National Security has been top of the headlines over the past week or so as the Trump administration
struggles to get its footing.
Welcome to Skywatch TV, a special broadcast today, Monday, February 20th, 2017, joining
me in studio as we talk about our special guest is the host of Into the Multiverse,
Josh Peck.
How you doing, Derek?
I'm the guest, as you see on the screen behind me, the author of the excellent new book,
Future War, Super Soldiers, Terminators, Cyber Space, and the National Security Strategy
for 21st Century Combat, Lieutenant Colonel Bob McGinnis.
Bob, thanks for joining us today.
Well, thank you for having me, Derek.
Of course, the media has made a lot of hay out of the resignation of General Michael
Flynn as President Trump's National Security Advisor.
It's being spun, of course, as a White House in disarray, a president who doesn't know
what he's doing is National Security.
I subscribe to publications that come from mainstream Washington because they represent
the consensus opinion.
I want to know what the guys who are trying to make policy and set the official line want
us to think.
These are the people who switched parties rather than support Donald Trump in the presidential
election, the neocons, basically.
And that's what we're hearing.
President doesn't know what he's doing.
His National Security team is in disarray.
Another member of the National Security staff recently let go for publicly criticizing President
Trump and his team at a meeting.
What is your assessment of the situation and the resignation of Michael Flynn?
Well, certainly any new administration has to struggle through the process of confirmation,
which the Democrats haven't helped this administration.
And, of course, building up a National Security team.
Now, we have some very good people that are in the Trump National Security Council, more
are being added every day.
It was unfortunate that General Flynn had to step down, as I understand the circumstances
was basically that he was negotiating or talking with the Russians, perhaps not about sanctions,
which, of course, is near and dear to Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.
But he was talking to the ambassador, to the U.S. from Russia, about issues that apparently
he talked to Vice President Mike Pence about and perhaps misled him.
That's really up to the president.
This is a presidential servant.
And where there's any question about veracity, about reliability, then it's probably in the
country's best interest, certainly the president's best interest to let him go.
I think in time we'll find out perhaps more, and it may be that he was totally set up as
suggested that former CIA director Brennan and perhaps one of the people in the NSC
leaked some material.
That itself would be a criminal activity, which should be prosecuted by the full measure
of the law.
So we'll see what happens there.
We need to fill out the team.
We need to get about the country's national security efforts.
I see that Secretary of State Tillerson has fired all the holdovers from the Obama administration,
which I think was a very smart thing.
It's time to put President Trump's stamp at the State Department.
We need to do the same thing at defense.
We still have a bunch of hangovers, and I use that.
They're still there, and they, I think to a certain degree, are disruptive.
I would hope that we get on to the business of running the country and not allowing these
shadow figures to influence the policies ahead.
Do you think with so much opposition against Trump, even from the other side, from the
left, do you think situations like this are going to come up more and more, or do you
think after a little while, after some transition period, it'll kind of smooth over and things
will start running a little better?
No, they'll run better, Josh.
Once you get Trump appointees in all these positions, for instance, there are 163 appointed
positions in the Pentagon, though it has 21,000 to 22,000 people.
The appointees make a big difference.
They set the tone, they set the culture, and the longer you delay in replacing these haggard
Obama people that are going to drag it down, the more difficult it's going to be to get
the thing going in the right direction.
The same thing at every other department, and I think that's why Tillerson made the
right call.
You just say, give them their letter and tell them to get out so that we can get on to the
business of what the president was elected to do.
That's the nature of what we're dealing with.
John Bolton has been put forward as a name being considered to replace General Flynn as
National Security Advisor.
Apparently, he is a favorite among some high-ranking Trump advisors.
John Bolton has been a longtime Washington insider.
What is your sense of John Bolton and his fit for this particular job?
I typically like John Bolton many, many times down at Fox and elsewhere.
He's very bright.
Of course, he's served at the UN as an ambassador, so he has that back.
He's been an AEI.
He's been around doing a host of things for a long time.
He understands the issues.
I suspect that there are a lot of people that don't like him because he's so conservative,
but that's the nature of a new administration.
You choose people that agree with you that are going to carry out your policies.
I think that John's view of the world is a pretty good match with that of President Trump,
so I'd be surprised if he weren't selected.
What sort of threats do we face going forward?
The Democrats and the major media made a lot of the supposed contacts that President Trump
had in the past with Vladimir Putin going so far as to suggest that—and there are
some who have just gone completely off the deep end, like Keith Olberman, who's apparently
broadcasting from his basement these days, claiming that Trump is actually a traitor
and wanting him investigated for traitorous connections to the Russian president.
What sort of actual, legitimate national security concerns will the new national security advisor
and his team have to deal with?
Well, we've seen a lot of it lately.
Certainly the North Koreans have tested twice nuclear weapons this past year, 12 ballistic
missile tests, some of which a couple so far this year.
They are a very credible nuclear threat against our regional allies, like Japan and South
Korea, but also the western part of the United States.
This is something that we can no longer ignore and the can has been kicked for years.
The Chinese are not only hegemonic in the western Pacific, but have an expeditionary
capability, have a space program with a space capsule with people aboard.
They intend to go to the moon.
They have all sorts of ambitions about weaponizing space, which I think is going to reconfigure
the threats of the 21st century.
Of course, it's going to continue for decades, if not longer.
I think weapons of mass destruction, as I indicate, Ron has them, a little down in
my mind.
Certainly they have the elements of it, and of course, every time the North Koreans make
an advance, they share that with the Iranians and the Russians are helping to a certain
degree as well.
You have a very dangerous world, and then there's no shortage of investment in armaments
and the latest technologies, whether it's transhumanist technologies with terminator
robots or these special killing substances that can be inserted via a drone or a drone
that is so hard to see, it's the size of an insect.
We have technologies today that are scary.
Then, of course, you throw on top of that the cyber stuff, and we're all concerned about
our bank accounts and about the electric bridge being shut down.
Those are no longer the makings of comic books and novelists.
Those are realities today, things that we need to be focused on.
That's what the National Security Advisor to the President goes to bed every night.
I'm glad that's not my job.
Yeah, no kidding.
We had talked in another conversation about the threat at the North Pole, and I just want
to discuss this briefly because this is something that really surprised me when I started looking
into it.
Russia has made a lot of inroads in the Arctic and has gone so far as to plant its flag beneath
the ice at the North Pole.
Russia has a multitude of icebreakers out there, and the United States has two, and one of
them is broken.
What is going on there at the uttermost North, if I can use a biblical phrase, and why should
we be concerned about it?
Even the Chinese have a new icebreaker, better than one we have.
Really?
I used to be the operations officer for that part of the United States, Northern Alaska,
and so I've seen firsthand some of the Russian threat all the way out on the Aleutians, where
we have all these super secret things that we monitor people with.
The Russians have re-emerged over the last decade, occupying facilities in the east,
which is 50 miles from our border, with soldiers, with equipment.
They've created new air bases.
They have every intention of exploiting the northern part of their country into the North
Pole, because 40% of the petroleum of the world's reserves are under those waters, under
those ice, and that tends to be creeping back.
This is very serious.
We share part of that.
The Canadians share the Norwegians and the Russians, and of course the Chinese want it
because they want to transit their supplies to the United States as well as to Europe.
The Russians have invested heavily and they have every intention of hauling it militarily
if necessary.
Fascinating stuff.
Bob, we appreciate your insight and your willingness to talk with us today on President's Day.
Bob McGinnis, Colonel Bob McGinnis, the author of Future Wars, Super Soldiers, Terminators,
Cyberspace, and the National Security Strategy for 21st Century Combat.
Let you enjoy the rest of your day off.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
Thank you, Bob.
Thanks for having me.
With Josh Peck, I'm Derek Gilbert, and we thank you for watching as we keep watch.
This is Skywatch TV.
I will ascend into heaven.
The war began in Eden when the dragon, known as Nakash, lured Adam and Eve into sinning
with the lie, ye shall be as gods.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
Soon, humans multiplied upon the earth, and rather than worship God, they fell down at
the feet of dragons.
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation.
But it wasn't enough for the dragons.
They wanted to do more than just own mankind.
They wanted to destroy them, to forever keep them from re-entering the divine council.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, the war raged on, where fallen angels descended
on to mountaintops, spreading fear and false doctrine.
It is a war for the souls of men, and only a Savior's blood could change the outcome.
I will be like the most high.
Satan and his minions go by many names and wear many faces, but their strategy has always
been to imitate God's truth.
Recall this war for men's minds the great inception.
Learn the secret history of the spiritual war.
Learn the names of the deceivers and what their true aims really are.
Where they have struck and where they will strike again before it's too late.
The great inception.
We're in the middle of a battlefield surrounded by an enemy that we've been told doesn't
even exist.
The pagan gods are imaginary, we've been taught, just lifeless blocks of wood and stone.
The great inception shatters that illusion.
It took me two years to pull this information together, research into archaeology, history,
ancient languages, to show that the Bible's stories you've known since childhood are actually
literal accounts of supernatural warfare between God and the rebel gods who decided
to reject the authority of their creator.
My hope is that after reading the great inception you come away with just one question.
Why haven't we heard this in church before?
