1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000 Hi, Nick here from Pods with Nick and James. Just a quick one before we get into this podcast. 2 00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:12,000 I want to say a massive thank you for the support that we've received since starting these podcasts. 3 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:16,000 We thoroughly enjoy it and we look forward to creating more. 4 00:00:16,000 --> 00:00:23,000 If you want to have your say on any topics that we've discussed or suggest future topics, 5 00:00:23,000 --> 00:00:30,000 you can do so at www.reddit.com or at r-nickandjamespods. 6 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,000 And if you want to support us, you can do so from as little as £1 a month. 7 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:40,000 You can do that at www.patreon.com or at podswithnickandjames. 8 00:00:40,000 --> 00:01:04,000 Anyway, back to the podcast. 9 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:10,000 Hi guys and welcome back to Pods with Nick and James. I'm Nick and this is James. 10 00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,000 Hello there. 11 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:19,000 And this week we hope to find the reason why soldiers hate the month of March. 12 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:22,000 How are you doing James? 13 00:01:22,000 --> 00:01:27,000 I'm OK. I'm doing alright. 14 00:01:27,000 --> 00:01:34,000 So this week we have decided on the topic of military. 15 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:39,000 So let's get straight into it. 16 00:01:39,000 --> 00:01:46,000 Obviously military exists as a means to defend and a means to attack. 17 00:01:46,000 --> 00:02:00,000 And military's main use is during war. But can you tell me the eight reasons why war starts? 18 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:13,000 OK. Disagreement over land. So like as in invasion. 19 00:02:13,000 --> 00:02:20,000 Disagreement over a specific resource. 20 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:27,000 I can't remember the exact one but the one used in the crusade. God wills it. 21 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,000 Religion. 22 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Yeah, so religion. So would you say that a civil... are we counting civil wars? 23 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,000 Civil unrest, yeah. That's the reason. 24 00:02:39,000 --> 00:02:43,000 OK. Alright. In which case then any leadership change? 25 00:02:43,000 --> 00:02:50,000 So civil unrest is different to revolution but both are reasons. 26 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:55,000 OK. Well military coup then I guess. 27 00:02:55,000 --> 00:03:00,000 That would be revolution I suppose. That would come under. 28 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:14,000 OK. I guess so. OK we covered disagreement over land, disagreement over resource, religion. 29 00:03:14,000 --> 00:03:17,000 You've got five so far which is pretty good. 30 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:33,000 I mean I'm thinking... I hate to say it but like just race genocide like you had in Serbia and you had in all of the... 31 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:39,000 So nationalism, pride, sense of superiority I suppose. 32 00:03:39,000 --> 00:03:50,000 Yep. Alright and I'm just thinking... I mean do people ever go to war? Is it ever just stated? 33 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,000 Yeah we're doing it for the money. 34 00:03:52,000 --> 00:03:59,000 Well that's economic gain isn't it? But yes, absolutely they do. It's a resource isn't it? 35 00:03:59,000 --> 00:04:14,000 I wasn't sure if they were ever that blasé about it. Like if America had said rather than we're invading Iraq and Afghanistan not for looking for weapons of mass destruction, 36 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:18,000 they're charging us too much for our oil. We want to get it direct from the source. 37 00:04:18,000 --> 00:04:24,000 Yeah well they wouldn't tell us that in the media would they? But that's definitely why. 38 00:04:24,000 --> 00:04:29,000 So there are two more in it. I would be surprised if you got these two. You've done really well. 39 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:41,000 Well I tell you what, I'm going to give up there but could you go through the list because I feel I've divvied and gone about the point and maybe come up with several answers which are in fact the same answer. 40 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:58,000 So we've got economic gain. So that's resources, money, wealth, power. Well maybe not power so much. Territorial gain. Religion. Nationalism. 41 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:12,000 So that encompasses a lot of racism and other forms of difference should we say that aren't necessarily accepted. 42 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:22,000 And we've got revenge which you didn't mention but is a very very good reason especially in the dark ages as to why people went to war. 43 00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:37,000 Well it's weird because some of the crusades you could literally argue, not the whole things, not the whole things but one of the reasons why the crusades happened. 44 00:05:37,000 --> 00:05:52,000 Yes it was religion, yes it was the pope looking at a map realising he was surrounded but part of that was revenge against some of the Saracen raiding that was happening at the time. 45 00:05:52,000 --> 00:06:05,000 But okay you know what it's interesting that that's literally used as a reason. Remember when they invaded a couple of years ago. Well we're going to get them back. 46 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:13,000 Let me be completely clear here, I'm pretty sure I started a few wars in school when somebody stole my biscuits. 47 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:15,000 Yeah but were they good biscuits? 48 00:06:15,000 --> 00:06:17,000 They were, that's why I went to war. 49 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:22,000 Yeah, that's what I figured. Rich tea or hobnob? 50 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:24,000 Oh, Bourbons. 51 00:06:24,000 --> 00:06:26,000 Bourbons all the way. 52 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:27,000 Bourbons absolutely. 53 00:06:27,000 --> 00:06:30,000 Alright sorry I'm back, away from Bourbons, back to war. 54 00:06:30,000 --> 00:06:40,000 So civil unrest, which you mentioned of course, revolution, which are two different things apparently, not that I'm smart enough to know the difference. 55 00:06:40,000 --> 00:06:44,000 Did they split the hairs in the definitions there? 56 00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:52,000 In that respect so I suppose revolution doesn't always start from the inside does it? 57 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:54,000 That's true. 58 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:59,000 And then defence or preemptive wars. 59 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:16,000 You see that's the one that always gets me. I don't think preemptive military action, or I don't believe it, I don't think it's justified. 60 00:07:16,000 --> 00:07:33,000 Because the world is full of so much uncertainty, going, ah well we're going to attack first just to make sure, just doesn't have enough weight with myself. 61 00:07:33,000 --> 00:07:49,000 No and I completely understand that I've always been quite reserved when it comes to expressing my opinion and I think you can't always take first glance as gospel. 62 00:07:49,000 --> 00:08:08,000 What you observe on first glance can often be tainted by your own thoughts and feelings at the time and I think that's where people need to take a second to think, process, before they react. 63 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:09,000 Okay was that all eight? 64 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:19,000 That was all eight, yep. So economic, territorial, religion, nationalism, revenge, civil unrest, revolution and defence. 65 00:08:19,000 --> 00:08:30,000 Interesting. And what did, see what, in the first and second world wars what were those claimed as? 66 00:08:30,000 --> 00:08:56,000 They were claimed, well to be fair they were started over nationalism weren't they? I suppose a little bit of it would be economic gain but I think from our perspective, not necessarily the German perspective, but from our perspective it was definitely more economic and territorial gain than it was nationalism. 67 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:08,000 But from their side, no from our side it was more nationalism but from their side they could say it was economic or territorial gain. 68 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:15,000 I definitely confused the hell out of that one so I didn't know. 69 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:26,000 So, do you know who's got the largest army in the world right now? 70 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:39,000 Okay so I have some facts to do with this, which are just kind of things that I've picked up so it'll be interesting to see which ones are right which ones are not. 71 00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:46,000 Right now, the largest army in the world. Yep. 72 00:09:46,000 --> 00:10:00,000 I'm going to take a guess and it's probably going to be terribly wrong but I'm going to go for it anyway. I'm going to guess that Russia has the largest army. 73 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:03,000 The largest standing army in the world. 74 00:10:03,000 --> 00:10:07,000 No it doesn't. As a matter of fact it doesn't even come in the top three. 75 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:10,000 Oh okay does it come in the top five? 76 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:13,000 I'm not 100% on that but I don't think so. 77 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:22,000 Okay interesting. Okay so my next guess would be the obvious one, America or the United States of America. 78 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:26,000 Top three but not top one. 79 00:10:26,000 --> 00:10:30,000 God damn okay it's not North Korea is it? 80 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:35,000 No I think you're thinking too small, think population or populous. 81 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:40,000 God damn, so obvious now that you said it. China. 82 00:10:40,000 --> 00:10:41,000 Absolutely. 83 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:43,000 The Red Army right? 84 00:10:43,000 --> 00:10:48,000 When you have an abundance of people you might as well stick a fair few of them in your army right? 85 00:10:48,000 --> 00:10:55,000 They have over 2 million conscripted armed force personnel. 86 00:10:55,000 --> 00:11:02,000 With India and the US having 1.4 million each. 87 00:11:02,000 --> 00:11:05,000 That kind of makes sense. 88 00:11:05,000 --> 00:11:12,000 To be fair like that makes, that's actually really... 89 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:16,000 If anything that's actually... 90 00:11:16,000 --> 00:11:20,000 Not nice but it just, it's ordered. 91 00:11:20,000 --> 00:11:22,000 You know? 92 00:11:22,000 --> 00:11:28,000 China has a huge number of people. 93 00:11:28,000 --> 00:11:35,000 It couldn't surprise me that its military matches that. 94 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:47,000 Interestingly most of, a lot of the population of China is in the south and east of the country. 95 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:52,000 With like the north and west kind of being incredibly mountainous. 96 00:11:52,000 --> 00:12:01,000 So it's not a, this is where most of the people live in this big country equally spread out. 97 00:12:01,000 --> 00:12:10,000 It's no, this is where most of the people live on the border of, or along this line. 98 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:12,000 Well that's the same as Russia isn't it? 99 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:19,000 I mean you've got most of Siberia which is barren and freezing cold and it's got about 30 people per mile. 100 00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:28,000 Whereas like the western coast, or I say western coast, the western border of Russia is mainly where most of the population is. 101 00:12:28,000 --> 00:12:34,000 Where it's actually inhabitable, shall we say? 102 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:39,000 No that's a fair point. 103 00:12:39,000 --> 00:12:52,000 So if China has the largest army with India and the US coming in a very close second, do you know what the smallest army in the world is? 104 00:12:52,000 --> 00:12:55,000 Is it the Vatican City? 105 00:12:55,000 --> 00:12:59,000 I'm really surprised you knew that but yes, do you know what they're called? 106 00:12:59,000 --> 00:13:11,000 Yeah okay so alright so first off that was a stab in the dark, okay, but it was a calculated stab in the dark because what's the smallest country in the world? 107 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:13,000 Yeah Vatican City. 108 00:13:13,000 --> 00:13:17,000 It's Vatican City so I just literally went by that. 109 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:25,000 Additionally their army is, isn't it made up mostly of ex-Swiss special forces? 110 00:13:25,000 --> 00:13:43,000 And although they're wearing medieval attire and carrying a halberd, each one of those, sorry to say it gentlemen, ridiculously dressed men at arms is an absolute beefcake and killing machine. 111 00:13:43,000 --> 00:14:01,000 Yep they are the Pontifical Swiss Guard and they are the oldest army in the world as well. They remain, and I'll say this loosely, so there are older armies however their format has changed since they were implemented. 112 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:10,000 Whereas the Pontifical Swiss Guard were implemented in 1506 and remain unchanged. 113 00:14:10,000 --> 00:14:26,000 There is 110 single, and I say single as in not married, Swiss Catholic men who must be over 5'8' tall. So I use the term smallest army very loosely. 114 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:29,000 That's interesting. 115 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:41,000 Okay, there you have it folks, largest army fits with the largest country, smallest army fits with the smallest country. 116 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:53,000 Whilst we're on the topic of linking things up, can you tell me where did the first army appear in records? 117 00:14:53,000 --> 00:15:07,000 Now this is the, oh it wasn't good old King Sargon was it? It was Sargon of Arcadia. Yes, fucking, I mean, yep, cut that out. Yes, knew it. Yep. 118 00:15:07,000 --> 00:15:24,000 I did kind of give a good segway there, if you didn't get that I'd have been upset. And the first military action was in a war between Sumer and Ilam in 2600 BC. Now Sumer and Ilam are basically modern day Iraq and Iran. 119 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:32,000 They weren't fighting over the Tigris and Euphrates were they? More than likely, yeah. That's pretty much what their world was built on back then wasn't it? 120 00:15:32,000 --> 00:15:49,000 Annoyingly alert. Alright, if you're from Iran, Syria and Turkey, I do not mean to undermine you at all, but just like the sheer amount of poverty that is caused by countries upstream damming the river is bad. 121 00:15:49,000 --> 00:16:18,000 The amount of tension there is over the lack of a resource which in England where it always rains, we take for granted, is genuinely, it's completely alien to us so apologies if I seem flippant, but it is genuinely also terrifying that you've got peace treaties and threats of military action over hydroelectric dams being bought, being built. 122 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:27,000 To be fair, I think the main quibble they've got is with where the power that they're generating is going. 123 00:16:27,000 --> 00:16:39,000 Because, I mean, take Dungeness power station for example, where does the power that's generated at Dungeness go? 124 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:45,000 Well I kind of was assuming that it would go up to London. 125 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:49,000 No, it goes to France. 126 00:16:49,000 --> 00:17:01,000 But they own our power, do they own our power stations too? 127 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:10,000 Well I know that the nuclear power from that power station goes to France. I don't know this because I know people that work there. 128 00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:19,000 I really need to... I don't know why, why am I... 129 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:26,000 Wait a minute. That means if they threat, if there's a threat of invasion, we can turn their lights off. 130 00:17:26,000 --> 00:17:29,000 Yeah, yeah. 131 00:17:29,000 --> 00:17:31,000 Alright, I'm okay with it. 132 00:17:31,000 --> 00:17:37,000 This is why, this is why French military victories were few. 133 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:44,000 But this is the thing, I've heard, okay so you've probably got a load of facts there and I'm probably wrong here. 134 00:17:44,000 --> 00:17:53,000 But I'd heard that historically the French are in fact the most successful military country in the world. 135 00:17:53,000 --> 00:18:05,000 Yeah, yeah. So up until about the 1800s they were the absolute powerhouse of military. 136 00:18:05,000 --> 00:18:11,000 Up until about the 1860s or so they were the country that spent the most on their military. 137 00:18:11,000 --> 00:18:18,000 They were the country that had like post-Roman empire as it were. 138 00:18:18,000 --> 00:18:25,000 They did copy the Roman model and I find it interesting, do you mind if I go on a little tangent here? 139 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:26,000 Absolutely, carry on. 140 00:18:26,000 --> 00:18:36,000 Okay, so the Roman model is you take half of your taxes and put it into your military. 141 00:18:36,000 --> 00:18:44,000 It's weirdly enough it's also what the Soviet Union was doing back in the day when that was during the Cold War. 142 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:51,000 It's what some countries, whether more fascist or militaristic, still do it. 143 00:18:51,000 --> 00:19:03,000 You can't ever go above that 50% because it means the rest of your infrastructure ends up getting stretched to the point where it ends up breaking down. 144 00:19:03,000 --> 00:19:07,000 But it's interesting just how many countries go that far. 145 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:13,000 Like doesn't, I may be misquoting here and I'm hoping this will segue quite nicely into your next fact. 146 00:19:13,000 --> 00:19:26,000 When it comes to the taxes going into military, I know the America, sorry our cousins across the pond, 147 00:19:26,000 --> 00:19:35,000 they've got like, isn't it 20, 25, 20% of their taxpayer money goes solely into their military. 148 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:42,000 I only know based on gross domestic product and it's about 4% of their gross domestic product. 149 00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:53,000 In which case then, I am completely wrong and yeah, but I do know that the Roman Empire at least did put half of its money back into its military. 150 00:19:53,000 --> 00:19:57,000 Well I can do budgets, we can actually segue into that. 151 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:16,000 So let's go, basically in, like the UK back in 1983 spent $26.4 billion because of the stats that I was going by because I was actually nosing about the Americans when I compared it to the UK. 152 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:37,000 So back in 1983, the UK spent $26.4 billion on defence and in which by 2021, can you guess how much it had risen by in nearly 40 years? 153 00:20:37,000 --> 00:20:50,000 Okay, so first off, oh shit, it's going up. I shouldn't be surprised. I am. 154 00:20:50,000 --> 00:21:02,000 I don't know, for some reason I'm perhaps a bit naive here, but I thought military generally had shrunk in this country as we are no longer the world power that we once were. 155 00:21:02,000 --> 00:21:10,000 I will actually answer your question, but first, whereabouts is England when it comes to standing army? Are we even in the top 20? 156 00:21:10,000 --> 00:21:13,000 We are, yeah, as it goes for... 157 00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:14,000 17. 158 00:21:14,000 --> 00:21:16,000 No, we're about fifth. 159 00:21:16,000 --> 00:21:18,000 Get out of town. 160 00:21:18,000 --> 00:21:32,000 Yeah, for yearly spend on military, but I will say this, there is a clear leader by a marked margin. 161 00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:35,000 Oh, I was thinking numbers wise for... 162 00:21:35,000 --> 00:21:36,000 Yeah, no, I mean... 163 00:21:36,000 --> 00:21:37,000 ...ast army forces. 164 00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:41,000 I mean, this is budget. This is purely budget. 165 00:21:41,000 --> 00:21:43,000 Right, right, right. 166 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:52,000 We may well be in the top five, but we are dwarfed by the leader of their budget. 167 00:21:52,000 --> 00:21:55,000 Okay, well, alright. 168 00:21:55,000 --> 00:22:00,000 So yeah, how much has it grown by in 40 years? 169 00:22:00,000 --> 00:22:11,000 I hate where my mind's going because it's gone. Oh, my positive view on this is wrong. It clearly must be horribly, horribly dark. Has it doubled? 170 00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:23,000 It's more than doubled. So it's currently at 68 million pounds per year that we spend on military and defence. 171 00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:27,000 That's a good number of Harrier jets. 172 00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:40,000 So comparatively, in 1983, how much do you think the US spent on their military? 173 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:44,000 Can you give me the figure for England again? My mind has gone to poop. 174 00:22:44,000 --> 00:22:54,000 In 1983, we spent 26.4 billion and in 2020, well, 2021, we spent 68 billion. 175 00:22:54,000 --> 00:23:04,000 I'm going to guess that America in 1983... 176 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:05,000 70. 177 00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:06,000 70? 178 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:07,000 Yeah. 179 00:23:07,000 --> 00:23:11,000 You'd be closer if you said 10 times the amount that we spent in 1983. 180 00:23:11,000 --> 00:23:13,000 Get out of town. 181 00:23:13,000 --> 00:23:19,000 They spent $223 billion in 1983 on their military. 182 00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:25,000 In 1983, was Vietnam still happening? Because this is the weird thing about Vietnam. 183 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:27,000 Wasn't that the 70s? 184 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:31,000 It stretched over 20 years. 185 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:48,000 That's why they ended up spending so much on their military. This is something that we'll go into, but obviously this is all part of the privatisation of defence and how it becomes a machine. 186 00:23:48,000 --> 00:24:13,000 So $223 billion in 1983, how much do you think they spend now? 187 00:24:13,000 --> 00:24:15,000 $500 billion? 188 00:24:15,000 --> 00:24:22,000 I'm going to do a Dr Evil here. $800 billion. 189 00:24:22,000 --> 00:24:23,000 $800 billion. 190 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:29,000 $800 billion in 2021. That is a ridiculous amount. 191 00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:30,000 And like I said, 192 00:24:30,000 --> 00:24:45,000 You could literally build a country with that kind of money. Like in here's me going with Scotland or spending $400 million in order to have their own parliament building. 193 00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:48,000 I mean that's quite an expenditure for one building. 194 00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:57,000 That's what I thought. I would have thought they would have gone like Sandstone or something. They haven't. It's modern, you know, like they're going with a changing time and stuff. 195 00:24:57,000 --> 00:25:03,000 But considering the building itself, somebody's pocketed a load there. 196 00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:05,000 But anyway. 197 00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:17,000 Yeah, $800 billion in 2021. Bear in mind that Russia's current military budget is $65 billion. 198 00:25:17,000 --> 00:25:27,000 I mean, should we just all be happy that America hasn't crushed us all at this point? 199 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:47,000 Or do you think that we should be looking more at, because you know, like it's clearly then in their ability to kill us. So is it that the stuff that we're doing like, what's the right way of putting it? 200 00:25:47,000 --> 00:25:54,000 Is it that the stuff that we are doing already benefits them? 201 00:25:54,000 --> 00:26:01,000 And it's not worth the additional expense of going to war with that kind of defense budget? 202 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:10,000 I mean, I think the UK are definitely very smart. We're definitely wiser than the US. 203 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:26,000 And for that reason, I think we're still allies with them because I'm sure as hell if I was in a playground and there was a kid that was four times my size, I would go and be his friend because I didn't want to be his enemy. 204 00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:52,000 So it's kind of weird that you can make that comparison with England being wiser to us being a little bit of a suck up like America's the playground bully and then we're the wheezy mean kid who then like 205 00:26:52,000 --> 00:27:02,000 America's like, what are you? Give us your sweets. And then we're the little kid who goes who bends around the corner and just kind of goes, yeah, you tell them boss. 206 00:27:02,000 --> 00:27:06,000 Yeah, you tell them. 207 00:27:06,000 --> 00:27:34,000 No, I mean, are we not smart for doing so? I'm not being funny, but we've been the powerhouse. It didn't do us any good. So maybe in our wise old age as a nation, we're kind of going, no, it's all right. You can take the limelight and get all the grief and be the enemy of the world and we'll just be here. 208 00:27:34,000 --> 00:27:55,000 Yep. So I want to do a little bit of story time, James. Oh, I hate to admit how much I love a story, but I do. So the obviously we've quite centered around the negative traits of military and don't get me wrong. 209 00:27:55,000 --> 00:28:08,000 I'm not a glorifier of war at all. I don't think there's any need for a military in the modern day. I think diplomacy can override most need for military. 210 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:37,000 However, in those moments where the necessity has arisen, normally because the guy next door has started a row and like you need to defend yourself. Some people have had moments of sheer genius that typically explains why they were in the position that they were at that time in order to make that decision. 211 00:28:37,000 --> 00:28:49,000 Because I know if I was in that position, I'd probably just be screaming, running around, waving my hands above my head, waiting for a bomb to land. But that's me. And this is obviously them. 212 00:28:49,000 --> 00:29:08,000 So in in World War Two, this is probably something that you have heard a lot about in World War Two. The Nazi created a machine which was used to encipher their communications. Do you know what that machine was called? 213 00:29:08,000 --> 00:29:26,000 Enigma. Yep. Yep. It was the Enigma machine, which was ridiculously complex and it basically worked on. There was a keyboard that you would type and but you'd encode it with the the days encoding. 214 00:29:26,000 --> 00:29:38,000 OK. And as you type, it would then spit out these lit up letters in the top, which would then there would be a second person writing down what those letters were. And that's the message that you transmitted. 215 00:29:38,000 --> 00:29:47,000 So you didn't actually transmit your message directly. You typed it into this machine and then it lit up the coded message that you needed to send. 216 00:29:47,000 --> 00:29:59,000 And the thing that made this machine so, for lack of a better term, unbreakable was the fact that every day the Germans would change their code. 217 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:07,000 Which means you could spend all the time you needed to in that day, maybe have a breakthrough and decipher their code. 218 00:30:07,000 --> 00:30:12,000 The next day it's meaningless. The next day it's absolutely meaningless. Absolutely. 219 00:30:12,000 --> 00:30:26,000 So. And that like a lot of the reason why the Nazis were so effective during Second World War was because of this encoded messaging that they had. 220 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:33,000 So much of what they did was secret and nobody, nobody expected it. Nobody knew what their next move was. 221 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:49,000 And that they literally crippled a lot of Europe before we had a chance to do anything. However, the UK or England rather started a task force, 222 00:30:49,000 --> 00:31:04,000 which was specifically tasked with cracking the Enigma code. And one man designed the world's first computer in order to crack the Enigma code. 223 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:08,000 Do you know what his name was? 224 00:31:08,000 --> 00:31:26,000 I know, I know, I know that the Enigma code was one of the first computers or the machine that cracked it. I know that he's played by the Benedict Cumberbatch in a film about this. 225 00:31:26,000 --> 00:31:29,000 Unfortunately, I haven't watched that film. 226 00:31:29,000 --> 00:31:33,000 So you can actually design these machines. You can build these machines. 227 00:31:33,000 --> 00:31:39,000 And they are named after him. They're called Turing machines and his name is Alan Turing. 228 00:31:39,000 --> 00:31:48,000 So, yeah, as I said, Alan Turing created an immense machine purely designed just to break the Enigma code. 229 00:31:48,000 --> 00:32:00,000 Unfortunately, when they first broke the Enigma code, their knee-jerk reaction was to use the information and save the people that they could hear were going to be attacked. 230 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:09,000 However, if they had have acted on that information, they would have plainly given away the fact that they had cracked the Enigma code. 231 00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:17,000 So they were left in a position where they could do very little, but they knew everything that was going to happen. 232 00:32:17,000 --> 00:32:34,000 But what it did do was it paved the way for plans to be made, which could be used to bring down the German war machine, which I thought was absolutely incredible. 233 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:47,000 Another thing that happened during World War II, which I was absolutely flabbergasted when I heard about this, you know much about the Battle of Normandy? 234 00:32:47,000 --> 00:33:05,000 I... Yes. Okay, was the battle... Okay, so Dunkirk is when we ran away. Normandy is when we landed. 235 00:33:05,000 --> 00:33:22,000 Yeah, weirdly enough, my grandfather on... well, actually, technically, I suppose he's my great uncle. My great uncle adopted my mom because to work with those, you know, I won't go massively into it. 236 00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:39,000 My family history is messed up. But anyway, he actually was one of the pilots of the landing boats for Normandy. 237 00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:58,000 So I know that a huge number of people got... yeah, a huge number of people were dropped off, a huge number of people died, and I know Omaha Beach was the shitstorm center of it or the place where things were worse because the air support didn't arrive. 238 00:33:58,000 --> 00:34:06,000 The concentration of German troops in that building was higher and just there was a lot more going on. 239 00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:17,000 Yeah, so Normandy was an absolute masterstroke as far as the Allied forces go. 240 00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:31,000 And the reason why isn't... I mean, obviously, it was wartime, there were casualties, but the whole ingenuity of that plan was something else. 241 00:34:31,000 --> 00:34:47,000 And so Winston Churchill and his Allied commanders came up with a fantastic plan where they would deceive Adolf Hitler into believing that they were going to land at Calais. 242 00:34:47,000 --> 00:35:06,000 And what they did in order to trick Adolf Hitler was they lined the coast around Dover with wooden structures covered in canvas that looked like tanks and planes and tents. 243 00:35:06,000 --> 00:35:18,000 And they absolutely littered the landscape around Dover because obviously Dover is where you would take off from if you were going to go directly to Calais. That's where you would embark from. 244 00:35:18,000 --> 00:35:36,000 And when they left the army, the actual army, down in Portsmouth, well out of the way, their spy planes that flew nearby enough to see what was going on saw this formidable force building up at Dover. 245 00:35:36,000 --> 00:36:00,000 And he was absolutely convinced that they were going to land at Calais, to the point where when they landed in Normandy, he was determined to believe that it was a distraction, a diversion, and that the idea was that the force would land at Normandy only to draw his forces away from Calais and allow the forces in to Calais. 246 00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:02,000 So he didn't even send... 247 00:36:02,000 --> 00:36:11,000 So he didn't send reinforcements until Normandy beach was taken. 248 00:36:11,000 --> 00:36:12,000 That's a mistake. 249 00:36:12,000 --> 00:36:31,000 It's absolute genius from the part of the allied forces that they came up with a plan that was so believable that the mastermind that was Adolf Hitler fell for it hook, line and sinker to the point where he lost key standing in France. 250 00:36:31,000 --> 00:36:45,000 And that was the beginning of the downfall as well because obviously once they had the, the information coming from the enigma code, and they had a foothold in France, they just pushed them back. 251 00:36:45,000 --> 00:36:54,000 And from there it took about two years, I think, before German forces were forced back to their own lines. 252 00:36:54,000 --> 00:37:08,000 Hmm. That's interesting. I'd also heard that because of, although I haven't, you know, I really should look this up, but because I've also heard that because of the... 253 00:37:08,000 --> 00:37:20,000 Because of the help of a certain bank, or without the help of a certain bank, I hear the war would have been over a lot earlier. 254 00:37:20,000 --> 00:37:41,000 But that's, that's interesting. Like also, I know that both sides did this because there's also a famous joke of there were a load of fake planes that the Germans had made in a field in Germany. 255 00:37:41,000 --> 00:38:02,000 And what the Allies did is like one of the jokes of the war was they sent a plane, which then dropped a wooden bomb onto this fake airstrip that the Germans had made just as a way of kind of saying, you know, we know, with the jigs up, we know. 256 00:38:02,000 --> 00:38:08,000 Yeah, yeah. 257 00:38:08,000 --> 00:38:15,000 Well that's brilliant and that's good to hear that that's how we were able to... 258 00:38:15,000 --> 00:38:22,000 Yeah, how we're, well, one of the ways in which we were able to overcome things. 259 00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:25,000 There is one more story that I want to go over. 260 00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:26,000 Okay, yep. 261 00:38:26,000 --> 00:38:33,000 This story is, have you seen the film, The 300? 262 00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:39,000 You see, I've seen it. I've also done a little bit of research. 263 00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:40,000 Okay. 264 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:42,000 The things behind it so. 265 00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:46,000 So you know, you know where it stems from, where the base story comes from. 266 00:38:46,000 --> 00:39:07,000 Well, yes, it's so the film 300 is based off of a comic book, which in turn is based off of either some Greek or Macedonian propaganda, which in turn is based off of a genuine historical event. 267 00:39:07,000 --> 00:39:09,000 So there's a lot of wisdom. 268 00:39:09,000 --> 00:39:18,000 Yeah, yeah, yeah, so the numbers have been exacerbated and drama fired and glorified in all their means. 269 00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:30,000 But the the long and short of it was that there was a battle called the Battle of Thermopylae, which was essentially what had happened was the there was a second Persian invasion. 270 00:39:30,000 --> 00:39:50,000 Basically the first Persian invasion happened. Persians invaded Greece. A number of the city states of Greece fell. However, after a while, the Persians were pushed back and Darius, the king of Persia at that time, retreated back to his own country, planned to re-invade Greece. 271 00:39:50,000 --> 00:39:53,000 However, he died before he had the chance. 272 00:39:53,000 --> 00:40:07,000 His son, King Xerxes, then took over and amassed what can only be described as the most formidable ancient force to ever grace the planet by that point in time. 273 00:40:07,000 --> 00:40:26,000 Now, stories have been, like I said, numbers have been exacerbated and you might hear the number that two million forces crossed the river and crossed the cross the gap and invaded Greece. However, the number two million is far, far more than what actually happened. 274 00:40:26,000 --> 00:40:41,000 It's actually nearer about three hundred two hundred and fifty thousand to three hundred thousand forces, but that even in itself is still a formidable force of its time. And like I said, it was probably one of the biggest forces to ever walk the planet at that time. 275 00:40:41,000 --> 00:41:03,000 And Athens and Sparta were two city states that kind of unified, two Greek city states which kind of unified and decided that they would not bow down to the Persian orders of surrender and would fight. 276 00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:20,000 And they, I'm going to use the term amassed very loosely, an army of seven thousand Spartans, seven thousand Greeks rather, of which there was about three thousand Spartans, about four thousand Athenians. 277 00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:25,000 Amongst them were their slaves. 278 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:41,000 And they decided they would defend the Straits of, I've got to remind myself of the name, Artemisium, and they would defend the pass of Thermopylae. 279 00:41:41,000 --> 00:42:03,000 Now the pass of Thermopylae was probably the master stroke in this plan because it was like a choke point. There was very little the Greek, the Persians could do other than pass through like a fifty foot wide gap, which minimized the amount of forces that they could get to the Greeks at any one time. 280 00:42:03,000 --> 00:42:18,000 During which time that this war was going on. There was also the war on the Straits of Artemisium where twelve hundred soldiers in Persian boats came across the sea from Persia. 281 00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:36,000 Bear in mind there was about three hundred, three hundred of the Greek ships on the water and against the twelve hundred Persian ships they were massively outnumbered, massively outpowered. 282 00:42:36,000 --> 00:42:48,000 However, the Persians came over during a very turbulent time on the sea and they lost about a third of their forces as they traveled to the Straits of Artemisium. 283 00:42:48,000 --> 00:43:07,000 And not only did they lose about a third of their forces, they also became scattered, which allowed for the more organized and local Greek forces to kind of pick off as much as they could of these forces. 284 00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:23,000 So during that time, obviously the battle of the Pass of Thermopylae is going on and like I said there was a force of around two hundred, two hundred and fifty thousand soldiers coming towards the Greeks. 285 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:45,000 And there was two solid days of constant fighting where in historic accounts even the page boys of the Knights or the soldiers shall we say, the Spartan soldiers and the Greek soldiers, 286 00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:58,000 would take their turn in battling against these Persians that were coming through the wall. The main thing that gave the Greeks the upper hand was the fact that they were all wearing bronze plate armor, 287 00:43:58,000 --> 00:44:12,000 whereas the Persians were wearing more leather. The Persians had their short spears and their swords, whereas the Greeks had their long spears and that gave them the upper hand as they were coming up through the pass. 288 00:44:12,000 --> 00:44:32,000 Anyway, they battled on for two days and after the second day, hypothesis says that there was a villager nearby that lived locally that betrayed the Greeks and told the Greeks of a pass that allowed them to flank the Greeks. 289 00:44:32,000 --> 00:44:48,000 However, it's more likely that their scouts found a way up and around, which as soon as Leonidas, which was actually the king of the Spartans at the time, as soon as Leonidas realized that he was flanked, 290 00:44:48,000 --> 00:45:07,000 he sounded the retreat and the majority of his Greek forces retreated back to, I believe Athens, which was where they were based at the time, and they left behind a rearguard of which Leonidas stayed, 291 00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:21,000 and there was about 300 Spartans, about 400 Athenians, so about 10% of them, total four, stayed behind to protect their retreat and they all died in doing so. 292 00:45:21,000 --> 00:45:34,000 At the same time, on the streets of Artemision, as soon as they realized that the, or they heard that the battle at the pass of Thermopylae was lost, they retreated and came back inland. 293 00:45:34,000 --> 00:45:56,000 Obviously, an act of sheer heroism from Leonidas, although I'm not really sure at the time he thought it was courage that did it, I think it was more necessity that forced his hand into defending his army's retreat. 294 00:45:56,000 --> 00:46:17,000 Neither Athens or Sparta actually fell due to that. Xerxes ended up, his forces ended up too thin and he needed to retreat back to his country, but he did leave a contingent to finish the fight in Greece. 295 00:46:17,000 --> 00:46:28,000 However, he was unable to do so, so that was how the second Persian invasion ended. 296 00:46:28,000 --> 00:46:48,000 Like I said, an act of absolute heroism from very small numbers, it is a very David vs Goliath story, which is why it's been, I think, glorified in the comic, in novels, in films. 297 00:46:48,000 --> 00:47:17,000 The idea that such a small number can take on such a massive force is almost unbelievable, but like I said, the reason I find it so incredible is that one person or a number of people had the ingenuity to use the terrain to their advantage, and what an advantage it gave them. 298 00:47:17,000 --> 00:47:20,000 Absolutely incredible. 299 00:47:20,000 --> 00:47:28,000 I mean it also really kind of highlights the importance of technology and, or at least of equipment. 300 00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:39,000 Yeah, the right equipment of the day, because obviously as I said, the Greeks were wearing brass plate armour, you know, whereas the Persians were wearing leather. 301 00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:47,000 Like the Greeks didn't have to travel so fast, so they kitted themselves out with their heaviest, thickest armour and their long spears. 302 00:47:47,000 --> 00:47:56,000 The Persians, who unfortunately had to travel from across the sea and then all the way through Greece, travelled lighter. 303 00:47:56,000 --> 00:48:07,000 But that in turn was the downfall of that attack, you know. 304 00:48:07,000 --> 00:48:11,000 Yeah, it was pretty, I love that story anyway. 305 00:48:11,000 --> 00:48:25,000 It's a good story and it does highlight a lot of things there about using your environment to its advantage. 306 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:43,000 Yeah, which obviously if you're playing stuff like Brisk or Warhammer, that's where it comes into play for me, and chess, you know, a strategist, definitely more of a strategist in those scenarios, but I certainly don't think I could do it in a life and death scenario. 307 00:48:43,000 --> 00:48:55,000 Jeez, I was pretty sure you were just... It's hard to send wave after wave of your own men at the enemy when it's genuine people. 308 00:48:55,000 --> 00:49:00,000 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. 309 00:49:00,000 --> 00:49:16,000 So I'm going to move on now to the bloodiest wars. So I'm going to just go with the top three, okay, and I'm not going to do this whole, like, can you guess, etc. 310 00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:19,000 But we will have a little talk about each one of them in their own rights. 311 00:49:19,000 --> 00:49:31,000 So the third bloodiest war of all time lasted for over 60 years from the year 1618 to the year 1683. 312 00:49:31,000 --> 00:49:33,000 It was called the Hundred Year War. 313 00:49:33,000 --> 00:49:48,000 No, it wasn't. It was the King dynasty conquest of the Ming dynasty in China, and it resulted in the death of 25 million people over those 60 years. 314 00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:56,000 That's terrifying because back then that would have been a sizeable chunk of the world's population. 315 00:49:56,000 --> 00:50:06,000 Absolutely, absolutely. But it also does make me think, has China always been so overpopulated? 316 00:50:06,000 --> 00:50:08,000 Hmm. 317 00:50:08,000 --> 00:50:18,000 Like, that's a lot of people. That is a lot of people to just... they gone. 318 00:50:18,000 --> 00:50:29,000 I know it wasn't necessarily a click of a finger, it was 60 years, but that's two generations as well of time that that war spanned for. 319 00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:35,000 What was the end result? Like, other than the death count, what was that war over? 320 00:50:35,000 --> 00:50:48,000 I'm pretty sure the King dynasty ended up winning, because the King dynasty wasn't one of those that is still going today, or it was still going until the early 1900s. 321 00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:54,000 Hmm. 322 00:50:54,000 --> 00:51:06,000 So the second bloodiest war was the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was waged between 1937 and 1944 between the Chinese and the Japanese. 323 00:51:06,000 --> 00:51:12,000 And it killed over 25 million civilians and 4 million military personnel. 324 00:51:12,000 --> 00:51:24,000 So they were the Chinese again, but I know that the Japanese have waged quite frequent wars with China. 325 00:51:24,000 --> 00:51:34,000 Mainly because they have had massive population problems, where they've outgrown their little islands. 326 00:51:34,000 --> 00:51:45,000 And have aimed to take lands nearby in order to continue their development, continue their growth and be able to sustain their population. 327 00:51:45,000 --> 00:51:52,000 Which is a lot of the reason why they ended up with that honorable death, the old kamikaze. 328 00:51:52,000 --> 00:52:05,000 Because it was either they won their war, or they die trying, because going home to their overpopulated island was not going to give them what they wanted. 329 00:52:05,000 --> 00:52:20,000 Absolutely. And see if you can guess which the most bloodiest war in history is. 330 00:52:20,000 --> 00:52:22,000 Is it the First World War? 331 00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:30,000 No, it's definitely the Second World War. The First World War I think was about sixth in bloodiest wars. 332 00:52:30,000 --> 00:52:50,000 Yeah, the Second World War killed over 70 million people, 50 million of which were civilians, and about 12 million it's estimated were Jews. 333 00:52:50,000 --> 00:52:52,000 That's horrible. 334 00:52:52,000 --> 00:52:54,000 Absolutely disgusting. 335 00:52:54,000 --> 00:53:04,000 12 million Jews, that's the entire, 12 million is above the population of London, or the greater London area. 336 00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:13,000 Yeah, isn't the population of London like 7.4 billion people, or 8 million people? 8 million people rather, not billion, that's the population of the world. 337 00:53:13,000 --> 00:53:29,000 I always remember it because the population of the UK is 1% of the population of the world. 80 million. 338 00:53:29,000 --> 00:53:41,000 Yeah, 8 billion being the population of the world, 80 million being the population of the world, and 8 million being 10% of the UK's population being just in London. 339 00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:45,000 It's ridiculous. 340 00:53:45,000 --> 00:53:54,000 It is, and then 70 million people dying, that is not that higher than our current population now as a country. 341 00:53:54,000 --> 00:54:02,000 It's near, I think we're about 80 million in the UK, but yeah, it's incredible, imagine us just disappearing overnight. 342 00:54:02,000 --> 00:54:07,000 I know the world would go on, but like still. 343 00:54:07,000 --> 00:54:14,000 Well the world in perspective, yeah, the world may well go on, but ours wouldn't. 344 00:54:14,000 --> 00:54:15,000 Yeah. 345 00:54:15,000 --> 00:54:17,000 You know. 346 00:54:17,000 --> 00:54:33,000 So, my biggest problem with the military is that there was once a need to show ability to defend yourself. 347 00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:39,000 There was once a need because you didn't know what next door could do. 348 00:54:39,000 --> 00:54:48,000 You didn't know what might happen because of some bloke that lived over the mountains a couple of miles away. 349 00:54:48,000 --> 00:54:55,000 And it was a very different world. 350 00:54:55,000 --> 00:55:12,000 I don't feel, and I'm quite open to you trying to change my perspective, but I don't feel that it's necessary for military to exist in the modern day. 351 00:55:12,000 --> 00:55:27,000 And the reason I say that is because we must have learnt at some point by now that war just leads to more war. 352 00:55:27,000 --> 00:55:32,000 You only need an army because your neighbours got an army. 353 00:55:32,000 --> 00:55:37,000 You only need bombs because your neighbours got bombs. 354 00:55:37,000 --> 00:55:53,000 Are we not in a position where we can discuss and negotiate developments instead of fighting to end disputes? 355 00:55:53,000 --> 00:56:07,000 I wish that I could agree with you. 356 00:56:07,000 --> 00:56:20,000 I wish I could say that I think that humanity... 357 00:56:20,000 --> 00:56:24,000 Yeah. 358 00:56:24,000 --> 00:56:38,000 I wish I could believe that humanity had gotten to that point. 359 00:56:38,000 --> 00:56:51,000 But I don't... I think as individuals we're there, as nation states we're not. 360 00:56:51,000 --> 00:57:04,000 Like the very fact that the war in Ukraine, for example, was completely Russia just trying to take land. 361 00:57:04,000 --> 00:57:08,000 Tibet has been entirely taken over by China. 362 00:57:08,000 --> 00:57:17,000 To be fair, they didn't stand a chance now that we know what the sheer number of that army was. 363 00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:26,000 Like there is... Unfortunately there is still... 364 00:57:26,000 --> 00:57:31,000 I'm trying to think of the right way of putting it. 365 00:57:31,000 --> 00:57:36,000 There is still conflict. There is still, unfortunately, that fear. 366 00:57:36,000 --> 00:57:43,000 There is still terror. There is still tyrants. 367 00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:55,000 Like if everybody disarmed but North Korea didn't disarm, I honestly believe within a generation we'd all be... 368 00:57:55,000 --> 00:58:04,000 Yeah, we'd all be under the heel of somebody with the name King Jong. 369 00:58:04,000 --> 00:58:10,000 Don't know which one it would be at that point, but you know what I mean. 370 00:58:10,000 --> 00:58:18,000 Yeah, I think you're bang on in the fact that it would be taken advantage of. 371 00:58:18,000 --> 00:58:28,000 I think like we discussed in an earlier podcast that human nature is very self-serving. 372 00:58:28,000 --> 00:58:35,000 And the opportunity, I think, would be too good to pass up for some people. 373 00:58:35,000 --> 00:58:44,000 I personally could not bring myself to... 374 00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:50,000 It's almost like... Do you remember that show? Was it Golden Balls with Jasper Carrot? 375 00:58:50,000 --> 00:58:56,000 Did you ever see that? Complete tangent here, but go with me. Go with me. It's alright. 376 00:58:56,000 --> 00:59:08,000 The whole point was that you built up... You amassed a pot of money between you and a group of people. 377 00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:15,000 Throughout the game show. And the final part is who gets to take the money home. 378 00:59:15,000 --> 00:59:26,000 Now if neither of you steal, then you both split the money 50-50 and you both take it home. 379 00:59:26,000 --> 00:59:34,000 But if you steal and the other person doesn't, then you get all of the money. 380 00:59:34,000 --> 00:59:38,000 And if you both steal, nobody gets the money. 381 00:59:38,000 --> 00:59:40,000 Oh my god. 382 00:59:40,000 --> 00:59:45,000 Now I'm very much of the mentality that I'm not going to steal. 383 00:59:45,000 --> 00:59:51,000 I'm going to share the money 50-50, we'll both go our separate ways, everybody's happy. 384 00:59:51,000 --> 00:59:57,000 But I watched the show once and there was this woman who was so convincing. 385 00:59:57,000 --> 01:00:06,000 And this bloke genuinely was suckered in. They were both going to walk away with £40,000 or something like that. 386 01:00:06,000 --> 01:00:16,000 And she opens the steal ball and steals all of the money and completely rips that rug out from underneath him. 387 01:00:16,000 --> 01:00:22,000 Because opportunity presented itself. She knew what she was doing the whole time and that's human nature. 388 01:00:22,000 --> 01:00:28,000 That is, for every 10 good people there is one person that will do exactly that. 389 01:00:28,000 --> 01:00:33,000 You know? The wolf in sheep's clothing. 390 01:00:33,000 --> 01:00:44,000 It's renowned throughout history and it will continue to be a part of human nature for a very long time. 391 01:00:44,000 --> 01:00:50,000 Probably until we develop the ability to be telepathic, in which case we cannot lie anymore. 392 01:00:50,000 --> 01:00:56,000 Then you're going to look at a world without deceit because your intentions are completely out there. 393 01:00:56,000 --> 01:01:05,000 But until such a time as you can read somebody's thoughts and know exactly what they're doing, somebody is free to deceive you. 394 01:01:05,000 --> 01:01:11,000 And good intentions are only as good as the next person. 395 01:01:11,000 --> 01:01:19,000 You can be as good as you want to be but it's going to get quashed by someone at some point. 396 01:01:19,000 --> 01:01:23,000 And this is the problem that you find in modern day. 397 01:01:23,000 --> 01:01:32,000 Now my biggest bugbear with military, and it's not really a bugbear, it is a downright disgust for modern day military. 398 01:01:32,000 --> 01:01:52,000 The fact that there is now a privatisation of war makers, arms dealers, tank builders, plane builders, bomb makers. 399 01:01:52,000 --> 01:02:05,000 They're not built out of necessity now. Back in the day where a farmer could build or make pikes if he needed to. 400 01:02:05,000 --> 01:02:17,000 Or a blacksmith could increase his capacity to building more swords for the army if he needed to. 401 01:02:17,000 --> 01:02:31,000 Now they are mass produced regularly and rolled off of a production line as if they are bags of crisps at the supermarket. 402 01:02:31,000 --> 01:02:51,000 For example Lockheed Martin, a name that has come up before in our podcast, they have remained the biggest profiters of war since 2009. 403 01:02:51,000 --> 01:03:01,000 That's 14 years where they have produced the most profit year after year from war. 404 01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:27,000 In 2021 alone they made 50 billion out of sales which amassed to a massive 90% of their profit came through sales to the US government for their arms. 405 01:03:27,000 --> 01:03:43,000 Now if you have an organisation such as Lockheed Martin which relies on the turnover of arms deals, then you have the necessity for war. 406 01:03:43,000 --> 01:04:03,000 The need for war as an organisation. And then you lose all sense of want, desire, need. It becomes another organisation. 407 01:04:03,000 --> 01:04:17,000 It becomes another trade. What's your trade? Well I'm a soldier. What do you do for money? I'm a murderer. I go to other countries and I kill their people because my government employed me to do so. 408 01:04:17,000 --> 01:04:35,000 Because they want to continue putting money in the pockets of private organisations. 409 01:04:35,000 --> 01:04:59,000 Let's go back to the days where you defend because you want to defend. You defend because you have something to defend. You don't just defend because you've been broken down and rebuilt to do exactly as you're told. 410 01:04:59,000 --> 01:05:17,000 That's where the military's lost on me. 411 01:05:17,000 --> 01:05:35,000 I don't think there should be, there definitely shouldn't be this economical gain for war because war in itself is so wasteful. To be able to turn a profit in that in itself is distasteful. 412 01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:48,000 The fact that we're then making it necessary is then also a problem. I know there are limited resources in the world. 413 01:05:48,000 --> 01:06:05,000 The fact that so many people at the company that we're just working at are now being made redundant. There is only so much of the pie to go round but there are other ways to handle things. 414 01:06:05,000 --> 01:06:19,000 Just so the folks at home remember it and not at all because I'm terrible at remembering things. What's the name of that company? 415 01:06:19,000 --> 01:06:39,000 Lockheed Martin. Watch the news because there's going to be a lot of developments around Lockheed Martin and it's privatised warfare I should think over the next coming months and maybe the next couple of years. 416 01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:58,000 The problem is, and I sent you the link to the video, Dwight Eisenhower when he left office after his term as President in the US gave a speech which has resounded through history. 417 01:06:58,000 --> 01:07:13,000 He warns against the military industrial complex, the privatisation of military, the need and necessity for war as an organisation and the risks of privatising power. 418 01:07:13,000 --> 01:07:28,000 I don't think he could have had any real understanding of how far this has gone and how much truth there was in his speech. 419 01:07:28,000 --> 01:07:54,000 But he does say that only an educated citizenry has the power to overcome that force and I think more people need to be wise to what need there is for military intervention, for military action. 420 01:07:54,000 --> 01:08:12,000 And really start to speak up when they don't agree. You go back to 2004, 2005 when we invaded Iraq and it was a completely illegal war. 421 01:08:12,000 --> 01:08:25,000 Completely illegal war that was started under the guise of terror and weapons of mass destruction that did not exist and have been proven to not have existed. 422 01:08:25,000 --> 01:08:43,000 And yet the leaders that were in power at that time have faced very little consequence for their actions and their part in that play, even though they knew and have openly admitted that there was no need for them to go to war. 423 01:08:43,000 --> 01:08:58,000 The fact that Tony Blair wasn't made an ambassador of the peace? He's literally in the House of Lords. 424 01:08:58,000 --> 01:09:13,000 Why is he still working in the House of Lords? Why does he even still have a right to a say in what goes on in the world after that? Is that not an international war crime? 425 01:09:13,000 --> 01:09:30,000 I don't want to get angry but it's definitely one of those things that really does get me going is when people abuse their power. 426 01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:44,000 Both George W Bush and Tony Blair abused the situation that was presented to them or they manipulated, whichever is your interpretation. 427 01:09:44,000 --> 01:10:01,000 Whatever happened in the lead up to that war they abused their power and sent countries, multiple countries to war with innocent people unnecessarily. 428 01:10:01,000 --> 01:10:11,000 Yeah. 429 01:10:11,000 --> 01:10:16,000 It's interesting how justice falls differently on different people isn't it? 430 01:10:16,000 --> 01:10:20,000 Yeah, yeah absolutely. Absolutely. 431 01:10:20,000 --> 01:10:30,000 But remember listeners and yourself James, as one individual person yes you have no power at all. 432 01:10:30,000 --> 01:10:47,000 But we're not one individual. We are people. The people. And there is no war if we all sit down. 433 01:10:47,000 --> 01:10:53,000 I know I'm sounding a little bit like John Lennon right now but it's absolutely right. 434 01:10:53,000 --> 01:10:57,000 Are you saying war is over if we want it? 435 01:10:57,000 --> 01:11:07,000 Absolutely. The point is if you're part of that wheel turning just get off that wheel. 436 01:11:07,000 --> 01:11:15,000 Get off that wheel. Just go home. Make peace with your family. Spend some time with them. Get a job. 437 01:11:15,000 --> 01:11:20,000 Fill in shelves at a supermarket. It's still better than being part of the war machine. 438 01:11:20,000 --> 01:11:34,000 I cannot bring myself to even begin to think what it must take, what it must do to a person to hold a gun and shoot someone you've never seen. 439 01:11:34,000 --> 01:11:40,000 You have no idea what they're doing, what their thought process is, why they're even there. 440 01:11:40,000 --> 01:11:53,000 I would be stuck in a complete limbo of why am I doing this? Who is this guy? 441 01:11:53,000 --> 01:12:00,000 I would die very quickly in that respect because I'd be sitting there asking too many questions like dude do you want to talk about it? 442 01:12:00,000 --> 01:12:04,000 Like are you ok? Should we put the guns down and have a chat? Cup of tea? 443 01:12:04,000 --> 01:12:12,000 See if we can really air this out and stop everybody from dying around us. But no, that's not what you get told to do. 444 01:12:12,000 --> 01:12:15,000 But it's just not human. 445 01:12:15,000 --> 01:12:29,000 Yeah. 446 01:12:29,000 --> 01:12:37,000 I think we've covered as much as we can. There's a lot of other topics that we can but I don't know about you but I'm running out of energy. 447 01:12:37,000 --> 01:12:45,000 I will say that I believe that there is some call for military when it comes to disaster prevention. 448 01:12:45,000 --> 01:12:53,000 But to be fair, that's because the military has the boats and the equipment. 449 01:12:53,000 --> 01:13:01,000 You could have the boats and the equipment without the guns but then it wouldn't be military, it would be something else. 450 01:13:01,000 --> 01:13:10,000 It would be a force wouldn't it? But it would be a rescue force. Which makes a lot more sense. 451 01:13:10,000 --> 01:13:16,000 Would you say you could make it an international rescue force? No, sorry, right. 452 01:13:16,000 --> 01:13:24,000 But anyway, yeah. Can they have their own little island? 453 01:13:24,000 --> 01:13:32,000 Absolutely. And they'll need some kind of billionaire backing them, providing financial aid. 454 01:13:32,000 --> 01:13:39,000 It will need to be top secret for some reason which they never go into. Anyway, sorry. 455 01:13:39,000 --> 01:13:44,000 Before we go too far off topic, thank you very much for the research you've done. 456 01:13:44,000 --> 01:13:48,000 I've really enjoyed this conversation. I've definitely learnt a couple of things. 457 01:13:48,000 --> 01:13:56,000 Main facts that I've taken away from this are China has the biggest military. 458 01:13:56,000 --> 01:14:05,000 The Vatican City has the smallest military. What else? Good old King Sargon. 459 01:14:05,000 --> 01:14:11,000 Had the first military. Was the first military commander. 460 01:14:11,000 --> 01:14:26,000 The 300 film is massively overdone and there wasn't just 300 of them, there was a fair few more. 461 01:14:26,000 --> 01:14:38,000 The spears are realistic but the idea that they were all there in just leather loin cloths and a shield and a cape is pushing it a little bit. 462 01:14:38,000 --> 01:14:46,000 America spends £800 billion per year on their military? 463 01:14:46,000 --> 01:14:53,000 You know what, that's one of the things that I've forgotten but like that, that's a terrifying fact. 464 01:14:53,000 --> 01:15:02,000 If any one of our listeners is a quantity surveyor and wants to tell us how many houses that could build, that'd be great. 465 01:15:02,000 --> 01:15:10,000 If one of our listeners isn't a quantity surveyor, don't spend too much of your time figuring it out. 466 01:15:10,000 --> 01:15:17,000 I'm not going to necessarily do anything for you. It's just, that would be interesting to know wouldn't it? 467 01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:33,000 I give all of the listeners a challenge which is spend £800 billion. Write down how you would spend £800 billion. 468 01:15:33,000 --> 01:15:47,000 Go to Reddit, r slash Pods with Nick and James or NNJ Pods, one of the two. I can never remember now. 469 01:15:47,000 --> 01:15:56,000 It's Nick and James Pods, r slash Nick and James Pods. Go on there, tell me how would you spend $800 billion? 470 01:15:56,000 --> 01:16:09,000 I'm pretty sure you'd run out of ideas after about £100 billion. I reckon I could spend up to £100 billion but I don't think I could go anywhere near £800 billion. 471 01:16:09,000 --> 01:16:19,000 I'm talking realistic things, don't just make things up in order to spend money. 472 01:16:19,000 --> 01:16:31,000 You know what, I've got a lot of things coming to my head at the moment but I also realise that because we're dealing with obscene amounts of money here, my mind has gone to the obscene. 473 01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:45,000 Yeah, absolutely. Have a think about it James, chuck it on the Reddit. I'll get involved as well and I'll come up with a list of my own. See if I can spend $800 billion. 474 01:16:45,000 --> 01:16:56,000 Alright, okay. Well, I'm going to call it good night there. Frank, if you have listened to the last list, thank you very much for listening, Lester. 475 01:16:56,000 --> 01:17:16,000 Yep, thank you very very much. All the best, take care, goodbye from me. 476 01:17:26,000 --> 01:17:33,000 .