Brad Johnson, retired CIA Chief of Station, reviews the startling list of countries China seeks to dominate, how they are doing it, and what dangers are emerging.
Brad Johnson retired as a Senior Operations Officer and Chief of Station with the Central Intelligence Agency’s Directorate of Operations. Having served domestically and abroad, many assignments included areas of armed conflict. He served overseas in direct support of the War Against Terrorism and he took multiple assignments overseas as Chief of Station.
A certified senior expert in counterintelligence, surveillance and surveillance detection, his proven expertise in dangerous operational environments included the highest level of training available in the USG and globally. His tradecraft expertise was put to test in dangerous, difficult, and restrictive operational environments.
Brad is an enrolled member of The Cherokee Nation, a Federally Recognized Tribe.
In the summer of 2017, he founded the non-profit organization Americans for Intelligence Reform to create awareness of political corruption and the resulting diminished capabilities within the intelligence community. Serving as President, he brings you his unique perspective from deep, international experience and conservative, Christian values.
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brad johnson here for americans for
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intelligence reform it is march 8
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2021. one of the things we’ve been
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talking about a great deal
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is the uh areas in the world that are
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starting to become hot spots
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and possible uh where we might possibly
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see war or fighting something like that
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take place that’s dangerous to the world
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one of the greatest hot spots if you
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will that i’ve been talking about for a
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long time are the different areas
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surrounding china
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china who’s gone into basically a
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worldwide
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plan of aggression to conquer the world
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using everything at their
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disposal uh certainly including the the
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belt and road program that’s predatory
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lending taking place latin america
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africa worldwide basis
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including there’s even a coast uh west
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coast project
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in canada where they’re uh using the
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belts roads program to make inroads into
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canada
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against a fairly friendly prime minister
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i might add
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and some of the things that they’re
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doing also include what clearly is
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intended to be
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military preparation one of the things
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i’ve mentioned over and over is a huge
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buildup
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in the in the chinese navy including uh
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three aircraft carriers uh two of which
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i believe are launched and the third one
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is either going to be launched soon
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or or has just been launched and
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submarines and things like that that are
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clearly
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uh not really designed for defense but
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are clearly designed for assault you
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know
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being the aggressor in some of these
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things now one of the other things
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outside of that that i wanted to point
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out and this has just hit the news
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recently is that the two there are two
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very large runways on mainland china
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just across from taiwan so it’s on the
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on the chinese mainland side
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of the taiwan straits which
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are uh well positioned to of course be
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used in an act of aggression against
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taiwan
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now uh they’ve they’ve done quite a
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little bit it’s the
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long tien and huion air bases if i
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mispronounce
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the chinese names you can forgive me as
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i’m not a chinese speaker
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uh but they’ve they’ve taken these
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runways built them up big
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and specifically done things like
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lengthen the runway which is very
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important to the type of aircraft that
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can go in and out of there
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these these uh high-speed aircraft need
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more
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space to land so this this gives them
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what they need and take off
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in particular uh and
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uh they’ve also increased the airport
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airport aprons so i mean while that may
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seem like a minor thing
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you know if you need to stack up a
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hundred aircraft and get them ready to
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go attack an island across the straits
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you’ve got to have a place to put them
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and that’s what that why the apron and
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things like that is so important and it
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shows
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essentially aggressive intent um
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and the the proximity to these these two
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places
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uh like i say there’s a lot of people
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kind of discounting the importance of
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this
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but it should not be because this can be
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looked at as as like
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two massive aircraft carriers parked off
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the coast of
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of taiwan taipei is the big city there
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and
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if a fighter aircraft chinese fighter
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aircraft takes off from this runway
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they can be in taipei the main city in
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taiwan
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in seven minutes i mean that if they get
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everything
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ready and it’s not noticed right away in
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the middle of the night or whatever in
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in conditions where it’s not spotted by
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taiwan right away or there’s any
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problems with radar
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or anything at all uh seven minutes is
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not a hell of a lot of warning
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you know to prepare for an attack and
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get other get your own aircraft in the
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air and things like that so this
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is again a very serious possible problem
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where you’ve got one side clearly
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building up
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for a military strike to conquer the
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island of taipei which they’ve always
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claimed
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of taiwan and they’ve always claimed the
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island is theirs there’s always been
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this
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one china policy where taiwan has always
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said yeah mainland china is ours and
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communist china the mainland always says
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no taiwan is ours so
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they agree there’s one china they just
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disagree on who’s in charge of it which
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you know kind of one of those quirky pc
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sort of things that everybody kind of
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closes their eyes to the facts fact is
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these are two separate countries and
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need to be treated that way but
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you know such is life so part of the
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thing that’s out of this is taiwan is
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taking this
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deadly serious and they’ve started
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building up their missile defense ground
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to air
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things like that to be prepared in case
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something like this
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actually takes place and make no mistake
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china has always said
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they hope to avoid violence but are
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perfectly willing to use violence if
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that’s necessary
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to bring taiwan back under their direct
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control
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so they’re going to do it if they don’t
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figure out how to do it in another way
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and they will absolutely do this if an
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opportunity arises they
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the circumstances would have to be such
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that they can get in and get it done
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and have it over in an hour or two
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something along those lines if
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if they can figure out how to do that
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sort of strike and
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get it you know essentially over and
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done with within hours they’re going to
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do it
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and if it’s prolonged that gives time
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for other countries like
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the united states and maybe japan and
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other people to come into the aid of
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of taiwan and then the chinese don’t
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want this full-scale war in that area so
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uh that’s that’s something that they
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would i think
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i think go far to avoid we’ll see but
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this is something you’re seeing these
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defenses be built up by vietnam who’s
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weaponizing some of those islands in the
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south china sea which is just
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very near this region you’re seeing uh
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the philippines do something similar
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malaysia’s alarm india is alarmed all of
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these countries recognize the danger of
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this
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while here in the united states you know
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the intelligence community has
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proven itself to be ineffective and
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worthless and incompetent and not really
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putting out
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a lot of this information could be put
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out public about
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the dangers of china we did see mike
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pompeo while secretary of state with
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president trump often point out
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many of the dangers at a governor’s
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conference in different situations where
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he
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pointed out how just how serious china
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is while the biden administration like i
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said they’re essentially twiddling their
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thumbs
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and they’re all talking about including
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the new cia proposed new cia chief and
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secretary of state
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for mike for uh for the biden
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administration
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they’re all saying oh we you know we’ve
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got a a challenge and this is our big
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competitor and all of this sort of stuff
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preparing for war is is not some
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competitor that you’re you know
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competing to sell widgets out overseas
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to other countries that’s competition
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war is not that and and the biden
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administration is just uh you know
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either either their their just being pc
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would be the way i would put it but
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they’re promulgating ignorance and
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ignoring the
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dangers that are out there if this goes
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and and china was not able to get it
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over with quickly
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and additional resources are going to
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come in and you start having multiple
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countries
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fight back against china one of the
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things you’re going to have to do is
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start striking
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targets inside china like these two air
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bases i just mentioned because
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that’s where they’re going to launch out
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of so it would be it’s also seven
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minutes going that way and if you can
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get resources there to attack back
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and you’re suddenly having a big
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shooting war with multiple countries
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attacking targets inside china that is a
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freaking war
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and that is dangerous those things can
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expand quickly in a lot of ways
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that are very hard to anticipate
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and more needs to be done to curb this
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this is not some twiddle your thumbs
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competition like the biden
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administration is treating it
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this is dangerous stuff needs to be
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treated seriously
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and the respect given to some of these
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people who are dangerous out there in
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the world
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and it’s not so this is this is one of
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these places that’s starting to really
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worry me
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certainly in the medium term i mean uh
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in the long term it’s going to be a
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problem in the medium term it might be a
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problem in the short term let’s let’s
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hope not
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but it’s got to be taken seriously and
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given its due
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you
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