Full Transcript for Does Russia Really Have "Superweapons"?

seen it in pictures right, it represented, But I don't remember a time when I viewed the Soviet Union as this massive empire just because I never got I guess I didn't have the cognitive ability to even think about it as such when I was so young. It is weird because I suppose my view of Russia and the USSR really hasn't changed that much. I just didn't, you know, we didn't get that experience of looking at the newspapers when you know USSR does so and so, like being blazoned across the top. 00:07:01 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:07:02 Speaker 4: So for earlier generations, right, like they're saying, the Cold War was more of an ever present thing in the zeitgeist, right, like the Cuban missile crisis and so on. 00:07:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And the. 00:07:16 Speaker 4: Soviet Union had this well deserved reputation for doing what we call throwing bodies at the problem in conflicts, right, a vast number of people in their armed services. But we can't forget the Soviet Union. Despite Cold War propaganda on both sides, the Soviet Union also heralded a great many innovations that changed warfare and therefore the world at large. Remember when we talked about the dead Hands system. That's sup that supervillain bond level stuff. 00:07:49 Speaker 2: There you go, that's still terrifying. Well, I mean it has to be it's obviously right, especially the fact that they're not the only country that then developed a similar dead hands indrome syndrome. What is that? What is the impostor hands alien hand syndrome? Is that the thing? 00:08:08 Speaker 4: I believe that's correct? You like, let your hand fall asleep and Jersey, where's that's just the stranger? 00:08:15 Speaker 3: Okay, thank you. 00:08:16 Speaker 4: The the impostor hand or whatever it's called syndrome is a psychological condition where people believe that one or more of their limbs are not part of them. 00:08:28 Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like operating on its own or something like that. But sorry, I'd start for that aside, just knowing that multiple countries now have a system like the one that the USSR developed, which is, if everybody dies in our country, the missile systems still function and will still strike you. 00:08:44 Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, that's correct, and please do check out our previous episode on that where we go we go deep into what that thing is, how it may or may not work, and whether it actually works today, which is all the big question for the Russian military. I mean, this civilization puts spot Nick into space, they put the first known satellite in orbit. They put Uri Gagard into space, and brought that poor Poorlika or like like y'a. 00:09:16 Speaker 3: Without making it a spoiler, I'm just gonna say, there's a thing that I've been enjoying a piece of media where there is a plot point involving a fail safe for the fail safe, where if there were mutually assured destruction taking place, there is some sort of satellite mounted e MP that would essentially shut out or knock out

all electrical devices on the entire planet, therefore preventing mutually assured destruction where that to happen. And I thought that was super cools. 00:09:44 Speaker 2: Can we do that? 00:09:44 Speaker 3: Yes, exactly. But I'm just saying I'm not gonna say what show it was because it is a little bit of a plot point. Don't want to be a spoiler, but I thought it was a new thought experiment. 00:09:51 Speaker 4: It is tune into season six of Community. 00:09:54 Speaker 3: Exactly the movie, which I think is finally in the words, you. 00:09:58 Speaker 2: Know, if that did work, though, I imagine all of the nuclear reactors around the world for power, they would all go offline. 00:10:05 Speaker 3: Oh, it's a problem that's adressed in It's a problem that's addressed in the show. 00:10:09 Speaker 4: It really really is. 00:10:10 Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh big time yep. 00:10:11 Speaker 4: And let's not forget things like the humble AK forty seven, another Soviet innovation that is one of the planet's most well known firearms and pretty affordable at this point due to economy of scale. 00:10:25 Speaker 2: The rifle that keeps on giving, huh, Like, so many conflicts arout the world have been fueled by that weapon. 00:10:31 Speaker 4: Actually, the AK forty seven has, in limited regions been used as a form of currency in the past. That's how ubiquitous this firearm has become. Scary stuff everybody. We do know that the Soviet Union fell, right, it dissolved, but Russia, the Federated States thereof soldiered on and this government was diplomatically is diplomatically put imperfect. But the world at large, until just a few years ago, considered the Russian army to be one of the absolute best on the planet, second only to that of the United States. So for decades, the rest of the world, especially the West, especially NATO countries, all took great pains to avoid doing what we call poking the bear too much or too often. 00:11:27 Speaker 3: Right, And you know, the bear is also just as perfect analogy for Russia are pretty bear like. 00:11:33 Speaker 2: Just like the restaurant, but like what you mean there is to avoid deliberate provocation, right, Or if Russia does something that appears to be a little off, Let's say NATO might consider Russia doing something that's a little that's if the concept here is that NATO wouldn't come down and do anything physical, you might have a resolution that says, hey, we kind of don't we don't like that Russia did. 00:12:01 Speaker 4: That, guys, But no, Olivia Newton John right, it's not let's get physical just yet. 00:12:10 Speaker 3: I mean exactly, it doesn't. I mean, it seems like we're seeing so many aggressive tests of what NATO can actually do these days, and it doesn't feel like it's passing them very well. It feels like we're exposing just how kind of again a matter of decorum something like NATO actually is. 00:12:29 Speaker 4: Yeah, you never know until the rubber hits the road or the ICBMs hit the horizon. It's funny because going back to that earlier analogy about people hanging out with agro folks at a restaurant or a bar, NATO was NATO is like a crowd of people also in the same establishment, and they're whispering to each other. They're like, oh, no, don't mess with secret knife guy. You know, he's trying to scoot over and call other seats at the don't let him do it. 00:13:02 Speaker 2: Somebody within the group stands up, I call for a resolution that secret knife guy be scolded immediately and yeah, and then someone leans. 00:13:13 Speaker 4: Back and they're like, secret knife guy, you got you got a weird vibe. No, don't come over here, No, just it's your ViBe's off. 00:13:23 Speaker 2: Somebody stands up and like quietly just walks over to secret knife guy and hands him a seat like a little note. 00:13:29 Speaker 3: And immediately knifed. 00:13:32 Speaker 4: You're mad at you? Oh wait? Or are you mad at us? Check? Yes or no? 00:13:38 Speaker 3: That's it. 00:13:39 Speaker 4: That's it. 00:13:39 Speaker 2: And this isn't to completely crap on, you know, initiatives like the United Nations, like NATO and like these these treaty organizations and attempts to work together and be more unified right as a planet with governing bodies and that kind of thing, because that is kind of the best thing we've got going when it comes to cooperation and seeing everybody as one species that's going through this whole thing together. It's just in action. Maybe they're just not as effective as we would hope they would be. Otherwise we would right have the green revolution thing where pollution is no longer even a concept on the planet. Would have happened in the eighties. 00:14:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. You know, if every, if everything that modern civilization put on paper with noble intent ended up one hundred percent being put into practice, the world would be a much better place. Right. But the thing is, what we're saying is like a lot of these agreements, they don't have teeth and they don't have the same funding that bad faith actors have. That's ultimately, I think our point like, they don't have. 00:14:49 Speaker 3: Teeth, but they lacking teeth they more than make up for in gums too. 00:14:54 Speaker 4: They've got They've got gummy gummy words. And so let's go back to Russia. We see here the ascension of a guy named Vladimir Putin, the longtime effective ruler of the new Russia. Please check out if you're having a depressing time today when this episode publishes and you want to have a little bit of a gallows chuckle, please please please check out our classic episode on a weird flex that Vladimir Putin did when he pushed through a law that said any Russian president, whomever they may be, is immune from any prosecution forever, no take. 00:15:40 Speaker 2: Back seats as long as this stuff they did while president. Yeah, I think I think. 00:15:46 Speaker 4: That's an important caveat. Yeah, I think you're right. 00:15:48 Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's

the same one that we currently have in this country. Any official duties, you're immune, baby. 00:15:56 Speaker 4: Yeah. It's weird because the findings OFIS and the language of that Russian law are kind of similar. Far be it for me to say people were plagiarizing or drinking from the same inspirational well, but the language is kind of similar to your point. I mean, I don't we know. Putin never thought the Cold War ended, like pretty much everybody else on the planet until quite recently, had a very high opinion of Russia's military might. And you can hie thee to YouTube for instance, or your favorite video platform of choice, and you can see multiple instances where the Russian government, led by Putin or Medgev, has been showcasing missile defense systems, stuff like the SM three hundred or big contingents of troops marching through, tanks rolling through And these are massive parades, right, Who doesn't love a massive parade? There our events, guys, I'm sorry, I'm laughing, not to get political, but do you remember when our administration tried to have one of those parades. 00:17:08 Speaker 2: Do you guys remember that, Yeah, to celebrate the president and his birthday. 00:17:14 Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing new. 00:17:16 Speaker 2: It was like a history of the military on display. And there was a part of it that was interesting to see the different the evolution, let's say, of the weaponry and things like that were cool. Yeah, yeah, but we didn't exactly, you know, roll through with the new versions of the B two bomber or the stuff that DARPA was working on, or the new stealth aircraft, or we didn't do any of that, you know, and then you see what what happened. It's twenty eighteen, right when the big announcement occurs where Weimer putin is like, hey we've got these super baby yes, right, yeah, that was years ago. And then when we have one of these things, it's just it didn't seem that impressive unfortunately. And I don't mean, I don't mean to downplay the work of any of the you know, military personnel or people who are involved in the actual parade part. It's just it didn't have that same thing like here's all our here's all our ICBMs right that you know China would do maybe. 00:18:18 Speaker 4: Right, we didn't show the whole chocolate box. Going back to that earlier in comparison, we said, here's some of our good, old fashioned chocolate, and then we really want it. And the world was saying, I know, beat me here freight training. The world was saying, I know those motherers have a gob stopper somewhere. They're just not putting it out in the public. I mean, because we all know that world powers are not content to stick with old conventional goodies. Old conventional warfare. Research in Russia was a huge leader in this. That during the days of the Soviet Union and now they pioneered these bold, strange experiments into unconventional and asymmetric initiatives, things like more exotic weaponry. Notably, there's some of the best at propaganda and information compromise. This had huge impact in foreign countries, including the United States. It resulted in favorable policies for Russia abroad, and in some cases it resulted in outright vassal states and regime change. I mean, good luck voting in Moldova or Belarus. Honestly, be careful, actually, if you're there, if you're listening now, be careful. 00:19:36 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, really quickly. I'm just thinking about this as you were talking. There have been when we think about new weapons and militaries trying to stay on the cutting edge, right, we often think about it being because they want a technological advantage over any opponent and he perceived opponent who's at that bar, right, they want the bigger knife or the faster realistic missile or whatever. There's this other thing that exists for every other country, and that is the intertwining of that military sector, the official government sector, but then the private sector that's actually manufacturing most of those weapons. Even in Russia and anywhere in the country, there are private sectors corporations that are involved with all this stuff that need those sweet sweet quarterly profits in order to stay afloat. And you can't not keep that in your mind while you're thinking about this stuff, because it's way more complicated than just a country wanting to be the most powerful. 00:20:38 Speaker 4: There are a lot of calculations that go into it, and some of them the public will never see unless things go disastrously wrong for one actor or another. I mean again, folks, the Putin administration has never considered the Cold War over. In their opinion, stuff still isn't sweet. And in recent years Russia has been in practice attempting to resurrect the Soviet Empire of old. We're talking about coordinated series of campaigns, especially in its former sphere of influence, rigging elections, touching politicians, turning nearby nations into puppet states. A most notable example of this attempt to resurrect the Soviet Empire is the invasion of Ukraine, which began so long ago now, February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two. It's been going on for years at this point, and it doesn't really show any signs of stopping unless I'm missing something. 00:21:45 Speaker 2: No, not at all. We saw the Ukrainian president putting out public statements about how worried he is that the Iran conflict is going to so overshadow what's occurring in Ukraine, that his country is going to lose all support from the West, which is you know, all of Europe, the United States, that all these folks that have been providing aid to Ukraine. It's that thing we talked about the top of the show, right, So much stuff going on, the public interest kind of just moves away for a while, and now it's well, how do we get aid to another country, right, or how do we protect a different group of people. 00:22:24 Speaker 3: It's a lot of that flooding the zone stuff where we can literally hold so many things in our

minds at one time. And whether it's by design or just the nature of events stacking upon events, I think we all kind of think it might be partially by design, but yeah, it's a lot. 00:22:38 Speaker 4: Yeah, And we know that even leading up to the current conflict in Ukraine, there were known economic strains, sanctions, a lot of corruption and maintenance issues throughout the Russian infrastructure, military and civilian alike. So there was already a great deal of festering skepticism about whether Russia was a real tiger militarily or a paper tiger. But a lot of folks still, despite the skepticism leading up to twenty twenty two, they believe that Russia's foray into Ukraine unilateral and rationalized by several different announcements. They thought this conflict, this invasion, would be swift and decisive, and they said, in less the West intervenes, the Russian army is going to roll through Ukraine like lightning. The locals are outnumbered, outmatched, out gunned. But this was not the case, like Russia's army really fumbled the bag. The military had all these has these serious issues that impede its performance. Supply chains breakdown, inadequate training, bad opsec, outdated equipment. They're running out of munitions. I mean, for Pete's sake, they had to conscript some soldiers from DPRK just to be cannon fodder. Essentially. I don't know. I don't think they were as good as we thought they were. But maybe that's also a conspiracy, because maybe our military industrial complex during the Cold War was embellishing or over selling Soviet capabilities in order to get more funding. 00:24:23 Speaker 3: The evil empire of it all, there's certain optics that goes into having a relatively well matched rival. 00:24:30 Speaker 2: You know, it's so puzzling to me that there could be a conflict like what's happening in Ukraine go on for so long, and that a large country like Russia would just continue that waging war in that way and pumping millions and billions of dollars into it. And we've I feel as though all of us have learned lessons about what occurred during the Cold War where there are all of these different fronts right where there's all kinds of conflict that's occurring that's not actually you know about what's going on in Afghanistan at the time. It's actually these two countries pouring resources in and attempting to be victorious in some kind of weird war of attrition kind of thing. It feels like that is happening now in Ukraine, Like it's got to be happening to some extent in the whole conflict with the Ukraine, and it's also now happening with the United States in Iran where we're just pumping money into it. 00:25:33 Speaker 3: Both of which seemed to have been conflicts that were cast as like it will be in and out type situations. Yeah, I mean, at least from a public relations standpoint, that seems to be what Russia wanted the world to think about what was going to happen in Ukraine, that they were you know, outmatched and outgunned,

and that fully ended up not being the case. 00:25:55 Speaker 2: Well, it appears to be the same thing with the United States right in Iran, so like yeah, yeah, so it's just so puzzling to me if it's not just a play to manufacture more missiles and more a munitions and more weapons. If it's not that, then I don't get it understood. 00:26:14 Speaker 4: I mean, this is definitely not to say that the Russian military isn't dangerous. It is still ranked as the number two military in the world currently by all the boffins and all our fellow war nerds. And the conflict, as we said, it's it's definitely a quagmire. A continued hashtag no family guy, it continues to rage. We've seen a revolution in drone warfare, electronic warfare, energy based war. We've also heard a lot of cryptic announcements coming out of Russia, some by Daddy V himself, alluding to what they call new unprecedented super weapons, things that, according to the pr and thes, if deployed these things, these new toys could fundamentally alter the course of conflict. But what are they exactly? Does Russia really have quote unquote new super weapons. We'll tell you after word from our sponsor. Here's where it gets crazy. Yeah, kind of depending on what we mean by new and what we mean by super. At least we tease this a little bit earlier. There was a twenty eighteen presidential address to the Federal Assembly of Russia, and while speaking there, Putin had what the West calls a fiery rant. You know, he was coming in hot, he was dropping bars. He publicly announced six new weapons systems that were potentially dual use or explicitly designed to deliver nuclear payloads. We can get into those six again, it's twenty eighteen, just so you know, when he was doing this, most of them had not seen actual combat. 00:28:16 Speaker 2: Yeah, but some of them had been in development for a long long time, like the first one we're going to talk about here, the avant Garde, the avant Garde hypersonic glide missile. This is this is a piece of technology that was developed way back in the eighties, or at least the hypers The concept of a hypersonic missile started back in the eighties. And this one has this one's been tested were there have been approximately fourteen flights test flights, let's say, of this avant Garde system between nineteen ninety and twenty eighteen, which there have been likely many more since that time looking at reporting that occurred around the time that these were announced by Daddy've lad there, but it is it is potentially a very scary, extremely fast missile that could potentially get past some of the more conventional defenses that exist throughout the planet. 00:29:17 Speaker 4: Right like he could screw up an iron dome, for instance. It also it's very tricky to catch stuff this fast and this sophisticated in mid air. So shout out to anybody who's ever accidentally rolled a NAT twenty on dexterity reaction and had something thrown at you and you catch it without looking. That's

what missile interceptor systems are designed to do. And all of these things become especially important as the United States withdraws from another what do you call it, no, A gummy mouthed treaty, the Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty. The US ghosted that one and Russia said, cool, I'm down. Let me show you some of my secret knives, which to that earlier point have been in development for a long time. Most of the six publicly announced quote unquote super weapons from twenty eighteen were missiles, and they were building on earlier research, So nothing like Shyamalan plot twisting. 00:30:21 Speaker 3: I gotta say, I really dig the name of this first one, but I keep reading it as the avant garde hypersonic like as some sort of like theater project. No, it is, in fact the avant garde hypersonic glide vehicle. What's that about? That sounds like a batmobile type situation. 00:30:36 Speaker 4: Right, Like as Matt was saying, this has been this one was in development before the nineties, like this is a Cold War boy that they figured out how to how to make work. But I don't believe. I can't remember if that's one of the two that was actively deployed in combat yet. I don't think that's one. 00:30:57 Speaker 3: No. 00:30:59 Speaker 2: According to Missile Threat, which is a website you can visit and check out, they're talking about in December twenty eighteen, how it was test fired and it traveled six thousand kilometers before striking a test target just quickly. As a primer here we kind of know this. I needed to remind myself what it means. The concept of a ballistic missile versus like a surface to air missile or there are all kinds of different ones. Air to surface. A ballistic missile is designed to go on a very steep arc into the air, sometimes reaching almost into space, if not into space, and then come down at a very steep arc to hit a target somewhere. The concept with these like a hypersonic glide missile. That word glide is very important because it can get up to extremely high altitudes, then glide to where it needs to go. Then as it's coming down to its target, it can make maneuvers while it's getting there, theoretically evade being struck by let's say, a missile defense system. 00:32:04 Speaker 3: Okay, because in the illustration for this it looks almost like a stealth bomber. But this is an unmanned thing, Like the vehicle is a little misleading here, vehicle. 00:32:13 Speaker 4: In terms of non human passengers. So vehicle for a payload. 00:32:19 Speaker 3: There you go. 00:32:20 Speaker 4: It could be it could be outfitted with nuclear capability, which a lot of people are worried. 00:32:26 Speaker 3: Understood. 00:32:28 Speaker 4: Oh oh, and while we're talking about nuclear powered stuff, let's go to the second super weapon that Putin was pitching, the nine seven point thirty. Make sure you get this right, buravist Nick nuclear powered cruise missile. 00:32:45 Speaker 2: Yeah. 00:32:46 Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of fun at parties, is our

buddy Vlad? Actually, I bet he's pretty wild at parties. 00:32:52 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, taking that shirt off Steeler, stealing people's watches and rings. 00:32:58 Speaker 4: Angela Merkele you don't like dogs. That's funny because I have several for us right now in the meeting. 00:33:04 Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go of this one. This one theoretically is pretty scary because the I was going to say, I'd say the propaganda around it, the announcements around it, are that it can reach anywhere on Earth. So ballistic missiles or one thing, intercontinental ballistic missiles are the ones that can go thousands of miles or you know, many thousand kilometers something like this. Theoretically, if it existed, you could launch it and then it could go almost, if not all the way around the world. 00:33:43 Speaker 4: Yeah, because a cruise missile is it's staying within Earth's atmosphere. But think of it like a small airplane, right, and all the passengers on that airplane are munitions of some sort, so all the passengers suck. You don't want them to land. But because it is sophisticated enough to fly like small aircraft, it is more difficult to intercept and it can do complex maneuvers. Because okay, so unlike ballistic missiles, a cruise missile, if I remember correctly, will use jet engines for sustained flight at low altitudes, which also makes it tougher for radar to detect them. Pretty nasty stuff. I mean, it's definitely no. Three m twenty two zir Con. What a segue. 00:34:39 Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, let's get to that, but really quickly, just to send people if they want to learn about this and how this specific well keep saying the name one more time than the one we were just talking about. Oh thenk okay, this one has talked about in November twenty twenty five by Al Jazeera. You can look this up revolutionary about Russia's nuclear powered missile experts, and you can just see how people are talking about or thinking about it versus the way Russia would, you know, would present it when it's coming out. But I think there's probably a reality somewhere between those two, you know, visions of reality. There's something in there where it's a crazy dangerous thing if you get it right. It's just testing it enough times successfully that it would be trustworthy in a combat situation. 00:35:33 Speaker 4: Right, and bleeding money the entire time you're doing that, R and D if you what a I think a pretty fair read on this comes from Parth Satam writing for The Aviationist in October twenty twenty five, where he puts in some of the same caveats. Russia claims the Buddhaivist nuclear powered missile flew fourteen thousand clicks in fifteen hours. So Russia is making a lot of big claims. You know, they're that guy at the restaurant saying I do have a secret knife, and other people are saying, yeah, we know about knives. Man, you're not. You're not like King of the Knives. 00:36:15 Speaker 3: But how you heard of knife hands? 00:36:18 Speaker 4: Right? You heard it.

00:36:19 Speaker 3: That's got hand discussion from the time of the knife. 00:36:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, nailed it, nailed it. Uh. The third thing here, the three M twenty two Zircon SS in thirty three. Uh. It is an anti ship hypersonic cruise missile, so working like the Bavistnik. Obviously they're taking some of the same research and applying it to different things. This bad boy is supposed to wallop watercraft. Okay, So they're saying, oh, nice job building your carriers, thank you for spending billions of dollars on that pop pop. 00:37:00 Speaker 2: Again in theory terrifying because those aircraft carriers are they do represent the blue water superiority of the United States, right, yeah. 00:37:11 Speaker 4: And we can't those are not things that we can fart out replacements for on like four thirty Friday evening. 00:37:18 Speaker 3: You know. 00:37:19 Speaker 2: No, we're talking years build. 00:37:22 Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and you have to it takes so long to build these that you also have to have bipartisan support from two political parties that clearly don't like each other. 00:37:37 Speaker 2: Oh hey, but didn't they just didn't the government in this country just pass something at least to help TSA. Yeah, they are trying to. 00:37:48 Speaker 3: Know, well, they didn't pass it, but it's going for a vote. 00:37:52 Speaker 4: It's going for a vote. It's also occurring in step with the plans for the current president to have his signature on all currency going forward. I know, I wish I was like, how could I dollars be more legitimate? I got to stop forging the president's signature on these. 00:38:13 Speaker 3: Every time, and now signed by a king. 00:38:17 Speaker 4: Oh boy, there we have it. You could have that one for free, current president. Uh. The next one is the k H four seven M two. We can run through these quickly. Kinsol. It is a hypersonic air launched ballistic missile. So this comes from planes, right, This is this is pretty cool. This is not surface to air. They're already in the air. Again, if it works. It works. The one, guys, the one I'm most excited about, for very nerdy reasons, is the Poseidon unmanned underwater vehicle. So it's a submarine drone and I have high hopes for that. I shouldn't say it that way, we'll keep it in, but I mean the technology is very interesting for sure. 00:39:06 Speaker 3: It's a great name too, the Poseidon Adventure. The unmanned underwater vehicle. This is something that is like a a submarine drone that is said to be able to like manipulate the weather in a way. I mean it creates tsunamis. That's not really a manipulat in the weather, but it's recreating a feature of weather that's kind of intense. 00:39:29 Speaker 4: Man. Yeah, we I think we talked about this a few years ago and the news first broke. But the the idea here is that this thing can, as you said, Noel, literally create tsunamis. Underwater unmanned vehicles are only going to become more important in the near to mid horizon. I think we all saw the news as well about how China is using subs to create a very comprehensive map of the Arctic. 00:40:00 Speaker 3: Remember those German U boats that were such a huge part of that war effort. I mean, gosh, history repeating like it's a covert. They're small, they're able to really get in there, and now they can make tsunamis. So what's not to love? 00:40:16 Speaker 4: What's not to love? Ten ted No notes, great hustle everybody radioactive tsunamis. Oh yeah, yeah we should mention that part. Yeah, I would join forces with the radioactive wasps. 00:40:29 Speaker 3: We'd have a good. 00:40:30 Speaker 4: Time the radioactive feral hogs. 00:40:34 Speaker 2: You know what I mean, it's just insane. Two hundred kilometers per hour, that's one hundred and twenty miles per hour, zigzagging, avoiding detection, creating radioactive tsunami. 00:40:46 Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing weird. If you want to learn more, go to Army Recognition dot com, where you'll see an announcement from Naval News the headline Russia claims successful launch of Poseidon nuclear submarine drone said to create tsunamis. So that was a banger in the address he gave in twenty eighteen, and he had one more closer. 00:41:11 Speaker 3: But before we get to that, just. 00:41:12 Speaker 2: Pointing out the superiority that is on display here theoretically every time is this concept of a scramjet that you add to your cruise missile that allows that cruise missile to actually move and maneuver. You're adding the gliding capability to your ICBM so that it can make maneuvers and get away from those brand new f thirty fives or whatever you're trying to throw at it. And in this case with Poseidon, it can zigzag around as people are trying to intercept it. That is I think the scary thing because there are a ton of anti ballistic missile anti all types of missile technologies that are out there, and they range from everything to these micro microwave weapons, laser weapons, conventional weapons with other missiles that are designed to go up and catch one as it's coming in. We're seeing those on display a ton right now with what's going on with Iran. It's just if these things are real, they are so representative of superiority over other abilities. 00:42:24 Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, because they're greased pigs. That's the thing, like the old country trope of people getting together and trying to catch a greased pig. Because these things are nimble and agile. If they work the way they're supposed to work, then they are out matching current interception capabilities, and the Russian government was quite explicit about this. They were saying, Uncle Sam can't get us. Like, guys, we know all the tennis rackets you have, right, we know all the what are those things in lacrosse they used to catch the ball shuttlecocks. 00:43:02 Speaker 3: No, that. 00:43:04 Speaker 4: That's the scoop. 00:43:05 Speaker 3: It's called the scoop. 00:43:06 Speaker 4: The scoop. They're like, we thank you.

00:43:08 Speaker 3: I wish maybe that's true descriptive, it's true. 00:43:15 Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, they say, we've we know Uncle Sam, all the scoopy nets you have, and you will not be able to scoopy net these bad balls we're gonna throw at you. And it this leads to stuff like the RS twenty eight. This was Putin's closer, the r S twenty eight Sarmat Liquid fueled in I r V equipped super heavy ICBM. Now one problem with that name. I don't think it's fair to our buddy Sarmat to body shame them super heavy. Come on, come on, that's rude. Maybe there's a translation thing. 00:43:53 Speaker 2: Well, I've seen the new season of South Park and this thing's also known as Satan too, and Satan's a beefy boy. 00:44:03 Speaker 4: He's a chalky boy. He's a choky boy. He makes an impression. 00:44:07 Speaker 3: He's also a kept woman. 00:44:09 Speaker 4: Yes, yeah in South part. 00:44:12 Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know, and you can apply that to Satan a large nose that I don't know. 00:44:19 Speaker 2: I just trying to make a joke just because this is Saing is known in the West as the Satan Too, which is you know, it's a very metal name. 00:44:28 Speaker 3: It's Satan Too. It's it's like the first Baptist church. There can only be one, but yet there are many. 00:44:34 Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the SS eighteen Satan is an ICBM that's been around for a while, and it was aging. So this closer super weapon pitch is really just say we're replacing the earlier thing. 00:44:50 Speaker 2: Can we talk about why this one is so terrifying though? 00:44:52 Speaker 3: Sure? 00:44:53 Speaker 2: This is another one of these intercontinental ballistic missiles, and it is designed to kloy sixteen independently targetable nuclear warheads. So you shoot one off, then sixteen targets in different places can be hit with a nuke. 00:45:12 Speaker 4: Yeah, and those are sixteen is the the upper limit of the distinct warheads it can deploy. It can also just do ten large warheads, but overall it can carry ultimately ten tons of payload. So if they wish ten tons of nuclear weaponry, this is a world ending thing, or a region ending thing at the very least. 00:45:38 Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and what region are we worried about? 00:45:40 Speaker 4: Oh? 00:45:40 Speaker 2: This thing can go eleven thousand miles and can easily reach Europe in the United States? 00:45:46 Speaker 4: Yeah, so what region, folks? Most of them, most of them, most of them North Sentinel Island. Don't poke the bear, all right, that's not going to be your first international friend. But as we said, only two of these six wishless things from twenty eighteen have seen combat. The rest are still under or in some phase of development. This sounds good or terrifying in a pr speech or a propaganda initiative. But here is the billiant ruble question, fellow conspiracy realist. Do these things actually work? And what else are they building in there? We'll be back afterword from our sponsors. We've returned, guys. It's so weird. We

think about asymmetry quite a bit. Right. Ever since the behavior of colonists in the American Revolution, right when they deployed Gettia tactics, we have seen great advantage in flipping the script of conventional warfare. These things aren't really flipping the script. Yeah, they don't appear to have radically altered the calculations involved in war, or they definitely haven't done it to the level that cheaply made drones have. I think we can agree that cyber warfare and drone warfare are two of the biggest game changers in modern conflicts today. Right. 00:47:23 Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, We've been talking about a lot, especially in the Ukraine conflict, and then now way on these relatively cheap drones that are essentially just missiles that you know, can go and explode any anywhere, and it costs like fifty five thousand dollars versus you know, a million dollars to shoot one down if you're using the defense shield systems. But there is stuff that Russia's been developing. Did you see this thing that s seventy ocotnik ok h O t n I k B. It looks like it looks like one of these stealth planes that you know, Lockeyed creator or whoever on this side created, But it's a stealth drone and it's it's huge, sixty five foot wingspan. And there was one that allegedly went into Ukrainian airspace and then you know, crashed and was recovered, but then Russian forces like shot a missile to attack it to make sure the other side didn't get their technology. Uh yeah, yeah, but it looks it looks scary like a stealth drone. Thing that looks like a stealth bomber. 00:48:32 Speaker 4: Yeah. And some of these, not just that one, but like the shah Head and I think the Saga a couple other ones there. We suspect that they were built at least partially inspired by captured US drone technology or UAV technology. It's it's the hot new thing in war and unmanned drone they're much to your point, they're much easier and cheaper to construct, and they also have the added advantage of bleeding out your opponent's resources. Right, so even if they catch one of the drones you have launched, they have lost millions of dollars. You lost fifty five grand. You know, eventually those numbers add up. Got to say, though, part of the reason that these super weapons from twenty eighteen have yet to create super results is due to the fact that Russia has not used these in a wartime nuclear capability. It seems that nuclear warfare is still a rubicon. It's still a red line that no one, not even Russia, has the appetite to cross. 00:49:49 Speaker 3: So far, so far, May the Cold War rage on. 00:49:53 Speaker 4: We're recorded on Friday, March twenty seventh. We don't know how that statement will age. 00:49:58 Speaker 2: Stop, Ben, I'm scared. I just don't like saying things out loud here. 00:50:03 Speaker 3: Sometimes I'm not not scared. But you know, we persevere, keep on, yeah. 00:50:13 Speaker 4: Yeah, stay calm and carry We know that analysts are increasingly afraid that after some unknown threshold of stress, because Russia is not doing well domestically, after some unknown stress threshold, Russia might simply say screw it and let the bombs fly. Their nuclear strategy is an episode all its own. But I think one of the big worries is that these super weapons don't stop with the six toys we name. Twenty eighteen was the better part of ten years ago. And it's not like people in Russia put their pencils down and sat on their laurels. They are still doing stuff. 00:50:56 Speaker 2: Oh what okay, you guys off topic. Recently on Strange News, we talked about an update to the General McCastle and missing Missing General Mcastle and story we target. 00:51:07 Speaker 3: It keeps coming up. 00:51:08 Speaker 2: Yeah, Multie, sorry, I one note recently with that whole thing. But the the thing we talked about is that supposed X account that may have been his and talking about another general that allegedly took his own life, and the allegations there, at least from the X account, were that that person took their life because they didn't want to allow nuclear weapons into private sector hands and that should only be done from you know, Department of Energy to military handoff. I don't think we even talked about much, guys, but thinking about why would maybe a private company want to get their hands on a nuke? Can you can you guys think of a reason? 00:51:51 Speaker 3: Think of a bunch? 00:51:53 Speaker 2: Well, I could think of one. Yeah, if a private company gets a hold of it and then set one off somewhere on the planet that a military officially didn't do, you could maybe blame that on any military you wanted to. I don't know that that that terrifies me because we're talking about this as you know, potential enemies with Russia against other you know, countries of the United States against other countries. What if it's a third party actor that does it on behalf of somebody as a way to begin the varrage. 00:52:30 Speaker 3: Well, sure, like in like inn Watchmen. 00:52:32 Speaker 4: A nuclear power, a nuclear powered Haliburton Tonkin. The false flag is right, the false flag of it all. 00:52:39 Speaker 3: But also, like I mean, isn't the reason we're so against nuclear proliferation is because if you have the nukes, then you're sort of on an equal playing field in terms of that mutually assured destruction. And as we already start to see corporations taking on the role of government, is it that far of a walk for a corporation to say we've got nukes now to y'all. 00:52:57 Speaker 4: Like Grobolgar are on the way. We're getting very shadow run, very cyberpunk, very quickly. 00:53:05 Speaker 3: Oh very fallout none, I said, And the nukes are being sold to the highest bidder. 00:53:10 Speaker 4: I mean, oh yeah, broken arrows, rogue nukes. Right, It's a fear that is as old as as old as back when Oakridge, Tennessee was a secret city. We know that Russia. Look, we're in a glasshouse, all right, folks are wearing a glass daka. All the world

powers are conducting research into secretive technology. The US, China, European countries, they all do similar things to one degree or another, and they're all very careful not to spill the beans on their latest homework. So then our question has to be coom. I don't know how deep we want to get into this. Would Russia have other stuff we don't know about aside from the publicly announced breakthroughs. Does the have more super weapons up at sleeve? 00:54:03 Speaker 2: Okay, so we're talking about a lot of unmanned aircraft, a lot of ballistic missiles that have pretty extensive electronics going on signals that you are coming from either satellites or ground based radar systems. We're talking about advanced toys that use a lot of signals. Another thing that Russia has been working on as well as the United States are electronic warfare systems. We've looked at some of those that use microwaves, some of them that just disrupt all of the electronics or the radar signals, so you can knock let's say a group of drones out of the sky, or potentially a ballistic missile that is being using a targeting system, right, you could disable that with some kind of electronic warfare. And Russia's been doing that stuff for a long time as well as the US and other superpowers. But you can look up something called, I think it's a Krasuka. There's a Krasuka four, which is this really interesting looking wheels based system that you just aim at places and disrupt all the electronics. It sounds very similar to the things Donald Trump described when we went into Venezuela, allegedly not only using this discompopulator thing to disrupt the human beings, but disrupt all of the electronics, including the electrical grid. 00:55:26 Speaker 4: Yeah, and this goes into things like emp or energy interference. Right, Why should we spend billions of dollars making a thing when we can just spend you know, a million or so building something that can. 00:55:43 Speaker 3: Break your toy? 00:55:44 Speaker 4: Right, It's again, it's a symmetry. There's something beautiful to it for students of the greatest art. But this does also inevitably result in the loss of human lives, often innocent people. So the stakes are very high. I mean, don't we don't have to relitigate one of our favorite examples of possible superweapons, the directed energy weapons. We talked about the stunning expos a led by sixty Minutes that makes a pretty persuasive case about Havana syndrome. We should probably we should probably talk a little bit about the cyber warfare, because missiles aside, right, missile killers aside, and nuclear weaponry aside. In the age of ubiquitous information, in the age where people are always online, it is impossible to overstate the massive influence of Russia's info and cyber warfare initiatives. I mean, they've compromised so many things. I don't know if you guys saw the news, but about I want to say, two or three days ago before we recorded, the FBI publicly confirmed that Russian hackers who are totally not state supported, have hijacked Signal and WhatsApp accounts. Do you guys who use Signal or WhatsApp? I like WhatsApp, Yeah, I've got what's app. 00:57:11 Speaker 3: It's great for international travel and communication, and like it does a lot of robust features that regular old texting doesn't do. It sends much higher resolution images, and you can do really cool sorting. Signal Signal I don't know, I don't really mess with I don't really have a use case for that one. 00:57:26 Speaker 4: They're both supposed to be encrypted, though, is the pickle of it? You know, That's why people who might be having an organic protest. Love this kind of stuff where people who are worried about big government cracking down on them. I mean, these guys definitely are state supported in practice, but officially kind of like Chinese hackers, they're working on their own steam, inspired by patriotism. Camera see cut into me here so we can see the eye roll. 00:57:58 Speaker 2: Oh my god, I went all the way back and around to the front again. 00:58:02 Speaker 4: Oh I'm just patriotic. Well that's why I'm the best hacker in this. Oh no, I'm not paid. This is just my hobby. This is my Saturday. What guys, that's wonderful. 00:58:19 Speaker 2: Could we jump to the Moon really fast? 00:58:21 Speaker 3: Sure? I don't know. Do we have the technology? 00:58:23 Speaker 2: Matt, It seems like maybe we don't. 00:58:28 Speaker 3: I think it's the Moon jump. Let's just do it, yeah, figuratively. 00:58:33 Speaker 2: It is kind of weird to see this renewed desire from the US, China, and Russia to get to the Moon, to create a base, to have superiority in space, so that you know, whoever you are, you get to control who gets to come up and do what. 00:58:51 Speaker 4: It'll just be called. 00:58:51 Speaker 3: Moon Base one. 00:58:53 Speaker 4: I hope they come up with a cooler name. I'd like something from Greco Roman or Chinese mythology. But yeah, But the thing is, sometimes these entities will spend a lot of blood, sweat and treasure, not because they would ordinarily want a thing, but because they don't want the other people to have it right very highland or rules. So you might not be excited about your moon base, but then you hear you know, uncle, she is doing it, and you're going, ah, I hate that guy. He was so mean to me at Chili's earlier. I'm going to get a moon base. That's kind of what's happening, because. 00:59:35 Speaker 2: That's there, and that seems way far off, like honestly, not even something to necessarily worry about at this moment. But the thing that does worry me some of the stuff we were looking at several years ago on this show about rogue satellites and stuff like X thirty seven B that can you know, be in orbit for four hundred days and potentially move around and interact with other satellites or stuff that I think I do believe it was stuff that the United States officially observed, gosh before twenty twenty five, where

there were Russian satellites that grouped together they moved and grouped together around other satellites and were able to target other things in orbit, which again is pretty scary, especially given the ambitions that we've been hearing about whether or not it's real or true or how close anybody is. But the concept of putting some type of nuclear weapon, whether it's just on a satellite that's orbiting around, that you could detonate after getting it close to another target and then take out a whole group of satellites that say the US controls, and then you take down all the GPS capabilities. I mean, that stuff's kind of scary because it doesn't just affect militaries. Guys. Imagine a nuclear explosion in orbit right now that's already so congested that we've talked about so many times, and just exploding parts all around, like in a huge swath in orbit. 01:01:08 Speaker 3: Have we modeled out I'm sure someone has what that would look like, like, yeah, okay, I'm curious. It seems like it would have a very deleterious effect on the atmosphere, and you know, yeah, corresponding layers and such. 01:01:23 Speaker 4: Absolutely, that's a great way to put it, because then we're so we study this a lot in academia, and I'm sure the boffins in the US or Western military study this as well. China certainly does. The issue is that that becomes what we call total war. Total war is a situation in which all enemy forces are treated as combatants. All infrastructure, all resource, all resources, all institutions are up for grabs, are all considered viable targets. And when you run the I mean, the UN spent a lot of time trying to get people to not weaponize space. We'll see how that gummy toothed agreement goes. But when you do something like this, you're detonated a bomb in traffic, which means that all the other things, even if they're not directly hit by the explosion, all the other things on those orbital paths, if they cannot modify their trajectory or you know, if they don't have a little thrusters or some kind of mechanism to get themselves away from the car accident, then they're going to get screwed up too. So there will be an add on effect. It's a domino effect in space. 01:02:43 Speaker 2: Very yeah, well, not to mention. In twenty twenty one, China launched a hypersonic missile from space, right from space, and at that time US generals called it very concerning. 01:02:58 Speaker 3: I would agree with that prognosis. 01:03:01 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, we just I don't know, man, the ambitions of these folks which just astonishing. 01:03:11 Speaker 4: Right, Well, while we're talking about space in general, let's return to the digital space, because there is something that we do have to talk about, which is the concept of influencing elections and the concept of influencing officials. Right, you don't need a Manchurian candidate if you can just get some compromitt I would say, that's another Russian super weapon. It's as old as the Soviet Union. But I think AI is going to change it. I think machine learning and big data are going to trigger a renaissance in compromat activities. How would we define compromat. It's a cool word, but we all know what it means. 01:03:54 Speaker 3: Blackmail stuff. 01:03:55 Speaker 4: Yeah, blackmail stuff. We know numerous political things have been targeted by Russian compromat operations, and even more people, including people in the United States, have been accused of playing into Russian hands. I mean, guys, am I am I off base? Am I bubbled in saying that it is now a relatively common belief that the current US president has somehow been compromised by Russia. 01:04:22 Speaker 3: It's definitely a pretty broadly held belief. The question is, you know, what percentage and what affiliation those who believe that are. I certainly do, and evidence seems to point to that day in and day out. But you know, there's a lot of really mentally flexible folks that are making some arguments against it. 01:04:46 Speaker 2: So you know, the question is, how do you prove it? Well, exactly, We've seen allegations against like Tulci, Gabbard and a bunch of other folks who appear to have been taking actions that would benefit Russia. Let's say we have seen the administration doing that, right, But it's like, you know, can we actually prove it? 01:05:06 Speaker 4: No? Yeah, And it doesn't help that so many of the investigations into these allegations get bogged down and buried. It's you know, like the Steel dossier for example. This stuff just creates more questions than answers. But what's the Russia Russia Russia hoax? Right? Well, it's it's the idea that it's the idea of the years before the current administration entered its second term, operators in Russia somehow compromised high level US political figures. But the pickle of it is the badger in the bag is how do we prove that? What's our smoking gun? 01:05:49 Speaker 1: You know? 01:05:50 Speaker 4: And look right now. Even though these compromat cyber war technologies are very good and the patterns and tactics are quite sophisticated, they're probably not going to come for you yet because it's going to take a couple more leaps and big data and machine learning and data brokers to create a system pallunteer esque where they can gather up tons of information about the public and other countries. Once that happens, it's easier than ever before for these operators, these actors to build an influenced profile of you, you know, like an advertising persona what is max freight train? Williams like? How can we push freight train to agree with pro Russian things? How can we nudge them? 01:06:40 Speaker 3: We're talking about palunteer levels of scaling this kind of thing where the typical historical versions of this would be exclusively pointed at high level targets. But if you scaled it and pointed at a lot of low level or mid level or even just everyday average targets. Taken as a whole, it would be just as effective

and powerful and and sing events as messing with the high level ones. 01:07:03 Speaker 4: Just so and well put, now it becomes a question of interest, appetite, and resources. So we don't want to alarm anybody, and thank you for tuning in on Netflix or your podcast platform of choice, but we do want you to be aware. You should be careful when you're poking the bear right because the eye of souron could turn on you now more easily than ever before. 01:07:27 Speaker 2: What are we doing? What's going on? 01:07:29 Speaker 3: That's the question, man, That is the question. 01:07:32 Speaker 4: When my family started a frozen food empire, I said, I'm going to be on TV. So, oh, you scamp guys. I know we're running long, but if it's okay, I think there's something our fellow conspiracy realists need to understand. It doesn't get brought up often when we talk about super weapons on the Russian side, but super weapons include biowarfare, and we're going to bracket Wuhan Right, We're going to bracket plandemic conspiracies just for a second, because we do have to acknowledge that Russia has been getting some bad press recently about two years ago for resurrecting the forty eighth Central Scientific Research Institute, which is, by the way, one of their spoopiest, dupiest biological warfare labs from the days of the Cold War. 01:08:36 Speaker 2: Oh dear, yeah, I wonder if they're going to develop COVID twenty six just like the US. Oh, I mean NISI I mean uh never. 01:08:48 Speaker 4: Sorry, guys, there's a lot of pollen in the air bat populations, population. 01:08:56 Speaker 3: Are you guys? 01:08:56 Speaker 4: Okay? 01:08:57 Speaker 2: What's happening? 01:08:59 Speaker 4: Marcus got what? Markets got wet? So by now, it's no secret that both the USSR and the US went very deep into extremely dangerous bioweapon research. And the thing is, of all the bioweaponry programs that we can prove to have existed, proved not suspect the ones we know definitely happened, there was only one that was able to weaponize a pandemic capable virus. It is the Soviet bioweapons program that was originally established way back in nineteen twenty eight. And I think most of us assume that despite agreements, this bioweapon research never really stopped in the US and Russia. In China, Russia denies these allegations. And here's the thing, and they said, yeah, they were speaking in public statements. After the Washington Post exposed this to the West, the head of the site said, of course we're building new stuff. Of course we're back in production. But guys, what we're doing is defensive research. We're trying to figure out how to protect the Russian military and the Russian public from biological attacks. And indeed, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, one of the reasons they gave for it was they said there was an imminent attack, a bioweapon attack from Ukraine on the way to Russia. 01:10:28 Speaker 2: Doesn't that sound a little familiar to the reasoning behind gain of function research in the United States and the scientific establishment across the world. We need to protect ourselves, so let us make the most virulent version of all of the world's worst viruses possible. 01:10:48 Speaker 4: Yeah, to stop buildings in America from burning, we need to make a secret place where we build better fires. That's the thing, because research how to stop by a warfare, if you're good at researching how to stop it, it gets really close to researching how to cause it, you know what I mean. 01:11:10 Speaker 2: It's because you have to know what you're gonna fight ten years from now. 01:11:14 Speaker 4: Right, build a better fire to protect us from fires? I mean, look, did you have it? Folks? Thank you for tuning in. Does Russia have super weapons? Yes, and we're going to learn more about these projects as time goes on, hopefully in enough time to prevent them from creating a disaster in the field. But we also have to remember, despite all the speculation, despite all the breathless headlines, Russia already has the world's most dangerous known super weapon. They have nukes. They have a lot of them. Do they work? That's an open question, and for now that's the stuff Russia doesn't want you to know. 01:11:54 Speaker 2: Only one really has to work, right. 01:11:56 Speaker 4: That's the thing. It's not the ten that don't, it's the one man. Well, folks, we have big Friday energy. We can't wait to hear your thoughts. Super weapons? Are they real? How do we define them? What kind of stuff do you think these world governments are building in secret? Let us know. You can find us on the lines. You can call us on a phone, You can always send us an email. 01:12:20 Speaker 3: That's right, you can find us at the handle Conspiracy stuff or conspiracy stuff show on your social media platform of choice, depending what else we got. 01:12:28 Speaker 2: We have a phone number. It's one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, tell us who you think the head of the Russian compermount system is. You know, in the US and Israel we had Epstein. Who is the Russian version of that? Hmm? Let us know what you think when you call, and give yourself a cool nickname, and let us know if we can use your name and message on the air. If you want to send us an email, you can do that too. 01:12:51 Speaker 4: We are the entities to read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be well aware, yet to unafraid. Sometimes the void rides back. One of my favorite authors in the entirety of canon is Vladimir Nabokov. So please don't think we're angry at Russia. 01:13:09 Speaker 3: Overall. 01:13:10 Speaker 4: We'll see out here in the dark conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. 01:13:32 Speaker 2: Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.