Comments by "charles womack" (@charleswomack2166) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. I for reasons not fully clear to me, always cheer on India. Perhaps it is because it is a democracy and is beholden to no one?
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  2. The Israeli missile defense system(s) is a layered situation as Peter started to say, the long-term defense(used mainly for ballistic missiles from Iran is an anti-missile kind of missile and is very expensive/round launched/used. Then it goes all the way down to directed energy weapons. NONE of the entire arsenal(from David's sling to directed energy weapons will fire if the Israeli AI system determines that the round fired towards them is going to land out in the Negev somewhere, away from population centers and/or military bases
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  3. The main issue as I see it in ALL of Africa, but particularly in the sub saharan countries is rampant corruption. This includes Nigeria.
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  4. Your lung capacity has got to be excellent to have a conversation at 14,000 feet. I remember running at 5,000 feet when I was at Fort Huachuca, AZ. Here in Fairfield, CA the windmills for electricity were always here because of the funnel shaped delta made wind power make economic sense. After Obama, we tripled the number of windmills and solar panels started popping up everywhere, which makes sense for us in the summer time only. We are at the 38th parallel here. Outstanding videos Peter! Always informative.
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  5. Are you suggesting that politicians actually grandstand rather than do their jobs?! Unbelievable! sarcasm
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  6. It's basically an indirect tax. Except if you do not want to pay the tax, you simply do not purchase anything new.
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  7. The Viet Namese are very strong people. They were able to repel us(the US) from their country(more or less) and they certainly have plenty of manpower. And if the US wanted to stop the spread of communism they should have asked the French to politely leave Viet Nam, things would have turned out differently.
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  8. This reminds me of our national attitude prior to WW2.
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  9. Thank you for the explanation from the ground! Any general worth his salt knows that the situation on the ground can be one thing, whilst in DC, it is a completely different ballgame.
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  10. I am a 47 year old who took an early retirement from the federal government and I am currently being trained to become an electrician trainee and I would estimate the average age is about 27
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  11. I assume that the NSA has staff members assisting him... At least, I would assume...
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  12. I prefer to "Blame Canada! Blame Canada! With all their beady little eyes their flopping heads so full of lies!" This is a reference to the Southpark movie.
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  13. Hahaha! That made my day. Thank you!
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  14. I remember back when we actually used to talk with the Russians. I was in the US Air Force Reserves and had said to the Russian generals whom were at Travis AFB, Ca. to basically do a precursor walk through a C-17 in a hangar "Hello, comrade!" or "privyet tovarish!" and they got all excited and gave me a small metal hammer & sickle... This was circa 2008! I said to them "spaciba, tovarish" in near perfect Russian. They then inquired as to where I had learned to speak Russian so well. As I began to state DLI, Monterey, Ca. the major who was guiding them(US) put his phone away and took the Russian General off to the next plane and sort of "mean-mugged" me.
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  15.  @kurt1391  false equivalency. The point I was trying to make is that we ignore current affairs at our own peril.
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  16. Here in California, we have been having decent winter rainfall, mostly because of the volcano that erupted underwater in 2022 and has been gurgling ever since, causing the evaporation/vaporization of a million gallons of seawater a minute. This is the Tongan or Samaoan underwater volcano, primarily affecting the Pineapple Express.
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  17.  @GreenMachine0990  Did you know that the US actually gave military aide to the Soviet's in WW2? When this stopped, I do not know.
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  18. The Chinese (PRC) are becoming less and less of an economic and therefore less militarily of a superpower, if they ever were. MBS would be wise to recognize Taiwan(ROC) if he wants international prestige. Of course, MBS would never do this as they(Saudis) do not respect human rights.
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  19. "I don't want to suggest that this is the end, but this is how ends begin". Well put sir!
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  20. I consider myself a Libertarian. And I always vote for my party, when it's available. If it is not, then I have to do research the candidates.
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  21. I am 45 years old and have served for 16 years as a reservist in the US Army for 6 years and the US Air Force Reserves and for medical reasons I was forced to leave for having to take both a benzodiazepene along with an antidepressants. If I would have kept my mouth shut I would have been fine. However, if China(PRC) ever attempts to invade Taiwan(ROC) I will suddenly heal and re-enlist in either the Air Force Reserves or possibly the US Army National Guard in order to help preserve a democratic country. I believe that this would be a justified military operation, unlike the Iraq War which I had begrudgingly participated in. I would also serve in any military operation in order to defend the state of Israel which is also a democracy.
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  22. Awesome to see you are back Peter! The particular separatists really pose no real threats to the Delhi government. They are from the Punjab state/area of India. Their religion, Sikhism, is a monotheistic non-Abrahamic religion. The UK is rumored to have been involved in supporting these Sikh/Punjab separatists, or at least they were back in the 70's/80's. Again, without the UK supporting these guys anymore, they pose zero threat to Old or New Delhi. One more thing, be very careful if they have given you opioids for pain relief! Those things will get you hooked in a matter of weeks, in my case. Take them exactly as prescribed. Don't become an addict like me!
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  23. Paying off your mortgage. Because you can always "borrow" money from your home value.
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  24. I was thinking along the same lines only with social, or more accurately anti-socialist deprogramming taking about 2 full generations. Although with a sample size that small, anything is possible. But just think how we here in a free society are shaped by our media, school system and parents. But the average Han Chinese is smarter than the average bear, so again, who knows. The only comparable situation was the division of Nazi Germany into communist East and the free west. It is eery how so many people's knee jerk reaction is to self sensor because your neighbor, wife and coworkers could be cooperating with the Stasi.
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  25.  @AnAn___  I am not an expert on educational systems, but I would say that the Indian system has an advantage in that everyone learns English. The Vietnamese educational system is good in that something like 1/3rd or more of their graduates are STEM majors. I have little knowledge of the Thai educational system,at least not from the past 20 years! One thing I should add is that the Indian government has placed special emphasis on computers about 30 years ago. This, along with the ability to speak English is why we have so many Indian software engineers here in the US.
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  26.  @JonnyCobra  OH yeah. I forgot they talk Mexican in Angola. J/k!
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  27. He is an analyst. We get things wrong sometimes, myself included.
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  28. Soleimani was the IRGC Commander. The IRGC would provide weapons, training and funding for the various groups around the region(mostly Shia, but not always) they would also pay the Shia Afghans to basically be cannon fodder for Bashar Al Assad's forces in Syria. Everything else that Peter has mentioned is factually accurate.
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  29. Do you get along with Kurds? Or do you at least seperate the PKK from the vast majority of Kurds?
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  30. If you paid closer attention to what Peter said, he used the word delay not renege(d). You may be correct regarding TSMC and Foxconn being somewhat apart in technological expertise. My not dumb phone is an Android. Android paid attention to the politics in the PRC, and thus got out ahead of time and relocated the majority of it's supply chain. Since Android is as much ahead of Apple as they are ahead of the impending collapse of the PRC, I would imagine that my phone has at least 1 chip made by TSMC; would that not make them an entity that at the very least a client of TSMC? You are correct that Peter has made one big mistake, but that is that he carries an IPhone instead of the technologically superior Android cell phone!
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  31. Isn't it Constantinople? Istanbul is it's occupied name... The Turks have a large military and some VERY high quality drones, but under Erdogan, their financial issues under Erdogan(pronounced how it is spelled not Er-do-whan! At least, that's what I tell my Turkish-American friends, but they disagree) especially inflation may limit their potential.
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  32. The problem is that Mr Erdogan uses the Kurds as a way to deflect from his failings on the economy.
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  33. I personally believe that the Israeli-US partnership is very strong. Even without AIPAC. The Israeli-Saudi partnership is mostly via the Intelligence services, so most of their populaces are "blissfully?" Unaware unless they are with the Saudi Mukhabarat or the Israeli equivalent. As with anything in the middle east, this is a very complicated issue. I believe that Peter may underestimate the intelligence of his audience, and perhaps may have OVER-simplified this normally complex issue.
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  34. This actually sounds kind of like standard Chinese operating procedure, except for the place where it took place raises some questions, to say the least. Outstanding analysis Peter. Don't take off during the holidays! No, I am kidding of course.
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  35. He said that if they did not pay, he would not defend them from the Russians. I love the hat. It is emblematic of how you are able to look at things through different "eyes" or viewpoints and give us the most accurate outcome.
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  36. I was going to ask if the CCP had asked you to do propaganda videos for them...
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  37. Peter has an amazing ability to "dumb down" geopolitics to the point where people like myself can understand it. This is why he has exploded in popularity in the last 1.5-2years.
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  38. And this explains why the government has grown to be WAY bigger than it needs to be. I recommend that we all vote for the Libertarian candidate!
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  39. @lynxlecher9547  He should be elected as a Nobel Prize winner, but in the category of world peace. I served as an intelligence analyst and good intelligence saves lives. Just think how many lives could have been saved if Putin knew how fierce the Ukrainians would resist him. The same could be said about Xi.
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  40. I believe that Peter tends to oversimplify things. With ANYTHING middle east this very complicated issue of just Israel alone( the Jews, Druze, Muslims and Xtians are all kinda living together).
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  41. Peter sh*ts gold, lol.
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  42. What about tornados? I suppose that is like earthquakes in California.
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  43. Silicon is a semiconductor. In the "doping" process, a conductor such as copper is mixed in with the Silicon on one side of a chip and a non-conducter on the other side. Because of the free electrons in the copper, current can only flow one way through the transister. About every 24 months or so, we here in the West are able to reduce the size of the chips by about one half for a good 25-30 years. By that I mean that the number of transistors in a given chip. This is known as Moore's law. It is more of an observation rather than a law. Another interpretation is the cost to make a chip of a certain size is cut in half every 18-24 months.
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  44. I think that you were trying to say coercion.
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  45.  @dallysinghson5569  It was a very hush hushed kind of thing, as foreign intelligence operations usually are. It was in their interest to divide India internally during the Cold War, due to Delhi's close ties with Moscow. They wanted you to think that way.
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  46. Indonesia is a lot like the Philippines. Both are archipelagos, with some high value(but not easily accessible) natural resources like gold, silver, etc. They both have many different national languages. The difference as I see it is that in Indonesia, the educational system is far behind the Philippines. Indonesia needs another Suharto(not to be confused with Sukarno-who was a communist of sorts) in my opinion. The Indonesians export coal to China and palm oil to Europe and the US.
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  47. My youngest daughter was lucky enough to get about 1 half of the cost of her education at UC Riverside. She is a STEM major(physics), and the other half is coming from her grandmother's house in SF was sold by my Baby Momma in order to fund her education. I like to think that I am intelligent, but both my daughters are utterly brilliant. In math and spoken languages!
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  48. Do they even have hospitals in Yemen? I imagine there is one in Sanaa, I know that Nigeria has hospitals in both Abuja(capital city) and Lagos(largest population city).
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  49.  @farnarkleboy  Excellent explanation. Thank you!
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  50. ​ @master2002h Are you Filipino? Indian?
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