Venezuela oil deal, Pentagon turmoil, Putin's desperation, foldable iPhone rumors & NFL returns! | Ep. 84

Conner Jones: [00:00:03] Hi, I'm Conner Jones.

Josh Miller: [00:00:04] And I'm Josh Miller.

Conner Jones: [00:00:05] And this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news, politics, sports, pop culture, and so much more. We do it all from a Christian perspective. And Josh, welcome back to Culture Brief.

Josh Miller: [00:00:16] Thank you, glad to be here.

Conner Jones: [00:00:17] What are we going to be talking about today, Josh?

Josh Miller: [00:00:19] We're taking a bit of a trip around the world today. There's a a little bit of movement in a lot of places around the world today. So we're going to be talking Venezuela, Iran, Ukraine, Russia, how that's affecting all of us and others here in the US. And then we'll talk some sports and tech as well because we have to. Uh and so it should be a good day.

Conner Jones: [00:00:38] Let's jump into the brief.

Josh Miller: [00:00:39] Let's do it.

Conner Jones: [00:00:43] All right, Josh, kick us off with Venezuela. I feel like we've been hearing tricklings of things going on down there.

Josh Miller: [00:00:47] Yeah, in typical Trump fashion, we find out things on Truth Social with uh recently on Friday posted uh in all caps, the biggest oil deal in world history, referring to what's going on in Venezuela. So before we get into the deal itself, which nobody's seen the final text here, so we don't know exactly what's going to happen. There's a lot of talk. But before we get into the deal itself, I want to talk a little bit of context because as I got into this story, there was a lot more here and this goes back a lot further than I even knew about. And so I thought it might be both interesting for uh those listening and watching today, but also help provide some context to what the deal itself is.

Conner Jones: [00:01:27] Yeah, I think that'd be helpful because I imagine for many people, they're like, okay, I know Venezuela's got oil. This is obviously an oil rich country that doesn't know really how to produce it very well. And so we and they're socialists and all of that. And so yeah, Trump sent in the military, grabbed Maduro in January in an overnight raid and we haven't really heard much since then. Um what's been going on down there?

Josh Miller: [00:01:47] Yeah, so you mentioned they don't know how to how to get the oil out now. Well, they used to. So like back in the all the way back in the 1920s, there was this giant oil well that sort of blew out uh and dumped it was over 100,000 barrels of oil a day for over a week were going into uh Lake Maracaibo out there. And so that's when the world finally kind of took notice of Venezuela for the first time of this really out of this natural disaster. But people are going, that's a lot of oil spilling into this lake. What's going on here? And so that was 1922 by 28, Venezuela was the largest oil exporter on the planet. Wow. Uh and so it was near and it was at the top for 40 years. Uh so you kind of think of the Middle East as this mecca of oil production and exports. Well, Venezuela actually was the king for a long time here. You know, you you probably have heard uh of OPEC when you talk about oil conversations. Well, in the 1960s, Venezuela was actually the one who helped instigate and create OPEC. There were five countries, they signed the initial charter in Baghdad, but Venezuela was sort of the uh the the folks who came up with it in the first place and were one of these first five countries to be a part of OPEC. Uh and so they were they were at the top of all of this. And in in 76, they actually nationalized their oil industry. And so it was called the PDVSA. Uh and it it was one of Latin America's largest and most respected oil companies in the world. That's interesting. Yeah, I had I had no idea that. I mean, that is a context I didn't know either. I mean, quite a history. Yeah, and it turned it turned Venezuela into the richest country in Latin America at the time. So if you especially adjusted by population, so like income per person, uh type deal, it was the richest country in Latin America. So things were going great. Venezuela was were the experts in this, the richest oil fields in the world. And then in the 90s, a name you may be familiar with, Hugo Chavez took power in the late 90s. And so uh don't have time to get into all of that today, but not a good dude. Uh a lot of corruption, uh a lot of issues there. And so there was a massive strike that took place in the oil industry at that time after he took over, uh which led him to fire nearly half of that uh company, that nationalized oil company, fired half the people, including most of the engineers, geologists and managers who actually knew how to take care of the oil. And so they just never they never recovered. And so this was late 90s. And so by 2013, uh Maduro steps in. So Chavez dies, Maduro steps in. Uh and the collapse sort of continues to the point where we are now. Obviously, we had uh you know, earlier uh in the year, US goes and grabs Maduro uh and all of that leads us to sort of where we are now, but

Conner Jones: [00:04:41] Yeah, it's well, I was just thinking like it this is I know you're very specifically hitting on the oil, but it's also this is a just the story of socialism too of like what happens when corruption and socialism and a dictatorship and all of that. This is what happens when you have a country that is so wealthy. I mean, I didn't realize they were the wealthiest nation in South America in the 70s. I mean, it makes sense when you realize you're sitting on an oil gold mine. And then for that all to just go out the door like that and to be one of the poorest countries in the world because of a bad rulership.

Josh Miller: [00:05:10] Yeah, greed and corruption squandered incredible resources. And so, you know, in the late 90s, they were producing 3.45 million barrels per day. Wow. By 2020, so 3.45 million, by 2020, they're down to 337,000 barrels per day. So shrunk about 74% while still being the largest reservoir of oil, like we know where the oil is. It's the largest on earth. Uh nobody tops them, but they are 21st in actual production and output. It's just because of mismanagement, greed, corruption.

Conner Jones: [00:05:50] Just immense potential there. I mean, they could be like the next Dubai, like UAE or Kuwait or Qatar, Bahrain, these small Middle East countries who are also sitting on insane reserves and have just become extremely wealthy.

Josh Miller: [00:06:03] Yeah, yeah. So that's that's sort of the when you look at some of the decisions being made around Venezuela, I think you see Trump and and US leadership both having, you know, historically had good relationship before uh Chavez and Maduro, they see this untapped potential. They see this this resource here that is not being utilized. They see uh, you know, government uh that's sort of poised against the US and they're stepping in to do something about that. Uh and and there's all sorts of things around whether or not this was uh something that was appropriate for us to go do to go and and capture this leader. There's debate over whether or not he was truly a valid leader, if Maduro was a valid leader of Venezuela at the time. I know you've discussed some of this before on the focus or on the uh on culture brief. I was going to talk about the focus in a minute. Uh but you can see sort of why the government was getting excited about maybe we can do something with this in a way. Now that we have a leader in place that's a little bit more positive toward the US, can we do something uh with this? And so yeah, first of all, do you know any any of this kind of history about going back into

Conner Jones: [00:07:11] I mean, just some of just some of what you said. I mean, I knew they were they were sitting on oil reserves. Uh I didn't realize all the OPEC history and everything there. Um yeah, but now, you know, it the history it does matter, but it feels like it's a new country in a way. I mean, it's still the socialist government, right? They're still in charge, but it's a new leader who you like you just said is more friendly towards the US, partly because she kind of has to be because she knows now what can happen when you're not friendly to the US. Like there's always a threat of

Josh Miller: [00:07:38] And they still have not had elections by the way.

Conner Jones: [00:07:40] still not. Um yeah, and they they should. I mean, democratically, they should have elections and and put the right person in charge. But yeah, now, I mean, the US basically has this thumb of power over the entire country of Venezuela and their government to essentially, you know, make something like this happen where you can start tapping into these oil reserves.

Josh Miller: [00:07:58] Yeah, yeah. And they're the largest in the world. I didn't realize that either. Yeah, so as part of this deal, what we do know, and again, we don't have the we don't have the final text on this to know exactly what all of the stipulations are here. Uh but we know that there's a claim now over 17 oil fields that the US is involved in, 65 million uh 65 billion, excuse me, barrels of claimed reserves and it's a 100-year concession. So essentially a 100-year claim to these particular wells or oil fields, which which means Venezuela technically owns the resource, but it's uh North American Blue Energy partners is now the operator who has the right to develop and operate those fields for 100 years. So, and what's really unique about this is that now the Pentagon through the office of strategic capital has a 35% equity stake in NABP, so that North American Blue Energy partners. So that's what's extremely unusual about this. for my understanding, this is really the first time that uh the Pentagon has taken equity in a sort of private company around oil reserves in this way before, which is what is kind of raising a flag or question for people on whether or not they should, what that means, uh and whether or not that's even right for them to do that. And then as part of the deal, the State Department gets the right to buy 20% of the oil output at cost.

Conner Jones: [00:09:22] Oh, interesting.

Josh Miller: [00:09:24] Uh and so the

Conner Jones: [00:09:24] The State Department gets that.

Josh Miller: [00:09:25] The yeah, and so

Conner Jones: [00:09:26] So the government is like, we're we're putting our fingers in here with like the the the military is like, we're going to own a stake in the company doing this. State Department's like, we're going to also get some of this at cost before anybody makes a profit and keep it for ourselves.

Josh Miller: [00:09:38] Yeah, and so it it appears to be this kind of attempt to create stability and ownership in this and going, hey, we're going to invest here and control it and make sure it's it's done right. And then also on the back end, we're going to get sort of discounts, better deals on the output as a part of that. And so, you know, Ryan did mention in the focus, come back to that that the you know, since Maduro's ousting, Trump had been talking about, go, everybody go in and start fixing up the place. You know, it's it's open for business. But it seemed to be that there was still some instability around, well, we, you know, is this going to last? It takes a lot of money invested into this uh sort of deprecated system out there to be able to get the oil out. So billions of dollars have to first go in to build the infrastructure, build the staff, all the people that were sort of uh ousted with Chavez back in the day, all the expertise in country is now gone. So they have to get back people in country, build all the infrastructure again, which takes a lot of money. They're they're hoping now that the government is intervening, US government is intervening here that it's a more of a signal of stability and long-term commitment here to where the companies feel safe to go and invest uh into the country and get the output of oil.

Conner Jones: [00:10:49] Yeah, I know that a lot of the oil executives, like Trump had them all come to the White House right after the the raid to get Maduro and say, hey, the country's open for business, go, like you just said. Like Exxon Mobile and some of these other big oil execs came in and they were all very trepidacious about it. They were like, uh, I mean, we don't know about this because they don't know about the stability. It's not an easy country to convince people to go move to. It's not safe. It's uh very obviously run down from these years of socialism. And I can't even imagine what their oil refineries and and drilling situations look like that these companies are like, it must be bad enough that these companies who have loads and loads of money are even saying that's not worth our time or money. Uh so yeah, it seems like this is maybe a foot in the door for the government to say, actually, we're trying to make sure you know you can go because ultimately, here's the question we're all asking. Will this make our gas cheaper? Like is this going to help Americans out?

Josh Miller: [00:11:39] I think that's that's definitely one of the questions we're asking here in the US. The first question I still kind of wrestle with and I don't have a clear answer to is whether or not we should be doing this at all. Okay. Well, that's a good question too. I don't and I don't know, you know, there there's a long history of uh of conflict and issues around pursuing oil. Uh really? Are there wars that happened because of oil? Maybe a few things might come to mind. And so I, you know, I I don't know the answer to this whether or not this is uh we're this is an integrous move on our part. I think people are arguing both sides here. I think uh where I'm kind of landing on this just personally is the proof will be in the pudding, so to speak, is how we actually implement this will will really matter. Um and I'll get to a little bit of that in a moment. But to your your question, a lot of people are asking the gas question. And that's what really Trump touted as the initial major benefit of this is, hey, I'm going to you're going to see gas prices come down. We're going to fill the strategic petroleum reserve. Um but there's a lot of skepticism on whether or not that will actually make an impact. Even with the scale of output here, if that will truly make an impact, uh and at least how long that will take to make an impact. Again, a lot of infrastructure has to go back in. And so even if gas prices come down, this probably this isn't a quick fix by any means. Uh and then there's also you get into some complexities around uh and I didn't know a lot of this as well. I probably should living in Texas, but uh there's light versus heavy crude and extra crude. There's different types of crude oil coming out of the ground at different parts of the country, which all requires different uh types of processing. Yep. which all take different amounts of time. And so uh you got to get the oil out, you got to process it to be usable for different purposes uh before it shows up in the petroleum reserves, before it shows up at the gas pump. And so all of this will take time. Uh the other challenge like I mentioned too is just getting the expertise down there to to get it out. So, so we'll see over time if it has some impact. The other question I was kind of asking myself as I was looking at this is who benefits? Uh and that depends on who you asked. You know, in in the best case scenario, this is being touted like I said as a win for the US economically, for our gas prices and a win for the people of Venezuela. Obviously, you like we kind of talked through the history here, the people of Venezuela have suffered more than anybody else as a result of this poor leadership in their country. And so uh economic investment into the country had gone away completely. And so if steward well, you're going to see a lot of uh resources pour into the country, a lot of jobs pour into the country, a lot of financial stability poured into the country if steward well. And so that could be beneficial. And a lot of people are arguing that. Uh if you want to take the counter argument, uh counter argument, many are saying that this primarily benefits the US government, private oil companies and the interim Venezuela leadership. And so there's question around, does this translate to the people of Venezuela? Will they see the the benefit and the impact? And we just don't know yet.

Conner Jones: [00:14:46] Yeah. Man, there's so many questions here. Uh the best we can hope for is one, this will benefit the Venezuelan people. Two, that this would benefit everyday Americans that this would bring our gas prices down and in return that would also bring down grocery prices and supply prices because the trucking industry and everything that requires fuel will come down and aircraft tickets, all of that. That's the the big hope. I it you really got to cross your fingers on that. I just none of this stuff ever goes the way you think it's going to. Um this is ripe, I think for moments of probably corruption and conflict, um and you know, even industrial accidents, all that. there's all kinds of things that could happen here. Ideally, it all goes right uh and everybody's lives get better in Venezuela and the US. But I will say the timing of the announcement, I know you're saying this will take time to happen. The timing of the announcement from Trump is not unintentional. This is leading into the midterms knowing that

Josh Miller: [00:15:41] They needed a win.

Conner Jones: [00:15:41] They need a win. Uh maybe this is a kind of a public win, but people need to understand the education of this, everything, all the context you just brought is the real facts behind what this announcement, what this deal, quote unquote, means.

Josh Miller: [00:15:56] Yeah, yeah. So just two quick thoughts to wrap wrap this up for us. The the first thing is, man, that I took away from this is, man, leadership matters. Oh yeah. You see this this trail of uh poor leadership causing destruction and damage to so many people's lives. Uh and so my hope and prayer in this season is that both the leadership of our country and the leadership of the Venezuelan people uh acts with integrity and wisdom and faithful stewardship of this incredible resource they have. Just because you have a lot doesn't mean you're going to flourish. And so and really the difference there is how you steward and lead uh those resources that God has given you. And so I'm praying for for that through this season. And the other thing that was just a reminder here is that, you know, we do think about this in terms of gas prices. What actually probably is more important to think about is that there are a lot of people that are going to be affected on a substantial level uh because of this deal, either for the positive or the negative. The people of Venezuela have the most to gain or lose based on how this is handled. Uh and really business at its best uh blesses the lives of those around it. And so if business is done well, both yes, the owners or the leaders of that business should flourish and benefit, but so should the customers. You're providing a good or service that should be beneficial to the customer. The employees should be benefiting from a stable job and a paycheck and being treated fairly and the communities should also flourish as a result of a healthy business. And so my hope is as this deal unfolds that that not just certain oil companies or certain governments are flourishing, but that this is making a positive impact on everybody who touches it. Again, us for customers of you know, consumers of gas. Yeah. Uh for the employees of these companies and hopefully employees in Venezuela and the community at large in Venezuela should benefit as well if the leadership is acting with integrity and being faithful steward of the resources.

Conner Jones: [00:17:53] It's a good point, Josh. Yeah, you think of a company that like blesses everybody. I I think of like Chick-fil-A. It's blessing its customers by not even just the good product that they provide, but you you feel like you're getting a good experience. People are joyful at Chick-fil-A, which is because the employees feel blessed to be working there, which is because the business is blessed. Now that's obviously a fast food example, not oil. I don't I don't know about the whole oil industry, but yeah, it's a good point. Uh business should be a blessing in different ways, um when it's done correctly and especially when it's done in the glory of God, which is, you know, that's what Chick-fil-A does and a bunch of other Christian-owned businesses. Thanks for that breakdown, Josh. Super helpful. Really good context for all of us to really understand as this deal plays out. We'll see how it goes over the next few months and probably next couple years. Ideally, yeah, our gas prices go down. But part of that is also going to be dependent upon what we're about to talk about here, which is, yes, the Iran war, but that's not the only thing I wanted to discuss. Several geopolitical things going on. Uh starting right here on the home front with a massive resignation that happened in Washington DC this week. That is Dan Driscoll. He was the US Army Secretary. I think he still is technically as of today. I think he's resigning at some point this week. Um that's happening because he, you know, he's in charge of the US Army. Uh he's had a bunch of just tension with the uh Secretary of Defense/ War, Pete Hegseth. They've been going at it for months. I think a lot of it really came to head over this Iran war. They see everything differently. They don't have the same perspective on the war, but specifically the modernization of the military and very specifically the army. The Atlantic, they uh they had a report that said, he brought concerns about the future of the army under Pete Hegseth directly to President Trump, a sign of just how far tensions between the two Pentagon leaders had escalated and of the dysfunction in the Pentagon. Trump was surprised when Driscoll told him how many generals and other top officers had been fired, pushed out or passed over for promotion under Hegseth. Driscoll argued that the army could not transform itself the way it needs to because of the departure of so many leaders, adding that Trump actually expressed concern about the deep cuts of the army's senior leadership. So Driscoll's got his concerns, he takes it directly to Trump and Trump apparently is surprised by what's been going on at the Pentagon. I don't think Trump sees all the news reports of some of the things that have happened in recent months of of firings or uh a bunch of retirements and resignations from top staff and generals who are like, we don't we don't want to deal with this anymore or they're getting fired. They're seen as in the way of whatever the the mentality at the Pentagon is under Hegseth. So, uh this is this comes really also as the Washington Post is reporting that there's little appetite within top military ranks for indefinitely continuing the current all-out operation with Iran. Uh Josh, just up top here, how does all that information make you feel?

Josh Miller: [00:20:36] You know, I think I think it's a bit ironic to me that, you know, we're the the administration is talking about how we need to project strength in this season. Yeah. It's it's difficult to project strength when you're also incredibly divided. Yeah. There's strength in unity. People coming together, hey, we have a common cause, common message, we are we know how to work together. There's no daylight between us. And so I think this is working against our sort of projection of, hey, we're a strong, we have a strong military, strong country, strong leadership, strong uh administration when there seems to be a lot of division uh here in fighting. And so uh it it it makes me uncomfortable to see all of this happening. You kind of you want your top officials, especially your, you know, leaders of your military to be in lock step with the president, you know, able to overcome problems and challenges and differences. And so it's not an encouraging sign for me to see that they can't kind of overcome these disagreements and figure out how to get things done.

Conner Jones: [00:21:32] You don't just want unity, you want the top people in the that the most talented, most skilled people to be in those positions. And if they're not, then that that also causes division too. And there's a it's to the leadership question, who's leading these organizations, these massive military branches. Um lots of questions here about that. Nonetheless, uh it's becoming more and more difficult, I think for the US to get out of this quagmire with Iran. Uh this war, as you recall, was supposed to last a few weeks. We're now drifting into month seven and we know that things have just it's having this deteriorating effect not only on our our military leadership apparently, uh but our military stock pile, uh and specifically our Navy. Uh the I there's been a lot of stories coming out of the Middle East from the USS Lincoln, which has been at sea for nine straight months. Uh no no stops at port. Uh it's one thing for it to be out for nine months, but make a couple stops at port uh in a deployment, but they have been at sea for nine straight months. This is the longest the Navy ship has ever been at sea without a port stop. And there's been reports of supply shortages on the on the ship, uh plumbing issues, uh deteriorating conditions and specifically deteriorating mental health among the 5,000 sailors on board with family members actually reaching out to Congress to say that they are hearing that their loved ones are informing them of the these tough conditions and that some of them have actually tried to jump overboard. Uh it's pretty bad.

Josh Miller: [00:22:53] I mean, what you just said is pretty shocking. The longest a naval ship has ever been at sea without a port stop. you think back to our history, World Wars, Yeah. uh and and you would not expect, at least I would not expect that we're talking about this type of length of deployment without a stop in this current climate seems Totally. doesn't add up to me.

Conner Jones: [00:23:14] Well, so this ship was supposed to be uh it it left port in November. It was supposed to be hovering off kind of the coast of China and all that. It's just a deterrent mechanism. And then we started this war with Iran and it got called into action in the Middle East. So they've extended their deployment rather than going back to a port at some point. They've been hanging out off the coast of Iran for the last six months, you know, launching aircraft to go do these uh uh missions and all of that. But yeah, it takes a toll on people who haven't touched land in nine months. That is crazy. Uh thankfully, they actually docked in Thailand this morning and the the the sailors on board are getting a few days to hang out on shore uh before they as they refuel, restock and everything and then they're going to return home here in the next couple weeks. Um you know, Senator Richard Blumenthal specifically said that there have been widespread reports of shortages of these basic supplies and water contamination and plumbing issues and deteriorating mental health and deck safety concerns and disruptions in the mail system, all of which have caused many packages, care packages from family members in route to the ship to be lost in transit for months. Part of this is because we actually had a naval base get hit by Iranian missiles earlier this year in Bahrain that is typically the supply base where they send supplies from there to these aircraft carriers and other ships because that got hit, they've been having to have other logistics uh working through much further distances from thousands of miles away uh instead of hundreds of miles away. Um to to offer clarification here, Hegseth has actually said these concerns about the Lincoln have been completely misrepresented. Uh but you know, this after really several weeks here of just public um knowledge of what's going on there, the Pentagon finally did announce they were bringing them home. That's why they're now in Thailand. Um you know, it's wartime. I think that's the way the Pentagon would see this uh officially they're saying, hey, you don't have great conditions of war. when you enlist, when you sign up for the military, you're signing up for the fact that you might be living in a fox hole in the middle of a trench, you know, or you might be living in tough conditions, whatever it is. Uh but how should we feel about these tough conditions, Josh?

Josh Miller: [00:25:17] Uh I feel for and all of these, I feel for people, you know, same in the Venezuela story. It's the people that are most affected. And so I think there's there's a tension here. You know, yes, there these are soldiers, but these are humans. And so to your to your point of this is the longest sort of deployment in this way ever, we are asking more of these sailors than has ever been asked before in in that regard. And so you can imagine that having an effect. Uh it also just makes me wonder uh how much of what has transpired with Iran was just unexpected. You know, that we you know, these these bases were either destroyed or can't be accessed because they're in range of Iranian missiles. And so, you know, where the aircraft carriers could typically go could get targeted by Iran. This is a big target. And so they they're kind of keeping these outside the circle where they can get hit. Uh which limits where they can go. And so uh I I just feel for the people on these ships. I can't imagine can't imagine being out there for that long, but I do also there is a tension here around, hey, we are in this this war season and so sometimes it's going to much is going to be required. Yep. Uh and so I I am at least glad though that they're, you know, getting a break here and can uh get on some land at least for a couple days before getting back home.

Conner Jones: [00:26:35] I hope they enjoy that. Uh yeah, you just think they left they left port in the United States on November 21st and that was well before we had any idea or inclination that something was going to pop off with Iran. They probably thought they were going to be on a peaceful deployment, um knowing that they could be called into action at any minute, especially in self-defense, but this is one of those questions again where people are like, is this war what we thought that these soldiers should be fighting? Is this what we wanted? There's a lot of questions around that. Um and speaking of that, we are back firing missiles at Iran again this week. Uh we had several weeks of no exchange of fire. Then the US hit several different targets on the coast of Iran that they say were being prepared to shoot at ships or drop mines in the straight of Hormuz. And so we started attacking those preemptively. Iran started launching missiles back at our bases in Jordan. Uh so we're back at this again, it sounds like, you know, a tit for tat, uh back and forth firing. I I just I don't know where this is going. Uh Trump has floated the idea that the straight of Hormuz could become a US territory. He posted an AI video on True Social, like you mentioned a minute ago, that's where he likes to make his announcements of the Carg Island, which is their oil island being destroyed with explosions. I don't know if that's a threat, like we may come and do that uh to your Carg Island or not. I really don't know. But there are serious costs to this war um on several fronts. One, on the military members we just talked about, not just sailors at sea, but there are members in the Middle East who are deployed over there for this and all that and they are in in interesting conditions or tough conditions or they're just waiting for what's next um and they're they're also under fire. If you're at these little bases in Jordan and you're having to take cover, this is where we've lost some troops is in these Iranian missile firings.

Josh Miller: [00:28:16] Yeah, I think there's just a great lesson here for us that, you know, I think when we're going back to the the Venezuela story, the amount of confidence I think Trump gained in terms of what we could instigate uh and go and accomplish by just military might. Let me just jump in here, oust the leader and now make this sort of oil deal. I I think that they they gained so much confidence that we could do something similar in Iran. And so you see you see this happen even in the Old Testament with the nation of Israel. They get some sort of victory, get, you know, super confident in themselves and then go and do something outside of what God God has asked them to do and fail miserably. And we have the temptation to do this ourselves to go, oh yeah, I I had a huge win here. I can I can go have a huge win again. And so uh more than being, you know, even critical of the the the government in this spot, I just want us to take stock of, man, this is a human uh condition we have that we we gain this confidence in ourselves to be able to go accomplish things. We tout our victories as our own and failures as somebody else's fault. And so we just tend to, you know, disperse the blame to other people and then overstep what God has asked us to do. And so I think this is just a great example of what we don't want to do as individuals is to uh gain confidence, over overconfidence in our abilities without being uh wise and cautious and and really going to the Lord in terms of what types of decisions we make here because it appears this is backfired a bit.

Conner Jones: [00:29:40] Yeah, well, and that that's you set me up perfectly because that's where I'm kind of headed with this, not just with the US, but with Russia here in just a minute too. But I do want to hit on a couple other things real fast that this war is costing uh beyond the toll of military members. It's also costing the greater risk of spilling over to a much larger war. I mean, it's right now it's in a way it's contained. It's been just between Iran and the US and Israel. Um but this could spill. I mean, there's there's talks about Turkey and their conflict with Israel. There's talks about Russia uh that is helping Iran with weapons. This could easily spill into something much bigger. Uh hopefully it does not. Politically, the war is obviously costly for Republicans uh and specifically Trump. It's polling so poorly and it's dragging Republicans down going into this midterm cycle here in November. We're two months out from the midterms. Uh midterm elections. And so this is not great for Republicans. They do not like that this is happening on their ticket. Uh and you know, we've discussed previously the the longer we're in this conflict, the less prepared the US military is to ward off a Russia or a China or another big enemy or an attack on our own land. Um but we are not the only superpower nation caught up in some sort of no-end-in-sight war right now. Yeah, Russia is in particularly in a bad space uh and Putin has led them into this really bad space in a very precarious position in their war with Ukraine. Uh Josh, are you aware of just how bad it's going for for Russia right now in that war?

Josh Miller: [01:01:03] You know, I keep hearing things on both sides here around. It seems like both are trying to adjust. Nobody's seeming to be able to have any sort of breakthrough and everybody is suffering. Uh and so yeah, I'd be curious to see what you've been hearing.

Conner Jones: [01:01:14] Yeah, well, so I did a bunch of research on this yesterday because I was curious too. I was like, I I I keep seeing that it's at a stalemate, right? Nobody's moving forward. Uh Ukraine is defending themselves. They've lost some territory, but Russia's not gaining any territory. They've basically put up a front line of defense that says that that is preventing Russia from moving forward at all, which is really embarrassing for Russia because they are supposed to be the much bigger and more powerful military. Does this sound familiar? Um you know, uh

Josh Miller: [01:01:38] Also expected it to be fast. They weren't prepared for this long-term war.

Conner Jones: [01:01:40] Putin said this was a 48-hour invasion. This there was supposed to which, you know, he was taking playbooks out of what Hitler used to do with the Blitzkrieg, uh taking over entire nations in 48 hours. That's not how it went. I think they totally underestimated the Ukrainian resiliency, the military might of Europe and the US coming in to support Ukraine, um and NATO, even though they're not a NATO nation at Ukraine, NATO really kind of supporting from afar by providing weapons and technology and even intelligence, right? Um but it's going really poorly for the Russian military. They can't seem to gain ground. They lose thousands of troops each week. In fact, the CIA director, John Radcliffe said last week that the average life expectancy for a Russian soldier entering a battlefield in Ukraine is 20 to 30 minutes. It's shocking. And this sometimes is within three to four weeks after they are drafted into the military. They get hardly any training and they are sent to the front lines and they are killed almost immediately. That's because there's these AI powered drones, which we've actually written about at Denison Forum recently, uh specifically Russia and AI powered drones, which are targeting uh civilian targets. Um but Ukraine also has AI powered drones that they've developed over the last couple years. They've gotten to be so specialized that they are now these like low-cost killing machines. Um and so they are actually small little quadcopter drones, which are so cheap, um and easy to make and fast and they are just tools that they are calling slaughter bots where essentially the AI uh makes them impervious to jamming. Uh they can't be jammed out by Russian defenses and they are able to just remove the human element at the last leg of their journey, find a soldier and literally just go take them out. Um it's it's in a way it's scary um that there's anything like this and that there's a name literally slaughter bots is what they're called. Um but it is it's I mean it's taking out these soldiers almost immediately after they get to the front lines. And so Ukraine has said that in the last uh 18 or really since the war started, Russia's lost 1.4 million soldiers and they're they're killing about 200 soldiers for every kilometer of territory that Moscow claims. Um Russia's suffering a casualty rate of eight to one compared to Ukraine. Wow. And Russia's only gained 1% of Ukraine's territory in the last 18 months to the point about it really being kind of like trench warfare stalemate, but modern trench warfare. It is these drones, it's these high-tech missiles and weapons that are being used to prevent um forward movement. Um yeah, and and meanwhile, Ukraine's also they've started launching long-range attacks into Russia. They're hitting their oil refineries. They've hampered one third of Russia's oil production, uh which is I mean, this is just an we're having a big oil discussion essentially. between Venezuela and Iran and the straight of Hormuz and Russia, how much oil matters and it's making the people in Russia mad. I mean, they're sitting at these long gas lines. Their gas is now more expensive. Um

Josh Miller: [01:34:30] And that seems to be part of the shift in strategy here is if we can't make military gains, battlefield gains, let's make sure everyone in country also is suffering and feeling the effect to to apply pressure to the leadership to do something. Exactly. And so it seems like I heard uh recently as well that Russia has shifted their strategy where they were doing sort of drones into Kiev overnight. They do these waves of drones and they've shifted recently to just keeping the drones perpetually coming in. And so 24 hours a day, just a consistent flurry of drones to where people can't have a moment of peace. They're always watching, uh tracking, live tracking drones coming into the country on the on apps on their phones uh in Kiev because it's just a constant flurry. And so the more they can disrupt normal life within these countries, the more they're hoping it it sort of breaks something loose to make a change here.

Conner Jones: [01:35:23] That's exactly the strategy. I mean, Ukraine's also hitting uh basically it's called Wildberries. It's like the Russian Amazon equivalent. They're hitting their factories, right, their warehouses where all these supply uh, you know, products are that the people order to their homes and that also helps supply their military and all of that. It'd be like our oil and our Amazon warehouses in America getting hit. Yeah, people in America would start being like, what is going on? In this thing. Uh it is applying pressure to Putin and he is apparently getting pretty desperate, desperate enough to warrant a rare and unannounced visit from John Radcliffe, who I mentioned a minute ago, the CIA director last week. Radcliffe went to Moscow for a couple hours on this clandestine trip. Um basically, it sounds like to according to reporting from Politico and a couple other outlets, they said he went to warn Russia not to attack NATO nations and to press them to reduce military and economic support for Iran. Uh it seems to indicate really that the US has intelligence that Russia is considering some sort of preemptive attack on a NATO country, which would test the resilience of NATO and even America's resilience. Would we actually come in and support another NATO nation such as like specifically, I think he he quoted uh or or highlighted Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which are these small weaker Baltic state countries right on the edge of Russia, would we actually go support Estonia and and defend them if they got attacked by Russia? That's the question to be known and that I think that's what Russia wants to test. Um even this week, Germany's had a couple like these like uh attacks on their uh energy infrastructure that they are blaming on Russia that they are not saying is necessarily or they have not confirmed as like a military attack from Russia, but it's like through Russian intelligence channels that are recruiting these people to go do these like kind of like quasi terrorist attacks on these electric grids in in Germany. That is almost like Germany testing things out and trying to attack their infrastructure there in Germany, um another NATO nation. So, you know, even Bloomberg has reported that Putin there's fears from Russian officials, literally people in the Kremlin who fear that Putin could actually eventually resort to tactical nuclear weapons um as like a last resort should it get that bad. So that seems unlikely. I do not freak yourself out about that and tactical nuclear weapons have never been used before uh and they're different than like the larger nuclear weapons, but it would obviously that would stoke a lot of response from the world. All of this makes you wonder and Josh, you kind of asked this question a minute ago, does Trump regret the war in Iran? The the decision to do this because it ended up not going the way he thought it would. Does Putin regret his decision to enter war with Ukraine four and a half years later? Obviously, the war has developed. I mean, drone warfare when you when 2022, we were not going to think this was a drone war. It's a very different world now. Yeah. I mean, four and a half years later, the the warfare tactics have completely changed. The technology has changed. AI has become part of it. Um and it's even impacting the way we're fighting the war with Iran and Iran is fighting back, right? Um you would just have to wonder if these two leaders regret that at all, um or you know, was it short-sighted in some way because they thought they had the powerful military that could go in and do this thing much easier than it actually ended up being. I don't know if they do. Um and I'm not saying we should not support our military and and our endeavors here in the United States. Like I I think we should support our troops and all of that and they are required to obey the orders of the commander-in-chief. That is what they are doing. They are pursuing that mission that has been set before them and an operation set before them. Um but I think both of these leaders would say that they thought the wars would go differently. Uh like you said, Trump was emboldened by Venezuela and thought that would happen with Iran. Putin believed Ukrainians would falter. They did not. Um and it just there's tough consequences that have come out of this. So it's a question for them on those fronts, but I would like to pose the question for us. Do you ever feel like you know like exactly how something would go in your life? As in you had this dream scenario, you said, oh, it's going to go just like this. I'm going to make my plans. It's going to go perfectly the way that I think it will and I'm going to move forward with this essentially a false dream of how you think things will go. And then it doesn't go that way. And then maybe there's some tough consequences that come with that.

Josh Miller: [01:39:24] Yeah.

Conner Jones: [01:39:24] You ever feel that?

Josh Miller: [01:39:25] Oh man, I mean, how much time do we have? I mean, that feels like that's just like our our whole story as as humans is we we attempt and we fall and God redeems and he turns things around and sets us back on the path that we need to walk on if we allow him to. And so uh that man, don't we need a like a move of God in our country? You know, I just as I'm like reading through this or we're kind of talking through this, just going, man, how broken our world is. How much sin has caused destruction, how much uh how much of a folly it is for us to put our hope and our plans in uh nations and leaders and we just don't know what the future holds. We and we but we do know is that even the best leaders are sinful and fail and they don't have it all figured out either. Even the best ones. And so, man, where are we putting our hope? What how are we building our plans? Are is our hope built on parties and politicians or is our is our hope built on Jesus? And man, I to your to get back to your question, I feel like when I've put my hope in the right place, even when things don't go the way I expect, I don't feel unraveled. Yeah, when I've put all my I put all my stock, all my hope, all my plans into something that I've built, then when that thing doesn't go the way that I expected it to, then my whole whole world is rocked. And it feels like we're in the spot where the whole world is rocked right now. And I'm going, man, especially as followers of Jesus, we need to put our hope and our future and our plans in him. And and I and it makes me wonder how are we today going out and living faithfully for him? How are we as we get into our workplaces, our schools, in our communities, putting our hope in him rather than uh, you know, expecting the world to be stable and things to go well. The the world is broken. And so there's only one spot that we can really rely on.

Conner Jones: [01:41:20] Yeah, God's our stable hope and foundation, right? Um and we need to follow his will for our lives, not our own, not anybody else's will for our lives, his. Um and we do it humbly and we do it bow down before him and and follow the direction that he has set before us, the path that he has set before us. I just want to read a couple verses that kind of lean into everything you just mentioned, Josh and this. Um James 4:6-7, you know, instructs a posture of our heart and obedience. It says, God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourselves therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts. And Colossians 3:2 says, set your minds on things that are above, not on things on the earth. So where's your mind set today? Um you know, Josh, we can wrestle with that question every day. Where is our mindset? Uh are we trying to carve out our own path and tell God to follow us? That's the dangerous route to take. Um or are you going to follow God's will for your life and see those flashing warning signs that are trying to tell you not to jot down a wayward path. Uh are there things that are like, do not go this way. Is God trying to say, don't follow your own path, follow my path. Set your hope in in me, not in anything else in this world, not in a military or a party or anything else that you just mentioned, Josh.

Josh Miller: [01:42:38] Well, and use these moments of anxiety or uncertainty as a as a call to go pray. So like that, you know, sometimes I'll, you know, we'll look through what's happening in the news and I get anxious and nervous and I just carry that. Well, well, we'll see what happens, you know. But when you feel that level of uncertainty, I don't know what to do with this. I don't know where to go. That's should be a sign for us to go, actually, I know I need to take this somewhere. Uh and go, okay, God, you know things I don't. You have a plan that I don't have. You're in control. Uh you can actually make things different. God has the ability to actually intervene and change the circumstances. And so as believers, that should be our response. As we're seeing these things and even going through this, I'm going, man, this is kind of dark and depressing today. And sometimes the world is. That's just the reality of where the world is, but that that shouldn't discourage us. It should cause us to lean in and go, okay, God, I see the darkness out there in the world, the destruction going on in the world, the people who are suffering in the world, God, would you step in? God, would you make an impact? And then as I go out and live my live my life today, could I be one of the people that goes and makes some of that impact for you and goes and shines a light in those those places?

Conner Jones: [01:43:52] Yeah, it's a good point. I as we say often here on this podcast, just stop and pray. When you feel it, when you're like reading it, you're hearing it, watching it on the news, stop and pray. Um don't let all of this bubble up into too much. All right, let's jump into some lighter stuff for the last. Let's do it. I'm ready. As a tune in section here, Apple, they've got their big announcement next week. They just first off, we should mention Tim Cook, the CEO for the last, I don't know, 15 or so years, stepped down this week. He retired. Uh so John Turnis is the new CEO there. He is stepping in to do his first Apple product launch. They do it every September. They announce new iPhones and watches and iPads and everything. A lot of people watch this. It feels like the last few years have been kind of a dud because it's just been like the it's really hard to improve on the iPhone. It's pretty sharp and good. So it's like, we have a slightly better camera. You get a little more storage space. Great. Give us something flashy. And I think from what rumors are saying, Josh, sounds like this is the flashy year.

Josh Miller: [01:44:43] It sounds like they have a lot of new products to launch here and hopefully and maybe even some new versions of the iPhone. There's some talk about a foldable phone. There's talk about uh that by the way that they're estimating is going to be about $2,000. So we'll see what holds up there. Uh so it's going to look cool. Whether or not you want to buy it or can afford to buy it is a whole another

Conner Jones: [01:45:02] I need a friend to buy that so I can watch football on his on his foldable iPhone.

Josh Miller: [01:45:06] Totally. But as as a bit of a tech nerd myself and I'm deep in the Apple ecosystem, I I always love seeing what they come up with and this, yeah, to your point, should be a little more exciting than some of the the last few years.

Conner Jones: [01:45:19] Very curious to see what a foldable iPhone would look like. I'm going to be disappointed if that's not the case because everybody's like, the foldable iPhone's coming. It's what all these like leaks are saying.

Josh Miller: [01:45:27] Potentially some new smart home products. They've been trying to get into the smart home world more and more and so and AI and they have to improve on their AI. That's a big thing. I have the new, you know, Siri beta on my phone. Uh and it's it's finally catching up a little bit. It's not perfect yet, but it's finally uh kind of playing on the same playing field as some of these other AI companies. And so I think they've been holding, my my opinion, they've been holding a lot of these new products until the new version of Siri was really going to be able to do what they had been promising for a long time. It appears they're ready to do that. We'll we'll find out here soon.

Conner Jones: [01:46:01] And what they're going to do is make a whole lot of money from all of us who are going to who are going to buy them over the next, you know, maybe not immediately, but over the next few years. Uh I actually just bought a new iPhone because my old one broke. So I won't be getting the foldable one anytime soon. And by the time I come around to it, it'll be like $1,000, not $2,000, but

Josh Miller: [01:46:17] Yeah, if there's anything Apple does well, it's make money. That's what they do. They're really good at that. They're very, very good at that. It sounds like the oil companies, right?

Conner Jones: [01:46:25] I can't tell you how excited I am for this next thing. Guys, the NFL is back. It's back. Josh, I know you're not like the biggest football guy in the world, but

Josh Miller: [01:46:34] My kids are more excited than I am, but they they're like begging for fantasy football this year. Uh so we're we're going to be in.

Conner Jones: [01:46:41] Josh won our Denison Ministries fantasy football league last year. He reminded me last week.

Josh Miller: [01:46:44] I did. Yeah.

Conner Jones: [01:46:46] And that was impressive.

Josh Miller: [01:46:47] That's not saying a lot. It was luck, but I did win it.

Conner Jones: [01:46:50] But you did win. I mean, you had a solid team. I do remember. I think I I even lost to you. I love fantasy football. The NFL, I'm mentioning it now because technically it starts before our next episode. It's starting on a Wednesday this year, which is just odd. Wednesday's like not a typical football day, but I'm going to take it. Man, I I'll take any day I can get NFL football or even college football. Wednesday night, next week, it's going to be a Super Bowl rematch, the Seattle Seahawks versus the New England Patriots. We are so back. It'll be on NBC.

Josh Miller: [01:47:17] How many streaming services do I have to have to watch?

Conner Jones: [01:47:19] You got to have like 19 now. And one of them, the only one that's not there oddly enough is Apple. Apple does not have an NFL game, but they make their money on products. So that's everybody else, yeah, Netflix has their, you know, their pie here, uh I think Peacock, YouTube TV, all of it. You got to have a little bit of everything, which is kind of unfortunate. And I think Congress is trying to address that as well. Like you can't keep doing this to to the American public.

Josh Miller: [01:47:42] That'll get Congress moving.

Conner Jones: [01:47:43] That will actually get if that's what people should run on in the midterms. If you want to win an election for Congress, tell tell your or your, you know, your your people, I will make sure the NFL requires less streaming services. There you go. Uh that'll I just wanted to ask you, Josh, before the season starts and maybe we can look back at this in like February, as a preseason Super Bowl prediction, who do you think will be in the Super Bowl this year?

Josh Miller: [01:48:06] Well, man, last year was a good year for me because I'm I'm from the Northwest. So the Seahawks winning the Super Bowl, they were I'm from Portland, but Seahawks were the closest NFL team. And so big Seahawks fan. I was kind of surprised they won. I didn't think they were going to make it, but it was we we celebrated for sure. And so uh in terms of this year, I'm going to go with them doing it one more time. I'm going for one more surprise. So I think in terms of a rematch, I think Seahawks and then I'm also a bit of a Josh Allen fan. I think it's it's about his time for him to break through and and have a moment here. And so uh Buffalo Bills, I think Seahawks versus the Bills in the Super Bowl. I think the actually I do think the Bills will end up actually winning the Super Bowl here.

Conner Jones: [01:48:49] Maybe. Uh they've been four times, four times in the 90s, lost all four times, which was just brutal for them. It's time for the Bills to actually get their first Super Bowl. Yeah, Seahawks look really good. I've been watching them on hard knocks this year and I mean they're they're running it back. I I I could see them if they don't make the Super Bowl, they'll make the NFC championship again for sure. They're so talented. Now, my prediction is not them. I actually do think the Rams, the Los Angeles Rams versus the Houston Texans will be our Super Bowl match up. The Texans top defense in the league. All right. Rams probably going to have the second top defense in the league. They signed Miles Garrett, the top defender in the league. Um and they brought back Aaron Darnold, uh I always say Darnold, that's Sam Darnold, quarterback of the Seahawks. Aaron Donald is back out of retirement. So you're going to have two of the best defenders in NFL history playing on the same team there. Yeah, I think we're going to have a defensive match up. Matthew Stafford's still really good. Puka is really talented as long as he doesn't get suspended uh for all of his off-the-field problems. Um yeah, man, NFL's back. Just love it. Love talking about football. I'm sure we'll talk a little bit more next week. Uh I'll have Parker back on here and we'll discuss a little bit of college football and NFL football then, but best time of the year, guys. It's not summer, it's not Christmas. It's fall when football is on all. I guess Christmas is good too. Now we have Christmas day games on Netflix. That's what I was going to say. Yeah. So, well, this was a great conversation, Josh. Thanks for joining me. A lot of geopolitical stuff. Um yeah, and guys, if you have any thoughts or questions, you can always reach out to us uh at [email protected]. You can email us there or follow us on Instagram. Check us out there. Josh, thanks for joining me today.

Josh Miller: [01:50:14] My pleasure.

Conner Jones: [01:50:15] Thanks, guys. Thank you for joining us on this week's episode of Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast. All articles and videos mentioned in this episode will be linked in the show notes. If you want to help us reach more believers with truth in today's chaotic culture, please share this podcast around and leave a five-star rating and review. All episodes are produced by Sound of a Rose. For more information, you can visit soundofarose.com. See you next Thursday.