Yalda Hakim (2:19)

Thank you Ben. Thanks so much. I'm really glad that we can do this.

Tommy Vitor (2:23)

I know I've been on your show and it's fun to have tables turned a bit. But we've got a lot of news to to go over today. We're going to talk about Donald Trump's upcoming meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska this Friday, how that news is being received in Ukraine and across Europe. We will revisit Trump's fixation on being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Then Bibi Netanyahu is saying the quiet part out loud as the Israeli prime minister has announced his intention to take over Gaza. We'll talk about the international reaction to that from an enabling us to, let's call it an enfeebled Europe. And finally, this month marks the fourth anniversary of the collapse of Kabul. And we'll talk about what life is like for Afghan women and girls and for so many Afghans who found themselves stranded and stateless in too many places. For our interview this week, Tommy spoke with military technology expert Michael Horowitz about the way drones have fundamentally altered warfare, how US Military tech stacks up against China's and where human decision making fits into a world of AI powered fighting machines. So a cheerful interview, but definitely a very interesting one. But first, Yalda, this Friday, Donald Trump will meet with Vladimir Putin to discuss the future of Ukraine in a location with some historical significance, Alaska, which was sold by Russia's Emperor Alexander II to the US back in the 1800s. The Alaska summit was hastily announced last week as the latest, quote, 10 or 12 day deadline that Trump has set for a ceasefire arrived. It's not hard to see the Alaska summit as a win for Putin. It allows him to visit the US not as a war criminal, but as a world leader. It seems like the summit will exclude President Zelensky, though Trump has said he'll call Zelensky after. And the early indications are that Russia's demands have not changed at all. International recognition of their control over annexed territories of Ukraine, no Ukrainian membership in NATO, essentially a weakened Ukraine that Russia can threaten or control going into the future. So as we're recording, some details are still not known, but we wanted to offer a preview as to what might unfold. And Yalda, the best or worst place maybe to start is with Trump's own words on Monday during his press conference announcing his authoritarian plan to deploy the National Guard to take over Washington, D.C. that's something that happened. Trump spoke about the upcoming Alaska summit. Yalda, let's listen to the clip and then I'll ask you to respond.

Brooke Gladstone (4:46)

And it's embarrassing for me to be up here. You know, I'm going to see Putin. I'm going to Russia on Friday I don't like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was.

Tommy Vitor (4:59)

I was a little bothered by the.

Brooke Gladstone (5:01)

Fact that Zelenskyy was saying, well, I have to get constitutional approval. I mean, he's got approval to go into war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap, because there'll be some land swapping going.

Tommy Vitor (5:14)

On to the good for the good of Ukraine.

Brooke Gladstone (5:17)

Good stuff, not bad stuff. Also some bad stuff. Russia has occupied a big portion of Ukraine. They've occupied some very prime territory. We're going to try and get some of that territory back for Ukraine. But they've taken some very prime territory. They've taken largely ocean. You know, in real estate, we call it oceanfront property. That's always the most valuable property.

Tommy Vitor (5:39)

And at the end of that meeting.

Brooke Gladstone (5:40)

Probably in the first two minutes, I'll know exactly whether or not a deal can be made. How do you know that?

Tommy Vitor (5:45)

Because that's what I do.

Brooke Gladstone (5:46)

I make deals.

Tommy Vitor (5:49)

All right, so Yalda, I don't know about the first two minutes. I've been in meetings with Putin, and they tend to go long, but it's pretty clear what Russia wants out of the summit. Essentially, they want to end the war on their terms. What are you expecting this Friday? What are you looking for as someone who's covered this war very closely?

Brooke Gladstone (6:08)

Yeah.

Yalda Hakim (6:08)

You know, Ben, what's interesting is on August 8th, this deadline that Donald Trump had set where he was proposing sanctions on Russia if they didn't come up with some kind of deal. And by the end of the day, that deadline came and went, and instead he proposed this summit on the 15th of August. What I find really interesting about his language is he reverts back to this idea that somehow Ukraine started this war. You know, this idea that he has approval to kill people. Ukraine was attacked and invaded by the Russians, and they have done what they can and have tried to do what they could to defend their sovereignty and their land. And I think for Donald Trump, he's seeing this as some kind of real estate deal. You know, he talked there about waterfront, you know, apartments and property. But for him, this is about viewing the world through some kind of real estate deal. And frankly, for the Russians, it's not about real estate deals. He sees this as well, look, we'll make a deal. The Ukrainians will give up the territory that the Russians want, and the Russians will agree to a ceasefire. Everyone makes money, and everyone can go home. What's the problem? But for the Russians, this isn't about territory for the Russians, this is about the existence of Ukraine, which we know that Vladimir Putin doesn't believe is a nation. I mean, he said that over and over again that Ukraine is not a nation. And so for Vladimir Putin, this is much more than Donald Trump's deal or Donald Trump's quick fix of a situation. He says, this is what I do. I make deals. For Russia, we know it's not about that. So Donald Trump wants a quick fix. But for Vladimir Putin, it's much more than that. It's about whether Ukraine exists as a nation, whether NATO goes back to the borders of 1997. He's made it very clear what he wants. And I'm not sure why we are not listening to what Vladimir Putin is saying and making incredibly clear. He doesn't want to meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy because he doesn't acknowledge Ukraine as a state. And he doesn't want to give Volodymyr Zelenskyy the respect of the head of state of Ukraine. So I think that, you know, Donald Trump sees this as a quick fix. He sees this as he wants this to end before the end of his term. But for Vladimir Putin, you know, he's made it clear he's going to go on and on for as long as it takes and for as long as so until he gets the territory that he believes is his.

Tommy Vitor (8:52)

Yeah, that's such a good point because Putin's view of history is very long and Donald Trump's attention span is very short. And I had this sneaking suspicion that you saw Trump pivot to some tougher talk on Russia. You saw him threaten India with tariffs or impose tariffs on India for buying Russian oil. But part of me kind of feels like that's all for show that Trump is going to show up and essentially cave into Putin's demands. And he kind of wanted the impression that he was somehow putting pressure on Putin before he gave him everything he wants. That's my fear heading into this. But I wanted to ask you about the view from Europe. Obviously, Ukraine and Europe are looking at this summit with much more trepidation than Trump is. And certainly Russia, Zelenskyy is called any land swaps or concessions. And by the way, swaps are kind of a weird phrase. It's not like Ukraine's getting any Russian territory. So. But he's called territorial concessions a non starter. But he's in this kind of tough position because Trump could come out and essentially announce something that is imposed on Zelenskyy and he has to either take it or deal with the US Withdrawing support. Now, we've seen European leaders also kind of try to get in the mix here. They've been excluded from these direct talks. But on Saturday in England, JD Vance met with your foreign secretary, David Lammy, after a kind of fishing excursion. Also met with some Ukrainian and European officials. And the Ukrainians and Europeans were essentially offering a counter proposal, an immediate ceasefire as a first step that does not require to give up territory to get into a ceasefire. From what Trump said, and we heard him say it seems unlikely that he's going to go along with, with that. But, you know, you've seen the Europeans, you know, constantly try to reassure Zelensky. You've seen them float their own proposals. You've seen Germany's Chancellor, Friedrich Mertz announced plans for a virtual summit between Europe, Ukraine and the US Involving Trump on Wednesday. So try to get in Trump's ear before the meeting. What is your. You talk to a lot of these European leaders and diplomats. You've interviewed Zelensky. What is your impression of their plan? What is Zelensky thinking as Thursday approaches? And what is Europe's kind of plan B here if Trump and Putin emerge from this summit with some kind of deal that is far more friendly to Russia than Europe and Ukraine would want?

Yalda Hakim (11:23)

Yeah, I mean, again, as you said, pointed out rightly, that Vladimir Putin plays the long game, he plays chess and Donald Trump plays Monopoly. He has a short attention span when it comes to these things. And he's thinking, I need a deal. So I suspect that what we all see in Alaska is Donald Trump standing next to Vladimir Putin saying, we have a deal. And the Europeans are nervous about being none the wiser about what that deal is. And again, Donald Trump makes it really clear, you know, what his intentions are, whether that was that crazy blow up that we saw at the White House, where he essentially humiliated Volodymyr Zelenskyy. And Volodymyr Zelenskyy showed up less than 12 hours to London, where he was meeting with European leaders and other NATO leaders. And we were summoned to Stanstede Airport, a really small group of journalists here in the UK to sit down with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and sort of get a sense of where they are at. And immediately, you saw the European leaders rally around him, give him a bear hug and make it clear to him that while on the one hand they are kissing the ring as far as Donald Trump is concerned, and they want to keep Donald Trump happy. And we've seen Keir Starmer do that quite successfully when he went to the White House and sort of presented Donald Trump with a letter from the king and said, you get another state visit. But they made it very clear to Volodymyr Zelenskyy that we have your back. He came out of number 10, you know, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy was walking towards him to cheers of, you know, hundreds of people sort of standing there to cheer the Ukrainian leader on and make it clear that Europe stands with Ukraine because there is so much that the Europeans have at stake here. You know, this, again, is not about just territory and taking parts of eastern Ukraine. You know, there are concerns that wherever there is a Russian minority group, that is where Putin has, you know, set his eyes as the next place, as the next potential place. So Europe is upping its defense spending and they give credit to Donald Trump for that because the pressure that came from the United States for them to up their defense spending and, you know, this going back all the way to President Obama, there was pressure, you know, for them to do something, to spend more. And in many ways, the pressure that Donald Trump has put on them has put them on notice. So they are spending more. They have pledged that they will spend more. But equally, they know that they. One Ukrainian MP said to me, if you're not at the table, you're on the table. So their concern is that Ukraine will be on the table between Putin and Trump to be carved up and divided. And then they're told, this is how it is. Suck it up. And I guess if I look at the Biden administration's policies towards Ukraine, there was a drip, drip effect. Every time I'd go to Ukraine, I would hear the complaints of Ukrainian leaders who would say, the Defense Minister and various others who'd say, you know, they are drip feeding things to us military hardware and equipment. And they helped me understand it by saying it's like giving you an iPhone without a charger and saying the charger will arrive in six months time, so do with the iPhone what you can. And so, you know, there was a lot of frustration with Biden's approach to Ukraine as well, that, you know, I remember the Foreign Minister Kuleba saying to me, you know, the Americans don't want us to lose, but they don't want us to win either because they're so concerned about how Russia will respond and react if they flood us with weapons, for example, if they give us the hundred percent support that we need. So Trump gets sort of hot and cold on the One hand, he sort of says, right, I'm gonna impose sanctions on Russia and flood. Flood the zone, flood Ukraine with weapons. And then on the other hand, he gets very excited about having a potential summit with Putin.

Tommy Vitor (15:38)

And do you think. I mean, you know, it's interesting. I understand why the Europeans have kind of taken the road of trying to flatter Trump. You know, David Lammy's out there hosting JD Vance, and they're going fishing. And in the Ukrainians, too, Andrei Yermak, the very influential adviser to Zelensky, is constantly now praising Trump on X. But it feels like it's a certain point, though. I mean, either Trump's gonna do what Europe and Ukraine wants, or he's not. And it seems like he's not. I mean, do you think that this strategy of just trying to kind of flatter Trump is a rubber gonna hit the road here pretty soon? If they come out of this meeting? Do you think the Europeans are prepared to actually stand up to Trump, or do you think essentially their only plan is to hope that Trump listens to them, take some of their ideas on board, but if he doesn't, they'll essentially just have to accept whatever comes out of a meeting with Putin?

Yalda Hakim (16:42)

Yeah, I think that they are aware that Donald Trump is an unpredictable leader and that he could go any which way. But I think we have to accept and acknowledge that Trump also has an admiration for these strongmen leaders and authoritarian leaders, and he respects them, he admires them, and he views. I was told by someone who was advising the Japanese government on how to deal with Trump that they believe the Japanese and the Asians believe that Donald Trump views Vladimir Putin's quest for Ukraine as a local issue. But he's the local thug who wants his sphere of influence, and that is his backyard. That's his domain. Why is this America's problem? America's eyes should be set on having great power competition with the Chinese and dealing with that issue. And that's where they should be sending their focused on preserving their weapons and their strategy for that fight, the bigger fight, rather than fighting Europe's war. And Donald Trump has made that very clear to the Europeans. And I think on the one hand, you know, he sort of. There's reciprocal with people like Keir Starmer. He's sort of said, yeah, he's my friend. I like him. But at the end of the day, you know, he doesn't have the same sort of respect and admiration for middle powers the way he does for, say, a Vladimir Putin, who is the big thug in that region who wants to control his backyard and his neighborhood, versus Europeans who are focused on international law and the laws of war and democracy and all the values that they believe that is the bedrock of the United States. So, on the one hand, while they are praising Donald Trump and they are appeasing him, on the other hand, they kind of still have nostalgia for a United States that, frankly, right now, under Trump, doesn't necessarily operate in the same way.

Tommy Vitor (18:47)

Yeah, it seems like at some point they're just going to have to reckon with the reality that you just laid out, which is that when Trump looks at the world, the peers that he sees are Putin and Xi Jinping and not necessarily Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz. But, I mean, you know, one. One way to Trump's heart, of course, is to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize, which is clearly part of what he's, you know, fixated on. I don't know, maybe because Obama won it. I wanted to ask about that. So, at the White House last Friday, we had this kind of interesting scene where the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a joint declaration rebranding a contested regional transit corridor between the two countries as the, quote, Trump route for international peace and prosperity. Trump is touting this both as a commercial venture for the US as well as a private, personal diplomatic win. Both the prime Minister of Armenia and president of Azerbaijan have said they would endorse Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize. This is the first. Well, it's not a comprehensive peace deal. It's the first kind of formal, signed commitment between the two countries aimed at ending the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia since some ceasefire agreements ended a war there in the 90s. It's worth noting that Azerbaijan had essentially won the kind of proximate cause of the war when they seize control of the contested region of Nagorno Karabakh and ethnically cleanse the Armenian population there. So this is kind of Trump coming in after a lot of the action it played out. But this joins a growing list of world leaders who've taken the route of endorsing Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize to stay in his good graces. This includes everybody from the Cambodian prime minister who credited Trump with helping to broker a ceasefire after the Thai Cambodian border conflict, which we've talked about on this podcast. The government of Pakistan nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize after the US Played a role in helping de escalate conflict with India. Bibi Netanyahu has nominated Trump for Nobel Peace Prize for bombing Iran. Kind of counterintuitive I want to play this clip. Here's what Trump had to say about his peacekeeping efforts recently, plus some highlights from the the deal that he signed with the Prime Minister of Armenia and President Azerbaijan.

Brooke Gladstone (21:01)

Well, they should give me the Nobel Prize for Rwanda. And if you look the Congo, or you could say Serbia, Kosovo, you could say a lot of them, you could say, I mean the big one is India and Pakistan. I should have gotten it four or five times. This declaration establishes what they are calling a great honor for me. I didn't ask for this. The Trump route for international peace and prosperity.

Tommy Vitor (21:29)

Trump deserved to have Nobel Peace Prize and we will defend that and we will promote for that. Can I have a suggestion?

Brooke Gladstone (21:43)

Yes.

Tommy Vitor (21:44)

So maybe we agree with Prime Minister Pashinyan to send a joint appeal to.

Yalda Hakim (21:49)

Nobel Committee to award President Trump with.

Tommy Vitor (21:53)

A Nobel Peace Prize. Because. So I just have a thought here which is that I think people need to understand first of all, all this list of conflicts like these are to the short term point, these are, most of them are band aids. Right. Like the issue in the Democratic Republic of Congo is not resolved. It's kind of a ceasefire. But the underlying problems remain, including the presence of Rwandan backed militias controlling resources. The issue in India and Pakistan were going to de escalate the US Kind of, they went through the same pattern. They always do. The US played the same role. It always does. It makes some phone calls. Things de escalate probably on their own momentum. Thailand and Cambodia were not going to fight some huge war over what is kind of a constant border dispute. So in many of these cases, he kind of comes in, does the normal things that the US Always does and frankly that the EU always does too, and then just puffs them up. Right. But these leaders have found out that just saying you should get the Nobel Peace Prize is probably a way to avoid, I don't know, higher tariff or something. I do want to ask you, you are a very global citizen. You're sitting in the uk. What on earth does this look like from the outside? What do people make of this strange fixation on the Nobel Peace Prize?

Yalda Hakim (23:11)

You know, who doesn't want a Nobel Peace Prize, apparently.

Tommy Vitor (23:15)

Yeah.

Yalda Hakim (23:16)

So I'm not going to judge him on that. I get it. Like who, who doesn't want it? But it's, what's extraordinary actually is to see, you know, as you say, a bandage on the DRC Rwanda issue. Cambodia, Thailand, India, Pakistan, which by the way, you know, I was tracking that conflict incredibly closely and speaking to the Indians, speaking to the Pakistanis, Speaking to leadership on both sides, the Pakistanis saw it as a win for themselves and for India. They were incensed because for two decades or so, they have had this kind of bipartisan support where they've built, you know, strategic partnership with the United States. And this term, you know, you'll remember, Ben, that was often used to describe Afghanistan, Pakistan as AfPak. They don't want to be, you know, India PAC. They don't want that kind of. They see themselves as a proper super superpower, you know, versus a country that they see is spinning constantly out of control and that, you know, has the military and has its intelligence agency and its civilian government is completely powerless. India sees itself as a powerhouse now regionally and, and frankly, globally, and not necessarily an ally of the United States, but a strategic partner. So whether it's, you know, getting hit with these tariffs or whether it's meddling in an age conflict that's gone on for decades and decades, and frankly, what we saw in that previous conflict of a few months ago is the lines, the red lines continue to move, and it gets more and more dangerous. So the next time you see a flare up between any of these two sides, they just basically pushed the boundaries a little bit further. So Donald Trump saying, you can all come to the White House and we can all have a group hug and a photo, and I'm going to have to. To get a Nobel Peace Prize out of this or have some, you know, transit route named after me. You know. Sure. I think that sometimes his transactional approach works, and perhaps it's more than if I think back to the Biden administration. You know, I can't remember a single conflict that they tried to resolve, frankly. I mean, you know, what we saw at the end of the Biden administration was the disaster in Afghanistan. Ukraine felt it was a war of attrition, and frankly, you know, 40,000 Palestinians dead, you know, because they couldn't push pressure, enough pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu and the Israeli government. So perhaps Donald Trump's fixation is leading him to put all these bandages on everything. He's not getting the big prize. Right. He's not getting a ceasefire in Gaza, which is, you know, there's mounting pressure for that to happen globally, and he's not able to put enough pressure on Putin. So in the end, it's going to be the Ukrainian, Ukrainians who lose, and frankly, probably the Palestinians who lose.

Ben Rhodes (26:33)

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Tommy Vitor (28:03)

Gaza looms as the war that Trump doesn't even really seem to be trying to end. Recently we've seen further escalation there. After a 10 hour security cabinet meeting last week, the Israeli government ordered the military to begin to prepare to invade and take control of Gaza City. This followed an interview that Netanyahu did not with Yalda on Sky News, but with Safer space Fox News, where Netanyahu said that Israel intended to take over all of Gaza, at least temporarily, in order to establish a, quote, security perimeter and then, quote, hand it over to Arab forces without any kind of detail about what that looks like. On Sunday, Netanyahu said that the offensive would begin fairly quickly and singled out two remaining Hamas quote, strongholds that will be targeted and should be noted. It's not as if Hamas is really, you know, mounting huge military operations in these places, Gaza City, as well as some of the central refugee camps in the Gaza Strip that currently shelter more than half a million displaced people now right now The Israeli military estimates it controls around 75% of the Gaza Strip. But the Israeli military leadership, it should be noted, including also a lot of former leaders of the IDF and including Netanyahu's handpicked military chief of staff, have both privately and publicly expressed criticism or skepticism about this takeover plan, which seems intended to prolong the war, appease Netanyahu's kind of far right coalition. In Israel. Thousands of protesters turned out over the weekend to oppose the occupation plan, including families of both living and dead hostages. Meanwhile, the starvation of people in Gaza continues unabated. And late Sunday, a well known Al Jazeera journalist, Anas Al Sharif, who's covered this war from the beginning, was killed in a targeted strike along with a number of his colleagues in a journalist tent city in Gaza City. Now, the Israelis have claimed that Al Sharif was a Hamas operative, but I want to note that they basically call everybody that, that they don't like and frankly seem to draw no distinction between Hamas and civilians in general. And actually the Committee to Protect Journalists had been on the record calling for the protection of Al Sharif before that strike. And I should note it's kind of chilling that, that some of the few journalists who've been able to show us anything in Gaza are killed right before this invasion of Gaza City takes place. So kind of getting rid of the people who could bear witness. Yalda, you know, whenever it seems like things can get worse in Gaza, they do. And now we see this takeover plan, we see this targeting the Al Jazeera crew, and we have kind of no sense of an end in sight. What is your sense of the, what is your reaction to Netanyahu's announcement and where things are going?

Yalda Hakim (31:01)

Yeah, Ben, I first want to acknowledge, you know, the killing of these six Al Jazeera journalists because they have become part of, you know, 186 or so journalists who have been killed in the last 21 months or so. And that's according to the CPJ, and they are our eyes and ears on the ground because as you know, journalists haven't been allowed to go into Gaza unless it's on some kind of IDF embed. And frankly, that in itself should cause outcry and outrage globally. There hasn't been any conflict where journalists, no matter how dangerous the situation has been, whether that's been Iraq or Afghanistan or Ukraine or any other kind of conflict, where journalists are locked out and told frankly, just in the last few weeks, a sky team were flying over as part of the airdrops, Jordanian airdrops, and they were told, you know, explicitly that they are not to film any aerial shots of Gaza because you then get a full sense of the scale of the destruction. And so when you look at this strip that has been completely flattened and the humanitarian zones and the safe zones are no longer safe, where journalists are saying, we are here. And they get accused of being journalists, and those very spaces get bombed, and we get told, well, they're either Hamas or we will do an investigation. And we never hear about any of the investigations that, you know, what they actually amount to. So the last 21 months or so, you know, since October 7, has been incredibly painful for Israel. Firstly, a traumatized nation off the back of October 7th. They still have 20 or so hostages, you know, trapped in the tunnels of Gaza and 60,000 plus people killed in the course of the last, you know, 21, 22 months. And we as an international community have just watched this horror, horror show unfold. You know, someone once said to me, the war in Ukraine had a much bigger economic impact globally, but we didn't see thousands of people on the streets. This is very early on in the conflict. But, you know, the conflict in the Middle east between the Palestinians and Israel has a greater social impact. And therefore, right from the outset, we see people knowing where this is going to lead to. And frankly, without a plan, without a strategy, when you've got IDF chiefs saying, we don't know what the plan is, what are we doing here? What is the actual plan to take over Gaza? And they're saying, well, we'll move civilians by October, and then we'll start our ground operations. Hostage families coming out onto the streets horrified about the fact that not only have these hostages not been rescued, but more soldiers are going to get sent in. And so the death toll is going to continue to rise from the soldiers as well as Palestinian civilians, because it feels like nowhere is safe. And I've continued to speak every day we're committed to the Gaza story on my program. Every single night, we will speak to someone in Gaza or speak to an NHS doctor who is either there or has returned from there. And they talk to us about, frankly, the fact that the hospital system has been completely destroyed, and there's sort of one or two hospitals that, that function where they, you know, operate on small children without any anesthesia. We've heard all these horror stories, you know, over the course of the last several months. And then, of course, the starvation. The Gaza Humanitarian foundation, how they have been, you know, criticized by former Israeli prime ministers like Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, who, Ehud Olmert, described it as Gaza as a concentration camp and said there are war crimes taking place there right now. So the question is, how does Israel hold itself accountable? Because to me, it feels like it's not just the issue of Gaza, but how do they recover from this? At the end of this, right now, there doesn't feel like there's an end in sight. But as a society, how do they reconcile with the fact that this is going on on their doorstep, you know, where children are being starved and, you know, innocent civilians continue to be killed, including journalists. And the justification is we need to continue to go after humble Hamas. You know, I just, I find it sort of extraordinary that where does this leave Israel's institutions, the institutions that were created, you know, off the back of the Holocaust and the creation of Israel as a State in 1948 and the Declaration of Independence and their formation as a state off the back of the Geneva Conventions as well. And their, you know, know, everything that Israel as a democracy stood for, will they be able to. And will their systems and their, you know, all of their different institutions hold those who have been responsible for the things that have taken place in Gaza responsible and accountable? And right now, for Benjamin Netanyahu, it is all about survival. You know, it doesn't. When you speak to Israelis and I speak to, you know, people from the security establishment, the defense establishment, their firm belief is that for him it's about the next election when the Knesset comes back from recess and whether they call for another election. He wants to ensure that he keeps his base happy, he keeps the far right leaders happy to the detriment of Israel as a state. And, well, the Palestinians will continue to suffer as they are.

Tommy Vitor (36:49)

Yeah, I think that this, look, the main tragedy is what is happening to the Palestinian people in Gaza. I think this point about what it does to a society to perpetrate systematic war crimes is like an under appreciated or under discussed point. And look, I will tell you as an American, the war on terror was not healthy for our society. And frankly, for all the excesses of the war on terror, Gaza is in even a different category in terms of the kind of systematic targeting of civilians. But look, I don't think we end up with Donald Trump without a war on terror. The normalization of the securitization of life in this country, the kind of normalization of violence, the kind of jingoism, the demagoguing of, of brown people, in this case people in Afghanistan, Iraq, like there was something intangible that shifted in the United States. That, to me, led from the war on terror to Trump. And I don't know what kind of country Israel is on the back end of this. To your point about holding itself accountable, it clearly cannot do that right now. And so I wanted to ask you about Europe. I mean, look, we say every week that the US if we were in charge, which we're not, I think the US should not be providing any military assistance. It should be imposing leverage on Israel to stop this. I think if the US did that, Israel would have no choice but to stop this. But Europe has more leverage, I think, than people understand. Europe is the largest source of investment into Israel. Europe is negotiating still a trade agreement with Israel. Europe could impose its own sanctions on Israel. And thus far, we've seen seen kind of this patchwork of different responses as public opinion in Europe and other places has gotten more outraged over what's happening in Gaza. On Sunday, the New York Times reported the, quote, frantic and at times uncoordinated push for peace amongst European allies once they realized that the US Is not going to reign in Netanyahu. Even Germany, which has traditionally been Israel's closest ally in Europe for obvious reasons, even Germany imposed a partial weapons embargo on Israel. But most of the action is focused on recognition of a Palestinian state. On Monday, the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, joined the leaders of France and Britain and Canada in saying he would recognize the Palestinian state in September at the UN General Assembly. We've seen foreign ministers put out joint statements, but none of these things. I mean, the recognition, I understand that, the push for recognition, and I support it. You need to give people a horizon of hope. You need to kind of prevent the erasure of Palestine as an idea. So it's not that that's not good and important. It is, but it kind of doesn't really pressure Israel to stop the war. Now, I want to play one clip for you, Yalda. I recently was in Europe and talked to Kati Piri, who she serves in the Dutch House of Representatives for the Labour Party. She's also the Labour Party spokesperson on foreign affairs. Here's what she told me about how Europe, Europe should be responding to what's happening in Gaza. Is there a disconnect between, in your sense, European public opinion and European policy on Gaza? Is there more that could be done to try to bring about an end to what's happening in Gaza?

Yalda Hakim (40:05)

Absolutely. And not only in Europe. I also see the same thing happening.

Brooke Gladstone (40:08)

In the U.S. i think if you would put it to a Vote just.

Yalda Hakim (40:12)

This issue to citizens in the Netherlands and in many other European countries, countries, citizens from any country, whether you vote.

Brooke Gladstone (40:20)

For the left wing or for the right wing, want sanctions to happen. And this is where I have problem. I've been working in the EU for 14 years, seven years as a member of the European Parliament. And you see our moral authority evaporating. We have a complete self irrelevance by not imposing any sanctions on Israel by what it's doing in Gaza. And I think this is where people.

Yalda Hakim (40:44)

Are asking for leadership and there is no leadership, not in Europe, not in the US when it comes to stopping.

Brooke Gladstone (40:50)

Ethnic cleansing, when it comes to stopping a genocide happening that, you know, we are getting it through our phones on a daily basis.

Yalda Hakim (40:59)

And this is, I think, infuriating a lot of people.

Tommy Vitor (41:04)

So, I mean, you hear her frustration, it's, you know, pretty powerful to hear, you know, a mainstream politician call out European leaders that candidly, what do you make of that view, Yalda? I mean, what is it? Do you sense a disconnect between kind of public opinion in Europe and the kind of actions that European leaders are taking? And what do you think of Kati's point that kind of Europe is in some ways making itself irrelevant by not having kind of more of an independent strategy to try to end the war?

Yalda Hakim (41:29)

Yeah, absolutely. I think that we see how nervously European leaders have been moving ahead, whether it was putting sort of very small arms embargo by Britain. You know, I remember challenging David Lammy on this and saying, on the one hand you think you're doing something, but on the other hand you, there's still a huge chunk of, you know, parts and other sort of weapons that you'll continue to send to Israel. And while it's great, as you say, Palestinian statehood is the aspiration for the Palestinian people, for them to be able to, you know, have a sovereign state that is theirs, that is their right. But does it alleviate the pain and the suffering today? You know, the fact that the European leaders in the E3, Britain and Germany and France, haven't been able to come up with a coordinated plan to pressure Israel. And they're all doing their own thing. So the Germans are saying arms embargo. The French are saying we're going to rush off and have a conference about statehood and then Britain threatens it as well, and it makes no difference. In response, Benjamin Netanyahu says, I'm going to take over all of Gaza now. You know, and frankly, that is his answer. And whenever you sort of criticize the Israeli government, The way the Europeans have. He's very blatantly said to allies, you know, that you are parroting Hamas's narrative. You are supporting Hamas by telling us to stop. Whether that's, you know, major international aid organizations saying that there is starvation and famine in Gaza multiple times. It isn't just in this period. You recall like six months ago when they had the other blockade, the likes of Cindy McCain, the head of WFP, screaming from the rooftop, saying there is famine and we need to be able to give access to the women and children, the vulnerable, to aid, and we aren't being allowed. Our trucks are just sitting on the borders. So we've seen this multiple times over the course, course of the last 20 months. And for the leaders in Europe to come out and say, well, our public find this revolting and, you know, we condemn Israel's actions and we want them to stop. Statements of condemnation are not going to cut it. Promises of statehood is not going to cut it. You know, there is a population right now that is being bombed and starved and suffering, and, you know, 60,000 plus people have been killed over the course of the last 20 months. And all of the European leaders, all they can say is, like, how have random plans rather than one coherent. And as you say, it's, it's, you know, we heard there this idea that they're basically driving themselves to irrelevance. You know, Israel isn't taking them seriously. It leads the United States to see that, you know, Europeans aren't serious and sort of dismissing any kind of plan. I mean, Trump was with Keir Starmer in Scotland, and, you know, as soon as he left, Keir Starmer said that this is what we're going to do. We're going to recognize Palestinian statehood. And in response, Trump was like, we didn't even talk about it. He didn't even raise that with me. You know, that is how, you know, irrelevant these conversations. And they diminish the idea of statehood for the Palestinians by jumping to that as the first thing that they want to achieve rather than saying right now it needs to stop and end. You know, what is happening to the Palestinian people needs to end today. And frankly, mounting pressure on the Trump administration. And in many ways, I think, you know, if they seriously went to Donald Trump and said, these are the things that need to happen, I weirdly think that Donald Trump would sort of respect that more than these kind of this weird approach that they're taking. Because, you know, frankly, you know, I remember having a conversation with Anthony Blinken about this. You Know, he would, he would go to see Benjamin Netanyahu and sort of almost behave like Benjamin Netanyahu was the leader of the Republican Party and he was just going in there as a member of Congress and sort of, you know, begging him for some kind of, for scraps. And it's like, what are you talking about? You are the United, United States. Tell them and tell Ben gvir, you know, ask God for help. If you don't do this right now, you can ask God for help, you know, on this. But there hasn't been enough pressure. And Ehud Olmert said to me once, Joe Biden needs to take Benjamin Netanyahu into a room with a baseball bat and remind him who's boss. And it can only that kind of pressure, frankly. The Europeans, you're right, do have leverage and do have the ability to put pressure on Israel, but they also can work with the United States to put pressure on Donald Trump to do more. But that pressure isn't even, even isn't coming when they have a face to face meeting. And he doesn't even mention Palestinian statehood. I mean, who knows, Donald Trump may have just been saying that, you know, Keith may have mentioned it. And, and I didn't see the readout whether it, those conversations were had and Donald Trump sort of decided to say that, who knows? And, and Keir Starmer probably did say, look, this is what I'm looking at doing. And, and Donald Trump didn't really take it seriously.

Tommy Vitor (46:29)

Yeah, no, such a good point. And, and it does, it ties into the Ukraine thing because it does just feel like European, whether it's Keir Starmer and actually Keir Starmer in particular. But you see this from Mertz and Macron, this effort to kind of calibrate where I don't want to piss off Trump, but I need to say things that are a little different or I'll do the statehood recognition because even if the Americans don't like that, it doesn't really get in the way of anything, anything. At a certain point, you either need to have your own positions or not. And right now it just kind of feels like very uncertain tacking behind the Americans on things. And I think that the issue will be pressed, enforced at some point. But we'll see what happens on the state visit that Donald Trump has to the UK coming up. What kind of reception do you think he'll get in London?

Yalda Hakim (47:32)

He's already made his feelings clear about the mayor of London.

Tommy Vitor (47:36)

Yes.

Yalda Hakim (47:38)

There's no love lost between them. I think he sort of said he was a nasty man. But I think the people of London feel quite strongly about whether it's Ukraine or whether it's the situation in Gaza. We've seen demonstrations take place almost every Saturday for the last 20 months or so. So I think that there will be a of lot a lot of unhappy people to not necessarily welcoming Donald Trump, the US President to the uk.

Tommy Vitor (48:08)

Maybe not as many nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize coming out of London. Yeah hey worldos, we have some very good news for you. Very exciting news. Crooked subscription content is now available on substack. So if you're already a subscriber, don't worry, this won't change anything for you. But if you love using substack, you're on substack and prefer accessing things there there. You can now find Crooked's content on substack. When you subscribe, you'll unlock ad free episodes of your favorite Crooked shows like this one, plus exclusive content like the Must listen to Must Watch, Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer and a bunch of other perks. We are everywhere you are, so you can subscribe on the platform that works best for you. Visit crooked.com friends to learn more.

Brooke Gladstone (48:59)

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Ben Rhodes (48:59)

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Tommy Vitor (50:55)

I want to, I want to spend a few minutes here, though, talking about Afghanistan. We are at the fourth anniversary of the Taliban takeover, the collapse of Kabul. I know this is an issue that, you know, you, you're born in Afghanistan. You follow this closely, you work on it closely. You're actually in Albania now, in part because of the work you've done to help some of the Afghans who've been displaced there. We'll get to that. But I want to just start by asking you what your sense is of the situation for Afghans, particularly women and girls in the country who've been hit the hardest. I mean, the Taliban has obviously kind of systematically removed any sense of an open society in Afghanistan, but women and girls, it's almost impossible for them to hold jobs, go to school, receive health care, in some cases even be out in public. The UN Women released a press release recently, actually on Monday, pointing out that there have been nearly 100 edicts that have placed restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan, including one that they must be accompanied by a male relative when traveling from their home on public transport. I saw a horrifying statistic that estimated that maternal mortality will increase by 50% by next year as a result of the obstacles for women facing healthcare and again, of course, the restrictions on girls going to school. What is your sense in talking to people of what life is like for women and girls four years after the Taliban takeover?

Yalda Hakim (52:30)

You know, there's this sort of great sense of empowerment, and you and I have spoken about this a few times, but this real sense of betrayal, like the international community promised Afghan girls and women this idea of education and freedom. And there was hope even in the Darkest days of the 20 years that the United States and allied forces were in Afghanistan. Even in those darkest moments, I would speak to, to women who would say, my daughter will not go through what I went through. And when they say what I went through, they're referring to Taliban 1.0, when they were banned from schools and they were forced to go into underground cellars and go to secret schools and sort of be terrified about what the future held for them. And to think it's quite extraordinary, actually. We're sort of a few days away from the fourth anniversary of the fall of Kabul. We're coming up to it, and, and it does, to me feel extraordinary that anyone thought there was ever a good Taliban, bad Taliban. You know, we're coming up to 1,400 plus days since girls over the age of 12 were told, Go home. You know, we're not going to ban you from school, but we'll let you know, you know, sort of don't call us, we'll call you type of thing. When it came to girls going back to school, and they promised all sorts of things like, you know, we have to alter the uniforms, we have to prevent these mixed classes with boys and girls, and we have to change the curriculum to a more Sharia curriculum. And then they never returned to their schools. And I mean, you know, it horrifies me to think that a mother cannot take her children to a park in Kabul. They're banned from going to parks. Salons are banned. You know, gyms are banned for women, shelters where they, where an abused woman suffering from domestic violence or forced marriage. Marriage, these have all been banned by the Taliban. You know, the last time I went and I realized I was no longer welcome in the country was about two years ago. And you really saw the transition between insurgency to government, where they were becoming more hardline. They were moving away from the chaos of the takeover and, and sort of trying to establish their rule or, you know, their sort of rules and regulations. And I remember when the, they recreated the Ministry of Vice and Virtue, this feared ministry in Afghanistan during the first Taliban rule. And, and I thought this is, and they, they shut it down and use the office space of the Women's Ministry. So they shut down the Women's Ministry and put in its place the Department of Vice and Virtue, which basically police anything that women and girls do. So these are very dark times for the, for the women and girls of Afghanistan. And, and unlike the first time, where for whatever reason, and I remember being a teenager growing up in Australia and tracking what was happening in the country of my birth, even though Australia was our adopted home and I felt very Australian was that for whatever reason I thought those dark days would end that, that, you know, it was so brutal that something was going to eventually give. And it was 9, 11 that led to then, you know, the fall of the Taliban. This time I think there is a lot of like lack of, of hope because it feels like, does the world care enough and the Taliban have become smart enough and savvy enough to. Terror organizations like ISIS operate and pop up and they kind of sort of get rid of a few sleeper cells, but they're not necessarily allowing Al Qaeda to freely operate in the country. So whatever they're doing to the local population there remains within the confines of, of the country. I mean, then again, ISIS is using Afghanistan as a terror base for themselves where they're launching large scale attacks on, you know, theaters in Russia and on memorials in Iran. And there is concern that they're planning and preparing and prepared to launch terrorist attacks from Afghanistan. So I don't know where that will eventually go with the sort of lack of security in the country. But my question always to the Taliban is, you know, shouldn't you be focusing on launching your war against another terrorist organization rather than launching a war against 12 year old girls? Like, you know, how insecure do you have to be for your enemy to be teenage girls?

Tommy Vitor (57:01)

Yeah, well, and there's also like just a huge ordeal for Afghans who are outside of the country. This includes the fact that recently we've seen these kind of mass kind of deportations of Afghans. More than 1.4 million Afghans living in Pakistan are being deported after their proof of registration cards issued by the Pakistani government expired in June. The Iranians similarly have deported many Afghans back into the country where again, if you're a girl amongst those people, you're being sent back to a place where, you know, you're not going to be able to go to school, not going to be able to have rights. And then there's people that imagine the kind of chaos of the collapse were scattered in all these different places. I mean, actually I want to ask you about what you're doing in Albania because actually I think it's a snapshot of how the kind of absurdity in some ways and the difficulty of the ordeals that Afghans went through who were evacuated. Tell us a little bit about how you helped, helped participate in some of those evacuations, Albania and where things stand for that population now.

Yalda Hakim (58:16)

Yeah, so Ben, I had a very Small foundation for girls education funding them to get scholarships to go to the American University of Afghanistan in Kabul. And when Kabul fell, you know, these young women, you know, they'd started off with me when they were 18, some of them were now 19, 20 years old, terrified that, you know, they'd heard rumors that the Taliban were going to go door knocking and marry off some of these guys. These young girls and women were burning, you'll remember, documents and papers and anything that showed association with the United States and the fact that they went to the American university. So we, like so many different groups that helped at the time, evacuated several hundred students from the American University of Afghanistan. We moved some to Iraq and others came here to Albania, where my foundation had helped raise a, you know, whole heap of money. And we helped, alongside a bunch of others, put them in these sort of five star hotels in northern Albania, which is the weirdest thing because, you know, they kind of were picked up on planes, some of them were flying around, they didn't have any visas, they didn't have any passports. They didn't know which country the plane was going to land in. And the Albanians said, we'll take them, you know. And I remember at the time feeling so responsible for these young women who hadn't spent a night away from their parents, parents, let alone now being on an international flight without passports, jam packed on a plane fly, hovering over the skies on their way to Europe somewhere and ending up in Albania. Because I wasn't sure. I didn't really have an understanding of what Albania was as a society. I was concerned about so many young women coming here, you know, where would they stay? What was the security situation here like for these young women who didn't have guardians, parents, whoever with them? And I came here and, you know, in the end it went from several hundred Afghans to several thousand Afghans held at different points in the, this, this hotel and various others. Because the prime minister here, Edu Rama, said, I don't want 10 cities in my country, so you can bring them here, but I don't want to see tents all over the place. You put them up in, in hotels or wherever and then, you know, if they can, they, they'll, they'll move to the United States. And to be fair, for as much as at the time everyone was calling, the Afghans were calling it Biden's betrayal of what happened to them, the United States and many Americans dug deep, you know, sort of private citizens gave so much money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, millions were raised to help fund the, you know, people here, the Afghans here, and then the State Department sent a sort of helipad here to process their paperwork and get them to the United States. So we ended up launching the biggest scholarship program for refugees in the United States across the Big Ten. So they go to University of Texas and Bard, Dartmouth, Brown, a bunch of universities. But Albania ultimately became the sort of one of the few handful of places that sort of didn't necessarily have the bureaucracy and allowed them to come here without the right documentation. And then I developed this sort of appreciation for this country. So I'm sort of here on my summer holidays, but with my family, but also, you know, asking a lot of questions about what happens to these Afghans, as you say, many of them deported back to the country. Iran's taken advantage of, of the fact that the Israel, Iran war, accusing many of these Afghans, many of them laborers, of being spies for Israel and, and deporting them back, you know, on mass, Pakistan doing the same. And they face deportation in the United States as well. Well, so there are kind of negotiations again, whether they come back to Albania for, you know, all these different groups, especially young, young women, if there's more opportunities for them here rather than in Afghanistan or lingering in Pakistan or even if they happen to be sent back from, from the United States.

Tommy Vitor (62:16)

Yeah. Well, last thing I want to ask you is, look, the betrayal point is, is really important. And I think it's not just a matter of how the mistakes that were made over the course of the war, and I was a part of some of those mistakes. And I often say the biggest mistake was not listening more to Afghans because we could have avoided some of the things we did, some of the corruption, some of the people that the US Is supporting, some of the approaches the US Is taking, and other parts of the coalition, but the core betrayal was kind of raising expectations, promising people. We're here for these reasons. We're here to help build a democracy. We're here to help women and girls, when in fact, actually we were there for a terrorism interest with Al Qaeda. And that promise wasn't kept. The question when asked, though, is what can people do now? I mean, here in the US I know veterans who are agonizing over the fact that Trump is deporting Afghanistan, Afghans who have a right to be here because of what they did to support the U.S. i know veterans who literally are organizing people to accompany Afghans, individual Afghans to ICE interviews and things like that. But whether it's from a policy level or kind Of a personal level, what can people do? What would you like to see the world do to try to show more solidarity and support for Afghans, particularly women and girls?

Yalda Hakim (63:40)

Yeah, I mean, there's a bunch of Afghanistan women and young people that have been face the threat of deportation from Qatar and Oman because they're saying, well, we can't keep them here forever. They were supposed to go to the United States. They're still here four years on. And from the Qatari perspective, they're saying, we need this accommodation and the lodging to bring in the Palestinians, especially the injured Palestinian children that are supposed to be there for treatment. So they're sort of saying, we need to transition these people out. So. So on the one hand, we know that for Afghans, especially women and girls, going back to Afghanistan is just not an option. It will be an absolute death sentence for them if they go back. They will be locked up inside their homes with no prospect of a future. And as you say, you're right to say the biggest betrayal was giving hope for all of those things that we talk about. You know, the freedom and education and all the values that, that we often talk about. In many ways. So many of them say to me, we wish we didn't know. You know, you taste freedom and then it's taken away from you. You know, I guess no one has a monopoly on freedom. It can be. It can literally be taken away from you overnight like it was for. For these people. So I would. I would, you know, in the first instance, those young people who are facing deportation from places like Qatar and Oman, you know, my foundation now is remobilizing to see where we can actually send them. And we are again looking at Albania as an option. We're trying to sort of raise funds to do that because they need accommodation, whether that's one year or longer, so that they can melt into the society eventually, because, you know, Albania is a thousand times better for them. They have some future, some hope than going back, back and living under Taliban. You know, Afghan Taliban's Afghanistan. And in terms of. In the United States, I mean, those veterans, these are people who they have, you know, not just broken bread, but fought alongside and, you know, lost colleagues with. And so for them, it's incredibly personal. So it is devastating to see them now accompany some of these people who either they rescued their lives or they rescued theirs. And, you know, they work together. We saw a massive data leak in the UK where a list of those people who had helped British forces and various others as translators and other help, suddenly that that was leaked and they are now, many of them saying to me, we're living in hiding. We're going from house to house and moving around because we're so terrified that the Taliban now have access to that list. So I would say, you know, for the world not to forget Afghans, that although that conflict feels like it's over and we do all have short attention spans, and that's why I, on a daily basis, you know, make. Keep a reminder, reminder of putting the number of days that Afghan girls haven't gone to school just to remind people that this is still going on. There are other conflicts. Yes. You know, the situation in Gaza, horrifying. The, the situation in Ukraine is really, you know, devastating for the Ukrainian people and, and the uncertainty around what Donald Trump might do. But this is a project that, you know, the Americans, the West took on. And so many people say, yeah, well, you know, this situation for, for people is really terrible in Sudan and Yemen as well. Well, yes, there are also conflicts that we should talk about and we should highlight. But Afghanistan was a project of the west and those sorts of promises were made and then not kept.

Tommy Vitor (67:09)

Yeah, well, look, I think that's a powerful point to end on, on this anniversary, to your point. I mean, people can support individual Afghans. People can support organizations. Your organization, the Yalda Hakeem foundation, is one of them. Yalda, thanks so much for joining us and for covering so much. I know it's kind of later in Albania. There's so I really, really appreciate it. People should watch your show. It's on sky, but it's also, you know, I see clips all over the place.

Yalda Hakim (67:37)

It's on YouTube as well.

Tommy Vitor (67:38)

Easy to find on YouTube. Yeah. And the world, your podcast, you don't make any promises to save the world like our title does, but you and Richard have a great new podcast. The World People can check that out. Yalda, thanks so much.

Yalda Hakim (67:51)

Thank you so much, Ben, for having me. This is good fun.

Tommy Vitor (67:54)

Okay, now we're going to hear Tommy's interview about all things involving drone warfare with Michael Horowitz.

Ben Rhodes (68:08)

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Brooke Gladstone (70:14)

Thanks for having me. Excited to be here.

Ben Rhodes (70:16)

I'm really excited to talk to you. We are going to focus this whole conversation about drones and unmanned systems because it has been extraordinary to watch the way they have completely changed the way war is fought. This has been especially obvious, I think, in Ukraine. I mean, I was reading a recent New Yorker story that quoted a Ukrainian researcher who estimates that 80% of Russian losses in men and material have been inflicted by Ukrainian drones Since, I think, 2024 started, which is an extraordinary percentage. But we'll dig into the Ukrainian piece of this in a bit. I wanted to start a little bigger picture, like when I was in government in like 2013. The drone systems people were focused on were Predator drones, Reaper drones, like big expensive unmanned systems that were used and reused, sort of like a fighter jet. But now you're seeing these mass produced, lower tech, even you know, disposable or one time use versions. Do you think, is that, is that lower tech stuff the future of drone warfare?

Brooke Gladstone (71:15)

Do you think it's not that it's lower tech tech. In some ways the technology in it is much more sophisticated than some of the technology that was in the say like your era, Predator and Reaper. It's that that technology is so much more readily available to the world. I've written in Foreign affairs with a bunch of co authors recently and other places that we've entered the era of precise mass in warfare. And by that what I mean is the combination of, of widely available precision guidance, since precision guidance itself is now like 50 years old, advances in artificial intelligence and autonomy and commercial manufacturing. Put those all together and you have the Houthis flying, essentially flying lawnmowers in the Red Sea, generating billions of dollars of damage to commercial shipping. You have all the things that we're seeing in Ukraine, you have things that we're seeing in Israel. You have the ways that the US and China are evolving, how they're competing in the Indo Pacific. The technology surrounding warfare is changing as it always does. And specifically the what you can use drones for has changed a lot. And when we use the term drone now, we're really referring to like three or four different things. We're referring to those older now Predators and Reapers were referring to these short range, first person view kind of drone systems that you see videos of Ukraine using to take down Russian tanks on the battlefield. We're talking about longer range strike systems like Iran's Shaheed, which can go 2000 km and carry in 100 kilogram warhead, which is unbelievable for a system that costs less than $100,000. And we're talking about things like collaborative combat aircraft aircraft, you know, like next generation US Air Force fighter, you know, uncrewed fighters that can team with F35s.

Ben Rhodes (73:13)

Yeah, I mean it's, I guess it's funny you said I guess I was thinking low cost, but you always constantly read like the DoD procurement times are now so long and so slow that the F35 processor is weaker than your like iPhone 5C.

Brooke Gladstone (73:27)

Oh my goodness. It's, it's bad.

Ben Rhodes (73:29)

It's not great. One of. Let's just jump to Ukraine for a second. I mean one of the Most high profile drone operations we saw recently was, was Ukraine. They did this operation deep into Russian territory. It was called Operation Spiderweb. Can you just tell listeners like what Operation Spiderweb was and how the Ukrainians pulled that off?

Brooke Gladstone (73:47)

Operation Spiderweb was an unbelievable fusion of emerging technology, military capabilities and intelligence. Ukraine, over a period of a year, essentially smuggled short range drones all across Russia, bringing them in through commercial shipping and things disguised to look like commercial shipping. They then used open source artificial intelligence piloting software and built really simple algorithms for them of images of Russian strategic bombers that they trained on images in Ukraine's museums of Russian bombers and then let those loose. You know, at the, those things flew.

Ben Rhodes (74:29)

Out of the truck. There was no one controlling them. They just had like software plugged into that guided them towards, towards the image of the plane.

Brooke Gladstone (74:36)

There were human operators in some cases, but they were aided by algorithm and some of the really specific details Ukraine has been cagey about for understandable reasons. But we know that there was this open source piloting software involved and we know that there was this algorithm trained on images of Russian bombers in Ukrainian museums.

Ben Rhodes (74:57)

Amazing. The anti drone defenses have also evolved pretty quickly to try to keep up. Some of it is high tech. There's some electronic warfare, jamming systems, et cetera, stuff I don't really understand. Then there's just low tech stuff, right? You see roads covered entirely with fishnets just to block the drones from getting to cars that are driving. You see, you hear about Ukrainian troops getting armed with shotguns where they're trying to just shoot these things down. There are also drones that operate, you know, connected to these fiber optic cables that can stretch up to 12 miles. There's the fully AI drones. I mean, can you talk about how like the counter drone technology is evolving and whether it's keeping pace with offensive developments?

Brooke Gladstone (75:37)

The counter drone technology is evolving, but a lot more slowly. Here's one way to think about context. In April 2024, Iran launched a huge drones drone and some cruise missiles, some, some other kinds of missiles at Israel. It cost them about $100 million to launch that strike. Nearly every one of those missiles got shot down by Israel, by the us, by other US allies and partners in the region. It cost a billion dollars to shoot those down. And when the Houthis are firing things that cost less than $100,000, in some cases less than $10,000, and they were firing them at US ships in the Red Sea, the US was frequently firing Patriot missiles that cost a couple million dollars or other. Expensive missiles to try to shoot them down. So there's a lot of really low tech counter drone technology out there, like nets and things that are essentially designed to, to trigger the explosion of the drone early so that it doesn't hit its target. But also when you're talking about purely shooting these systems down, it's a really weird kind of high, low mix at this point where the low is shotguns and nets and the high is $2 million a cost exchange that's frankly terrible for the defender.

Ben Rhodes (76:56)

Yeah, I mean, what do we do about that?

Tommy Vitor (76:57)

Right?

Ben Rhodes (76:57)

I mean, I think a full Patriot missile battery system, like a launcher, the radar, all of it, like that's like a billion dollar system. Right. And then you have these Shahi drones that are like what, 20, 50 grand? Like I don't know exactly what the price tag is about. Yeah, it's like a. You called it a lawnmower, right. It's like a Volkswagen Beetle engine. It's made of like foam and plywood with this big warhead on the front and it, when it slams into you, like does incredible damage. I think Iran is firing them in like swarms of 100 or more. I mean, what is that kind of proliferation of cheaper long range systems mean for traditional air defense strategy and infrastructure?

Brooke Gladstone (77:31)

Yeah, I mean, these kinds of precise mass capabilities are designed to overwhelm defenses. Say you shoot down the first 10, but if you only have 10 missiles to shoot 10 interceptors and they fire 100 at you, you don't need to be a defense expert to understand the problem there. It's like, how do you defend against it? Well, you can try to develop much cheaper interceptors, which lots of countries are doing. There are some of these, the emerging defense tech companies that you read about all the time that have developed some really low cost solutions that seem pretty clever and the Defense department is investing in. I mean, frankly, it's an argument if you really want to do it at the right price point. I mean, this has been the dream of defense nerds since the 1980s. But this is a use case for lasers because if you actually wish to reduce the cost per shot to target hundreds of things coming at you, not just five or ten things things coming at you. Then you need something where the actual use cost is really low. And that gets you into lasers and microwaves and electronic warfare and all sorts of futuristic sounding things at least.

Ben Rhodes (78:41)

Isn't there a laser iron dome system that got rolled out recently in Israel?

Brooke Gladstone (78:45)

Yeah, Israel. Iron Beam Israel's rolled out in experimentation in some use cases. Is the UK has fielded a defensive laser system in the Middle East. The US has been experimenting with them for decade. I mean, whatever, with lasers for four decades plus. But in this instantiation. So the technology is eking along, but it's not quite there yet, relative to this really low cost of firing these precise mass systems at military bases or at civilian targets, or at least tanks, you know, whatever you're trying to target.

Ben Rhodes (79:20)

Yeah, the kind of like dystopian horror movie version of this is like fully AI autonomous drones that are designed to hunt and kill people. Is that the future of warfare? Is that already here? I mean, what do you. What's the deal with AI in these drones?

Brooke Gladstone (79:35)

I think the, I think the future of AI in this context is more as an enabler than as the Terminator. Like, I don't think we really need to worry about the killer robots coming for us. I mean, unless you did something wrong. I don't think we need to worry about the.

Ben Rhodes (79:48)

I say thank you to ChatGPT for.

Brooke Gladstone (79:49)

Just that reason exactly every morning. Tell them thanks. I don't think we really need to worry about the Terminator coming after us anytime soon. In part because of the incentives that militaries have. Frankly, nobody wants to control their weapons more than militaries. Weapons that you can't control are actually bad weapons. And, and this is all about essentially how you test and evaluate these systems and kind of prove they work. And as long as that process is working well and there's no reason to think it isn't, certainly in the context of something like the United States, I wouldn't really worry about the Terminator. I would worry more frankly, that a country like the United States is going way too slowly in integrating AI into its military than too quickly, particularly when we see what China and others are doing.

Ben Rhodes (80:38)

Yeah, I do want to ask you about the China piece in one second and I, I hear you on the innovation. But there it's interesting to see the way the sort of moral and ethical questions have evolved because, you know, with the Predator drone systems, you know, like the counterterrorism missions against Al Qaeda, etc. The questions were kind of like, has this made military action, like, too easy, too cost free? Right. There was zero chance of casualties on the, on the US Side side in the use of a drone. And that can lead to them being used way too often, at least in my opinion. Now there's, there's sort of a separate set of moral, moral and ethical questions around whether autonomy in, in these systems could lead to people getting Killed. I just wonder, like, is that being talked about, Thought about, like, how does that, how does the US Government think about that, for example?

Brooke Gladstone (81:26)

Yeah, I think there's, I think there are a lot of people thinking about it. When I was in the panic, the office I had the honor of running rewrote the Defense Department's policy on autonomy and weapon systems. So I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. And the key principle, at least from a US Perspective, is to always have a human responsible for the use of force. And here's a way to think about it. Imagine it's World War II and you're trying to destroy some kind of target. You drop a bunch of dumb bombs at of an airplane and you flatten a city block or something to destroy your target. And now imagine you've got a radar guided missile. And that radar guided missile is, I mean, it's dumb. The seeker turns on, it just knows, is there a radar there or not? It doesn't know if the radar is on top of a school or the radar's on top of a hospital. And then it blows up the school because it blows up the school to destroy the radar. Now imagine you've got the same missile, but there's an algorithm on, on it trained to say, look for schools and hospitals and to look and see if that's the right kind of radar. What you're going to end up with is a weapon system that's actually more accurate and more discriminate. And so in some ways you can actually buy down when used appropriately and when there's a human responsible for the use of force. I actually think some of these technologies can buy down some of those risks that we saw, certainly with unguided weapons weapons and even in the context of precision guided weapons over the last generation.

Ben Rhodes (82:56)

Interesting. Yeah, so you could, it could cut both ways if used properly, is sort of what you're saying. Just to pivot a little bit. What are you seeing in terms of maritime drones? Because there's all these videos of like Ukrainian kamikaze boats slamming into Russian naval ships in the Black Sea. And really incredibly effectively. By the way, I've also seen reports that there have been Ukrainian maritime drones that at least have shot down Russian fighter jets. I'm not sure if there's some sort of like air defense system mounted on it, but that's incredible. And then, you know, you'll occasionally read about, you know, unmanned submarine systems either for surveillance or I don't know if armed ones exist. But what are the, what is the Innovation looking like in the kind of maritime space?

Brooke Gladstone (83:33)

No, that's a great question. So there are three categories of maritime drones that countries are really working on. The first are kind of like the ones that we've seen Ukraine use really effectively in the block Black Sea. The way that Ukraine has used essentially the equivalent of one way attack drones in the air to drive the Russian fleet back in the Black Sea has been remarkable. And there are obvious lessons learned there for other countries facing attacking forces and the ability to use then short range one way attack uncrewed surface vessels. That's category one. That technology is accelerating and frankly those are jet skis with, with weapons on them. So anybody can do that. The second category is the submarines. So the US has a program called Orca, which is an underwater vehicle. That program's kind of a mess. But a lot of countries are doing really innovative stuff in the underwater realm. The Australians are investing in a platform called Gosh Shark which can fire weapons and go a little bit faster. So there's a bunch of investment in that space. The third area which I actually think is the most exciting but will be the most organizationally disruptive for a large military like the United States is essentially the so collaborative combat aircraft are these airplanes that would fly around in human machine teams with F35s and have weapons and surface surveillance thing have sensors on them, things that help you defeat your adversary. The Navy could do that too with smaller boats that surround say an Aegis Cruiser or surround an aircraft carrier or any kind of ship to give you additional missiles, additional surveillance and help you diversify risk a little bit more. That's where I think you sort of have to head if you are a large navy, thinking about out how to survive essentially in a world where you have countries that can fire that many precise mass systems at you, in addition to anti ship ballistic missiles, sophisticated cruise missiles, hypersonic anti ship missiles, et cetera. So those are the three big buckets. And there's been less work done to field that third category because it's the biggest and most expensive as well. But there's a ton of potential there.

Ben Rhodes (85:51)

So it sounds like you're saying the future of, of naval warfare is like a aircraft carrier with you know, let's say a dozen, we'll say 100 like drone boats around it. Right. Or you're saying like an F22 or F35 would go up with, paired with four or five, I guess just drone planes flying alongside it that, that are, I mean that's kind of incredible.

Brooke Gladstone (86:12)

Yeah, exactly, that's that's what the Air Force is planning right now. I mean, that is, that is moved from the category of a future thing that might happen into a program that the U.S. air Force at least is planning to field before 2030. And that China is certainly accelerating in fielding and the Navy can do that too. It just requires making the choice. Or it requires essentially the recognition of how at risk some of our, for example, surface ships might be.

Ben Rhodes (86:44)

Yeah, I mean, I was reading and preparing for this. I was reading some study or an article about a study by the National Security College of the Australian National University that found that submarines might no longer be able to elude detection starting in 2050. That's in part because of just like the pervasiveness of satellite technologies and AI. But it's just extraordinary to think that these like multibillion dollar subs, I mean, I guess over the lifespan of a sub, a couple costs, what, hundreds of billions, might just suddenly be obsolete.

Brooke Gladstone (87:16)

I am personally less worried about that specific issue because I think there are so many different technology breakthroughs that would be required to make the oceans transparent. You'd have to push the timeframe out to 2050 or further. Forecasting that far out is challenging, but that's certainly the direction we're going, is a world in which, which everybody can see everything. And if everybody can see everything, most of the time you have to plan to fight wars very differently than say, the way the United States has for the last 40 years, which has been, let's have smaller numbers of really expensive, exquisite, hopefully stealthy technology that. And we can just go to war with that because nobody can find us.

Ben Rhodes (88:00)

Right, Right. So you're safer now. Red October. October. But they're coming for you.

Brooke Gladstone (88:05)

Always got to be worried about a broad October situation.

Ben Rhodes (88:07)

I mean, great movie. So you've mentioned China a few times and they're clearly like kind of the elf in the room here. How is China investing in unmanned systems and drone technology? And how does their approach differ from ours?

Brooke Gladstone (88:18)

Currently, I would say China is investing in a lot of the same things that we are investing in, but they've gone full send when it comes to deployment. And part of this is about a different design philosophy because the US Military has focused almost exclusively on small, expensive, exquisite systems. The requirements and design standards for US weapons. Everything has to be 10 out of 10 before it's going to get out the door. At least in theory. Of course, then you see all these errors with platforms like the F35 and you wonder, but the. That's the theory. Whereas the, whereas China's military has been in a place where they're willing to press go when it's good enough, which means they're willing to field a lot of next generation kinds of capabilities when they think they're, they're, they're good enough and they'll be, and they'll help China relative to say, the United States in a, in a given conflict, which is a different standard than this meets. You know, it's checked every single box that we wanted and frankly there are potentially some things to learn there in that if the rate of technology is changing as quickly as it is now, then for most kinds of things that you're going to acquire now, you're not going to plan on holding onto them for 50 years or 100 years because the technology is going to change so quickly that you're going to need to refresh faster. And in that case shouldn't make the perfect the enemy of the good. But yeah, China's basically turned the dial to 11 on everything simultaneously. Whether it's anti ship cruise missiles and ballistic missiles, whether it's their own aircraft carriers, whether it's their submarines, whether it's their air to air missiles, their fighters, their bombers, it's everything all at once terrifying.

Ben Rhodes (90:06)

The CIA and other intelligence agencies and services, they invest billions of dollars into satellites, satellite technology to collect imagery. So like UN not armed systems, just spy satellites. Those spy satellites are great when you're talking about like relatively big stuff, right? Like it's, it's great to see if Iran built a new building at a nuclear site or if Pakistan moved a bunch of tanks and planes around. But my understanding is that with surveillance systems at that kind of altitude, like low orbit altitude, you bump up against kind of hard image resolution limits because of physics. They're also challenging challenges that when you're talking about a system that is moving incredibly fast and there's, you know, clouds and atmospheric interference, a lot of those issues go away though, right? If Your altitude is 60,000ft, not 600 kilometers, do you think the next generation of spy satellites will actually just be stealth drones kind of flying all over the place?

Brooke Gladstone (91:00)

The. So here's a funny thing. If you look at the, if you look at the big beautiful bill and you, and you, you know, it's got a lot of different sections and you know, most of the reasons why, why, you know, it's important obviously have to do with domestic politics. There's a, there's a section on defense investments and one of the things buried in that section of defense Investments is actually a couple hundred million dollars for high altitude balloons. Huh. And between high altitude balloons and solar powered drones that can do surveillance, there's actually a lot at sort of below low Earth orbit that is increasingly possible. Exactly. Essentially to your point, and especially, especially if you're worried about losing access to those satellites, whether they get shot down or they get jammed or something like that. In the case of a conflict, having something that's slightly closer and a little bit different might yield a lot of advantages if you still want to be able to get that kind of intelligence data. And if you want to be able to your initial point, look at smaller stuff.

Ben Rhodes (92:03)

Were you at the Pentagon when that Chinese spy balloon flew over the US and everyone flipped out for a week for north reason?

Brooke Gladstone (92:08)

That was both hilarious and terrifying.

Ben Rhodes (92:12)

I've never seen such an overreaction in my life. I was like, what? You guys wanted Joe Biden to shoot this thing down over some, like, farmer's house in Montana? What are we talking about, by the way?

Brooke Gladstone (92:22)

That's another reason why to go back to something you said before about, about shooting down all of these drones. It's super complicated in the United States because all the authorities are different. You know, if you're on a. If you're on a base, say in. In Japan or Saudi Arabia or sort of something like that, and there's a bunch of drone comes at you, then often the US Military has the authority to shoot down whatever thing is coming at. Or if something's approaching a Navy ship in the Red Sea, you do that in New Jersey and that drone's gonna land on somebody's garage, and the FAA actually owns the authority there. So there are all these really, I mean, like, nerdy interesting, not popular interesting, like issues surrounding who has the authority to make these kinds of decisions in US Airspace. Because it means the technologies you have to use to protect US Bases and critical infrastructure from drones are different than the technologies you use abroad.

Ben Rhodes (93:18)

Man. This is why governing is so hard. Just everything. Every layer of the onion you peel back, there's 5,000 more. And they're all more complicated and they have overlapping agencies and God help us, us all. Final question for you. I mean, what's clear from this conversation is like, the rate of technological change is moving so fast, and like anything I thought I knew in 2013, is wildly obsolete. Do you think that the Pentagon, as it currently set up the way it does, you know, the way it builds out weapon systems, does procurement, is. Is postured correctly to kind of move quickly over the next decade or two.

Brooke Gladstone (93:56)

Sorry, how much time do we have? Here's a way to think about it. The Pentagon budgeting process was built by Robert McNamara, like, literally Robert McNamara, Vietnam, Robert McNamara in the 1960s. They've changed it since then. But those changes have been more like adding ornaments to the Christmas tree than fundamental changes. And there have been commissions. There was a commission on changing that whole process. That. That happened when I was in the government. There have been think tank reports, there have been industry reports. They all actually converge on the same kinds of recommendations. But it's been really difficult to make fundamental change. But like, the big picture is that the US Has a system for acquiring military technology designed to go slowly on purpose because it assumes that the bigger risk is going too fast and rolling something out that won't work than going too slowly and missing out on technology. So there's an underlying assumption there basically that the US Will always be ahead. And so we can take that kind of risk, which we have been for our entire lives. But now that might be changing. And thus the Pentagon system should change as well in a way that leans forward in not just experimenting with, but actually fielding and scaling emerging technologies that have been proven to work even if they don't check every single box of a system the military would want to use for 100 years. At least. That's my view, man.

Ben Rhodes (95:26)

I think that makes a lot of sense. I would also. McNamara worked at where Ford before he went to the Pentagon.

Tommy Vitor (95:31)

Yeah.

Ben Rhodes (95:32)

I imagine their systems have changed a little bit since the 60s.

Tommy Vitor (95:36)

I would hope.

Ben Rhodes (95:37)

Tweak ours. Yeah. Well, that's a very helpful answer and a great place to leave it. Mike Horowitz, thank you so much for doing this show. This is absolutely fascinating. I'd love to talk again because I feel like everything will be different in a year. So it'll be useful.

Brooke Gladstone (95:50)

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.

Tommy Vitor (95:57)

Okay, thanks to Michael Horowitz for that interview. Thanks very much again to Yalda Hakim for guest co hosting this week again, check her out on sky or check out her podcast, the World. And next week I will be back with Tommy Pod.

Ben Rhodes (96:12)

Save the World is a crooked media production. Our senior producer is Ilona Minkowski. Our associate producer is Michael Goldsmith. Saul Rubin is helping out this summer. Our executive producers are me, Tommy Vitor and Ben Rhodes. The show is mixed and edited by Andrew Chadwick. Jordan Kanter is our audio engineer. Audio support by Kyle Seglin and Charlotte Landis. Thanks to our digital team. Ben Hefcote, Mia Kelman, William Jones, David Toles and Ryan Young. Matt de Groot is our head of production. Adrian Hill is our senior vice president of news and politics. If you want to get ad free episodes, exclusive content and more, consider joining our Friends of the Pod subscription community@crooked.com friends. Don't forget to follow us at Crooked media on Instagram, TikTok and Twitter for more original content, host takeovers and other community events. Plus find Pod Save the World on YouTube for access to full episodes, bonus content and much more. If you're as opinionated as we are, please consider dropping us a review. Our production staff is proudly unionized by the Writers Guild of America East.

Yalda Hakim (97:16)

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Brooke Gladstone (97:48)

Dan's in the Epstein files.

Tommy Vitor (97:50)

We gotta get ahead of that.

Ben Rhodes (97:51)

No, that's not it.

Tommy Vitor (97:52)

We're here to announce something.

Ben Rhodes (97:54)

It's called CrookedCon. In November, it will have been a year since Donald Trump won again. Everyone has had some time to sit and think about what we've all done and what we haven't done. And we wanted to get everyone together who doesn't want Donald Trump or someone like Donald Trump to be president again to talk about the path forward. Truthfully, Republicans have been really smart about this and they gather everyone together. And sure, at the beginning it seemed like a bunch of fringe crazies, but guess who's now running the government? Those fringe crazies. We need to get together, talk about what's going on, get smarter, get better. Better maybe trying to figure out how we screwed up so bad in the past, move forward, get people together in person, have bunch of conversations with organizers, strategists, politicians, the cool ones. If you work in politics at any.

Brooke Gladstone (98:38)

Level, from Capitol Hill to in your community, this is the place to go.

Ben Rhodes (98:41)

To learn what's happening in this country.

Brooke Gladstone (98:43)

To learn from some of the smartest people out there and meet the people who are on the front lines trying to beat maga.

Ben Rhodes (98:47)

And in case you guys think it's going to be just us neolib Obama shills, we're going to have way to the right of us, people from from across the political spectrum. If that political spectrum is from the left to the center right.

Brooke Gladstone (98:58)

It'll run from the left to Tim Miller. Basically, that's the. And Sarah, that's.

Ben Rhodes (99:03)

That's really the bounce. We're gonna get everyone together and we're.

Tommy Vitor (99:05)

Gonna have some fun.

Ben Rhodes (99:06)

We're also gonna do a positive America show the first night just to kick things off. And then the next day, we're gonna all get together and get down to business.

Tommy Vitor (99:12)

Yeah, get down to business and fun.

Ben Rhodes (99:15)

There'll be alcohol. Dan's gonna do shots anyway.

Yalda Hakim (99:17)

Get your tickets.

Ben Rhodes (99:18)

Crookedcon.com is it crookedcon.com warfare getting crookedcon. Com. Crookedcon. Com. Stay tuned for more information, but we're going to be announcing our lineup soon. November 6th and 7th, Washington, D.C. cricket.com.

Tommy Vitor (99:34)

Cricketcon. Com. Cricketcon.

Ben Rhodes (99:37)

Com. Cricketcon. Com. Going to be wild.

Brooke Gladstone (99:39)

Going to be wild.