Warning: This is a rush transcript generated automatically and may contain errors.
Asbed: Hello everyone, and welcome to this Conversations on Groong episode. Today we’re going to be focusing on the recent regime change operation in Syria and its implications for the region, as well as how these developments project into the South Caucasus, given Turkey and Azerbaijan’s ambitions in Armenia. We’ll also delve into the critical role of intelligence, and reconnaissance, known as ISR in modern warfare, and explore how these capabilities have influenced conflicts like the 2020 war on Karabakh. Our guest today is Larry C.
Johnson a former CIA analyst and State Department counterterrorism officer specializing in terrorism, national security, and foreign policy. Now a political consultant and commentator, he is known for his critical views on US foreign policy and intelligence practices.
Hovik: This promises to be a fascinating discussion, so stay tuned. But before we begin, a quick reminder. If you enjoy deep dive coverage of Armenia, the South Caucasus, and the region, please hit the subscribe button. We’re the only comprehensive English language podcast focused on Armenia and the region, bringing you long-form interviews such as this one with experts across a variety of fields.
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Asbed: And lastly, if you enjoy this podcast, please consider supporting us. Your help will make it easier for us to produce quality content. Visit podcasts.groong.org / donate for details. All right, let’s get on with our show now.
Mr. Larry Johnson, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks for having me.
Hovik: Welcome to the show, Mr. Johnson. Great to have you.
Asbed: I appreciate the invite. Mr. Johnson, you are frequently featured on a variety of platforms, especially on YouTube. You give a lot of interviews, but for those who may not be familiar with your story, can you share a little bit about your background for our audience?
Larry: Sure. You could say my entire life has been, I’m a guy who can’t hold a job. So I spent four years with the Central Intelligence Agency from 85 to 89. where I did both work on the operations side of the house, but most of my career was with the intelligence analysis side. I moved from there to State Department.
So when I was at CIA, I had State Department cover. That was my cover identity. Then I became real state and worked in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism for four years. And then starting in 1994, began a consulting business And that has continued until today.
Several different iterations, but two of the main things they focused on during that time was scripting terrorism exercises for the US military special operations world. And I did that for about 23 years. So I worked with every top secret classified military unit that there is. and got some knowledge about the world and how the United States operates in it in terms of intelligence collection and ISR in particular, as well as my other part of the consulting business, or as we did international financial investigations, money laundering cases.
And one of our clients was the European Union when we brought a civil racketeering case against the tobacco companies for money laundering. Philip Morris settled with the European Union in 2004, I believe it was, for $1.5 billion, which sounds like a lot of money. I mean, it’d be a lot of money. Yeah, but that’s about a week of cash flow for Philip Morris.
So it didn’t cause any lasting harm to him. And what I learned out of that was a lot of U.S. corporations, U.S. banks, They are up to their eyebrows in dealing with drug money. Drug money is a lucrative endeavor. So that’s why I say follow the money, because when you follow the money, you usually find out what’s going on.
Asbed: Thank you for that. So Syria happened. The terrorists are now forming a government in Syria. So let’s just cut to the chase.
Do you think that Russian and Iranian intel services missed this whole thing? Or do you think that there were backroom deals maybe that determined the current outcome?
Larry: No, I don’t think they missed it at all. I think they knew what was coming. They just couldn’t, you know, you see a car wreck getting ready to happen and all you can do is watch it take place. Multiple reports now. that both Iran and Russia made several entreaties to Bashar Assad about providing support, additional support to the military, about increased training and increased financial aid.
And Assad turned it all down. This coincided with the Arab League bringing recognition back to Assad. And so he basically was in their good graces. And I don’t know if he was deceived by them, completely bamboozled.
But whatever was done, you know, and maybe he was paid off, too. That’s always a possibility. I think You know, all of this has been done for the sake of Israel. I mean, there’s there, Turkey, you know, Turkey is getting what it wants in terms of regaining territory that believes was taken away from it at the end of World War One, 100 plus years ago.
But this all the current drive, the intelligence operations were all centered around securing Israel’s I guess making Israel more secure is the proper way to present it. Nobody expected, I don’t even think the operations planners on the intel side expected this thing to coalesce and fall apart for Assad as quickly as it did. But it did. There’s a lot of projection.
I keep hearing these people, oh boy, this hurt Russia. Really? Okay. Explain to me how it hurt Russia.
Yeah,
Asbed: it’s tough to understand because Russia still has that naval base in Tartus and it projects a lot of power in the Mediterranean and the North African continent from there. And they’ve already had an agreement with HTS.
Larry: but not that much in terms of, you know, I think people really overstate the importance of Tartus because it’s, Russia is not a naval power. It’s not a maritime power. It has a very formidable submarine fleet for delivering nuclear weapons. But beyond that, it hasn’t invested a lot of money in aircraft carriers.
It’s got some destroyers and cruisers here and there. But for Russia, the real difference between Russia and the United States When the United States gets involved with the country, we’re going to overthrow it. We’re going to install new rulers. We’re going to, you know, we break it, we buy it kind of thing.
And yet we hopefully we never really take responsibility for it. But we’re, you know, we get ourselves completely meddled in. Russia doesn’t. You know, Russia actually operates on a principle.
Hey, it’s your country. We’re here to help. We’ll help you if you want. But we’re not going to tell you, you know, we’re not going to be your mother-in-law.
We’re not going to tell you what you have to do. We’re not going to coerce you. We’re not going to compel you. And if you don’t want our help, that’s fine, too.
And that’s what happened. Russia was prepared to fight and assist Assad. Assad and his generals made the decision not to fight. That seems to be the case. this collaboration between Turkey and Israel.
Yeah, this is a temporary victory. I would say it’s almost a Pyrrhic victory because now they own it. Last I checked, Syria is not on the border of Russia. And Syria is not on the border of Iran.
And why does that matter? The refugees that are going to be flowing in and out, the criminal gangs that are going to be operating across those frontiers, the terrorist groups that are going to be moving back and forth, it’s going to create chaos for all the countries that border Syria. So that means Turkey’s going to have problems, Iraq’s going to have problems, Jordan in particular is going to have some problems, Lebanon, big time, and even ultimately Israel. Israel thinks, oh, yeah, they’re destroying all of this Syrian military infrastructure.
But they’re also pushing out their lines of communication. And all of this presupposes that Israel has a pretty robust strategic depth in terms of its military resources. And it doesn’t. You know, it doesn’t have an ample supply of manpower to call upon.
It’s got a very limited supply. And so now they’re increasing territory that they’re going to have to, quote, police monitor. And despite the claims of Jolani, this current HTS, you know, the that, oh, yeah, we don’t want war with Israel. That’s not going to last long.
There are too many jihadist members of HTS and now Nusra and ISIS still active that are not going to sit by and watch Israel desecrate the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It’s not going to happen. So, you know, it’s crazy.
Asbed: As far as the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and their allies go, what was Turkey’s role in this offensive?
Larry: They helped organize it, organize it and plan it through their MIT, through their intelligence organization, working in close cooperation with the United States, with the CIA and with MI6. Why do I say that? I don’t you know, I’m not read into the program, but all I can tell you is when when you see this Jolani show up on CNN. And get the softball interview and the whole thing, how stage manages the woman wearing the head covering and, you know, the guy, the only thing he didn’t do was go on and say. hi, my name’s Jolani, my pronouns are they, them, you know, didn’t do that, okay?
He didn’t come off as, you know, completely flamboyant, shall we say. But, this, then on top of it, when you say that there are, we see that Ukrainian officers, Ukrainian military personnel, drone operators are operating in Turkey and in northern Syria. Well, Turkey didn’t go to Ukraine and say, hey, Zelensky, can we borrow some of your boys? We’re planning a little affair here.
That was the United States and the United Kingdom polled people that they could trust and they had confidence in them and put them down there. So, yeah, Turkey was willingly going along with this. And let’s be clear, this intelligence cooperation to take down Bashar al-Assad dates back at least 15 years, at least, if not longer. you can go back to Dwight Eisenhower when he was trying to get rid of, Hafez Assad back then. But so this is, the United States has for almost 70 years has been actively trying to get control of Syria.
This is that proverbial dog chasing the car. Once you catch it, then what do you do?
Hovik: Yeah. So given all this, it’s difficult to prognosticate, but how would you expect the situation in Syria to evolve in the coming months, years?
Larry: You don’t see the Kurds laying down their weapons and turning to Turkey and saying, hey, let’s be friends. That’s not happening. They’re fighting today as we speak. And the Turks, the groups backed by Turkey are pushing the Kurds to the east, back across the Euphrates.
So that’s not a good sign.
Asbed: Well, they’re backed by the US. Does that mean that the US is probably going to end up staying there and then continuing this whole, it’s kind of funny because, I mean, but it’s two NATO allies, the US and Turkey, who are going to back different horses.
Hovik: It’s also interesting because Trump, in his first term, wanted to get out of Syria. So is he going to stay there?
Larry: I think they will. I don’t see them abandoning it. But we’ll see if Trump goes back to what his policy was before. They could argue now, you know, I think a real argument could be made that this region is going to be very volatile.
Nobody’s going to be in control. That’s the problem. Erdogan thinks that, oh, OK, I’ve got this under control now. He doesn’t.
This is, you know, he does not have the leverage. What he has created is a problem that he may have to actually send Turkish forces into Syria to intervene, to at least try to get better control of Aleppo and Idlib, for example. But, you know, down south, where the Druze are, where you have more of a Shia population, they’re going to be targets, as well as the Alouettes. They’re going to be targets of these Sunnis.
You know, a lot of people in the West just don’t appreciate the depth of the sectarian intensity of That is, you know, drives and motivates these people. Their religious beliefs don’t allow for forgiveness or compromise. It’s very rigid. It’s very black and white.
You’re either a believer or you’re a heretic. And. You know, Jolani, they can try to put the best PR face on him. it’s that old saying, I don’t care how much lipstick you put on a pig, the pig still doesn’t look like Marilyn Monroe. And Jolani, they’re not going to be able to dress him up to make him appear to be Mahatma Gandhi.
You know, he’s not a statesman. You know, he’s a 43-year-old guy who’s spent much of the last 20 years chopping heads, killing people. And now all of a sudden he’s going to be a statesman? I don’t think so.
And he also does not have the experience to sort of navigate all these turbulent political waters is the best way to describe it. But, you know, Turkey is genuinely a bad actor here. you know, Erdogan has, talked, all he’s done is talk about defending the rights of the Palestinian people. Now he’s up to, he’s in bed with the Israelis.
Asbed: Well, yeah, so far it’s been all talk and no walk.
Hovik: We keep joking that under the Erdogan administration earlier, like I guess said, a couple more than a decade ago his foreign minister had a book called zero problems problems with neighbors and now they have zero neighbors without problems but it seems like Erdogan seems to prefer to thrive under adversity and so far it has worked out for him for instance they have been able to capture Nagorno-Karabakh which we’ll talk about uh you know which is uh it’s one of our ancient parts of our homeland and It seems like, you know, they’ve been exporting instability. it’s still on their border, but it’s not, you know, at least inside Turkey, people haven’t felt it, even though the Lira is tanking and so forth.
Well,
Larry: while I don’t pretend to be an expert on the whole Armenian experience, I do know enough that Turkey seems to have been involved in a little genocide with respect to the Armenian people. And that tends to leave a scar. You know, the one thing that separates people that come out of places like Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, They have long memories. And one of my CIA buddies, he was, so he was a case officer for, he was running Iranian intelligence assets.
And one day he had a meeting scheduled and this Iranian comes in and he was just, he was visibly, emotionally distraught. He was upset. And my friend said to him, well, what’s wrong? He goes, It was that murder of these women and children.
It was ungodly. It was wrong. And my friend said, oh, I haven’t heard about that. He said, let me, he said, how many?
And he said, oh, there were probably 3,000. 3,000, good Lord, where did it take place? No, it was right over here. There’s this location. Oh, okay.
Now, when did this take place? And the guy paused, he says, oh, I think it was 600 AD. Now, they’re talking about it like it had just happened this week or last week. But it was something that had happened centuries ago.
Asbed: Very long memory.
Hovik: it’s very difficult because, you know, if you had said this in, let’s say, 2019, when Nagorno-Karabakh, which is an ethnically Armenian populated region, was still Armenian, we would say, oh, these Armenians keep bringing up 100 years of history. And it happened again. And it’s some of the same ideology. But since we’re talking about the South Caucasus, it does remain a critical region where essentially global and regional powers intersect.
And it’s a pretty volatile environment. So in 2020, Azerbaijan attacked Nagorno-Karabakh, and analysts warned of a potential escalation targeting the southern regions of Armenia now. So after that time, and Azerbaijan is openly threatening Armenia that it will take the so-called “Zangezur Corridor”, the southern provinces of Armenia, Syunik and Vayots Dzor, by force if it needs to. And their goal, according to their pan-Turkic ideology, is to create the so-called “Zangezur Corridor”, which would link, because essentially Armenia is sort of geographically a wedge between Turkey and Azerbaijan.
And in fact, former, I believe, Prime Minister of Turkey, Tansu Çiller, called us the damned wedge. But, you know, so from a Turkish perspective, from the pan-Turkic perspective, goal. Establishing this corridor is pretty important, but also this benefits several different powers. The United States, because it is able to contain Iran, it’s able to put pressure on Iran from the north, and of course Israel, who is always ever present in these discussions.
And we know that Azerbaijan and Turkey are adept at using global crises to initiate land grabs just like they did in 2020 when they started that war amidst COVID and the US presidential election and of course the current land grab that they did in Syria right now and Armenian watchers are generally concerned that people are not paying attention maybe there’s nothing we can do and maybe the people will continue to say that well what could we do if Armenia does not protect itself, but the reality is that Armenia, unless Iran and Russia intervene to protect, north-south communication, and Armenia is basically on that route, you know, I mean, many are worried, and I don’t want to spread panic, but many are worried that Armenia will be the next place for operation.
In fact, in the sphere of English language podcasters, I believe only Douglas MacGregor was the one who brought up this issue in a recent podcast with Daniel Davis. But do you think that this adventure that Turkey started could embolden it to also now push for a territorial grab in Armenia?
Larry: I think it’ll probably end up being good news for Armenia because it will get Turkey so bogged down in Syria that that it won’t have the resources or the focus to be able to do that. In fact, I would almost argue that if they weren’t bogged down in Syria, then that might be more of a possibility. Pashinyan, he’s the leader of Armenia right now, right? He’s the prime minister.
Yeah, so he’s playing a really dangerous game because the United States… The CIA is in there and they’re sweet-talking them. the best way to think of this is Pashinyan is like that woman at the bar that’s had a little too much to drink. And the United States is this Lothario, this serial rapist, trying to get her out of the bar. Okay?
If Armenians are foolish enough to believe that the United States government is their friend, And oh, yeah, we’re here to help you. We’re here to promote your freedom and democracy. You know, if they’re dumb enough to believe that, then you know what? Maybe what happens, they deserve it.
You know, it’s a hard way to say it. But the fact of the matter is the United States only wants to use Armenia for one reason. as a tool to attack Russia. This is all about taking Russia out because Russia’s got the resources. Armenia’s got some.
But, you know, Armenia is a speck on the map compared to what Russia represents. And so the strategic vision for the United States, we normally don’t do strategy well. But in this case, the strategy is to get in there, get Armenia as a way to distract, to try to weaken Russia. And they could give a shit what happens to Armenians.
I mean, I hate to be so blunt about it and so crude, but I’m at the point now where I am just becoming enraged day after day. It is an unrelenting attack by the United States on the world order. We see it in Georgia. We see it in Romania.
And we’re seeing it in Armenia. And unfortunately, Pashinyan has been, I think he’s been completely gamed.
Hovik: You may know how this is being done since you’ve been on that side of the world. We asked our previous guest, Ivan Katchanovsky, about the personal motivations for Zelensky. How do you get someone who is a leader of a country to act against this country’s interests in such a blatant manner that everyone else can see what’s happening?
Asbed: Well, many people, many observers in Armenia actually think that these people are CIA assets, who got installed at the top. Very well, could be. Plain and simple. Yeah.
Hovik: I just want to add that in the last 20 or so years, I don’t know if there’s ever been a case of the head of the CIA and MI6 visiting Armenia. And over the last two years, they have each visited Armenia at least once. I think the head of MI6 visited Armenia. Richard Moore visited Armenia twice.
And when they come to Armenia, they directly meet Pashinyan. They don’t meet their counterparts in Armenia. They meet Pashinyan directly.
Larry: That tells you, look, they didn’t come to provide volunteer hours at a soup kitchen. Hey, would you like another bowl of borscht or whatever? No, you know, they are engaged. Armenia is simply a springboard to go after Russia.
That’s all. You know, it’d be one thing if there was actually genuine concern about the Armenian people. You know, and one of the aspects of CIA tradecraft and British, you know, all spy tradecraft, is when you are trying to recruit somebody to betray their country, to give you information, it’s much like a seduction. And at the heart of it, you are trying to convince the other person that you really are their friend, that you really have their best interest at heart.
But you don’t. That your best interest goes as long as they do what you want them to do. And the moment they start saying, wait a minute, I’m not comfortable with this. All of a sudden, they wind up on the wrong side of the table.
And frankly, the world stage is littered with the bodies. of people that thought that they were the buddies of the CIA. Ever heard of a guy named Saddam Hussein? How about Manuel Noriega? You know, so where the United States would get in bed and make, you know, we would have a good relations with these people.
We would facilitate their criminal activity or what we call their criminal activity. And then, then when it becomes convenient for us, we turn on them. So that, but it’s not just for like one person like Pashinyan that it’ll happen to the whole Armenian population there. And I would argue that Russia takes a very radically different approach, much more pragmatic in terms of understanding, hey, these guys are our neighbors.
And the fact that Armenia and Azerbaijan both side by side, Russia’s gonna try to have good relations with both. But, you know, it’s like one of those situations, you go back to high school. Well, if you’re going to be friends with him, you can’t be friends with me. You know, wait a second.
You know, there has to be a little bit more maturity enter into this. So it’s dangerous what’s taking place.
Hovik: It’s a very opportune, I mean, apt that you mentioned that because Iran is keenly aware of the pan-tyrannic threat. but also the Israeli threat on its northern borders. Maybe for Iran, I don’t know which one is more important. Meanwhile, Russia is a little bit, as you said, more pragmatic.
And by that, I mean in November 9, 2020, when there was a ceasefire that was inked on November 9, 2020, One point that appeared in that ceasefire document was this so-called opening of trade routes, and under the guise of opening trade routes, there’s explicit mention of connecting the mainland Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhijevan, and that’s what the Turks are calling the “Zangezur Corridor”. in fact, ceremoniously went to Shushi, the Armenian city of Shushi, that is on, you know, one of the highest points in the region.
And they inked the Shushi Declaration where they said that Turkey and Azerbaijan will jointly sort of open the “Zangezur Corridor”. So one of the points in that deal was that Russian border guard troops would be stationed on that corridor. But Turkey and Azerbaijan are treating this as their own, like, centuries-old project, and they are interpreting it as an extraterritorial corridor to Armenia. So they’re trying to We can weaken the geopolitical status of that region.
And I’m not sure if Azerbaijan and Turkey make another land grab. I mean, amidst all this. And it doesn’t have to be too complicated because it’s only, I believe, at its narrowest point, it’s like… 40 kilometers or something like that. I’m not sure if even Russia would be willing to react.
And at this point, given what happened in Syria, I’m not sure that Iran would be able to react. Shouldn’t Russia be more concerned, though, since you’re an expert in counterterrorism, shouldn’t Russia be more concerned about the pan-Turkic threat because it has its own like soft underbelly in Chechnya and Dagestan, where these irredentist feelings can be cultivated in the future.
Larry: Well, yeah, no, it’s one of those things that Russia is having to carefully navigate. You know, Turkey, Erdogan is overplaying his hand and that shouldn’t surprise anybody. But you saw a statement, was it yesterday, day before yesterday, where he claimed that sort of the only two real global leaders are Vladimir Putin and, ta-da, Reçep Erdogan. He’s quite modest.
Yeah, man of great humility, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and you’ve got to wonder if Xi Jinping is sitting there going, what the hell? Because Xi Jinping’s also seen pictures of these Islamic Uyghur fighters there in Syria.
And they’re talking about going back and attacking China. So, the Chinese are always usually about business, but I think this is ultimately going to catch their attention. Russia is, you know, Turkey has used up its credit with Russia. Let me put it that way.
Asbed: That’s an important point.
Larry: And Russia harbors no illusions about what Erdogan is, that the ultimate self-serving bastard. that it won’t even matter if it’s necessarily in the best interest of Turkey or not. As long as it serves his vainglorious objectives, he’ll do it. And that’s why he’s betrayed Russia over and over. And the promise to keep the Azov captives in tow and then releasing them a year and a half ago is just one example. collaborating with Ukraine and with Western intelligence to bring in Ukrainian fighters that were going into Syria.
So, you know, Russia, I think, understands the score on that. So they will again, I think your concerns are valid. But there is sort of let’s look at the bright side here of Turkey getting itself embroiled. militarily in Syria, this is going to create a major distraction and major complications. Because as you point out right now, you’ve got the Kurdish forces backed by the United States, the rebel forces backed by Turkey, they’re fighting.
If the United States decides to militarily intervene, what does Turkey do? And not that there’d be any great U.S. military, but I’m just saying this is not going to bring peace and harmony. It’s going to create turmoil and chaos. And when you’ve got turmoil and chaos, the last thing you want to do is go provoke more by seizing territory in a place like Armenia.
Of course, let’s be candid about it. If Pashinyan continues… to basically tell the Russians, hey, go pound sand. you know, we’re not a member of the CSTO anymore. That organization sucks. That’s basically what he said the other day.
I can see Russia standing back and saying, Azerbaijan and Turkey, hey, you want to take that chunk of land? That’s, you know, no sweat off our nose. You know, why would they want to intervene on behalf of Armenia in that situation? When the current Armenian leader is cozying up to the West and what Russian intelligence is telling them is the West is determined to cause as much terrorism, chaos, and disruption in Russia as possible because they want to destroy Russia.
Asbed: Larry, I’m interested in your contrarian view that with Syria, Turkey may be bogged down in that embroilment and not think so much about Armenia and their “Zangezur Corridor”. But it seems to me that instead of committing a lot of Turkish troops, Erdogan is renting all these mercenaries because there have been some Uyghurs and Turkomans and other people who’ve been found. So rather than Syrians fighting for their own independence, he’s got all these mercenaries fighting in Syria. Some of them, I think I read, have been found with Turkish Liras because they get paid in Turkish Liras in their pockets.
Is this going to be an MO going forward? Because obviously the same thing happened in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020. There were a lot of, I think it was the same thing, Turkmen and Syrian, they said, mercenaries fighting on the side of the Azerbaijanis. Initially, thousands of those people died on the hills of Karabakh until, Azerbaijani troops led by Turkish generals started taking over.
So is this going to be an MO in the 21st century that we have all these rented people who are building their own military capabilities and eventually turn on China or something?
Larry: Well, let’s not exaggerate their military capabilities. They’re capable of creating a lot of chaos, but they are fairly easy to defeat with conventional military force. There’s an unlimited number of them. Man, they’re limited.
I would say there’s a limited number because I’ve run across a couple of these guys. I testified in a court case against one 20 years ago. He decided, ah, I want to get my jihad on. So he went and he joined Al-Qaeda.
And then they were getting him up in the middle of the night to do prayers. And then they had to get up at like 5 a.m. to go exercise. And then they got this paltry little breakfast at like 7 a.m. And then it was back to prayer.
And then it was just, he lasted about a week. And he goes, oh, I hate this. There’s too much pain, too much suffering. But the problem is you’ve got this force, but there is the population there in Syria.
They’ve not been raptured. God didn’t take them up into the heavens. They’re there. They’re going to need to eat.
They’re going to need medical care. And if they don’t get that, they’re going to go someplace where they can get it. So if it’s not being provided, if these guerrilla fighters who are not predisposed to actually govern territory and provide for people’s needs, those people have to go elsewhere. Well, Turkey.
Turkey’s already got a huge Syrian refugee problem. They’re trying to get rid of them, not bring more in. So all of a sudden, Turkey’s going to be confronted with What do we do to install or try to get some sort of governing force in place in Syria that will start improving the lives of the people, making sure that food flows? They’re still operating under Western sanctions. which are preventing a lot of aid.
So that’s what I’m saying. That’s where this gets complicated. It’s not just a matter of signing up some mercenaries and saying, go sick them, go get them, boys. Yeah, they can do that, but it doesn’t mean that they’re automatically going to triumph over the Shias.
You know, this notion that, oh boy, Iran’s lost. Poor Iran, they’re out of the… It’s like, has anybody ever wandered around those desert areas out there? It’s centuries-old smuggling routes.
I mean, nobody in centuries has controlled those. So, and the notion that there’s nobody, that all of the border guards like in Jordan are incorruptible. I mean, they’re, you know, they’re stand up guys who will never take a bribe. Oh, please.
You know, so that’s what I’m saying. Iran’s not going to sit back and wait to get punched in the nose. In fact, if nothing else right now, I think Iran is probably taking steps to build a nuclear weapon right now and will unveil it maybe in the next three to six months. Because they recognize that if they have a nuke, then Israel and the United States are not going to mess with them.
It’s always if they don’t have it, we’re going to come get you. We’re going to attack you. We’re going to destroy you so that you can’t get it. I mean, the logic of this is off the charts.
But that’s why I say this. Turkey is not it’s not finding a situation where everything is falling into place and the local population is going, thank God the Turks have come. Let’s be calm. Now, the purges, the murders, the mass executions, that’s going to increase.
And when that starts happening, the refugees, people start moving.
Asbed: And to underscore your point, I think Iran has accelerated its enrichment program right now.
Hovik: Let’s talk ISR for a little bit. In modern warfare, surveillance, and reconnaissance is cornerstone, for achieving strategic and tactical dominance on a battlefield. In a 2023 article on your website, you, liken ISR to the Eye of Sauron, which is interesting. It rhymes, but…
And I, being from the tech sector, I know how… how much progress there is even in a duration of a year or two years in terms of artificial intelligence, computer vision, all of that being used to comb over petabytes of data every day. But just to underscore this, or just to sort of maybe get your thoughts, how critical is ISR in determining the outcome of conflicts nowadays? And can you give examples of recent wars where maybe ISR played a decisive role?
Larry: Well, let’s talk about how ISR has changed over the last. So, yeah, last 24 years, quarter of a century. Good God, you know, how did I get that old? Seems like yesterday I was sitting there working on these military exercises.
So, you know, and here I’m talking about the special operations community, what they use. So, you know, there would be a KC-135 rivet joint. There would be. other planes, collection platforms, but mostly it was fixed wing, fixed wing collection and or satellite. And when that data was collected, there was always a time lag because it had to come in and they get processed and maybe analyzed before it could be given to a commander for, say, a decision on the battlefield.
I remember when it was about March of 2003, when they first started getting the regular drone feeds. So the drones, the CIA had the drones active in 2000, but it was considered a top secret program at the time. And then they began showing this capability to take live video and feed it back to headquarters. I mean, one of my one of my CIA buddies at the time was laughing, because right after 9-11, they were they were tracking what they said were some Al Qaeda suspects driving down the road in the truck.
And the next thing you know, this truck stops. the two guys get out of the truck and start having sex, okay? And they’re filming, you know, see how he’s recording this, just hooting and hollering at it. But you couple that with then the ability to do video conferencing, secure video conferencing. And all of a sudden, you know, by 2006, you were getting regular drone video footage of a particular area.
So you get that immediate information and yeah, it could be analyzed, but you also had people seen at real time, able to make real world decisions about targeting. What we’ve seen over the last two and a half years, going on three years now in Ukraine, was this the drone warfare has become so fully integrated with the ISR that it’s, you know, it’s real time now that there is across the board. And it’s so fast in ways that some people just don’t understand. So it’s changed the entire picture of how military activity is being carried out now.
Does that mean everybody has the best intelligence? When you target and when you focus it on a target, yes, you’re going to get good information. But for example, right now, I would argue Israel, for example, has very poor information about Iran and its actual capabilities. And I hear a lot of comments in the West about how weak Iran is.
And I disagree. I think Iran is much stronger militarily than they’re letting on. And there is this tendency in the West to confuse patience with weakness. And somebody that’s not a hothead and is cautious in taking their time and making a decision can oftentimes be viewed as weak when they’re anything but.
So the role that ISR has played, and you sort of alluded to it, you’re getting so much information now. How do you sort out what’s important from what’s not important? How do you parse through that? And so that’s where these are always guided by what are called collection plans that the intelligence community comes up and says, okay, this is what we want to focus on.
One of the problems with the collection plan is you say, hey, we’re looking for this red Corvette. Okay, so get all the choppers up, get all the drones up. We need to go over the freeways and find the red Corvette. Well, you find out later that the report was, it was a blue Volkswagen.
And so you’re looking for this red Corvette and you’re ignoring the blue Volkswagen’s everywhere. But you’re focused, you’re looking only for the red Corvette. You’re not paying attention to the blue Volkswagen. So I’m like, oh my God, that was important.
We should have paid attention to that. So that’s one of the biases and risks that come with this.
Hovik: So there’s also something within NATO that interested me. They have joint ISR. And I’m just wondering how NATO countries share and collaborate on this because I that the US has pretty powerful capabilities that are always on they’re always no well probably not as uh powerful as you allude I guess I mean uh you tempered my my uh expectations a little bit but i would say that they still have some pretty significant capability and how is that information shared between NATO countries like for instance does turkey as a member get access to a part of that information and if so what part
Larry: Well, I would say it really depends on the collection platform that’s used. So there will be different ways of collecting intelligence, and some of those will be classified at the secret level. Some would be classified as top secret. Some will be classified as top secret special access program, a SAP, that it’s in a compartment.
So you’re limited in what you could share out of that. We saw that. We saw examples of that recently. Remember when that document, the two documents were leaked about Israel’s preparations for retaliation on Iran?
And one of the documents in particular, it was classified top secret, speak at, but it’s also five eyes. So you had lots of different classifications attached to it. And then as you read down, you would see paragraphs would be classified. One would be top secret, one would be secret, one would be top secret five eyes, one would be top secret US and British only.
So what happens is, depending upon the kind of platform used to collect the information, and then that will determine Who gets to see it? Are they cleared for it or not? And invariably, the United States has collection capabilities that they do not share with other foreign governments. You know, they’ll use different code letters to symbolize some of those methods.
Asbed: And that includes within NATO, correct? Absolutely.
Larry: Okay. So NATO doesn’t, what a U.S., what I would see at the CIA, the average person in NATO wouldn’t see. you know, when I had my active clearances. So it’s just, a lot of times, you know, if the intelligence is classified as no foreign, that means no, you can’t share it with any foreigner. You’ll see the other term, or con, means originator controlled.
So whoever produced that intelligence, the one who’s going to control access to it. And if it’s like CIA generated information, well, they’re going to tell foreigners, screw you. We’re never sharing that with you.
Asbed: So when something is classified, let’s say need to know, and somebody has like Turkey has access to some of this data inside NATO. Does that also cover what they can share going forward? We’re trying to understand, how much access Turkey had to information that is available to NATO members and whether they leveraged those assets, that information to help Azerbaijan in its war against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia Because, you know… Even during the first hour, Azerbaijan had the kind of information that needed to destroy a lot of the air defenses available to Armenia.
And there’s no way that Azerbaijan has that kind of information on its own. Turkey, maybe, but then we certainly know that NATO has that capability.
Larry: in that case, I would not at all doubt that if Turkey had access to intelligence like that, that it could pass it on to Azerbaijan. Absolutely. I understand, too, there are long standing relationships between Turkish intelligence. I guess it’s called MIT and the U.S. intelligence, CIA.
That liaison, you know, it’s called liaison reporting in many aspects. Turkey actually can have more leverage because the United States has sort of fallen short of collecting human assets and has become more dependent on liaison reporting. What liaison reporting is you get a relationship with an intelligence service like Turkey’s. And then they give you all of their good intelligence, and then you republish it and say, this is what’s going on in Turkey because we got it from our Turkish colleagues.
So, yeah, I think the scenario you lay out is highly likely.
Asbed: Does that imply that there was some sort of tacit approval from NATO for Turkey to proceed with that? Because it was something maybe the United States wanted to see? Because we’ve also heard firsthand from our colleagues that State Department types were actually looking around the Armenian diaspora members to understand how the diaspora would… react to a depopulation of Artsakh, Nagorno-Karabakh, a few months later. So putting these things together, we’re wondering, was this a NATO-led or NATO-tolerated activity on the part of Turkey to assist Azerbaijan in the ethnic cleansing?
Larry: Yeah, no, it certainly looks that way. You know, I have no particular knowledge on that. But, you know, the case you lay out is quite credible. Yes, that’s exactly how it could have happened.
It’s also possible that it was missed, but a lot depends on what was coming in from the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, what was coming from the CIA chief of station, because they’re reporting back. They’ve also got their assets and they’ve got their priorities, what they’re supposed to collect on, what they’re supposed to do. And so to that extent, as well as carrying out covert activities, covert operations.
Hovik: So the 2020 war, I mean, everyone could see it coming. It was the sort of thing that everyone knew was going to happen. It was just the day that it was going to happen. Right.
And for Armenian analysts, everyone agrees that biggest determinant. And the reason why you didn’t want to go to this war at any cost was because Turkey And if Turkey is involved, then it’s going to be bad news.
But there’s also this document by RAND Corporation in 2019 extending Russia, where it’s talking about the same things, whether it’s Belarus, whether it’s Ukraine, whether it’s Syria, everything that’s happening today, that document talks about it like it’s a game of Risk. and that’s what’s leading us to ask these questions from our guests and My mental state right now, I think most Armenians, is we’re like this person whose family has been murdered and the killer is walking free and he’s trying to investigate how this happened. Who killed my family? And it’s very difficult from an Armenian perspective because Armenia is a small country.
So we don’t have the resources of the New York Times, for instance, to investigate journalistically in a comprehensive way. okay well what was the nato ISR role exactly and it benefited it certainly in this 2019 RAND corporation report it said that they’re going to exploit tensions in the south caucasus did they actually approve this did Biden approve this or was this just something that Turkey said okay well you know i’m gonna do this and no one can do anything but then uh some of the things that happened like for instance that the first hour uh you know all the air defenses in a precise targeting got destroyed tells us that it was something that was out of the ordinary because for instance, Azerbaijan tried to attack Armenia in 2016, nothing.
And now all of a sudden Turkey is involved and we’re seeing this. Anyway, when we’re investigating this, when we’re investigating the NATO capabilities and trying to rule out or confirm how involved NATO uh united states government were in this operation in the 2020 war but I don’t
Larry: think I don’t think it’s so much nato i would steer clear looking at NATO I’d look specifically at the United States and Turkey and Israel of course yeah yeah yeah You know, and that intelligence sharing, you know, Turkey is in a position that it can bargain for intelligence from Israel. Israel wants certain things out of Turkey and Turkey is OK. This is what we need from you. And the specific they could even task Israel to get certain intelligence from the United States, knowing that the United States would give it to Israel and not give it to Turkey, but then require Israel to pass it on to Turkey.
Right. So I wouldn’t look at this, though, as NATO. This is strictly, I’d say this is strictly U.S., Turkey and Israel, that triad right there. And, you know, because Turkey, again, is pursuing what it sees as in its national interest.
And that’s what makes this whole region so volatile, so dangerous.
Hovik: I think that we could also probably include the UK, but then we’re expanding. But I think that the United States essentially has the majority of the satellites and the drones and everything.
Larry: Yeah, US has the intel assets. Britain is a raggedy-ass old poodle. OK, they’re like some nasty little dog, needs a haircut, has an annoying bark and, just but is is elderly, too. They don’t have satellite assets.
They’re they’re entirely dependent on the United States for ISR. You know, and they have no military force to speak of there. Yeah, they are. They are a terribly meddlesome intelligence outfit.
They have great capability on that front. And they have some stellar intelligence officers. And we’ve seen them over the years, like people like Alastair Crooke. You look at Alastair, he’s not a formidable guy physically.
But mentally, man is Superman.
Hovik: The next question that we wanted to ask you is, Karen Kwiatkowski was with us last week. And we wanted to know what the Trump administration is going to do in terms of this global Russia versus West war. And she said that she believes that the Trump administration will cut financing to Ukraine. But she also cautioned that the U.S. deep state, which is more powerful than Trump, will be able to divert savings from Ukraine elsewhere.
And it will still be a confrontation on a global scale. So just because, let’s say, Ukraine will be, you know, will be frozen, there will be conflicts elsewhere. You know, what are your thoughts about those concerns?
Larry: I think Trump, on the one hand, he’s better equipped to deal with the deep state now than he was in 2016, that’s for sure. He was naive, didn’t have a clue what he was doing back then. On the other hand, unfortunately, he is surrounding himself with the people that have been nominated for national security posts in his administration. are just as bad as the Tony Blinkens, Jake Sullivans that currently populate the Biden administration. So, you know, ideologically, they’re really no different.
But we’ve seen before where Trump had, you know, he appointed John Bolton and Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So, yeah, he made terrible appointments and was able to work around those people. to pursue his ambitions. So I think Trump is enough of a narcissist in terms of wanting to have a great presidency and be well remembered that he’s going to be disinclined to expand the war in Russia because I don’t see Russia and Putin insulting Trump The way Trudeau did yesterday. I mean, Trudeau’s a moron. he goes over and kisses his kiss and ass to Trump and Mar-a-Lago and then comes back up to Canada and trashes him.
Trump remembers that stuff. And that’s why you don’t see Vladimir Putin come out trash talking Trump at all. In fact, whatever he says, he says, oh, no, he’s a remarkable man. He’s a strong man.
Putin knows how to play Trump. You’ve got to put enough butter on his ass that he’ll be sliding wherever you want him to slide.
Asbed: Of course, Trump insulted both Mexico and Canada quite a bit. Didn’t he say, basically, they should be the 51st and 52nd states? Because we’re bankrolling them to the tune of, what, $300 billion and a couple of hundred billion dollars.
Larry: Yeah, but he’s playing from a position of strength. Everything he’s saying is true.
Asbed: Yeah, I think he called Trudeau the governor of Canada.
Larry: Yeah, when they met before, he said, hey, you should become the 51st state. And then yesterday, or the day before, Trump then came back and said, yeah. Oh, yeah. Hey, Governor Trudeau, you know, I mean, deliberately trolling. you know, in those positions with both Mexico and Canada, the United States can flex a lot of muscle there because they are ultimately dependent on us.
You know, like it or not, but, you know, he’s got to play a different game with China and Russia. And I said, at least, when you watch Putin’s public comments with respect to Trump, Putin’s no dummy. The man is just an extraordinary politician who understands the international arena. Trump may not.
Putin certainly does.
Hovik: I think we’re done with our questions, but any parting thoughts or any parting advice to us about what’s going on in our region?
Larry: I would carefully watch what what transpires now. If Turkey gets full control of what’s going on in Syria, then I’d be nervous. But to the extent that Turkey remains distracted, both with Syria and with Ukraine, then its chances for being more meddlesome, I think, go down.
Asbed: For a while.
Larry: Yeah, at least over the short term. But I think Pashinyan is playing a very dangerous game, sucking up to the United States. Like I said, I describe my country as we’re like a serial rapist. You don’t want to be on a dating app with a serial rapist, okay?
Yeah. Or if you do, then you know what you’re asking for.
Hovik: The fact is that they’re doing that. But the painful part is they’re not capable of leading that or even walking the walk. Because, for instance, they had this meeting with the EU and the United States on April 4th in Brussels, I believe. And it was leaked that the topic of that discussion was how to get food to Armenia in case there is a conflict with Russia.
And the secretary of the National Security Council in Armenia said, well, Armenia is 99% like a wheat country. We eat bread a lot in the Middle East. And he’s saying, well, we should just try to pivot to rice. And you can understand that if…
Armenia invested in rice fields, or if it had a channel to get rice already, okay, I’m less concerned now, but there’s zero forethought in terms of, well, how are we going to, let’s say, you know, cut all this wheat and get rice so that people don’t starve.
Asbed: It’s Jake Sullivan’s way of saying, let them eat cake.
Hovik: Yeah. Let them eat rice. And unfortunately, it’s not even… Even those plans, there’s no way for us to see if they’re able to implement those plans.
This is what makes people a little bit more nervous.
Larry: The only plan that really is afoot is to figure out how to destabilize Russia. And to that extent, Armenia is just a stepping stone on that path.
Asbed: All right. Let’s leave it there for today. Thank you very much, Larry Johnson, for joining us today.
Larry: Thank you, Asbed and Hovik. It was a pleasure. I appreciate it. I’m honored to be considered someone worth talking to.
Asbed: Thank you very much. We feel privileged to have you on our show, and we hope to stay in touch with you.
Larry: Please do. Take care.
Asbed: Bye. That’s our show today. This episode was recorded on December 12, 2024. We’ve been talking with Mr.
Larry C. Johnson, who is a former intelligence officer and expert on issues related to terrorism, national security, and foreign policy. As a CIA analyst in the 80s, Johnson was engaged in issues related to terrorism and security. He then worked at the US State Department’s counterterrorism office.
Johnson has since worked as a political consultant and commentator on issues related to terrorism and security. He’s known for his critical views on the U.S. foreign policy and intelligence practices.
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Asbed: I’m Asbed Bedrossian.
Hovik: And I’m Hovik Manucharyan.
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