so that the the hello and welcome to cross passport. all things are considered. i'm peter level. it would be nice to see in the new year with some optimism. unfortunately, this is not the case. the accumulation and deepening of many problems from last year are still very much with us. so fucking love brace for impact, the cross talking 2025. i'm joined by my guess, george samuel, we in budapest, he's a pod cast where the guy go,

which be found on youtube and locals. and here in moscow we cross to marks or boulder. he's an international relations and security analyst, red building cross lock roles. and in fact, that means it can jump any time you want, and i always appreciate it, mark, i'm going to go to you 1st and i'm going to kind of give to vent a little bit here. during 2024. a lot of people we know in the pod cast world in the alternative media world in the world. we're really kind of obsessed with predictions. and well, there's a lot of a gotten a lot of faces the go around here. and so i would really like to avoid in this program to work on predictions because i think it's a useless endeavor. okay? because most people end up being wrong and they don't always admit to it unfortunately. so having said that, i would like to look at developing trends. ok, now we've just talked about what happened in 2024,

given that conversation. what happened in 2024? what kind of developing trends from the last year do we feel? do we see going into this new year mark as well? i, i think that you know, the 1st the elephant row in the room is the conflict in, in ukraine. i, i do not believe that the conflict and ukraine will, will end in the next year. i think the trend of the acceleration and the escalation of the conflict will continue despite you know, uh, you know, but the new us administration of donald trump coming into office in the united states simply because i do not believe that there is. any beal that the u. s. president, whoever that us present it is going to offer russia that russian will accept and, and russia's terms are unacceptable to any us presidents, an attempt by the donald trump administration to, uh, you know, play a role in, oh,

he's gonna cut a deal between russia and ukraine as if he some kind of neutral outside arbiter is just patently false. this is ultimately a conflict between russia and the united states. uh, on the united states. it is a proxy war, but it is a conflict to the us is losing, and trump owns that conflict. as soon as he comes into office and whatever, he may think of the average him and zalinski and in person and whatever, you know, political domestic gripes he has against them justified. he does not want to be known as the president to hand the ukraine over to vladimir pro. no, us president wants that on that record. so i predict that the. busy will continue, it will excel accelerate, it will escalate. and when pointing talks to donald trump or his, you know, envoys or whatever and says yes, you know, oh thank you very much, but yet, yeah,

it means net and then everyone will whisper in trump's years. you need to show strengths to have peace, you, you need to escalate in order to de escalate and trump himself has already promised to flood ukraine with weapons. and what weapons i have no idea because even he's admitted to the us military, industrial complex doesn't have them. but if you refuse, is his grand deal. so i think that the war will get nasty or will getting more desperate. we'll continue to see more of bombings of civilian buildings, assassinations, the space of um, a cambridge team intelligence, arson attacks that are occurring throughout russia. at the moment. we'll see more and more of these, you know, dirty tricks. i like to call them, you know, u. s. military might call them unconventional warfare because out of desperation

and panic, they can't win on the battlefield. that's what they will turn to increasingly. it charge you and i've talked about this a great deal and it's not between i like marks approach to all of us. i think these largely right it's, it's, it's not a conflict between ukraine and russia. it's a proxy war. it's a nato proxy war against russia using ukraine here. and if there's got it going to be any kind of coming to terms, it's ne, tow bid is gonna be coming to, to not you ukraine, ukraine is a footnote, it's a, it's a side bar to all of this here. and that's why i've been very frustrated with the commentary. well, the guy cut i've called last leg is um i think mark is right. i don't know about the timeframe. nobody really does. but it is as long as the united states, there's a lot losing troops and they can keep printing money. well, you know, the ukrainians are gonna suffer russians will suffer,

the europeans will suffer. well, what's that to an american administration, george? you know, i think i agree with the visa, i think that so the united states, but late. so this has been kind of a good war. they're not losing any lives. it's that ukrainians on the russians been slobs, losing lives by the tens and hundreds of thousands. so why not to keep it doing? the, the one carrier that i would introduce is that trump has clearly stated that he's going to end this war. that means he is going to launch a major diplomatic offensive to try to bring this to an end. um, initially at least i think rough, it kind of say no, i think russia would have to play long. take this seriously. and then it really, really the question is, if there is some kind of deep offload, which is

a level right, we freeze the line of calls the line of conflicts here. at this point, i will put the whole issue of the you brain in nato, on the back burner. i wouldn't use that. would that still be acceptable? now? i think, you know, obviously it's a very bad deal for a terrible deal because russel then gets nothing out of it. however, um they have been times in the past in the quite recent bust reaction and seemed willing to accept bad deals. and the not funding is something that a clinic is matter of concern. i mean, we saw at the men's been suppose a while and 2 very bad ideas or i'm sure a rush or not, i mean sign those deals, but went on. so it is your continually complaining, why aren't you adhering to means when it was obvious to anyone that because the west wasn't going to get them in stock, most of which was just using minutes in order to strengthen your brain for and

eventually offensive. that was clearly on the cards and i think that's why a so largely this that was special as the s m o in uh, february 2022. and then of course again rush, it was ready to sign in december. oh, which again was a bad deal for russian, but russian was, was ready to sign it and it has repeatedly proclaimed lou. yeah, we were ready to sign. we get our signatures are on the paper. so i don't think that's going to be in the like a, in the and then i think when, once the trump initiative kind of comes to a dead end, then i think who a, the trump administration will escalate and i think escalate. okay, it's rough. um, but i in my address, my concern, i can't rule out fully. the rest of it will sign off with something like okay, march synthesized. everything we've already heard here because we have got 3 different kind of approaches. do it. go ahead. yeah. don't forget the austin, not a framework for syria, which was another bad deal for russia. yeah. that said,

blew back on them. catastrophically with our to well, i'm sorry to interrupt mark because it's we, you and i had a different conversation on a different venue about this. how is the failure of us, of the going to influence russian thinking in 2025. go ahead. 7 well, 1st of all, i think that um, of russia is certainly has reduced influence and power projection capability in the middle east. i do not believe that russia will maintain military bases in the syria, even if or no one wants them there. that's not, that's not going to happen. russia doesn't want to be under the leverage off of order one and i'll call you to, to maintain their bases. they're apparently, they're already trying to shift resources from those bases to libya. however, that's another risky situation. i, i think if they do that, roscoe will almost certainly get burned again. and ultimately they will decide that

the africa and the middle east are outside of rushes, geo political horizons, and they will do what many russian critics of of who have said over the last decade is that russia should focus on ukraine. they should double down on ukraine and they should accept no compromises. no bad means. but again, that is a refrain that you hear in russian politics, right? no, no more. is them bulls? no more austin all frameworks. everything has to be settled from a position of strands on the battlefield that there is no wiggle room. there is no coming back from. and if it does agree to another bad deal that will be the end of food politically and russia. i. that is something that almost seems on the general right after the last 2 decades, but i assure you it is imaginable,

especially among the military generals, the political elite in the country. right. and an ordinary russians, right. the russians that have sacrificed so much of the opprobrium. uh and, you know, russia patriot, the collective punishment of the west, the effects on the economy, the death, some tens of thousands of russian soldiers in ukraine. i don't think that the russian people will accept anything less than victory that has been defined by the russian president and the kremlin again and again unwaveringly. since the beginning of the conflict and has not wavered, has only strengthened since george before we go to the break here. get my mark is that a lot there? is the american the incoming administration? did they realize would, would something like wouldn't mark had to say to um, yeah, i think so. i mean, i, and then i think that if they get something like that,

if they can get russia to agree to some view that they've been hinting at. and it leads to the downhill food, and i agree with marketing that the, the pressure science onto that it will eat on the maps not immediately, but it will lead to the end of the who to the americans who think hey, this is a good deal for us, we have done rather well out of it, which is why again, uh, the rush breakfast would stay very, very fall from any kind of a deal. sure. so, you know, achieving the goals and i think ultimately the goal has to be raising change in to you because you know, any do, well i, you know, you will, we will freeze the line of house way. and what are you still got a problem? the unit size. ready me throw on your boat is this is a conversation i had with mark many, many moons ago, and he said that they should have been redeemed change of the resumed change back in 2014 gentlemen. i'm going to jump in here. we're going to go into a go to a short break, and after that short break,

we'll continue our discussion on the new year 2025. stay with our team. the year in february 2020 to ukraine, the game, the world's number one new story for ukraine, new brand, new credit, increasing crane question. truth invited to ukraine. name one perspective, ukraine. suffering from russian regression. we seen the main stream media on the nightly, numerous reciting, clean developed scripts that essentially say exactly the same thing using the buzz words of this as a threat to our democracy. when you see 10 different channels a exactly that sentence, you know that it's a central intelligence age as the script in or the role of p r firms

in ukraine, throughout europe and into united states really can be overstated. it's quite different than it wasn't previous decades. where there used to be more of a culver role of propaganda, government propaganda operations. now this is just celebrated as p r in helping ukraine and helping get their message out in terms of the case who's pulling the strings and who is profiting the welcome act across software, all things are considered. i'm peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing the new year 2025. the . okay, let's go back to mark mark mark at the end of november, beginning of december of last year. we saw a,

an event that no one in that i know of predicted. it was a complete collapse of the state and sovereignty of syria. is this the order of on the menu for the middle east for 20? 25. is this the some the beginning of something a developing trend? because there is so many moving pieces we have a has the law that is still vulnerable. the, i can't remember the last time 11 on had a real government. and uh, if the is re lease with american backing and x, the west bank. um, we're gonna have a huge refugee problem. going into jordan. jordan knows already packed full of people that are refugees. we have no idea what the syrian, what the, what used to be called syria is going to look like. and then we have a rock is, it implies, applies even around. so i've kind of said a lot of pieces on the board move whichever one you want. go ahead mark. yeah. so

in the middle east was in flame. uh, already uh, you know, before this, the events in syria and the year, you know, what came to a close and, and the uh, conflagration of the middle east will only continue into the next year. i think that syria is most likely to become both a failed and properly a fractured state. i syria will now be the humpty dumpty who fell. busy off the wall. busy and all the king's horses are all the hedge, a month's horses and all the hedge minds man will not be able to put syria back together again. i think it is very likely that the dis, stabilisation from syria will extend at least into lab and on and a rack potentially further abroad. i think we will see increased direct, the open conflict between israel and the us on one side and iran on the other. you

know, look for air strikes on, on. um uh e, ron's nuclear facilities which iraq is real, is now salivating about now that they're so happy that all of syria's air defense has disappeared overnight and then yahoo has been openly talking about it. i think we will also see the palestinian problem come to an end with the complete ethnic cleansing over the next 4 years of the palestinian people from the territory of, of greater israel. that way. i mean, we, we, we just saw headlines in the western media over the last week talking about, well, you know, uh, israel is taking part of syria out, but, you know, it's rose borders of fluctuated throughout history. right. i mean, the way they're there that have moved to have have moved. so israel's borders are on the move. and palestinians will become what the jewish people once were a nomadic people without

a whole and they will not just be gods. i think it will be brought into the west bank as well. and, and for finale, we're going to see economic turmoil throughout the world as trump begins is much uh, talked about terra for a renewal. busy of the tariff war, not only on american adversaries, but on america now i as well so, so buckle off every where for economics term on george, i mean a market is set up a lot there. i mean, it's really interesting when we look at what's going on in what's called the greater middle east west asia. again, to hear moniker. um, but i mean there's, there's some very interesting complex being played out and i'm not looking at states, okay. states in this region are very, very weak for the most part. um, you can even make that case about israel and its internal politics, but none of the less here. you have a new ottoman ism of american hegemony and is really design is i'm, i mean, that's

a very interesting parlay in a small geographical space. go ahead, george. a good. it is indeed, but what has turned out in 20232024. and what israel has demonstrated, hey, we can do all of this and we can get away with it. and basically just israel's adversaries, that has taken the hit and concrete, all of the predictions that somehow israel's intolerable trouble. and that the, the axis of resistance is going to crush israel. now it's gone the other way. so what does that mean with the, with the incoming very scientist administration of the trunk is that this is the opportunity that they've been looking for. um, this is the american uh, design is lobby and that goes israel to reorganize the middle east web. i use ro once and for all, this is the 1st time and it says you once in parole,

can dispense with both of its enemies and play serious sir. it was a very big deal. uh for israel. now that it was it, you know, the long standing ally, so as the leave of a, so the unit was always the, the one on the questions, the ally of a so read unit. and then, oh, russia, that's gone. and, and so now, you know, the, the, it's in the around that's in the cross hairs. and what are they going to do, really without any question. that's all drunk is going to launch. this is a maximum pressure campaign. 2 point. oh. and you will find all kinds of separate this move. when's the emerging any wrong in a blue gives us areas um arabs tubs codes, and one of which will cause be sponsored by the united states. and then into around the world will find most of the, some liberal movements emerging. you know,

women will be demonstrating, taking off that he jobs and the michael, the guy says democracy is friday. and then of course, a given list of the chaos that's, let's go to imagine syria isis. isis is everywhere. you know, so huh. you know, that we, you know, we have to deal with isis. and the americans are going to say it as a realized as sudden like suddenly, suddenly they came back suddenly and he came back. we have to deal with it. and that's with the moment when they gave us the bombing iran directly as a, just as the bones syria directly saying we're going to deal with isis or salt region change. have also been removing regime change, which is bombing isis. so why don't you allow that? you know, you've just got to stop bombing iraq. then of course you just continue escal. yeah i, i'm trying to get, i'm really confused. the difference between isis and l. chi though. okay. maybe. maybe a topic for another program mark, go ahead. jump in. yeah, i'm the current de facto ruler of syria in damascus. i'll

gilani. he was the leader of isis in syria. right. the deputy advice is the leader in syria. and he then became the leader of jo. bought all moves throughout, re branded as i up to here, i'll show him. so what is the distinction? i, i, you know, i don't think there is one as well. so isis is most definitely back because they just over through, you know, whether you want to call it ices are all kind of, but the self is the, you know, they just over through the, the government in, in, in syria. so that is, you know, not something that is, it will have rubber cautions it will have uh, blow back. and i think that if the us in israel go about another 2 point, oh george w bush attempts to re make the middle east that inevitably will fail. they will topple some enemies, an editor,

and eminently they will create new enemies and new geo political problems that they will saddled themselves like just as they did with the explosive influence of the rod in the region after the overthrow of saddam hussein, uh, unintended consequences. yeah, uh, this time it will be different. they always tell us that, okay, this time it will be different. george were rapidly running out of time. but you know, china is always on the menu here. how is that going to play out in 2025. we've already heard about the tariffs, they trump in ministration is going to pursue. um, what is it the uh, navy general said 20272028. the conflict with china? well, it's 2025. go ahead. i think that's a, again, a china will be definitely a preoccupation of the trump administration. that would be the kind of an interesting because it's obviously going to be in economic conflict. i mean, i don't think it's going to be about taiwan trowbridge show. no particular interest

in the whole taiwan issue and in fact, unlike by whom he refused to make any commitment to coming, to tie one's assistance in the event of an invasion of. so i think it's going to be, and he's going to wage a serious a economic world against china. and particularly he's going to wage a war against china throughout the world. you know, he's going to track down the countries that are doing deals with china. you know, some of this is going to stop black mainland, exploding countries that are assigned onto china, including for including friends and allies. exactly. you know, use you sign on through this with, with china, you know, you're going to have, you know, the china is going to build a portfolio or railway for you. you're going to feel better off of the united states. and i think that's always good to of weight wage this war against the china market. the last pontificating words without giving a prediction. go ahead. yeah, i don't. i don't think we should completely right off military conflict with china

as, as the tariff or will escalate the economic war. tensions will grow on the ground and is trump has brought people in. notice the deputy secretary of state l bridge. colby is one of the most blaming war monger in china hawks imaginable. and trump may not care about the taiwan straits, but the taiwan straits care about, you know, him. right. they, they, they care about, you know, the united states and the south china sea might be an even bigger flash point. then the taiwan straits. although intrinsically they are linked together. so, i mean, again, there's only 3 types of, of us, of foreign policy and political lead. they all want war with russia, china, e, ron, they just prioritize which of those 3 wars they want more. well, i mean it in 2025, which one is which one is on the top of the totem pole?

i would have to say e, ron, but china comes close behind and russia hasn't gone away. george, hep, what, what's your, what's your ranking? i think i think it's the russian. 5 any around in china? ok, we still got 30 seconds. go ahead. george. as well. i think it so because russian work is the ongoing one and, and therefore because i think this is going to be the subject of, at least for the 1st 6 months, maybe even the year of the trump administration. i've tried to deal with this uh, ukraine issue that's i think it's going to be very dangerous because i think it's, it's probably will fail. and if these initiative fails, then i think trump will escalate and try to take risks. you know, that he sees himself as a risk beta and, and that's when it gets good. good, good for. okay. okay. i hope everybody had a good new year because according to my esteem guest here is going to be a be a pretty gloomy and dreary 2025. anyway,

i want to thank my guest in budapest and here in moscow. and of course, i want to thank our viewers for watching us here at our to see you next time. remember, the, the take a fresh look around his life. kaleidoscopic isn't just a shifted reality distortion by tell us to division with no real opinions. fixtures designed to simplify will confuse who really wants a better wills. and is it just as a chosen for you? fractured images presented is 1st. can you see through their illusion going underground, can the

one with the doctor for wonderful those little and so forth. us national, move the images on. so good on squared amount from us like little you much really watch the words the which isn't going to use it with me as well when i go and still able to still you still live with i'm seeing is still bothering you, but let me hear when you push the issue of the unbox remodeled and we've got this to move 0. you may have missed the assembly. anything you go out in front of the deal? is michael convicted of. no, i don't yeah, post the but the other was like, oh but i use the yeah, i was thinking that new space but i mean 50 i got i made it goes can was it please go ahead and always communicate that me through a couple of national minds police are still the other we have such alteration

mojitos to eulu losing a deal in space, but i don't think he will just push cuz there's a little in the tub. the but you mean you want to spend is these bring you particularly see i'm saying is up with them you got thrown in, this is the one and then the other being the see the guns thing is um the worst of movies is throwing in my hands not old on the side of me is a lot that is up and that sort of the the building the gun and below the showing the school in murray, opal. o'rando was the length of it off to the battles for the city. ukrainian soldiers turned the children's classrooms into machine gun nests and doing retreats

. they mind the school library in the gym, although it could be used as the ukranian history textbooks. scans it on the floor, approve of how you cream, became a states deliberate today prepared to wage war with russia and everything russian bunch. next to the certificate starts from class, i'm going to be less coastal or c, w, so store e, so to be to sign it the suit, the floor near the sure of the 2 guys cause a car i feel which is a sure registering you for almost going is a cost the shipping each does any of those, could we do it kind of without it. so even though i doesn't, i mean you low muscles, people to spit from the most to ship. it's a split that them.