A (0:00)

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B (0:25)

Well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that special someone in your life a gift, well, Mint Mobile is extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now. You call it an early present for next year.

C (0:40)

What do you have to lose?

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Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time.

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D (0:58)

Heated Rivalry is a massive hit. Everyone's talking about the sex, but it' much about the exquisite pain of having a crush.

C (1:06)

And I think yearning can provide this sort of like masochistic joy too. And like we all need more joy in our lives right now.

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This week on Explain It To Me from Vox. Love hurts and it hurts so good. New episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts.

E (1:28)

I'm Scott Galloway and this is no mercy, no malice. American military inventions are like Bond films. License to intervene. As read by George Hahn.

F (1:51)

I'm in Davos. I was last here in 1999, a period in history marked by relative peace, a narrower wealth gap and techno optimism. Today, geopolitics resembles a cross between Pre World War II and the gilded Age and big tech is the foe. But the most striking change is that the US Is no longer the good guy. It's as if MGM greenlit a body swap installment of the Bond franchise where 007 and Ernst Stavro Blofeld switch places. Think Diamonds Are Forever meets Freaky Friday. American military interventions have always reminded me of the Bond films. The opening act is nothing short of spectacular, a daring production marked by operational excellence, jaw dropping personal courage and high tech lethality. But too often, the rest of the movie serves up mediocrity and confusion, resulting in citizens and viewers asking, how did we get here? In response to Iraq invading Kuwait, George H.W. bush assembled a 42 nation coalition after a six month buildup it took 43 days and fewer than 300 US killed for the American led forces to expel Iraq from Kuwait. Bush decided to declare victory and leave versus attempting to invade Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's regime. The first Gulf War was Goldfinger. There was an iconic villain, Saddam Clear stakes, oil and sovereignty. Spectacular set pieces, smart bombs down ventilation shafts, public support, yellow ribbons and a clear ending. Even the dialogue was Oscar worthy. This aggression will not stand. The plot was a perfect execution of the Powell Doctrine. It took just 26 days of major combat operations for US led forces to enter Iraq, destroy Saddam Hussein's military and capture Baghdad. The shock and awe of Tomahawk missiles decimating their targets. American armored units on thunder runs slicing through the opposition and the toppling of Saddam's were as compelling as the opening of Specter. Unfortunately, the next eight years also resembled Specter. Weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist. George W. Bush's Mission Accomplished photo op Abu Ghraib. There was no plan to stand up Iraqi civil society. We just imposed a democracy. A contradiction in terms. Sectarian violence followed at an enormous human cost. 4,500American dead, 32,000 wounded and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties. We squandered trillions of dollars, money we should have invested in America, political division at home, isis, Iranian hegemony. Critics panned SPECTRE for wasting one of the best openings in Bond history and for desperately attempting to retroactively connect the Daniel Crai films into one grand conspiracy. See the non existent link between Saddam and 911 fictional WMDs and a neocon pipe dream about spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. W would be one of the most liked ex Presidents had he not produced an Oscar caliber geopolitical disaster film. His PEPFAR program was credited with saving millions of lives in Africa before Trump came for it. The US military raid to capture Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was a serious flex. For months, a surveillance team observed Maduro's every move while Special forces trained in an exact full size replica of Maduro's Caracas safe house. The night of the raid, hundreds of U.S. warplanes knocked out Venezuelan defenses. In a little over two hours, American forces eliminated more than 50 Venezuelan and Cuban soldiers and captured Maduro and his wife while sustaining zero dead and seven wounded. The ultimate Bond opener. A month after the raid, however, America's intervention in Venezuela is beginning to resemble the World Is Not Enough. A forgettable Bond film with a convoluted plot about controlling oil pipelines in the Caucuses, Trump's Cassus belly, Fentanyl and cocaine didn't survive the press conference. He mentioned illegal drugs just five times while talking about oil 27 times. However, Venezuela's Black Gold is heavy crude. It costs $70 to extract a barrel of oil you can sell for $58. Regime change for oil 007. That's like invading the Alps for snow. Cut to an Oval office meeting where ExxonMobil CEO Darren woods told Trump venezuela is uninvestable, where the world is not enough had a bad script. Trump's Donro doctrine doesn't have a script at all. After the raid, Trump announced that Maduro's vice president, Delsey Rodriguez, was in charge, saying she would make Venezuela great again. But Rodriguez struck a defiant tone, saying there is only one president in Venezuela and his name is Nicolas Maduro. In a column for the center for Strategic and International Studies, retired US Marine Colonel Mark F. Cancian called the Maduro raid a a military victory with no viable end game, likening it to conquering Nazi Germany but keeping the Nazis in charge. Quantum of Solace is the Bond film. Nobody asked for the geopolitical equivalent, seizing Greenland. In the film, the villain's scheme revolves around controlling Bolivia's water supply, a resource he could simply purchase. Trump's motives are even more convoluted. Greenland has valuable minerals, but 80% of the land is covered in ice, making extraction difficult and costly. One Arctic expert called the idea completely bonkers, adding, you might as well mine on the moon. Greenland is strategically important, especially as the melting Arctic ice cap opens up new shipping lanes. But we don't need to invade. We already have the right to reinforce existing bases under a 1951 treaty. Speaking of treaties, attacking Denmark would blow up NATO, the most successful military alliance in history. We walked into a Starbucks with an AR15 locked and loaded and demanded a grande latte for $6.46. Okay, we can have that without the gun or the threats. So fucking stupid. What's the motivation here? Some theories. First, Greenland is three times the size of Texas. Seizing Greenland or bribing Greenlanders to break their ties with Denmark and join the US Would be a real estate deal on the order of the Louisiana Purchase, albeit with a fraction of the roi. Second, Trump said he feels that ownership of Greenland is psychologically needed for success. Third, like a movie star snubbed by the Academy, Trump is mad he didn't win the Nobel Peace Prize. Trump's Greenland folly is Quantum of Solace, as written by the Writers Room from Veep, directed by Ed Wood, Ask Gemini, and produced by the team that brought you Ishtar Note during his speech at Davos, Trump backed away from an invasion. Yay. In geopolitical terms, the audience for Quantum of Stupid was Russia and China. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the NATO concept had discredited itself. That's Russian for stupid. That is the US is hurting Europe while hurting itself, and we love to see it. Without NATO. Putin could take advantage by rolling up Ukraine and then turning his attention towards seizing the Baltics, Finland and Poland. A wider European war would likely follow. Meanwhile, China will continue to expand its influence. Last week, during an official visit, Chinese leader Xi Jinping urged Canadian leader Mark Carney to chart a path of strategic autonomy independent of the US In a speech at Davos, Carney gave an obituary for the rules based order. America once led argue the middle powers.