one way or another tied to Chinese money and also, of course, through academia.
But thank you for pointing that out.
I want to get back to China and Taiwan with you here in a second, but one more question about escalation in Ukraine.
So we've seen the U.S. now announce that they're going to send Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine.
And then I think Germany has just essentially announced that they will approve the transfer of Leopard 2 tanks.
Is it Poland that's going to send those?
I think it's all over now.
Oh, okay.
I think Finland, Spain, maybe other countries, Germany...
Right, right.
So Ukraine's going to end up with, let's say, by the time this is all, you know, all of the countries pony up some tanks, they're going to end up between the US and Europe, let's say 100 main battle tanks, something like that.
What are the implications of this in terms of the war with Russia or escalation or changing the course of the war?
We've heard promises from former U.S. officials, senior ranking U.S. officials like Ben Hodges.
He's a former, he's a U.S. Army Europe commander that said Ukraine is going to capture Crimea by August.
I believe that's what he said.
And we've heard from Zelensky and a number of other officials that that is their goal, to reclaim every square inch of Ukraine that currently belongs to Russia.
And I have no doubt.
First it was the Bradleys, and then it was the Strikers.
But the thing is, it's not like we made this a big prediction, but several weeks ago when this Bradley story broke that the United States is going to provide these Bradley infantry fighting vehicles, we pointed out that traditional U.S. military doctrine, you don't put these Bradleys on the field by themselves.
They were accompanied by armor.
You know, Bradley Battalion or Brigade is going to have an armor element to it.
And so tanks was...
This is just the next logical conclusion here.
And then it's F-16s or, you know, whatever they're talking about after that.
And so really, I mean, I think this is escalatory.
I think it's, you know...
Another problem for Ukraine is not only do they have to get these tanks over there, which is going to take time, but then you have to go out and train Ukrainians on how to run these tanks.
That was my next question.
Okay.
And then maintenance and logistics.
I was going to ask you that too because the supply lines are hell on these tanks.
I mean, everything breaks.
Yeah, so yeah, this is not a...
I would be very interested to see after even, you know, three months of operations, how many of these are either going to be mobility killed or destroyed by the Russians, and then how many are just going to break down and not be fixed, unless there are some U.S. personnel, field service representatives, some...
Some tracked vehicle mechanics over there, tank crews, rebuilding these things and putting them back out on the battlefield.
Right, exactly.
But even that requires rather complex logistics and also very specific hardware.
for example, mobile cranes that can lift engines out of vehicles to work on them or can pull vehicles, pull heavy tanks out of ditches and so on and lift half of them to put new tracks on one side or whatever is required.
You have to have this whole chain of other equipment to service the frontline equipment.
And I don't see that that's going to be an instant plug-and-play thing.
And the thing is, some people in the United States and the West, I guess, they just expect these tanks are going to be delivered there and then they're going to stop the Russians.
Well, the Russians have at least 30 days, maybe 60 to 90 days before these things are even operational once you get the crews trained and then you actually transport the tanks to the actual battlefield.
And so if you're Russia, you've got an open window here and we've already been They've already been preparing and we've already been talking about for a long time this Russian Winter Offensive, which should kick off any day now.
And, you know, for Russia, you're gunning here.
You want to gain as much ground before you have to face those tanks as much ground as possible.
But I'll also say this.
Russian anti-armor is modern, and I think they're going to be able to blow up a lot of these tanks we're sending over there.
Yeah, I would tend to agree with that assessment.
And plus, it's easier for Russia to resupply because it's in their own backyard.
And they've got the railways that go right there.
And, you know, they've got factories and they've got steel and they're producing domestically munitions.
Not waiting for years to do that.
But, you know, another question I have, though, is even if you train the Ukrainian crews, let's say you give them a crash course in how to run an Abrams tank.
Okay.
But what about the training of how a tank crew works with an artillery crew and works with another commander, works with men on the ground, works with drones?
You know what I mean?
Don't you have to have this combined arms, like this theater of you, to work effectively?
But go ahead.
Yeah, that's true.
That's what the U.S. Army is training Ukrainian Army personnel to do in Germany right now.
Yeah, is that combined arms?
How do you take multiple classes of combat arms and get them to work together in unison?
I don't follow the tactical day-to-day developments in Ukraine.
There's not enough hours in the day.
But this is something that's built into Russian doctrine.
The Ukrainians, I think, are probably behind the curve compared to the Russians on combined arms doctrine and warfare.
Okay, and you think F-16s will probably be part of the mix here soon?
And then what happens when those get shot down?
Does the U.S. say, here, have a bunch of F-35s?
Yeah, it's tough to say, but the problem is everyone's realizing that Russia views Ukraine as existential, and NATO now views Ukraine as existential.
If you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound.
What is going to happen to the quote-unquote rules-based international order?
If Russia is not defeated in Ukraine and Russia defeats NATO, because basically both sides are now openly saying, yeah, we're at war against each other.
And so, you know, now we're talking about, oh, the use of tactical nuclear weapons, escalation, more troops, NATO boots on the ground.
Like, when does this thing stop?
Right.
And if I could ask another question, an extension of that from Russia's point of view, You know, their memory of losing 20 million citizens in World War II against the fascist German Third Reich, that memory is not that stale.
You know, it's pretty fresh in some living people and the sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters of veterans of World War II, right?
And so wouldn't Russia at this point be thinking now that Germany has decided, well, we're going to send main battle tanks to Russia?
Wouldn't Russia, from their point of view, rationally be thinking, well, we're going to have to exterminate Germany this time and never let them come back and threaten us again?
I'm not saying that I agree with that statement, but from their point of view, wouldn't it be reasonable to think that that's what they're thinking?
Or what's your take?
I think Ukraine is one part of a much broader conflict against the West and against the United States.
You can look at the agreements between Russia and China and this thing they call the No Limits Alliance.
And this is an existential fight, I think, for China and Russia.
They say, well, one side is going to come out on the other side of this with global power, and the other side is not.
And, you know, if you're China especially, I question at what point China may get more involved if Russian defeat is threatened or is a risk in Ukraine.
I don't think China can, on a geostrategic level, I don't think China can lose Russia as an ally.
And I know a number of Western defense analysts say Putin's done if he loses Crimea.
Right.
Or if he loses in Ukraine, I don't think the Chinese want that level of instability.
So I just see a lot of ways this could escalate.
And again, I just ask, when and how does it stop?
I don't know.
Well, let's talk about China then.
And thank you for bringing that up.
But wouldn't China at one point, perhaps soon, realize that the best way for them to strategically weaken the United States and NATO forces...
Would be to wait for Russia to really launch its anticipated offensive, and then for China to move in whatever way it can, perhaps against Taiwan, perhaps a naval embargo, air embargo, or an economic embargo, perhaps blocking exports to the United States or carrying out acts of I'm
not positive that China's there yet, but We at Forward Observer don't have a crystal ball, but we think China's up against the clock.
The longer they wait to move on to Taiwan, whether that's a military blockade or just coercion, political decapitation, Installing the Kuomintang, which is more or less a pro-China political party in Taiwan.
They're up against the clock because every day, week, and month that goes on, global NATO is expanding.
And the Quad, United States, India, Japan, and Australia have more time to coordinate.
They're talking now about South Korea joining the Quad.
So it's going to be, I don't know, whatever comes after the Quad.
And there's a lot of coordination going on.
And if you're China, you look at that and I think you see an hourglass and every grain of sand is maybe a little bit of increased risk that you may not be able to win.
Against all those countries.
But if you go now or if you go soon, i.e.
being coincided with a Russian winter offensive, then you do pose a, not just a tactical, but a strategic dilemma to the West.
It's, hey, you're in for a penny, in for a pound, or in for a ton in Ukraine, or you're going to stop Ukraine and go defend Taiwan.
And I think China knows the answer.
It's going to be Ukraine.
Well, that's really interesting.
And let me bring this in.
You know, I used to live in Taiwan, so I have a lot of contacts there.
And as you know, the pro-Taiwan independence part of the DPP was resoundingly defeated by the Kuomintang, the KMT, as you mentioned, which is pro-China reunification.
And from what I'm hearing from Taiwan, the younger generation in Taiwan is very strongly pro-reunification with China.
So it's as if China realizes the longer they wait, the less resistance there is in Taiwan to reunification.
Whereas if they attack Taiwan, They might create more resistance than would otherwise exist if they just wait and let the younger people get into power and keep paying them off, keep infiltrating.
It's like China is on a trajectory where they will reunify in 25 years if they don't attack.
Yeah, she's not going to wait that long.
Yeah, right.
So yeah, your thoughts on all that?
Well, I think, you know, in December 2021, we released a special report on our expectations.
And we said an amphibious invasion of conventional military warfare against Taiwan was less likely.
And what was probably more likely is just a blockade.
And, you know, looking, there's a couple of things that come into play kind of on the tactical and operational level.
And one of those things is weather.
And the Taiwan Strait is pretty treacherous for ships and submarines as well, just due to the current and strong currents.
And so really, if China were to do this, they may be looking at just maybe two separate operational windows throughout the year.
And so this October to December is generally clear because you have visibility issues, right?
I mean, if you're going to send planes and ships into the Taiwan Strait, you have to be able to see.
And so with better visibility, two points during the year.
This other one is about to open up.
I think it's like March to May or somewhere right around there.
Then, yeah, I mean, a potential blockade looks...
I would say a blockade is potential here over the next 30 days or so, and that's just one option for the Chinese.
And should that occur, the U.S. naval presence in that area, is it strong enough to reasonably break that blockade, allow some ships in and out?
I think US Navy commanders have said previously that they are confident that they could break a blockade.
But if you're China, you want to do this beneath the threshold of conventional war.
You don't want to give any kind of casus belli to the United States to make this a conventional war.
China does not want to fight a conventional war.
Their demographics are lopsided.
They cannot lose a massive amount of young troops in a conflict, especially not with the U.S. Civilian ships or civilian aircraft to conduct this blockade, then it is well below the threshold of conventional war.
But to answer your question, no, we don't think the United States has enough assets in the region to stop trying to Mainly because it would happen so quickly.
Taiwan's 100 miles from the coast of China.
In just a few days, they could surround Taiwan.
And I don't even know that we'd be able to get a carrier strike group out of port before China completely blockades Taiwan.
But that's interesting, though, that you said perhaps with civilian ships.
I mean, I hadn't thought of that.
What would that look like, just...
Just floating every available ship in China.
Just go out there and build a perimeter around Taiwan?
That seems...
It seems odd.
Yeah, China has, well, really they're used all over the world, but commercial shipping vessels called ROROs roll on, roll off.
And you literally just roll on cargo and then you get to the destination and you roll it off.
And the Chinese PLA have been practicing transporting equipment with these roll on, roll off ships.
And they've also, you know, they have weaponized containers that they could put on fishing boats, that they could put on container ships, tankers, you know, commercial shipping vessels that could be used militarily, but do not appear to be military in nature.
I see.
And, you know, and the other thing, too, I mean, you're not going to fool anybody with satellite imagery.
We can tell, despite what they're...
You know, they're playing all these games with the transponders.
They're spoofing their location.
They're turning their transponders off when they leave port.
And then they're turning it back on again once they get to their destination.
So you can fool the technical data on these commercial terminals.
You're not fooling the satellites.
So I think there would be a warning period before China did this where U.S. leaders would be alerted.
But...
Again, you're looking at maybe a few days before this operation is complete.
And then you just choke Taiwan off.
I mean, Taiwan maybe has a month, maybe a little bit more worth of natural gas and gasoline fuel.
They have a couple months worth of coal.
So I think China is...
I think their most likely course of action is you blockade Taiwan, you let them run out of everything, and then you push for a political solution and you never have to fire a shot.
That is the most preferable course of action for China.
And then domestically in Taiwan, you would have all the KMT people protesting in favor of peace, they would call it.
Let's reunify, let's have peace, let's get our industry going again.
And then you would have the DPP people.
I could see a lot, almost a civil war in Taiwan during that blockade.
So it would cause a lot of political strife there.
Yeah, maybe.
I don't know enough about the domestic situation in Taiwan to discuss a potential civil war, but if you're...
The problem...
One thing...
I'm just going to go on a diversion real quick.
One thing we learned in Afghanistan is good Afghans trying to do the right thing are just their nails sticking up that get hammered down.
And so if you're...
Pro-independence, if you're anti-reunification, part of the DPP, and you think that China is just going to gain control anyway, you are a nail that's sticking up.
And maybe there's a possibility that those figures, some of them just try to leave because they are not going to want to be left behind under China's thumb when China knows exactly who they are and what they believe.
And that they were pursuing an independence movement.
The Chinese foreign ministry, it's like every day now.
They come out and they just rail against the Taiwanese independence movement.
And they've got a real hankering, I think, to punish those people.
Absolutely.
By the way, a lot of the domestic media in Taiwan has been infiltrated by the CCP. Taiwan's mainstream media is all pro-reunification, pro-China.
I think that's what's impacting a lot of young people.
I don't know why people aren't looking at Hong Kong as the example of how China does not keep its promises.
You will not be independent.
You will be taken over.
And if you resist it, you will be shot or imprisoned, which is pretty much what you were just talking about.
Yeah, you know, it's amazing information as a weapon.
The West has been very slow.
Even with our emphasis on information operations and various...
I mean, this goes back to World War II, propaganda and information operations.
But as much as we deploy that tactically on the battlefield, we are just not very good at defending against it domestically.
Yeah.
Well, that's part of the vulnerability or the cost of having...
You know, free speech opportunities that can be exploited by enemies of the country.
But speaking of America, though, I want to ask you about the power grid sabotage.
You know, it's been a really small scale, but it's gotten a lot of press.
Somebody taking shots at substations and so on.
And from time to time, a few thousand people without power for 30 minutes.
It's kind of overblown, in my opinion.
But do you think this is an indication of something bigger?
And who do you think's behind the attacks we've seen so far?
Well, I hate to say this, but anytime you hear about a terror attack in the United States, the first thing I think of is, okay, what is the link?
Who is whispering in these people's ears from the federal government?
And I hate to say that, but I'm an intelligence analyst.
I look for patterns.
So does everyone else.
And so who's behind it?
I don't know.
But I do question at what level there is federal involvement, seeing as how, you know, when you create a problem, you get to propose a solution.
Right.
But, you know, as far as...
There are a number of actors.
I think this range is on the low end from, I don't know, people who are drunk or they just, you know, it's some 17-year-old kid that says, oh, hey, I'm going to cut the power to the area by taking pot shots at the local power substation.
Kind of on the low end, all the way up to...
Either domestic terror groups, people who are trying to accelerate a conflict or accelerate the collapse of the United States.
And then there's nation-state-backed groups as well.
We're getting into a potentially precarious scenario here domestically because a lot of our critical infrastructure is just not protected.
And in the 2018 National Defense Strategy, The leaders came out and said, the United States is no longer a safe, or excuse me, the homeland is no longer a sanctuary, i.e., foreign actors can reach out and touch us here.
And then in December 2020, the Army came out with a facility security report, and they said explicitly foreign countries or adversaries are going to use conventional and unconventional means to target a number of things.
One of those is critical infrastructure.
And so we're getting into a situation where when we move from competition to crisis and conflict, I think the risk of these domestic attacks goes up.
If you're China, and let's just say, I don't think we're going to war with China over Taiwan.
We might do it over some Japanese islands.
We might do it when China tries to break into the second island chain against the Philippines or someone else.
But when that happens, and if you are China and you want to disrupt U.S. military mobilization, what do you do?
The grid, communications, and, you know, those are your strategic and symbolic targets as well.
And so, you know, just to be more direct with who's doing this.
I have no idea, but I'll tell you, China and Russia have demonstrated the capability to be able to do that, not by taking potshots at a transformer, but through cyber warfare and other things of sabotage.
I was going to mention that too, cyber warfare attacks, especially on banking infrastructure, because if you impair the financial transaction backbone, then obviously nobody can buy fuel and transport anything or meet payroll.
I mean, even the military manufacturers can't function if you don't have financial transactions.
Yeah.
It's going to be an interesting year, that's for sure.
We're out of time for today, but this has been really fascinating, Mike, and I want to thank you for taking the time here.
Let me just give you an opportunity to give out how people can find you and how they can follow your work.
Yeah, well, thank you for the opportunity.
It was a great conversation.
And we have a YouTube channel.
We post videos every day.
It's just Forward Observer on YouTube.
And then I'm on social media if you want to look for me.
It's just Grey Zone Warlord.
Grey with an A. Grey Zone Warlord.
Okay.
And in addition to YouTube, are you posting on other video platforms like Rumble?
No, but we need to.
Well, you have a welcome here at Brighteon.
I'm the founder of brighteon.com, and I encourage you to use Rumble, use BitChute, use Brighteon, set up your channels there, and I think you get a lot of additional play.
Thank you.
We'll take you up on that.
Thank you, Mike.
Yeah, absolutely.
In fact, if you need any assistance getting that set up, I can put my top support team in touch with your guys or gals, and we can get you set up there and get that going.
In the meantime, I want to thank you for taking the time and for entertaining my direct questions.
I'm not trying to sugarcoat anything, but you're open to my questions.
I really appreciate that, so thank you so much.
Yeah, I love doing this.
Thank you for the platform.
Absolutely.
Folks, thank you for listening.
I hope you found this valuable.
Definitely get prepared.
We are in for some interesting times.
And stay alert, stay informed.
And forwardobserver.com is one of the ways that you can do that.
Of course, continue to monitor interviews like this on brighteon.com.
As always, feel free to repost this interview on your own channels or other platforms as well.
You have my permission.
And if you would, please, in the description, just give credit to forwardobserver.com so people know where to go.
So thank you so much.
I'm Mike Adams again, the founder of brighteon.com.
Everybody stay safe, take care, and God bless America.
Talk to you next time.
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