Welcome to Caribbean Rhythms. I am honored to have special guest, very special guest today. Hardly needs an introduction. I have today as guest Eric Prince, formerly of Blackwater. Welcome to the show, Mr. Prince. Thank you, nice to be here. It's a great honor to have you on. You are legendary soldier and leader of legendary company Blackwater. I want to just start by asking you, I have many in my audience who are either currently active duty military or they are veterans, they are very interested in military history, military life and perhaps in themselves becoming private military contractors in the future, I wanted to ask you, they had great interest, what was perhaps feeling of liberation between being within the never-ending subordination in the military, you were in

very famous Navy Seals and then versus later being the captain of ship at Blackwater. How did it change your conception of martial matters and warfare? I guess two things. One, you know, if you're in business, you're not, you know, you can say you're in charge of your business, but really to be successful in business, you have to serve your customers. So it is still ultimately about service. And I will say it's also very important to pick your customers carefully because the wrong customers can destroy you, as experienced with us working for the State Department. Some people are just not worth helping. But truly the liberational part was the opportunity to really organize things in a much more efficient, friendly employee friendly way I think one of the one of the biggest problems

of the military is it they have no regard for their people's time and they just they waste your time for just a lot of stupid stuff yes and and so we couldn't we didn't want to but we couldn't do that because you know we our people were ultimate volunteers they could walk on this tomorrow if they didn't like what was going on and so whether it was giving them really good pre-deployment preparation and training and equipment and not wasting any time there or money and getting them over to the job site and getting them to work and then when it was done getting them home so that if they ended work on Friday in you know Iraq or Afghanistan or wherever weird place it was yeah we ideally could have them home you know with their family by Saturday or Sunday

latest and that's so different in the military where they'd take another two or three weeks to fly somewhere and to reorganize gear and it was just we it's it's very empowering and and parallel to when I was setting up Blackwater I had just taken over my dad's the original business he started which made diecast machinery which is a an old machine tool kind of business and so taking that through a lean transformation kind of based on the Toyota production system and focusing on better purchasing and production capability and taking waste out of inventory. And it kind of drove my thinking into building Blackwater so we can recruit, vet, equip, train, deploy, and support people to do a difficult job in a difficult place. And so, you know, I tried to make Blackwater into a machine,

which was a flexible machine, but at least when it was running and humming, it was quite efficient. and we wanted to focus on being the low cost provider in whatever we did. That's not to say we charge the lowest price, but we could definitely control our costs and could take anybody to the mat on costs. Yes. A lot of people are saying the militaries of large states are becoming mostly useless or jobs programs. A lot of people go into it just for the benefits or to become cooks or such. And then the actual fighting is done by, as far as I know, a small minority of men like you or even if not the fighting, the essential parts of it in military intelligence is done by very few. Do you think that long term, I've heard many people say that long term, most of these large

states, again, the military will become just perhaps another type of social welfare program And they will outsource all the actual fighting to PMCs like Blackwater and such. Do you think that's plausible or I? Would say that the overhead structure You know so if you think about a military you have either a factor That's producing something or the front and back office the overhead the front and back back office of the military has gotten grotesquely insanely obese and and that desperately needs a severe cutting. The tooth to tail ratio of how the US military operates is about 12 tail to one tooth. And as a private company, we were operating somewhere around eight or 10 teeth per tail. Because we had to really focus on what our costs were, what did it cost for us to, I mean,

if we were getting paid to deploy 100 security guys, We had to do that as effectively as we can. And the problem is the military has no idea. It's the danger of a socialist organization where there's really no cost information actually conveyed. So an officer can't make a decision based on what something really costs to do because they don't have that information. And if you ask a pilot, what does it cost them to fly an airplane? He'll say, well, it takes this much gas. And an aircraft owner would say, well you need this much for engine reserve or this much for maintenance and insurance and you know so it's it's the private sector has to come has to capture its costs and and I would say the other grotesque thing that should be

fixed is to force contractors to bid more firm fixed price kind of contracts so that they have to manage their cost downward versus putting all the risk on the government because cost plus contracts just incentivize vendors to make things cost as much as possible so they can add more feet to it that's wrong and that's a ripoff of a taxpayer yes no this the future of private military contractor and mercenary organizations I hope you don't mind my using that word but it's very interesting to me because I just for example did on this show series on Italian Renaissance and during Italian Renaissance, everyone knows the Condottieri. Yes, they got the Condottieri. Everyone knows it for the geniuses, the artists, but what preceded them, and I think what in large part

made them possible, what made this kind of flowering of very flashy egotism possible during that time was the Condottieri, the mercenary leader, some of whom became state leaders who will be, I think, remembered throughout history. There was Ludovico Sforza, leader of Milan who was friends with Leonardo da Vinci and many other famous artists sought the company of these men not just for their patronage but because they were just incredible geniuses in their own right. I am wondering if perhaps era of such piratical freedom, I hope you don't mind such words, but if such freedom could come to mankind in the near future. So I wanted to ask you what you think global security environment right now, and maybe

in the next 10 years, means for men of, let's say, independents who are looking to act poetically or at least be polite, let's say, use the word you just did, as a condottiere. Well, I'd say the better word would be a privateer. Privateer, yes. Because for your American audience, I think it's important to note that in the first, You know, we have three branches of government, legislative, executive, and judicial. Before it even talks about in our Constitution that Congress shall raise a navy, before that it talks about the ability for Congress to issue a letter of mark and reprisal, which was a hunting license given to a privateer, a privately owned ship, crew, master, captain, to go out and hunt enemy shipping.

So even predating the U.S. military, and the only part of the U.S. military that's called for in the Constitution is the Navy. It says Congress shall raise a Navy. It doesn't say anything about an army or Marine Corps. Sorry Marines. So look, the private sector has been around warfare for as long as people have been throwing sticks at each other. And I'd say as the super state that we've seen in the post World War II era, as those militaries are proven to be clumsy and hyper-expensive and truly unaffordable, then I think you'll see the pendulum swing back towards innovation, privateering, and the kind of small unit capabilities that can become big unit capabilities as more and more units can be organized.

Look, the stuff I laid out to Trump in 2017, trying to get him to change policy in Afghanistan, none of that was theoretical. Because of the experience of contracting for aircraft and for police mentors and doing logistics supply and payroll and all of that, we could have taken on the entire stay-behind force with a fraction of the contractors at a very small, at 5% of the cost of what was costing the U.S. military. And I would argue certainly that our stay behind would have recaptured the rest of the land that was dominated by the Taliban and would have been a more historically relevant, proven approach to doing it, because we would have used much more of an East India Company structure and not a very expensive US military structure yes you bring up

Trump if I may ask why do you think he couldn't think he didn't want to or he couldn't follow up on on yours no you know what he never really controlled his security apparatus yes Pompeo wrong choice at CIA Gina Haspel even worse choice and so they just did what they wanted the Pentagon under Mattis was It's very, very conventional, not out for any kind of reform or paring back or changing or top grading in any way. And the one time I saw Trump while he was president was at a veterans event, November 11, 2019. And he came up to me and he said, Eric, you were right. I should have listened to you on Afghanistan. And you know, for people that were close to Trump, they said that's unbelievable for Trump to actually acknowledge that he was wrong to somebody.

So I guess I was honored to hear that, but I was like, hey, Mr. President, we can still fix this. We can still save this one. But look, the Pentagon and the deep state is very real. The military industrial complex and the amount of lobby leverage they hold over Congress is disgusting and unsustainable, and it must be changed. Yes. I think the model you speak of in Afghanistan is definitely proven could work. It's not just the East India Company. I hope I'm not being discreet, but I know Edward Lutvak, and he told me that Fujimori in Peru, when they were faced with the Maoist rebellion for its shining path, he didn't call in consultants or such. He called in people like Lutvak who brought in contractors, who simply hunted them down

very efficiently and eliminated them, and that was that, you know? That's right. And giving people, giving the campesinos title to their land effectively dried up the problem. Yes. No, this is very interesting. By the way, since I have more questions about military, but since we're talking about Trump now, do you think he has good chances for this election cycle or what's your assessment? Well, I sure hope so. I think even black males, Hispanics, are swinging significantly over to the Trump camp because I think they're just sick of the lawlessness and the chaos and the inflation that's been experienced under the Biden administration. So, look, I think Trump has to win so overwhelmingly that there's no question the Dems will cheat. We just have to put so many people voting

that haven't voted before that have kind of given up on the voting system, but they need to realize that this is the time to get off their ass and to get to vote and to drag their family members, who have also given up hope, to get them out, because it's much better to stop this at a ballot box than some other way. Yes, I hope, I mean, yeah, people are just tired of this senile presidency that's now, you know, just feels decrepit. It would be exciting to have Trump back in any case, but look, I wanted to ask you, since we're talking about PMCs on this segment and mercenaries. During the 20th century, there were some very flashy ones. I am very impressed by people like Bob DeNord, who he took over, I think, the Comoros Islands three times. He tried. Yeah, well, France kicked him out.

And then there are other legendary leaders like that, Mike Hoare, who stopped the Simba Rebellion, I think, in the Congo. What is your opinion of men like this, or especially Neil Ellis, who seems to be a very mild-mannered, you know, I'm not attacking him saying this word, he seems a kind of nerdy guy, but he's an absolute killer, he's single-handed, stopped massive massacres that could have happened in wars in Africa, flying his helicopter, Neil Ellis, he's a legendary man. And Neil Ellis and Juba Javert, another helicopter pilot. I don't know Dennard, but I do know, Aben Barlow, I know LaFrost Lutting, Nick Vanderburg, the guys that really built and ran, and I know Simon Mann, of course, that built and ran Executive Outcomes. I don't know if you know the background of EO,

but that was originally started as a cover company by Aben when he was part of a group called the Civil Coordination Bureau, which was a deep cover hit team run by South African Special Forces. And then in 94, when Mandela took over, the CCB was immediately closed and Barlow was fired. And so he went back to basically this cover company that he'd started, which did special forces training. And their first job was an oil field security job just to pick up some equipment in Angola during the Civil War. And what was supposed to be a 24-hour job turned into a six-day job, and they started with basically polo shirts and handguns, and they ended up fighting with a D-30 howitzer in direct-fire mode. And they kind of built their legend starting there.

And they ended up ending the Angolan Civil War by winning it. And then they really saved Sierra Leone from being run over by the Revolutionary United Front, a kind of a non-Islamic but ISIS-like psychopaths that perfected the trade of long sleeve or short sleeve amputations of limbs. And they would take bets on whether a woman, if a pregnant woman was carrying a male or female by then slitting her open. I mean, just the most diabolical evil you can imagine. And EO got the contract and they arrived within a few days and the locals in Freetown came out to cheer them because someone was finally coming to defend them and they started with only 60 guys and they built to 200 and in a few hundred locals and they picked up what

local equipment was there but they innovated and they just did good basic soldiering and they stopped the hell out of the RUF and I think within six months the fighting was over and three months after that they were ready for an They had a free election and then the idiots of the State Department, many of them are in the same Biden administration now, forced Sierra Leone to cancel executive outcomes contract and they left because all EO wanted to do was leave like a 30-man quick reaction force behind and they left and the RUF took over the country again and the UN came with 11,000 peacekeepers at a cost of a billion dollars a year and the EO contract was like 20 or 25 million so it's it's such a apples and oranges comparison what the

private sector can do not not any private sector but the right kind of fighting men with good leadership and good discipline again one of my favorite books I've talked about it many other places but to dare and to conquer great collection of stories from history about a few picked men and and how they've changed the course of history by winning battles that seemed insurmountable no This sounds very interesting, this book. You bring up that Executive Outcomes was, Sierra Leone was forced to cancel their contract. Why did people in the State Department force that? We don't want any white mercenaries there. That's exactly what they said. Yes, yes, yes. Kind of pre-woke. But of course, wokeness has been around a long time. But Executive Outcomes ended up being disbanded.

Was it disbanded at that point, or why? Why was it? I've heard that it was disbanded because African governments got so spooked at how quickly they ended the civil wars that they lobbied the UN or their friends in the State Department to stop. No, I would say it was mostly Clinton administration, State Department lobbying that ended a lot of their work. I think they had a little bit more work out in Papua New Guinea. But look, the UN peacekeeping is a criminal racket. yes it is it is absolutely ineffective it takes money from the rich donor nations and sprinkles it to third world militaries that are completely unqualified ill-supplied sending unprepared troops that are paid almost nothing and the people that make money are the senior officers and the

politicians for the country is sending those forces india pakistan bangladesh being the the three biggest contributors of troops to the UN peacekeeping forces, and they're just, they're below useless, they're actually malign factors in those countries. They smuggle weapons, they smuggle gold, and they sell their weapons, and there's an enormous amount of child trafficking that goes on as well. So it's wrong, there's a better model to be done. The globalist failed lie of this UN peacekeeping is a joke, but look, those are effectively mercenaries. They're just not very good ones. Yes. So hire good ones. Let competition reign and let the best ones win out. Yes, there's so much- Because, and one more thing, because these long, perpetually unending wars,

the real losers of that are the poor civilians who are just trying to survive in that war zone. The UN peacekeeping is incentivized to prolong the nonsense. Yes. Because it's a money train for them. Yes, and the rumors of child trafficking, I'm glad you brought that up, they're especially bad I've heard in the Congo, where of course few people know about the terrible wars in the Congo for the last 20 years and how many people died, 1 to 2 million people at least. And of course the so-called peacekeepers were totally useless for anything except kiddediddling. And gold smuggling. Ah yes, gold smuggling. What is your opinion of, on the other hand, well, I don't know so much about the Chinese,

but the famous Russian outfit, Wagner of Prigozhin, who was, you know, died under mysterious circumstances recently in Russia. But what do you think about Wagner's activities in Russia, in Africa, I'm sorry. Look, the Russians have woken up to the flexibility that can come from the private sector. They've made a big play into Central African Republic and they did some work in Mozambique and Madagascar and certainly present in Libya now and now Mali and Burkina and maybe Niger. So look, they operate like an even more ruthless East India company because they're not there really for security. They're there to mine and to extract gold or whatever other valuable commodity they can, and they provide enough security to keep that money train flowing. Yes.

I've heard it said that – so even Barlow was away, as far as I know, not in the public eye for a long time, but now he is coming back, and I've heard it said that the reason he is, and maybe even with partial support of people in the American government – I I don't know if that's true, but it's to counter the perceived influence of things like Wagner, which are Russian, in Africa. Do you think this is true? Look, the State Department people hate me, and I don't think they would like even Barlow any more than me, but who knows? Look, there's all kinds of hand wringing and kind of idiot shrugging in the Pentagon and in Washington halls of power about what to do about Wagner. It's very simple, out-compete them. They're not very good, and African countries deserve

and they really want, and in most cases they can even pay for private services to help them get better security to put these fires out so their people can live. And the model of AFRICOM sending units at great expense for two weeks of exercise to give a bunch of gear and then leave again is absolutely patently, provably stupid and ineffective because you don't build any kind of continuity or accountability in a two week exercise. They should put people in those positions that speak the language and put them there for two, three, and four years as a foreign area officer. It's absolutely fitting for a special forces type person and that's how you have long term credibility by building and mentoring those local forces in making them more effective. Yes, this is a long history in Africa.

It's not just executive outcomes. I've mentioned the Simba Rebellion. They were horrible murderers. This is a rebellion in what's now the Congo. They raped, killed nuns, similar types of atrocities against local civilians also. And it was a few mercenaries under Mike Hoare who ended that rebellion. And the problem, though, at the time, also people think this is new, but at the time also just the optics, the so-called optics of white mercenaries ending a terrible African war within days or weeks was, it wasn't seen as nice. And so there was a reaction against that. But I wanted to ask you... Well, here's the thing. Here's the thing. Even when you look at U.S. military recruiting numbers, the big falloff has been in less

white males showing up to join combat arms units yes and that's still statistically who does the majority of the of the fighting i think 80 percent right of the combat fighting and dying yes so it's those are that's just math and um those are the people i guess maybe that maybe they believe in the republican enough the most that they're uh they're willing to uh to toe the line and and take their part. So, yeah, look, there's the effectiveness at peacekeeping of a few capable soldiers with the most basics of equipment that can organize even the rarest bits of technology. Look, I think when you look at Cecil Rhodes and the amount of Africa he dominated and brought piece to yes that was basically three thousand guys and some Maxim machine guns

yes and today's equivalent of a Maxim machine gun would be a simple aircraft that could do surveillance and deliver some kind of payload from the sky and or some kind of a drone your arm drone so their power is is today's very key enabler I'm actually reading an interesting book right now I'm about halfway through it it's called firepower and it's basically a history of black powder and how it changed societies going from fighting with longbows in spins and pikes to wheel locks and then muskets and then cannons cannons I can shoot not just shot but shells and it's literally changed how society is organized and I think we're gonna see that's why I'm reading it because I truly want to understand what is gonna happen with drone warfare in how it

affects the credibility or the capability of state-level militaries. That repeatedly failed to adapt fast enough to the changing nature of technology. Yes, I think in most of the world, the technology you mentioned could be very effective because most of these large third-world militaries are completely incompetent, and in this connection, you caused some controversy recently, it got spread around, the clip of you talking about colonialism. I completely agree with you and I've talked about this actually for a long time, the history of colonialism in the 20th century and how decolonialization was a disaster for the world and especially for Africa and for other parts of the third world and so forth. Would you mind maybe before we end this segment saying a word about that?

Here's the thing, there is more paved roads in Africa in 1965 than there are now, and there are millions of people coming to America illegally, walking up through Latin America, because they're seeking a better way of life, and I don't begrudge them that. I don't want them to cross illegally, but I don't seek anybody, I don't blame anybody for wanting to seek a better way of life, but they're coming here illegally to seek American governance, and there are so many countries, in Africa especially, that are not even real countries, because their governments don't meet any threshold of any UN or internationally accepted standards of governance, whether it's treating water, generating electrical power, sanitation, immunization, none of those things, they're absolutely faux countries,

they might be recognized by some international bureaucrats sitting in the UN in New York, But it's not real. And so they're craving, they're literally dying for better governance. So let's save them the trip and bring them better governance. Again, Hernando de Soto laid out the elements that the third world countries need for better capital formation, whether it's property rights, business license, banking, a simple way to resolve commercial disputes, meaning somewhat of an honest court system. basic elements which do not exist in most countries in the world. And that's why they're so poor and the politics is so rotten and so corrupt as an act of compassion for the poor tens of millions, hundreds of millions of people are stuck there.

For heaven's sakes, explore different options because the current state is not working. Yes. Yes, I think people look at the chaos in Africa or other parts and assume that it's inevitable. But there are small pockets that are relatively okay, like I think Rwanda and Botswana are, but the reason you just said, the rulers in those areas happen to put in good government, but for the rest of the continent, I think it's impossible, unless something like what you say happens, but of course, again, these people are extremely concerned with the optics, Well, here's the thing. The people that would attack most on that are defenders of the status quo because they're probably benefiting or looting from the status quo. So fine. You know what? In that case, follow the money.

Let's have that open and honest debate. And I'm willing to debate anybody on that anytime. Yes. Actually, I have some specific questions about this. Do you mind if we take a quick break? I've been keeping you, Mr. Prince, for 30 minutes. Let's take a quick smoke break and we will be right back for audience. Okay. to the show. I'm here with Eric Prince. We are talking exciting things, the future of warfare. We're talking the very controversial matter of colonialism, although I don't see why it should be so controversial because one way or another it ends up happening. But Eric, I wanted to bring up a matter that's long interested me for a long time. You've mentioned the State Department interfering with executive outcomes and these other numerous nary companies that are kind of

of doing a neo-colonialism, and I use that as a compliment, I have been studying the matter of colonialism and decolonization in the 20th century during the Cold War for a while and it looks to me like the State Department has been doing this because FDR met with Stalin And they both decided that, for whatever reason, European colonialism had to end. And I think this is a meeting that preceded their famous one in Yalta. And ever since then, at very key points, it looks to be like it was some factions in the State Department interfering. So just to give you a few examples, you mentioned the civil war in Angola. Well, Angola used to be part of the Portuguese Empire, but it was Eleanor Roosevelt and a number of American progressives and people in the State Department who started something

like the Committee for the Freedom of Angola, I don't know if that was the name of it, but it was them who kind of goaded on the Marxist rebels in that country, or it wasn't a country And then in Mozambique, Mondláné, the leader of FRELIMO, the rebel organization, the Marxist rebel organization that was fighting the Portuguese, he had been a professor, I think, at Syracuse University and I know that sounds maybe conspiratorial, but I don't think there's really any conspiracy whatsoever. I mean, excuse me, conspiracy theory in the sense that it's not controversial. known that, for example, the American State Department supported the Algerian rebels against France and so forth. And I just want to read something quickly from it's just like just like the Patrice

Lumumba University exactly is run as a KGB education house to take recruited young revolutionary leaders and inculcate them and network them and teach them how to organize political well start with terror cells and then political organization and then become liberation movements. The whole anti-colonial movement that happened in the 50s, 60s, 70s was not a spontaneous outbreak of justice. It was absolutely organized, funded, created by the intelligence services of the Soviet Union. Yes, of course. No, I mean, the Soviet role in it is widely known. They didn't make a secret of it. But there's this narrative that goes now, especially among leftists, but others too, that oh, the United States was actually, the CIA was supporting right-wing dictators, and

they bring up the example of Pinochet, which actually I think is very ambiguous. But as far as I can tell, in many cases, the United States helped the Soviets. You mentioned Lumumba. I mean, the Shombe in the Congo was the pro-European leader, and I believe that together with the the United States pushed him out. I just want to read a very quick paragraph regarding Vietnam. Most of my source for this is a man called Hilaire du Berriere, who has a French name but he was actually born in North Dakota, I think, and he was an American spy for a while in the OSS and then became a kind of French spy and so forth. But he wrote a book, Background to Betrayal, I don't know if you know it, but his point was that Diệm was not this right-wing leader that people think he was. He was a labor leader

and factions in the State Department used him essentially to destroy all the anti-communist factions in Vietnam so that by 1965, which is when he wrote this book, there really was no native opposition left to the communists. It had been destroyed by Diệm, supported by the State Department, I just want to read a very short paragraph. A one-hour carrier-based airstrike could have destroyed Ho Chi Minh's decimated army in March 1954, saved the beleaguered garrison at Dien Bien Phu, and changed the course of history. But there was a virus in the bloodstream of America that desired a Viet Minh triumph. The story of Indochina is the story of the decline of the West. and foreign public, such as America did not have on November 3, 1964, the date of LBJ's

presidential victory, will bring victory at the polls, which alone will eradicate the virus and prevent many more Indochinas to come. All of the force of America's mass left from the White House down was regimented to silence those who would tell America the truth. I don't know, it's a controversial case. What do you make of what I just said, the whole thing? I would say that's entirely plausible, the string of stupidity of US defeats and foreign policy setbacks, we can't be that dumb. There must be some stated purpose in it all. And I just think, as a comparison, the anomaly that was the Reagan doctrine that started in 1981, where instead of 35 years of containment, you had a president that said, enough, we're We're going to fuck the commies.

We're going to go at them economically, politically, culturally, socially. In every way we push back and doing it there with all elements of soft power and intelligence power prevented the requirement of using uniformed, big military forces and it achieved the end of bringing freedom or relative freedom to the Soviet Union. Do you think if Trump wins, he learned from his mistakes last time, he will take more control of matters, he will put you or men like you in charge to do what... I hope that he picks people that love the country and are not doing it to seek power or advance a career. I think the most important foreign policy job in Washington is the CIA director because the unique authorities available, and which the CIA largely has kind of abrogated their

roles and responsibilities, which is why we have so many of these fires still burning out of control, devouring Western interests and devouring nations. It's really sad and really unnecessary. Yes, you mentioned in Africa, follow the money, you said this phrase, this is regarding people who are supporting the status quo, which obviously is terrible for the world and for Africans especially. Follow the NGO money. Follow the EU and US supported very leftist governance and whatever the NGO activities are in those countries. I think they have a very, in most This case is a very malign influence and that's before even the UN organizations get in and have an even more malign and corrupting influence. I wanted to ask you something about the ideological condition of the world now and how you see

the next 10 to 20 years, but before I do, since we're talking about African adventures and such. How do you feel about – I've always been impressed with – I think it was Mark Thatcher. That's Margaret Thatcher's son or grandson. He tried to take over Equatorial Guinea. Now, you don't have to approve or disapprove of that. I'm very impressed by actions like that. They were stopped actually, I think, at the airport. They were bringing weapons to the airport. They made the mistake of flying on the same aircraft through Zimbabwe. I'd say their intercoms were compromised and I think the U.S. government tipped off some people to stop it along the way. That's what my hunch is. Yes. Do you think that, I mean, it would be rather easy for people like that to take over

parts of the world, do you think that such things will increase in the future if, let's say, the power of the United States and France, because France seems very interested in that area, if their power declines or they become unwilling to interfere in such things, do you think such adventures will become possible without judging whether they're good or bad? Yes, I would say they become more likely. The fact that we've had like nine coups in Africa in the last two years is indicative because of a collapse of credibility of French governance. Yes. You know, the Sahel, Libya, Mali, Chad, Niger, Burkina Faso, a lot of those countries have had coups and kicked out a French colonial era type government taken over by a military junta. Why?

Because the French, who are supposed to be providing the security advisory of Big Brother, have failed. Yes. And those militaries are sick of getting their asses kicked, and they make a change. And I think they may be listening to the siren song of Russians and Wagner groups saying, hey, we'll help you and we'll bring you a victory. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. I don't know. But the door to the expulsion of French government was opened by French military failure to finish these fights. And this speaks to a very important point that I think the entire U.S. and Western strategy to counter terrorism, counter guerrilla warfare has been totally misguided the last 20, 30 years. Because of the technology of a drone that can look for one specific asshole, we think

that if we just cut the head off the snake, the rest of the body will wither and go away. And that is just not true. That is demonstrably not true because there's always some other jackass that wants to be the number one in these terror organizations. And when you look at what actually what actually ends wars, it's when the winning side kills off about 30 percent of the other side's male fighting age population, as brutal and ugly as that sounds, that's traditionally what has ended it. And you look at the Peloponnesian War or the Punic War or the American Civil War or World War I, World War II, the winning side killed off 30% of the other guy. And that's finally what made people stop and reconsider. So the resources spent to find one asshole living in one hut in one village and trying

to take a shot that's clear without having any civilian collateral around, you could do you could destroy the manpower, finance and logistics capability of the enemy. I'm thinking of especially Al-Shabaab as a case in point where we've been screwing around there for 15, 20 years and nothing to show for it. Yes. What a joke. Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars a year. Well, some people are making money off that, as you say, right? Yes, sir. Exactly, follow the money. Uganda, okay? President Museveni of Uganda, definitely making money. Ethiopia, definitely making money. Small country right next to Rwanda. Burundi, jeez. Burundi, yeah, I used to have a lithium mine there. Yes, definitely making money. Even the Kenyan military, okay, the generals that are in charge in the south

make money by smuggling charcoal through Kismayo port, country into Kenya. So again, all the money, And that was different about the East India Company or those kinds of activities. They had a specific job. They were there to bring peace to an area. Why? So they could trade and farm or mine. And the West completely missed that in Afghanistan by ignoring, right? Still for 20 freaking years, we were importing all the hydrocarbons we needed from basically from the Mediterranean. You could see all the way to Karachi, trucking it up. The tolls on the trucks carrying the fuel was about a third of the Taliban's operating budget. So literally our fuel needs funded the Taliban. I've heard of it. When in northern Bog province there's oil and gas, proven that the Soviets found, drilled,

properly cemented, concreted the wells when they left. And someone could have re-drilled that and spent another 20 million bucks in some extension drilling and could have produced all the hydrocarbons needed in Afghanistan for all the gas, diesel, Jet A, and at the bottom of the barrel, you use the heavy fuel oil to power generators, which would have given huge amount of electricity to the country. That's how an East India guy would have gone in to build it out. Or one of the largest copper deposits in the world, Mas Aynak Mine, 30 miles south of Kabul, could have put it in operation and employed thousands or tens of thousands of Taliban and sucked a huge amount of their labor force away from fighting. By paying them 20% more to be a miner and give them food three times a day

and let them pray five times a day, and you just took an entire infantry division away from your enemy. That's the difference between how a viceroy or a businessman would think, versus a general who's just about controlling terrain. And a business guy, a viceroy, wants to control the arteries of commerce. What's the condition of investment in Afghanistan now and what do you see next for Afghanistan if there's anything? What's the future of Afghanistan? I see more chaos and suffering unnecessarily in Afghanistan because we just screwed it up so badly. There's probably some little Chinese mining activities, etc., you know, small little entrepreneurial efforts. I don't see any super mega projects going there just because of the amount of chaos yet. Yes.

How many leaders do you admire in the third world or in Africa? I've always been an admirer of Paul Kagame. Is that misplaced? He seems very impressive with his military career. Rwanda is the best governed country in Africa, no question. And what he accomplished in ending the genocide and then restructuring his country absolutely should be applauded. And I like him. I like Bukele very much in El Salvador. what he has done to clamp down the gangs and the violence. I mean, he has literally made El Salvador safer than Prince William County, which is a suburb of Washington, DC, where the FBI Academy and Crime Center is located. Really freaking impressive. And I saw Bukele arrive at the CPAC convention. I was backstage with his motorcade arrived.

And there was like 30 El Salvadoran kitchen workers that came out of nowhere with hand-drawn signs that they were chanting, Bukele, Bukele. They loved that man because he saved their country from being marauded and destroyed by shithead criminal gangsters. And he just said, enough. And so, I like him. I like, I love Miele. The fact that he is cutting big government there down to size with his great phrase, a fuerta, We need that same kind of savagery in cutting our massively over bloated federal government down to size. And it's especially bad for America because we have the world's reserve currency that just kind of allows Washington to spend money on itself. They never have to make a guns or butter decision. They just do more. They just have more deficit spending.

And to think we're here like at $7 trillion at the end of George H.W. Bush, and now we're at $33 trillion? Holy cow, it's just unacceptable. Yes, I think the tax takings are just going on to pay interest on the debt, right? But Millet is very impressive. I hope he makes it. I'm afraid that in Argentina, they will need to go through a lot of pain to restructure the economy because before it's like a small percentage of the population supports the rest, pays the way in life for the rest, and I think to restructure that they'll go through some pain. My fear is that Milay might not outlast that pain, but I think there's a good chance he will. Let's see what happens. Well, listen, anybody that campaigns for the chainsaw, I can relate to.

great. He's great because he's crazy. And Bukele, he showed that these problems people assumed were cultural or unsolvable are quite easily solvable. And I think he's got big plans for El Salvador. He wants it to be a new Singapore, that type of thing. I mean, that would be best case, best path for such a small country, you know. Absolutely. And you know what? A rising tide lifts all boats, and that would actually drag along his neighbors and showing them the difference between good governance and bad governance. Yes. No, this essential question, I want to ask you, Eric, if I may, about your metaphysical beliefs or your spiritual ones. I wrote a book, people know, my audience knows Bronze Age Mindset.

It's a joke title because of the Mindset discourse on Twitter and so on, but I made an attempt there to tell from my own point of view and my own personal anecdotes, what it would look like to, what the meaning of the ancient, let's say, Homeric mindset was the piratical spirit in the age of Homer, and how it would look transposed into today's world. And these are my beliefs. I was as frank about them as I could be, you know, I like Nietzsche, I like Schopenhauer, I like these philosophers and they inform how I look at the world. I wanted to ask you, do you have such metaphysical or spiritual views and how they inform your actions in the world and so forth? Yeah, I would say more based on who my historic heroes are. I love Charles Martel. I love Winston Churchill.

I'm a big fan of Bill Donovan. Look, I sometimes feel like I was born in the wrong era. I wish I could have been a young officer in the OSS in 1942 or, you know, or tromping around Africa with roads or maybe my own exploration and development company in that era. I think that that I think that that kind of era will come back again because the I think the the Right now the American Emperor has no clothes. Yes, and the the and and so you're seeing opponents to America really waking up to that fact and and flexing up and And and and feed it to us one inch at a time with a bayonet and with the fact that you have the hooties Effectively shutting off one of the world's major choke points and taking out 50% of world's container traffic and making it reroute is really bad.

And so you have the US Navy sailing around there impotently and within the last three days there's been two more attacks, successful attacks, on merchant shipping which is effectively going to shut off all merchant shipping going through the Battle of Mandab. So somebody, somebody has got to go fix that. And I will say strongly, the only way that's getting done is a contracted solution. Because Biden in an election year is not going to send the Marine Corps. And the IDF is not sending anybody. And the British military can't do it. They lack the resources anymore. And so I would argue a blended, soft, enabled local indigenous force of the natural enemies of the Hutis that are equipped, armed, and led by a couple hundred soft mentors with

a little bit of air power, and we could definitely put the Hutis on their knees. And there's this historical corollary to that, it's called The War That Never Was, and it's about the pushing the Egyptians out of Yemen when they invaded in the mid 60s yes and the British were pissed because they deposed the monarch and the Saudis were pissed as were the Israelis and so the Israelis armed them the the Saudis paid in gold and it was David Sterling the founder of the SAS put a merry band of men together a merry band of men together and went to work and and they were effective. No, this is amazing. You mentioned the British in that area. I forgot to mention the decolonization in some parts. Some people fought, the Portuguese fought and the French, to some extent, fought to keep their empires.

But the British, in some cases, like Aden, Aden was given away with a budgetary line. They crossed it out. They said, we won't fund it anymore and that was the end of English presence in that area. It seems pathetic to me, but I don't know. What you mentioned about the Houthis, though, is somewhat shameful because the United States, at least when they talk in these high-faluting words about international world order, what they really mean is that they keep the sea safe from precisely this kind of thing. And they're not doing that in this case. And you mentioned the dollar being the reserve currency. Well, the reason other nations are doing that is because the United States Navy and it keeps the world safe. So it keeps the trade routes safe and it's not doing that.

I don't know, do you think this will affect America's financial situation? Will people move away from the dollar as reserve currency because of such things? I think the Chinese and the Russians are certainly organizing. They're buying all the gold that can be bought on the gold market. That's a fact. And the Chinese have been doing it for years. is why would they buy any US treasury debt with any surplus dollars they have? Because the US is just gonna inflate that shit away to no value. So holding hard assets like gold is their only option. And so I eventually I can see them doing some kind of a digital currency that's gold backed. And yes, that would adversely affect the value of the dollar. But I guess there's ying and yang to this because as shocking as it would be to America,

it would force America to go on a diet. And our government will suck less if it's smaller. Yes. And it's, I think it'd be a healthy, painful, but ultimately healthy thing to go through a restructuring of spending priorities and just to throw out the 50 to 60% of just stupid shit that our government does and spends money on, that it should never ever be doing. Eric, before we end this segment, I wanted to ask you what you think the future of warfare is. I've always been, you know, there's this movie now, Dune, Dune II, in that the whole premise of the Dune series is that there's an armor invented that projectile or, you know, guns or lasers or such cannot penetrate. And so it brings back sword warfare, because only swords can penetrate.

So this then brings back a kind of aristocratic government system, because only swordsmen can be warriors again. That's a fantastical thing, maybe a millionaire's in the future. But right now, what do you think the future of government is? Because I think if it moves back to, let's say, where the individual warrior is extremely valuable again as was throughout much of human history that that's what can have the most profound changes and I don't know what you think about this well certainly AI and self-directing munitions will change warfare a lot as as you've seen anything that can be targeted can be immediately I'm sorry anything that could be found can be immediately targeted which is going to really make anything that's large and findable exceedingly vulnerable so it's

going to I think shift back to much more cavalry like formations of small light and mobile versus large and plundering and conventional I think it was that took the book the shield or the sword of Achilles and it talked about the the explosion of technology and how it do how that disseminates real power down to the lowest level of people or cells or fire teams and so that will that will apply on small battlefields or major battlefields to the detriment of the big incumbent militaries that are kind of smug I think you know the the British Navy, ruled the high seas, ruled the world. Yes. From 1815, right, they, after, after Trafalgar, they defeated Napoleon's fleet, and now they're ruling the seas, and then they got fat and lazy,

and probably a little bit woke. And in the Battle of Jutland, against a rising colonial power, Germany, during World War I, they, they got spanked, not annihilated, but they definitely got hurt. And I think the British Empire's decline started that day. Yes. No, this is Eric. I want to talk some more about this. I don't know if you have time. Maybe we come back for a short segment. Is this okay? Yep. That's fine. Take a short break. Very good. I want. Yes, I will have a question about this when we come back. We were going for a small break until back. should be in rhythms with a special very special guest Eric Prince Eric I wanted to ask you what value do you think for example current developments in distributed communication or open source communications like Android Android

radios and so on what does that mean should somebody put in a lobby or legal money such to get encrypted digital radio communications legalized this can have wide effect on many things I don't know well we with a couple of colleagues in our frustration after the 2020 election seeing what big tech was doing to certain conservative voices that they didn't like and throwing people out of app stores and censoring people I said to them we need to make our own phone that is completely independent of the Google and Apple universe that they cannot silence and so we've done that we built a all new device on our hardware our operating system based on an Android kernel yes but it's all our code the big difference is we don't have an advertising ID and that is how big tech

collects and monitors and exports an enormous amount of your data they know where you go, what you buy, who you call and what you browse and they sell that data for advertisers whether you like it or not and you know when you when you buy an Apple or a Google phone and you scroll through and you're acknowledging it when you sign that user agreement they're collecting your stuff we don't collect any of that it is impossible for us to and our operating system unlike the others actively blocks and prevents any apps sitting on your phone from turning on your microphone or your GPS or your camera or recording your keyboard data or any of that we prevent that from happening it's the first phone with an actual firewall settings that you can hard off certain

aspects of the phone to protect your privacy we even have a kill switch which physically separates the battery from the electronics so that off is fully off we have our own App Store obviously and VPN and messenger and an antivirus so our App Store has thousands of apps going on tens of thousands soon everything from banking to navigation to blockchain wallets again our phone is much more secure than a regular phone because we control all the endpoints yes the our CTO is actually the guy that developed Pegasus originally before it became an offensive phone virus because he developed it as a way for a phone company to do remote service. And they send you a text, you click on it, they take over your phone, and then you leave and you're done.

When it became offensive, when NSO got involved, he left and built a very secure phone. He went on to build a phone that controls most of the world's pacemakers. So he really understands offense and defense well. And yeah, so we just delivered 500 of them, we've got 10,000 coming. And now that's our, that's my effort. I am certainly no tech guru or communications expert, but I do appreciate the massive abuse and overreach by the federal government or governments in general and big corporations that generally don't like people like me. And I think it's essential for free people to be able to communicate securely and to be secure in their data storage. And so that's what we provide with an unplugged phone. That's what it's called.

And if people want to check it out, they can look at our website and learn more. But we're the real deal and we are. And this phone is available now for purchase for a general audience, is it available? That is correct. Now, it's available for the US. And I'd say by April, we'll have a global roaming sim that'll work in 150 some countries. So someone that needs to travel and roam internationally, we can take care of it. No, I travel a lot. It's impossible, the hoops you have to jump through just to get, you know, and then of course it's never secure. But you mentioned Bukele on the last segment. He solved a terrible, though maybe one of the worst crime situations in the world. I think El Salvador is one of the worst and then Honduras, the capital of Honduras is

murder capital of the world. The United States is very dangerous. The United States is not anywhere near that bad, but it's getting worse and everyone knows about the DAs that have been put in that just let crime go. Obviously, that's what causes crime, the soft hand that allows them. Do you think that as crime gets worse in the United States, if it does, will private security ever reach parity to match that, to match the police perhaps because the police is unable to do its job or something like that. Yeah, I think, well, sadly the corollary for that is what you see in South Africa, as you've seen what were safe communities in South Africa become exceedingly dangerous, with black on white or black on Indian, black on colored crime, at staggering violent levels.

So there you have private security that's heavily armed, heavily capable, because the government law enforcement is no longer you know not only not doing their job they're not they just completely lack legitimacy yes and so that's it for the Dems that hate private security so much that hate contractors that is their only future if they continue on their misguided path yes no I know people in South Africa who some of them are working with a cape independence movement which sounds unlikely but it's it's not one of these internet things it's actually supported by a super majority of people living in Cape Town they don't want to be part of the dysfunctional government of South Africa anymore and yeah private security is the only way to go there and the

government can't interfere with it because the government is just so incompetent doing anything but yes and the last time out the last time I was in Cape Town, I saw that someone had knocked off the name Blackwater for a Blackwater private security force that was guarding some homes. That's a big compliment, I think that's a big compliment, that's good. Before we end the show, I had some unusual questions to ask you, but before we end the show, you were part of Frontier Services Group, is that what it's called? I just wanted to ask you about your experiences with that, especially in Africa. So, yeah, so Frontier Service Group was a, well it is, I've not been involved for more than three years. That was a Hong Kong listed public company, logistics company that had an air operation

in Malta, an air charter operation. It had an air arm that actually owned and operated airplanes in Kenya that did executive Transport and Medevac, especially for the UN and oddly enough for the US government and owned a big trucking logistics line in South Africa that moved canned goods and commodities into grocery stores really from Cape Town and Durban all the way up through the DRC. And the goal, the stated goal of the major shareholders of the company, of which I was was not one, was to build out security capability to do secure logistics so that big mining, big energy, big infrastructure projects in Africa or wherever in Asia would have a secure component so that their stuff could move, whether you're moving goods in to build the

project or if you built a mine or oil field that you can get the stuff out to market. And it was not a PMC in any stretch of the word. Yes. And the, I'd say the unique, well, the thing about China, the difference with America and China is in America, we have a gun culture, we have a second amendment. We believe, you know, that Samuel Colt, sorry that God created man, but Samuel Colt made them equal and being an unarmed citizenry is a good thing. That is absolutely antithetical to the absolute control of the CCP. They don't want any kind of dispersed power to the people. And so this idea of an armed PMC in China, no frickin' way. Not in this millennium. This is funny, but what you're saying now about this company, granted that you're no

longer involved with it, but you are involved with a lot of real things that affect what I think are the real sinews of the world. People talk a lot about what's your opinion, your position on policy and so on. But really, I love to go to a new country, to go to the port, to see the cargo ships come in. That's a separate world that people don't know about. That's the heartbeat and the vascular system of the country. Yes. I wanted to ask you because I have a lot of young but very promising smart listeners and be a hokey question, but how can, for example, bright young men who have promising futures as leaders in their fields, how can they remain focused on, let's say, long-term goals for gaining concrete influence, such as you have in the real cities of the world, and maybe

ignore short-term political distractions in this kind, you know, talking about the woke agenda or something. I mean, I'm in agreement about the evilness of the woke agenda, but there's this kind of thing where you're only supposed to express your opinions somewhere or raise awareness and actually you are dealing with real things. Would you have any advice to let's say very smart young men who want to be part of that? Look, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable and if you want to be outspoken and you want to be right on an issue, you have to be willing to be on an island and have people ridicule you and be less popular and whatever. So being right is a lonely place to be, but it's mighty satisfying to be right.

They should read serious books, serious history books, because I think the best way to look forward is to look backwards, because there's nothing really new on the planet in terms of governance and totalitarian ideologies and, you know, and especially for people that may be on the right and they think that, well, maybe we fought on the wrong side in World War II. That's wrong. Yes. The Soviet Union was terrible, but the Nazis were terrible, but they were really of the same flavor. Yes. The Nazis were national socialists, for fuck's sake, and they were the antithesis of a libertarian free society and that's a free society with property rights and equal access guaranteed for people at the lowest level, all the way up to the top in America, that's what actually

made America great 140 years ago and it compounded. And really, when we unhinged, when we detached from sound money in the early 70s, that's That's really when I call it the super state and the permanent bureaucracy just started going into overdrive and that has led to the problems that we have today as a society and that needs to be fixed in a big way to get to obtain sound currency again and to decartelize our economy so that we have much more competition everywhere. In the defense space, in banking, in insurance, in pharmaceuticals, in schools, everywhere. We need to break up the cartels. The pay rates of a CEO in 1972 was like 30 to 1. From the junior man to the top guy, 30 to 1. Now it's 360 to 1. CEOs today are not 12 times better.

just become that cartelized and that is not right unfair and that is antithetical to the American way. So yes tell that so they should they should read serious books on military history. Paul Johnson is one of my favorite authors. Yes history of the American people very nice. Yes exactly and the history of Christianity and heroes and intellectuals and the guy was guys a real ace and I would read those I would read anything by Paul Johnson instead of taking and master, instead of taking any history course at college, because you will, unless you go to Hillsdale or someplace like that, that's not completely, you know, insane. They should do something hard every day. They should do something that gets their heart rate up to where they can not only not hardly

breathe, but they can hardly remain standing. They need to dog themselves out for a few minutes every day because it gets your body used to being in that level, and it keeps the muscle tone, and it keeps—well, at least I do. It's worked for me for 54 years, and it makes me a nicer person. Or at least—no, maybe not nicer, a less disagreeable person. Yes. You know, I knew General William Odom. He was a friend of mine, and he was in his 70s, and he did quite strenuous exercise. But I think this is very important. I'm in a country now, I can't say where. I will say where soon when I leave it. But it used to have very strong people and I think good times made them very soft and they've turned, you know, it's people forget this. It's the basics. Yeah.

Well, I coined a term in America that we have, it's called affluenza. There's so much money and so much comfort that it's dangerous. And so I think it's a good idea to make yourself uncomfortable on your own to keep that fight or flight instinct growing in you yes though this very important Eric I don't want to keep you I hear that the dog is sad he wants your attention I don't want to keep you too much what what kind of dog is it my mask what what is it yeah yeah German Shepherds oh very nice very nice look I have one final question for everyone five I'll question what is keeping you from taking over like Madagascar setting up nuclear reactors with uranium from seawater I want to see that maybe not maybe maybe it's okay you don't have to ask but I want to see men

like you rule countries again as as is the natural order as it used to be but but what's stopping you from taking over Madagascar I mean I yeah I want that well I have five sons yes no look I think America is a great country it is The Republic is worth saving. There are men of action and men of adventure around the world. I've had a great pleasure of employing thousands of them and no other thousands of them from around the world. I think a lot of people are just very sick of the sloppy nonsense that is big government insanity and the incompetence that's leaving hundreds of millions of people suffering unnecessarily. yes so I think I think you know pendulums tend to swing one way and then they tend to swing back I think the pendulum is swinging back towards that

kind of era yes of better individual action and resolve to solve some of those problems so be ready yes I I think so I think I think the I think the age of collectivist mediocrity might be ending and the age you talk about That's an excellent term, collectivist mediocrity. Yes, I hope, yes, I hope this, I hope this, I hope that men again will rule countries in the right way. But, Eric, I much appreciate you coming on my show, and I hope you come again, you're welcome anytime. I want all the answers. All right, man, listen, you know how to reach me now? Yes. Keep in touch. By the way, when do you think this will air? Well, I can put it out even tonight or tomorrow. I think this will be very nice. After we end the show, I'll ask you about the musics.

You tell me about the musics you like because I put them in the breaks. Yes, I don't want to keep it. The German shepherds are beautiful beings. Very good. Thank you for coming on and please come back. And yes, welcome to the audience. Until next time, Bap out. Okay, cheers.