The SHOCKING TRUTH about what Trump is REALLY Planning (Uncut) 01-29-2025

The SHOCKING TRUTH about what Trump is REALLY Planning

Trump’s very forceful reaction to what the Colombian president’s refusal to receive those planes of refugees, from my understanding, is that the Colombian president backed down. And we may, you know, it’s just, it’s sort of the new America. There’s a new sheriff in town.

It, you know, it’s hard to know exactly if that’s really going to benefit American power in the long run. You know, you have weak countries, you know, weak visa, very weak visa, the United States, like Colombia or Panama, they have to back down. But then it’s also clearly, it’s going to create a lot of anger.

And it could sour relations with other countries like Brazil, we want to maintain good relations with, we’ll have to wait and see. But, you know, if, again, if he continues on this path, and I think he will, at least, you know, with respect to the Americas, we’re going to see a different landscape. You’re watching Capital Cosmos.

My name is Danny. And today’s guest is Peter Erickson from the Conversations Among Ruins YouTube channel, a highly underrated geopolitical channel that I highly recommend you guys check out. I discovered them a couple of weeks ago, and I had to get Peter on.

Peter, thank you so much for making your maiden voyage on Capital Cosmos. Okay, happy to be here. So for people who may be coming across you for the first time, Peter, briefly, give us a little background on who you are, tell us about your show, etc.

Okay, well, I was a freelance translator for 35 years. And as a freelance translator, I think a translator is can be somewhat like a journalist, meaning that you come in contact with a lot of different subjects. But you don’t really become an expert in any one of them.

You know, I did lots of legal translation, financial translation, I did translations for the, the IMF, for example, and military translations. And then towards the end of my career, just a lot of technical translation. So I, you could say that I’m a jack of all trades, master of none, exposure to a lot of different fields of knowledge.

And I think that just comes in helpful in discussing very broad topics. Now, how did this YouTube channel came about? How did it come about? It’s really thanks to my son, Charlie, who, who twisted my arm, who he’s, he’s, he’s very persuasive. He’s been that way since he was two years old, he knows how to persuade his dad, and he persuaded me to do this.

And, you know, we slowly built up an audience. And you know, we’re starting, it was very slow at first, but now we’re growing fairly rapidly. And we enjoy it, you know, we are, our topics are very broad, you know, we’re looking at the state of the world, geopolitics.

And I think a real impetus was for, you know, for this program was that the world is really changing now. You know, we’re seeing huge shifts. You know, the, the old order is, is breaking apart.

And a new order is, you know, coming into being. These are very exciting times to live in. And so that’s what we talked about.

Yeah. So let’s just dive right in here, Peter, for you right now, what is most topical for you? What is on your radar screen, given everything that’s gone on? What’s, what’s kind of like the top story for you right now? Well, I think Trump has to be the top story, you know, what does this new administration mean? And I’m, you know, I’ve been very cynical about Trump. I didn’t really expect much of a change.

You know, I had the experience of his first term, you know, when we heard talk about ending NATO, but then NATO expanded, you know, reestablishing relations with Russia, relations got worse. So I’ve been very cynical and to a great extent, I still am. But, you know, I think like a lot of us, I am somewhat stunned by these this first week of Trump.

He has done a lot. You know, he’s been all over the map and said all kinds of things. Some of them I think are good.

Others not so good. I think in particular, the his statements about Greenland, Panama, Canada are very interesting. When I first heard him make these statements, I did not take him seriously.

I think I was typical in my reaction. You know, this guy is trolling, he’s playing with us. But it’s become clear that he is dead serious.

And this is interesting. You know, it in a kind of in a broader geopolitical sense, it describes a reorientation of American foreign policy, if in fact, he carries through with that. And I think that’s an important question.

You know, he is up against this, what we call the deep state or the blob, you know, the permanent bureaucracy. And usually, again, and again, it’s this so called deep state has won out. There are a lot of presidents that have gone in with an idea of changing, you know, the direction of US foreign policy, and they failed.

So you know, this is far from over, but he’s, he’s approached it with a lot of vigor. And he’s got some rather rather radical ideas, you know, especially when we’re talking about these North American territories. Well, I guess in case of Panama, we’re saying Central American.

Yeah, he’s dead serious. And we learned that when he had a telephone conversation with the president of Denmark, went on for 45 minutes, and apparently it was, you know, they were shouting at each other, and he was not acting off. He won Greenland.

So anyway, I think that’s, you know, that that’s could have if he maintains the present course, we are going to see, you know, just a different geopolitical landscape at the end of his term. You know, it’s hard to predict exactly how but we will. You know, one thing that that that is bound to change, as you can see from that phone call is the relationship between the US and Europe.

You know, the the Europe is really subordinate, subordinated itself, the European Union has subordinated itself to the US, I think, greatly to its its own detriment. You know, they have signed up for US led world hegemony. And now they’ve got, they’ve got to be having some second thoughts.

I mean, here, this is the, you know, the, the king that they swore in loyalty to is now, you know, interested in seizing one of their own territories, they’ve got to be thinking, what are we doing, and he doesn’t seem to be signed up to this program of US led world hegemony. Possibly not, we’ll see. But that’s going to have, you know, that’s just one area where we’re going to see repercussions.

And then within, you know, the Americas, you can see already, you know, like, Trump’s very forceful reaction to what the, the Colombian President’s refusal to receive those planes of refugees, from my understanding is that the Colombian President backed down. And we may, you know, it’s just, it’s sort of the new America, there’s a new sheriff in town, it, you know, it’s hard to know exactly if that’s really going to benefit American power in the long run. You know, you have weak countries, you know, weak visa, very weak vis-a-vis the United States, like Colombia or Panama, they have to back down.

But then it’s also clearly, it’s going to create a lot of anger. And it could sour relations with other countries like Brazil, we want to maintain good relations with, we’ll have to wait and see. But, you know, if again, if he continues on this path, and I think he will, and at least, you know, with respect to the Americas, we’re going to see a different landscape at the end of this term.

Could this drive closer ties to the BRICS nations or even more nations joining the BRICS? Because it seems like with Trump kind of putting his foot down and, you know, acting like, you know, for lack of a better term, the mob boss of the world, right? So yeah, that drive more nations to want to like, collectively get together to kind of create a collective pushback against the United States. Yeah, or I think it would just be a continuation of the current trend. The, you know, the language has changed.

But, you know, let’s be honest under Biden, under Biden’s leadership, if you want to call it that. The US really was a bully to much of the nation, you know, it weaponized the dollar, it weaponized, and it tried to, you know, after its efforts to, to destroy the Russian economy, you know, it failed. So it’s gone around twisting arms around the world to get people to, to join the sanctions.

It’s, you know, very openly exerted pressure and made threats. Now, these threats were, you could call them kind of in the neoconservative mold, they’re more rhetorically different from what Trump does. You know, Trump really does sometimes sound like a mafia boss.

I think in that, that there was that recent true social post about Russia, he said, what was it that we can do it the easy way, or we can do it the hard way. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that’s We don’t want to hurt you, Russia.

Yeah, right. Yeah. But you know, it’s substantively, it’s, it’s really no difference.

And he did actually say some kind of words for Russia, which you never heard. So I know, I think already, like the actions of the US administration under Biden already set that process very much in motion. And I think what Trump’s doing probably, we’ll just, it’s just a continuation of that, but kind of with a different, in a different form, a different character, different rhetoric.

But we’ll see the same trend. And the trend is towards BRICS. You know, I think increasingly, you know, a lot of countries realize that, you know, it’s a mistake to do what Europe has done and just, you know, completely subordinate yourself to US leadership, you need to have an out, you need to balance things, you need to have, you know, options.

And that’s what all these countries are doing, and will continue to do. Can he talk to Putin in that kind of manner? I mean, if you’re like trying to cut a deal on a real estate property, sure, I mean, the art of the deal does apply. But does the art of the deal apply in diplomacy, especially in a nuclear armed nation like Russia with a strong leader like Putin? Can you really do these kind of antics and get away with it? I don’t think so.

You know, let’s be honest, the US really doesn’t have any leverage vis-a-vis Russia. We, you know, we’ve pretty much fired all the chambers in the gun, you know, we I’ve heard what was it, I think, last night, I heard that we, we have imposed so far 24,311 sanctions on Russia, right? Yeah. And in that true social post, you know, he threatened, Trump threatened to impose more.

Well, Russia’s saying, who cares, you know, maybe 322 to 24,324. Now, who, you know, they don’t even notice. They really can’t do anything.

And then as far as, you know, military support for Ukraine, we really have given everything that we possibly can. And now, you know, we’ve drawn down our stockpiles to the point where we really can’t draw them down anymore. And we’re just drawing from monthly production.

And that’s very limited. So that’s another empty threat. You know, we just don’t have the leverage there.

I don’t see how that approach is going to work. He’s in the end, you know, it’s just that Russia has the cards in this, they’re on the winning side of this conflict. And Trump, you know, though, I don’t think he, he fully realize it, realizes that he is on the losing side of this conflict.

So he can’t go in there. So like, he can simply impose a solution. No, he’s going to, you know, the compromises really are going to have to be made on the NATO side.

What do you think the inevitable outcome is, given Trump’s truth social post, Putin replied back by pretty much playing to his ego, you know, confirming in his opinion that the election was stolen in 2020. Right. And so forth.

How do you read that response? How do you read the interaction between the two? Yeah. Well, I think, you know, Putin’s very, I think he’s truly is interested in establishing a relationship with the US again, and having talks beginning, you know, communicating with Trump. Now, I don’t think, you know, that that we’re going to see a successful negotiated solution to the Ukraine war.

I just don’t think that’s possible that, you know, Putin laid out his minimal requirements back in June of last year. In a speech that he gave to the foreign ministry board. And since then, he has, you know, he has reiterated those, those minimal requirements.

And so as Lavrov, and so as Peskov, and other, you know, Russian officials again, and again, and up to just like a couple days ago, I think there’s just no question that that’s what for them, though, that is the minimal, you know, deal that they’re willing to accept. And I don’t think it is going to be possible for any US president to, to do that, because it is really a recognition of defeat. And the US just doesn’t like doing that, you know, so I’m afraid that we won’t get a negotiated solution to the war.

But communication is good. I mean, it’s the beginning of a it could be of a long process where we could slowly, you know, rebuild our relationship. And one of the most important things about talks is that, you know, through talks, I think Trump is going to learn what the Russian position really is, I think so much of the information that he gets is, you know, from the media, you know, from maybe just dishonest, intelligence, executives, and that all that, that information is distorted.

And it, you know, it seems like he, you know, he has a better grasp of what’s going on than Biden did. But it’s still it’s not a complete grasp. And, you know, maybe through talking with Putin, he’ll begin to understand all the Russians are serious about that these guys were telling me that, you know, they’re on the verge of collapse.

And then, you know, they’ll be happy for anything we offer. It’s not the case. That’s a step forward.

But the other thing is that they can talk about other issues that are very important, like arms control, like reestablishing these, you know, these missile treaties that had existed between NATO and the Soviet Union, then NATO and Russia. And I think just for the security of Europe and for the world, that would be great. You know, maybe they can start talking about that again.

Interesting. So, so, so far, are you, have you, has had your expectations been exceeded, Matt, or below expectation when it comes to his performance over the last week or so? Yeah. If you’ve been watching my channel for a long time, then, you know, we talk a lot about protecting your wealth in uncertain times.

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Check them out. Well, I’d have to say exceeded. I am, you know, again, I was very, very cynical.

And I still am to a great extent. I remember the first term and how he, he failed to make good on all his promises and he got more of the same, you know, especially in foreign policy. But he’s really, you know, he’s just come out of the gate at a, you know, at a gallop here.

And, you know, some things that I thought wouldn’t happen have happened, like, you know, the J6 pardons, you know, just to give you an example, he did that on the first day. And I was kind of wondering whether he was really going to do that. I think it took a lot of people by surprise.

And and there does seem to be a real attempt, at least at a real reorientation of foreign policy. You know, again, we found that his talk about Greenland and Panama, this all seems to be for real. Not only did he have that argument with the Danish president, or prime minister, I can’t remember which one it is.

His Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is going to fly to Panama in the near future. Apparently, that’s going to be his first visit. So again, you know, I’m sure it’s probably to apply pressure.

I mean, he’s quite serious about it. So yeah, you know, I have to say that, you know, not that all of it, I think is good. I, you know, I, I’m very uncomfortable with this kind of talk about the kind of this old style Imperials talk about these territories, you know, Panama, and so on.

I’m not in favor of it. But it shows that that, in any case, man is for real. He seems to, he has come in with, I think, a real determination to shake things up.

And so far, he really is shaking things up, you know. And yeah, again, I think we’re gonna, you know, he’s kind of a political earthquake, just in himself. He’s a one-man political earthquake, you could say.

And, you know, again, you know, on our channel, we talk about the larger political earthquake. And here’s just a, you know, another important aspect to that. Well, he was paying dividends even before he got into office.

I mean, remember the, he did broker the Gaza ceasefire deal, despite what the Biden administration said. I mean, all of the news that came out of those talks appear to be attributable to Trump and through Witkoff. Right.

What do you make, you know, so what do you make of the current situation over there in Gaza, Israel? It’s very interesting, because it’s very hard to put in a neat little box, because Sheldon Adelson’s widow, Mary Madelson, she donated $100 million to the campaign. And from what I’ve heard, is that she was one of the proponents towards pushing this ceasefire deal, which to some may seem odd. But what are your views on this? Well, you know, I think you’re right that the ceasefire deal, what took effect, you know, was finally concluded in large part, you know, maybe not entirely because of Trump, in large part because of Trump and the pressure that he applied.

Now, I think overall, I think that’s one area where we’re not going to see any significant changes. Trump has shown himself to be a committed Zionist. And we have seen that you know, we saw that in his first term, he moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, he recognized the the annexation of the Golan Heights, he initiated the Abraham Accords negotiations.

And, and in this, you know, in during the election campaign, he was constantly attacking Biden, or rather later, you know, Kamala Harris from really the more extreme Zionist position, you know, accusing them somehow of being Hamas sympathizers, which I think is, is ridiculous. And then, of course, as you point out, you know, Mary Madelson gave him $100 million. And she’s expecting, you know, some, some actions from him.

And I think we can expect to see him actually continue to implement implement really rather extreme Zionist policies. Now, the ceasefire, how does that fit in there? Now, it’s just not clear at this point. Netanyahu himself is saying that, you know, pretty much promising to break it after this first phase.

And suggesting that that’s something that Trump has agreed to in advance, that was part of the deal, say, well, hey, well, you know, let’s do the ceasefire. But you don’t have to stick to it after the first phase, after some hostages are released, you can go back in. That’s what, again, Netanyahu himself is saying.

He said it quite openly, he said it on TV. Now, maybe he’s lying. But I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s true.

And Israel really does have a history of, you know, making agreements with its enemies, and, you know, getting some benefit from the first stage of that, but not following up on the, on the later phases, not really carrying through on the other promises. So I think there’s, unfortunately, there’s a very high chance that this will be broken. Now, one thing that might, that, that militates against this is the fact that the IDF is really, has been run ragged.

They’re, they are not a military that is designed for long-term conflicts. They’re just not set up that way. You know, they’re, for Israel, the ideal conflict doesn’t last more than a month.

And this has gone on for 15 months. You know, it’s not just been Gaza, but it’s also been Lebanon. And, you know, they’re, apparently, the Israelis are finding it difficult to call up reservists.

You know, they send out the notices and people don’t show up. So there’s a real resistance. And I think if anything prevents Israel from going back into Gaza, it’s, it’s that more than anything.

It’s just the, the state of the military. But they may very well renew a bombing campaign. You know, we don’t know.

We’ll, we’ll see. I, I’m not, you know, that’s one part of the world where I’m just not very hopeful. What about as it relates to Iran? Just last week in Davos, you had the vice president of Iran, Vice President Zarif, come out and just pretty much put the, put Hamas and the rest of the resistance under the bus by saying that we never wanted this war between Israel and Hamas.

And we want to normalize relations with the West. We don’t want this, you know, back and forth. What do you make of the current leadership in Iran, i.e., you know, Zarif, Pozeshkian, and is there a clash, do you think, happening behind the scenes between him, between that kind of group, and I guess the IRGC or the group kind of oriented around Khamenei? Yeah.

Yeah. I don’t really know what’s going on, you know, behind the scenes. My understanding is that actually, you know, the, that the policy at the highest level is not, in fact, set by the president.

It’s set by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. And so, you know, anything that Pozeshkian’s policies are not running counter to him, I don’t think that’s really even possible. But he was elected as a candidate who was maybe a little bit more willing to negotiate with the West, you know, he’s not, doesn’t have a reputation as a hardliner.

You know, I think that’s just his general policy. And it’s a reminder that, hey, you know, if you want to change your policies, we’re ready to talk, and maybe we can work something out. But I, yeah, it’s hard to, it’s hard to say what’s going on, you know, on the one hand, the Iranians recently inked this deal with the Russians.

And I think that was a very big deal, something that they’ve, you know, been negotiating for months and months. It’s a comprehensive agreement, you know, it’s much more than military, but it is military security in part. And, you know, what they expect to get out of that, I think, is a greatly reinforced air defense system, they already have a good one, but it’s going to be, you know, I think, with the Russians help over a period of months and years, they can build up a, you know, a very formidable air defense system, which is just going to make really tie the hands of the Israelis and the Americans if they don’t act pretty quickly.

Yeah, you know, it’s, I think it was what, approximately three months ago that the, the Iranians promised to retaliate against the most recent strike by Israel against Iran. And, you know, they, it was going to be, you know, it was going to be a heavy response, it was going to be, you know, and here we are three months later, and they’re not really talking about it. So I wonder what’s going on? Have they just, they may have chosen just not to do it, but it may have, you know, it may be a result of their contacts with the Russians, I’m thinking, is that they really wanted to have this agreement, they’re looking at the long term.

And they said, this is more important to us than, you know, this strike that we want to carry out. And the Russians really don’t want to see it happen. You know, they don’t want to have to sign this deal with a country that immediately goes to war.

And there, you know, there are people within Iran quite reasonably who don’t want to go to war in spite of the many provocations from Israel. So that maybe is what went on. You know, again, you know, we can only speculate, I don’t really know what’s going behind the scenes.

I don’t think there’s a fundamental change in policy. No, it’s, I don’t think that’s even possible, given the system that they have. But, you know, maybe it’s sort of like in the short term, they have may have decided that they’re going to back off a little bit vis-a-vis Israel.

And I can understand that, you know, it’s just, again, it is, you know, just as Trump says, America first, you know, they’re saying Iran first, you know, a war is just not good for us. You know, even if we do have justice on our sides, you know, even if we feel like we might even prevail, it’s just still going to be very costly. And it’s better to build up our defenses over time.

And, you know, we’ll be in an even stronger position somewhere down the road. Do you think with Iran kind of taking a backstep here that Turkey could possibly fill their shoes within the region? Because they do, because they do have now a presence in Syria, right? Yeah. Northern parts of Syria.

Right. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, well, they certainly have kind of replaced Iranian influence in Syria.

So it’s not just that they directly control some of the territory in northern Syria, of course. But more than that, they control the current president of Syria, Al Joli, I guess his name. And so, yeah, their influence is considerable.

And Iran lost, it clearly was a setback for Iran, and to a lesser extent for Russia. I think it’s just that Syria was never such a, you know, is never crucial, never existential for them. But it is a setback.

For Iran, it’s a more serious setback. But it’s something that I think they can overcome. I, you know, I think it’s important to realize that actually, the support for Assad, and even for Hezbollah and Hamas, I think overall, it’s, you know, supported with Iran, but there’s always been a strong faction that’s been critical of it saying, hey, you should focus on what we’re doing at home.

This costs us and it does, you know, they had to, it costs them in lives, and it also costs them in money, you know, they actually, you know, sent oil to Syria to support them, because of course, the Americans and the Kurds are controlling the oil fields in the east of Syria. They had to provide them with economic support. Now, they didn’t provide them with enough, you know, that’s what we learned at the end.

But, but it was a costly endeavor for them. And so you can say, yeah, they’ve lost their influence, they’ve lost this buffer between themselves and Israel, you know, they’ve lost this pressure point that they can apply in Israel, and it’s now become much more difficult for them to supply Hezbollah. But also, you know, there were costs to this program, this axis of resistance.

And if they have retrenched somewhat, you know, it may in the long run really not be to their detriment. But wasn’t Syria kind of like the debut of Russia as a superpower back in 2014, 15, I want to say, because before then, Russia wasn’t as prominent, was nowhere near as prominent as it is today, because what Syria really allowed Russia to do was demonstrate itself as, as like a global arms dealer, right, as a competitor to the US, right? Syria was the state of Russia. So it kind of posed the other side of the coin, in terms of, hey, you may, you guys don’t need to sign on to the US for missiles and protection, and so forth.

We’re demonstrating it in Syria that we can resist all of these attacks, right? With them having to leave now, doesn’t that kind of put a damper on all of that? I think you have to say it does, to some extent, you’re right, that was an important event, it kind of stated Russia’s back. Now, I think it also has to be said that, you know, this was not a military defeat for Russia, it was a military success, they helped, you know, Assad regain much of his territory. And when they went in, it was just, it was something like 10% of the country that he still had under his control.

And then, with the help of Iran and Hezbollah and the Russians, he was able to reestablish control over, you know, better than 60% of the country. Now, and then, you know, at the end, it wasn’t that the Russians were defeated militarily. You know, in fact, I think they did quite a bit of damage.

They were, for a while, it seemed like they were the only ones that were really fighting on behalf of Syria. But this whole, you know, the Syrian army itself collapsed, and there was nothing they can do about that. So it’s not something, you know, where they can, you could say, okay, Russia itself didn’t suffer a defeat, but its client state collapsed, and it collapsed under its watch, in spite of the support that it gave to it.

So yeah, I think on some level, you have to say that this is a setback for Russia and for its reputation. Yeah, well, yeah, you know, of course, Syria in a lot of, and, you know, immediately after this happened, you began to hear talk, well, the next is Belarus, and, yeah, that kind of thing. But Syria really was a unique case.

I mean, one thing is surrounded by hostile powers, you know, by Turkey, and, well, you know, you had Israel in the south, and the US had applied these severe sanctions, and more than that controlled the breadbasket and the oil fields of the country. It was, I knew that it was in a terrible economic shape, but I didn’t really understand how bad it was. I’ve heard that actually, the economy at the end was only 15% of the economy before fighting broke out in 2011.

I mean, 15% that, you know, Chelsea, it wasn’t really a prosperous country back then. It was reasonably well off. But so this was a country that was really just already in a very, very, you know, perilous condition.

And I don’t think you can say that about other, you know, Russian allies like Belarus, for example. Interesting. How do you see the makeup of these elections ongoing in Europe with AFD, economic, political turmoil in the UK with Keir Starmer? Could we see a reversal in powers in Europe? And then if so, more so towards the right wing side, if you want to call it that? Yeah.

And if so, won’t that portend to their dynamic with Russia? Yeah, well, I mean, in particularly in Germany and France, yeah, we’ve seen the rise of these right wing populist parties. You have the AfD in Germany, you have the National Rally in France. I think the National Rally, I believe, is actually the largest political party in France.

The AfD is the second largest. And then in Germany, you also have a left wing party that actually has very similar policies, you know, when it comes to foreign policy and energy policy and immigration restriction. That’s, I believe, it’s called the SWB, the Sarah Wagenknecht party.

And there is something like 7%. If you actually combine the AfD with the SWB, you would have something like a third of the electorate. So, you know, these are considerable forces.

Now, the thing is that, you know, if in normal times, these would probably become the ruling parties, they would establish ruling coalitions, but we’re not living in normal times. And it’s just the establishment is doing whatever it can to suppress these parties and keep them out of power. So they, you know, whenever one of these parties has electoral success, all the other parties get together.

And even, you know, when these other parties really don’t have much in common, the thing they do have in common is that we can’t let those people have a share in the government. And so they keep them out. And then, you know, we’ve seen in other cases, you know, I guess it’s technically, it’s legal, you know, though, yeah.

And in Germany, they even talk about banning them the AfD, they still talk about that. Now, in Romania, you know, there was, again, a right wing populist party that did very well in the first round of the national elections. And then that election was simply annulled.

And then the next round, which he clearly was going to win the leader of that party, Gheorghe Ghesko, that was simply cancelled. So it’s just, you know, you do clearly see, you know, I think it needs to be pointed out that all these parties are in favor of improving relations with Russia, and reestablishing the flow of gas, you know, really fundamentally changing the direction of Europe into which I think is just a much more intelligent and balanced way. You know, they’re not, I think it’s a mistake to call them pro Russia, they’re just pro European, let’s do what’s good for Europe.

And the good thing for Europe is to have these, you know, good relations, a good working relationship with Russia and, you know, and, and extensive economic ties. That’s what all of them are in favor of. But you can see through these, you know, the response of the establishment is they’re going to fight tooth and nail against the rise of these parties, and they’ll fight dirty if necessary.

They’ve proven that. So, you know, we’re faced with, you know, very interesting situation, are we going to, are we going to actually have outright coups, which is you can almost say happened in Romania? Is there going to defend democracy as the establishment defines it? You know, are we going to suppress, you know, actually subvert the democratic process, that seems to be the course that we’re going down. So it remains to be seen who’s going to win this battle, you know, is it going to be, you know, are these dissident parties going to actually be able to win at the ballot box, or will the establishment prevent them from that happening? Interesting.

I want to take it back to the western hemisphere before we wrap up here. Okay. Let’s talk about South America.

You do have Argentina and El Salvador, kind of in that Trumpian block, right, with Millet and Bukele. I believe there was a deal that was cut or informally cut between the Trump administration and the El Salvadorian government to take in some of these migrants that or some of these illegal migrants that they’ve been able to capture here and put them over there. Do you see, how do you, how do you see the United States’s role in South America moving forward, given that we are looking more towards a fortress America being built in the western hemisphere? Right.

Well, you know, I guess I would say, yeah, if indeed Trump, you know, kind of uses, takes this, you could call sort of like a Teddy Roosevelt approach to American, you know, speaking North American and South American politics. He, you know, he may have his way as he, so far, it appears he’s had his way with, you know, Colombia. It, you know, that that approach can produce successes.

I think it has to be said, at least in some spheres. But it can also produce a reaction. You know, the anti-American sentiment has always been pretty strong in Latin America.

I think it’s faded somewhat in recent decades. But there is still kind of a deep unease, fear and hatred of the, you know, the, the gringos in the north. And we might see a resurgence of that.

You know, if Trump has his way, we’ll see. Interesting. Anything else you want to talk about, Peter, that we didn’t get into before you wrap up? Well, you know, maybe I’ll just say very quickly, again, that I think we’re living in very interesting times.

I mean, it’s just like, I, I’ve always taken an interest in politics. I’ve, you know, ever since I was like 12 years old, I followed it pretty closely. And, you know, back then, you read the newspapers, I’d read them very carefully, and I’d read them critically.

But, you know, it seemed like, throughout all that period, the first few decades of my life, the world order was really pretty well established, you know, just there, it was. Now, I, you know, I think the first, you could say, seismic shift, of course, was the fall of the Soviet Union. And that was a very significant event, but it was followed by the unipolar moment and say, okay, now we’ve, the Soviet Union has exited the stage.

Now we, it’s the end of history, right, and Francis Fukuyama, the world is going to be ruled by the Western hegemon. And it really appeared to be that way. And there didn’t seem to be any challenges to that, you know, Western hegemonic power.

But now we’re seeing it. And it’s clear that that, you know, the center can’t hold it. It’s just, those days are past, but we’re not exiting the stage gracefully.

And so, you know, we’re going to see, there’s always going to be drama for us, you know, for us geopolitical junkies, you know, there’s going to be a lot to feed our, our, our interests. Yeah, totally. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the fourth turning concept, but there’s these four. Yeah.

So it’s, it’s predicated on four turnings and they happen every 80 years or so. And the upshot of it is, is that American society and society at large tends to go through a war revolution every 80 years, 80 years ago, you had world war two before that you had the civil war before that you had the revolutionary war. And that’s predicated on the basis of lost generational memory, right? The, the, the generation that fought those wars and those revolutions, those battles eventually dies out.

And the generations that were only here for easy and good times, right. Brings you into, into these calamitous events. So things do tend to be sick.

We do appear to be at this very end state of this current cycle where you’re starting to see all of these conflicts and wars start to emerge. Yeah. Well, I think that there’s obviously quite a bit of truth to that, but I think we’re seeing something even bigger, like in the case of Russia itself.

You know, Russia really took a, a very sharp turn to the West under Peter, the great, you know, we’re talking about the end of the 17th century and the beginning of the 18th century. So better than 300 years ago. And that has been a constant really in Russian politics ever since, like even Putin himself, but very much, you know, he was he considered Russia to be part of the West and Russia had to be oriented towards the West.

You know, this was, he believed in this very strongly. I mean, he would tell people, look, we’re Europeans, we’re part of Europe. This just can’t be changed.

And he made, I think it’s, you know, in, in spite of all the demonization about him, you know, it’s, it’s clear that he was very favorably disposed to the West and he wanted to be part of the West. He made every effort to do it right up until this SMO and after, you know, he was trying to, we had the Istanbul agreement that very nearly he was hoping would end that conflict and then make it possible to establish some sort of an understanding and a way of further integrating with the West, but that’s failed. And so we are seeing a real break right now.

And it looks like a permanent break and a real fundamental reorientation within Russia. No longer are they looking to the West, but they’re looking to the East. So this is, you know, one of the great powers of the world.

And for 300 years, it was really looking in one direction. Now it’s the other way. This, this is a, you know, again, a monumental seismic shift.

Is it irreparable? You know, you can’t say that it’s not irreparable. With the people in charge right now in the West, it is. I think the only way that this, this, this rift between Europe and Russia is going to be bridged is if there’s really something like a revolution within Europe itself and you just, you have a new elite, but the current elite yet cannot do it with them.

It is irreparable. I see. Well, Peter, it’s been a pleasure having you on.

Where can people find you if they want to hear more? Well, they can go to conversations among the ruins on YouTube. My son and I do a show three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And we talk about all these things about, about the world.

Okay. We’ll have the link to that down below. So be sure to check it out, guys.

It’s, it’s one of the most underrated political geopolitical shows out there, in my opinion. I discovered them a couple of weeks ago and was very impressed with, with, with their work there. If you got value out of this video, be sure to give us a like and comment down below.

Go Peter, go. If you disagreed with anything, however, do let me know. I do read the comments and then check us out on Substack, capitalcosm.substack.com, where you can get early access and add free versions of all of my videos, as well as uncensored content for those videos that warrants it.

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Link down in the description box below. And with all that said, Peter, thank you so much for coming on. And guys, thank you so much for watching.

I’ll catch you in the next episode. Bye y’all. Thank you.