Erik Prince

Why did you want SOCOM?

They wanted unique spending authorities outside of the major services so that SOF could have the right equipment, the right aircraft, the right boats, whatever, for the unique needs of special operations forces.

And the right authorities.

1985 or six, 40 odd years.

It's time.

I think it's important.

There was a couple of Chinese colonels, PLA colonels, that wrote a book called Unrestricted Warfare.

And after Gulf War I, seeing all the precision strike capability, the air, all that, and then even after the 2003 Iraq invasion, seeing the level of precision energy that the U.S.

can deliver...

I think it made China take a step back and say, if we're gonna take on this hegemon, we have to do it in an unconventional, unpredictable way.

And my worry is that Pentagon leadership likes to fight in their box of the rules-based order.

All the people in Washington, D.C.

also always talk about the rules-based order.

Well, you know what?

The first rule in a street fight is there are no rules.

And unserious people that delude themselves lead us down a kind of a blind path of stupidity if we think that China is going to follow all the rules to achieve their goals.

Is it intentionally funded, organized, facilitated by the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese nationals in Mexico teaching the cartels how to cook fentanyl?

And it's a payback for the opium wars of 150 years ago, which the U.S.

was not even really part of.

That was the Brits.