855: Russia's Wagner Group and Why Coups Fail | Out of the Loop

25:40It wouldn't go well for anybody in that position. It's not very fair to say to Wagner. No, they got left twisting in the fricking wind, to say the least. To say that this was, you know, somehow up to like their lack of talent. No, no, no. Not that I'm defending these pricks, but like, you're not going to fare well when you've got an Apache gunship and you think you're sneaking in someplace through the desert. So they got torn up and they lost hundreds of people. Yeah, probably around 300 guys or so. And the United States military made a point to the Russians or to Wagner, don't ever point a gun in our direction again.

26:15And I think that point was understood because we haven't seen something quite like that in the time since. But one big question, and it's one that I'm continuing to look into, is why exactly did the Americans get that green light? In light of kind of the tension that we saw ratchet up into a mutiny, I think it goes to show that at the very least, it could have been human error, of course, or it could not have been. but certainly after we could say that internal rivalry and internal tensions within Putin's system have always existed the difference is that they have a tendency to be behind closed doors right so at the time that that happened I thought wow what a cluster the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing and then I kind of evolved to maybe Wagner wasn't supposed to be there they needed plausible deniability they couldn't say yes those are our guys because then it's like well then how did you know they were doing this don't you know better than to send your guys into these places where the U.S.

27:11soldiers are and you're not even supposed to be here. And now I'm thinking there's at least a chance where they said, oh, Wagner's attacking this oil platform. You know what? I'm sick of those guys. I'm the defense minister. You know what? You tell the U.S. to tear those guys up. I want to watch this happen from our satellites or our drones or with my binoculars or whatever. I want to watch these guys get lit up because I'm sick of this guy. this guy's a thorn in my side and I want to see him take one on the chin. There's a much higher chance of that now, in my opinion, than there was a couple of weeks ago, at least in terms of me thinking that.

27:45I don't mean that the chances have changed, obviously, but now it seems like it's more clear that there's at least a possibility that that was essentially deliberate. Just let them walk into a trap and let the Americans just destroy them because we can't do it. They can't hit each other without looking really bad, but they can certainly let the United States bloody their nose and it just looks like they just mess with the wrong bowl. Yeah, I mean, it'll be great to try and get to the bottom of this. Who knows? It might be something that we never do because there's only so many people in the world who know exactly what happened and I'm sure they're not likely to share.

28:18No, a lot of them are going to fall out of windows in the next 90 days, I think is what's going to happen. But I think at the very least, it was probably a testament to the fact that there was not a lot of command and control going on. And the ties at that time, or at least the command and control between Wagner group and the Russian military was very weak. And if they were super concerned about Wagner, they would have double checked perhaps and said, hey, maybe made a phone call, sent off a text message. Are these your guys? Yeah, like, hey, are these your guys? But it would be safe to assume that maybe that phone call wasn't made.

28:52But more to come, hopefully, on that incident. So how was Wagner funded? We mentioned that earlier we saw some news reports that Putin said, hey, we paid these guys$160 billion out of the state budget or whatever it was,$80 billion out of here,$80 billion out of there. But that's not all, right? The oil platforms that they've retaken in Syria, there's some funding there. What I found interesting was these guys are in Africa and there'll be a Chinese-run mine or there'll be a locally-run mine for rare minerals or some kind of precious stones. and suddenly the miners end up dead floating in a river and Wagner has secured the mine and expanded it.

29:32So what's that all about? Yeah, there's several kind of different incidents to disaggregate, but essentially when Wagner first arrived in the Central African Republic, they arrived in a fairly, I would say, normal or typical role in that their job was to provide training to the Central African Armed Forces, which is known by the French acronym FACA. And in exchange, they signed some mineral concessions to different mining rights. The notion of PMCs being used, private military companies being used in Africa, especially for large countries, big powers like Russia or the United States is not anything atypical or necessarily new.

30:13It's safe to say that in general, Africa is unfortunately, and I wish it were otherwise because it's a place that I love and want to work at all the time, is not very high on the list of national security military priorities for either Russia or the United States or their respective publics. And so what that means is when American soldiers or Russian soldiers die in the field, there is a tendency for a public backlash and for people to want to know why did this happen? I mean, I think Somalia is a great case in point. When the United States lost several people in Mogadishu, Bill Clinton pulled out, right?

30:53He pulled the forces out immediately. It was a massive scandal. Why are we over here? You don't have to report contractors in either the United States or Russia. And so that is a big plus. They usually are cheaper as well. So you don't have to invest significant treasure. So you neither have to invest blood or treasure, but you can still essentially have a footprint that various people in government want to have. When they first came, it was a little bit strange that it was Russian because typically the PMCs or the people who are usually over there are the French. Central African Republic is a former French colony.

31:25But they were essentially on a training mission. What happened next was they tried to bring together different armed groups because Carr was in a low-grade civil war at the time into a peace agreement. They did for a little while. And then essentially with elections coming around, six of the 14 armed groups broke the agreement, started a new alliance, and they charged on the capital of Central African Republic, Bangui. Wagner, in addition to Rwandans and a UN peacekeeping force, defended the capital. And then they pushed back on a counteroffensive. And actually, they returned more territory to the Kar government than they had had in years.

32:03Usually, the Kar government only controlled the capital. And then it was kind of a various deals with armed groups outside over who runs the mines, how the cash flows work. And so Wagner was just the newest actor in a conflict that had existed for quite some time. And what they did was I think they leveraged their importance. Basically, the FACA, the Central African Armed Forces, couldn't have done what they did without Wagner. What strange bedfellows, though. Wagner, the UN and Rwanda. That is bizarre. They all found themselves technically on the same side at the time. And there's some very weird little complications that can arise on the ground.

32:42I was there when there was the threat on Bangui at the time. You were in the capital at the time? I was in the capital, yeah. how is that when the local government is so weak, they can only hold one city and you've got Russian mercs in that same city and you've got UN peacekeepers in that same city. And then suddenly Rwanda rolls in and is like, we can do this. How are you not immediately on the first plane home? Uh, well, the flights stop usually. Gotcha. You were stuck. Okay. The hotel prices quadruple overnight at that point. I imagine they would like, Oh, you can only, you would think so. Yeah.

33:18But yeah, usually the flights kind of stop or they become a lot more fewer. But it was an interesting time to be there for obvious reasons. You could see Wagner trucks rolling through the streets at all times, you know, blaring horns. And strangely, the UN peacekeepers, Rwanda and Wagner all were on the same side. It's not too strange because we've now found ourselves in this very strange world with this new version of PMCs where they are supposed to be on the same side. By the way, PMCs, I think we defined it earlier, but private military contractor is what that is. So Wagner, Blackwater, whatever.

33:57Yeah. Continue. I mean, essentially the way that the UN peacekeeping forces work or tend to work is that they are invited in by the national governments to then keep the peace between the various parties. The original idea of peacekeeping was that a peace agreement is reached and then it's to be kept. But the tendency now or very often is that they find themselves in peacekeeping in an open conflict. Yeah, that's not ideal, given usually mandates and their own effectiveness. And so Wagner has come around at a very interesting time, kind of an existential crisis in UN peacekeeping, where a lot of folks in the Central African Republic included, have seen years and years of peacekeeping and things not get better and there'll be more armed groups.

34:45And so Wagner has been popular among a lot of Central Africans because some folks want a military solution. They don't like the armed groups. They want to see them out of the country in jail or eliminated. They see the UN peacekeeping forces incapable of doing that. And both of these entities are effectively invited by the Central African government. And in strange times, even though they offer kind of antithetical solutions, one a peaceful solution to a conflict, the other a military solution, they're now finding themselves on the same side. Same issue is happening in Mali at the moment and the UN is pulling out.

35:19But there are kind of two different sides of the coin. And in weird circumstances, I would say it would be difficult to say that they were working together, but they definitely were making sure that they weren't shooting at each other. They definitely were, I think in some incidents, they were offering to stay in each other's bases. I mean, what's strange about when you go through a town in Carr. Carr is Central African Republic for people who are not sure what we're talking about. You'll see a Wagner base right next to a UN base right next to a Central African forces base. And so these guys are ostensibly, there's no love lost between them because the UN is constantly criticizing Wagner and Wagner thinks of them as essentially ineffective at best.

36:08But they're right next to each other at all times. They're right on top of each other. and there's the potential that that's going to be the reality whether Wagner exists or not going forward because they've introduced a model that invariably will be attractive to other governments yeah I think you're fortunately unfortunately onto something there and I understand the people of the Central African Republic if you're going to be under the thumb of armed groups at least make it the same damn armed groups so you don't worry if you're going to get dragged out of your business and killed because you paid those guys instead of these guys and it's Tuesday.

36:42So these guys are in charge now and now you're the enemy. Just pay the one warlord or whatever that's doing the thing. You know who to be afraid of. You know who your friends are. If there's one group, maybe they're not fighting in the area where you're supposed to be working and not earning any money. I mean, it's just, it's a mess, but it's better the devil you know. You've essentially made the pitch that Wagner makes to people. I would imagine. Yeah. Again, not defending some of these terrible people, but it's kind of like it's either going to be unworkable and not survivable at all, or it's just going to be a living hell.

37:13And in a place like the Central African Republic, I mean, we have to remember, this is the least developed country in the world. 70 % of people make less than$1.20 a day. It's a country the size of France, probably has about 300 kilometers of paved road total. We're talking people who are in a desperate situation. And improvement in people's lives can be as simple as, is it safe to go to the next village? Can I trade a little bit to get X, Y, or Z? And that is how narrow people's priorities can be. Wow. The unfortunate reality for a lot of people when you live in decades of conflict is very rarely do you have the choice between a good guy and a bad guy.

37:59Usually your choice is between a bad guy and a worse guy. And Central Africans aren't naive to think that that Wagner doesn't come with consequences. They absolutely know that. But when you're living there day to day, you have a tendency to have a more nuanced perspective and a very local perspective, which is literally are things better now? They are a little bit good. And it doesn't have a lot to do with disinformation, what people think about the war in Ukraine, geopolitics, anything along those lines.

38:40proteins. You probably heard of Vital Proteins. They're the number one brand of collagen peptides in the U.S., and for good reason. A lot of people, myself included, take it pretty much daily to support things like healthy hair, skin, nails, bones, joints, all the good stuff. That starts to matter more the longer you've been walking around on this planet. But now Vital Proteins is shaking things up, literally, you can tell a dad wrote this copy, with a brand new collagen and protein shake. And this isn't your average protein shake that tastes like chalk and sadness. This one's light, chocolatey, super smooth, and it's got something pretty unique going for it, high quality protein, 30 grams of it plus collagen.

39:12That's pretty good ROI. Usually you're choosing one or the other, but Vital Proteins gives you both a ready to drink shake you can toss in your bag or fridge, zero added sugar, no artificial sweeteners, and no carrageenan. And I don't know what that is or if that's even how you say it, but you're supposed to avoid that. If you're already taking collagen or you're just curious about how it might support your hair, skin, nails, joints, and you don't want any carrageenan, this is a super easy, tasty way to try it. Get 20 % off by going to VitalProteins.com and entering promo code Jordan at checkout.

39:43This episode is sponsored in part by Dell. Introducing your new Dell PC with the Intel Core Ultra Processor. It helps you handle a lot, even when your holiday to-do list gets to be a lot. Like organizing your holiday shopping, searching for great holiday deals, customer questions, customers requesting custom things. Luckily, you can get a PC with all-day battery life to help you get it all done. That's the power of a Dell PC with Intel inside, backed by Dell's price match guarantee. Get yours before the holidays at dell.com slash deals. Terms and conditions apply. See dell.com for details.

40:38least a year compared to those hired through the leading competitor. That's a big deal when every hire counts. Early on, I learned that hiring isn't headcount. It's do I see my family this week? Do we actually release episodes on time? Can I take a few days off without everything falling apart? When I've hired the right person, my life got easier. They took real work off my plate, caught problems early, and treated the business like it was theirs. That's when we actually grow. With the wrong hire, I've spent months training, fixing mistakes, having the same conversations, and still ended up letting them go and starting over.

41:06You don't just lose money, you lose momentum, you lose morale, and you lose time. That's why I'm big on hiring right the first time, even if it takes a little longer. Hire right the first time. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash harbinger. Then promote it to use LinkedIn Jobs' new AI assistant, making it easier and faster to find top candidates. That's linkedin.com slash harbinger to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Back. If you're wondering how I managed to book all these amazing folks for the show, the authors, creators, thinkers, every single week, It is because of my network.

41:38And I'm teaching you how to build your network for free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course. A lot of you ask me what I get out of providing this course that's free. I lose money on this. It's probably not the best idea, but hey, look, it gets people interested in what we do. It makes people better at this skill and hopefully makes the world in a better place. I know that sounds cheesy, but the course itself is not cheesy. It's not cringy. It's not awkward. It's just practical stuff that'll make you a better connector, a better colleague, a better friend, and a better peer. and it doesn't take a whole lot of time, a few minutes a day, that's really it.

42:08And many of the guests on the show subscribe and contribute to the course. So come join us, you'll be in smart company. You can find the course at jordanharbinger.com slash course. All right, back to Out of the Loop. I wanna talk about the coup. After our piece here, we're gonna do a segment with a coup expert, Brian Klass, who's been on the show before, writes for The Atlantic, among other places, just an amazing coup expert. But I will ask you as well, this coup is very odd, right? what happens? What supposedly sparked this? Progosian says Wagner was shelled by the army, sounded like BS, but now we're kind of thinking maybe that actually did happen because those two factions are fighting.

42:45And he decides suddenly, you know, I'm going to go to Moscow and negotiate a change in leadership in the military. That was his initial smokescreen, was it not? Yeah. What we had been seeing for quite some time within Putin's system is that it was feudalistic. You had various oligarchs, powerful individuals who control various institutions and are always duking it out with each other over the state's resources. And they would certainly fight, but for the most part, they would take these battles to court where maybe the outcome was already determined, but there was some sort of kind of legalistic framing, smokescreen around usually what was happening.

43:25What Prigozhin did was, for the first time in a very long time tried to basically get the attention of the leader, Putin, by giving a naked show of force. That is like in the most classic sense of feudalism. That is what you would do is you have local princes essentially within the empire or country who periodically rise up when they feel that they're being marginalized, treated unfairly, misallocated. and by showing your dangerousness, you're showing that you matter and that you have to be dealt with. And that's how you, in a most basic sense, get what you want. So what we saw is something that's been going on throughout history.

44:09Tale as old as time, yeah? Yeah, it happened to be something that we hadn't seen in the past 20 years or so in Russia. And it was very surprising. It's something you hear about happening in Sudan or Haiti. Some military guy went in there and shot the president while he was sleeping and now they got a new guy. or they didn't get a new guy. Well, I mean, interestingly enough, Sudan is literally going through a similar thing where paramilitary structure has been built up. And a lot of people thought that it would never bite the hand that fed it. And then sure enough, in both cases, they bit the hand.

44:40I think the most important thing is that it's revealed to people there's more than one guy in Russia. Putin is not the only guy. He is not sitting around with a million TVs in front of him controlling what's going on. It's a constant battle between people just underneath him for his ear. And at the end of the day, the way that we get into this mess is because he doesn't really like to make decisions. And so he lets things fester. And usually somehow things have managed to kind of slog along. But Prigozhin is a unique individual. And he's shown that he is ready to always assert his own agency and cross whatever red lines we assume exist in the system.

45:21He just steps right around them. So he gets to Moscow. He ends up standing down. We don't know what Putin negotiated or promised him, but basically Wagner is now out of Ukraine, correct? They're in exile in Belarus. Yeah. So we've heard that Prigozhin is in Belarus. What we've heard the deal is, as it stands, is that there's amnesty for those who participated in the events. Members of Wagner can either sign a new contract with the Russian Ministry of Defense, or they can join Prigogin in Belarus. We don't know to what extent Prigogin will still be in control of the organization, of the operations in places like Africa.

46:03I think it's safe to say that Wagner probably won't be in Ukraine anymore. They want him as far away from there as possible, and they obviously want Prigogin himself out of Russia. There's been rumors of arrests of various Wagner personnel in Syria. That's another country that's important to the Russian military and the Russian government in general. But again, with the Central African Republic, I think in the near term, it's not a high priority. They've got bigger fish to fry with a full scale war in Ukraine on its borders right now. And it probably would take a significant amount of time to replace those guys.

46:38You have to think about if you're the CEO of any company and you come in, you don't want to fire all 2000 employees on day one, and then just bring in 2 ,000 new people who don't know anything about Africa or anything along those lines. And you certainly wouldn't expect the ship to sail smoothly. So they're in a bit of a dilemma both on what to do with these African operations. It may have been part of the deal that he's allowed to keep them. But then the question essentially remains, how does he source? How does he finance? We think maybe some of the operations like in Central African Republic, I mean, I think that he might be able to self-finance that.

47:15But he was usually getting his equipment, I think, from the Russian military. So where is he going to go to get that? That's going to be a crucial question down the line. That is interesting. How important were they as a fighting force in Ukraine? The only even sort of victory that the Russian army has had in Ukraine in recent months is Bakhmut, and that was largely Wagner. And Bakhmut, it's not Kiev as far as being kind of a big deal. No. And the thing is, is when you when you drive over to the outskirts of Bakhmut, you realize along the way, there's the equivalent of just Bakhmut's at every single turn.

47:52I mean, Ukraine is a industrialized, developed economy. It has so many cities of several hundred thousand people. Each one of these places is a Grozny for the Russian army to take. And so you just have to imagine that they're going to have to face a number of Bakhmuts to even get close to Ukraine. So it seems like the Russian military's fighting without Wagner could be significantly degraded now in Ukraine. Yes and no, could be. But they at the same time, they had declared victory in Bakhmut and there already were issues going along. And essentially, Wagner, Pradegozhin, declared victory in Bakhmut on May 9th or May 10th.

48:31And then he said, I'm handing this over to the Russian military. We're out. So when he crossed over into Russia, his forces at that time were not being used on the front. And so we're not really sure, I think. And there are a lot of people who are the real military experts and they aren't me. I'm just like dumb enough to go to car and try to look at stuff. But I think the folks who are real military experts would probably say that it's too early to tell if that's going to have an effect. On a simply practical level, when your supply lines increase, that's a problem. That's even more of a problem when you're smaller, like Ukraine is, you're low on resources.

49:11In fact, that's historically one of the reasons that invasions of Russia have failed. And right now, maybe ironically, Ukraine is benefiting from Russia having to deal with that exact same problem. Yeah, what's happening right now is not something that Ukraine could have pulled off for the very clear reasons that we stated. I think that they will try to take advantage of this. But I think right now, the biggest consequence that we can probably think of for the Russian military is just the psychological damage of something like this happening. I mean, imagine sitting in the trenches as a soldier and just watching just this absolute cluster going on behind you.

49:48And you're just like, wait, why are we doing? I'm risking my life over here for this. And they don't even know who's running the show. Yeah, exactly. And it's just a clown show in bag. Yeah. And so I think one of the things that made it so tough for Putin and probably the reason that Prigozhin is still alive, too, is that figuratively speaking, you don't want to be outflanked by people to the right of you, the people who are more nationalistic. How interesting. If you're a regime. And so your political legitimacy matters, especially in a time of war. You don't want to be getting criticized from the right, from the people who are the more jingoistic pro-war people, which Prigozhin certainly was.

50:27And the last thing that you want to do when he's claiming that you and the top brass have become this, you know, corrupt sluggish out of touch with the Russian soldier. The last thing you want to do is martyr him in like 300 of his guys. It's like literally out of a movie. It's a trope, right? Like the corrupt top brass and then the loyal to Russia 300 or however many people who die for the true Russian values. Like if you're Putin, that's the last thing that you want is to martyr this guy. Because if you martyr him, you validate his entire argument. And so they're faced with an actual conundrum on their hands.

51:04And I think that's also part of the reason why you didn't just see a missile come in and take him out. No, you may be right. I got to say this whole coup, there's no sort of classy way to say this. Definitely blue balls for a lot of us watching this, I think, right? I was kind of ready for something. This whole thing has been weird. Even Game of Thrones had a better ending. Yeah. And the Russian army was the second strongest army in the world. And then it's the second strongest army or third strongest army in Ukraine. And now it's like the second strongest army also in Russia. What the hell is going on?

51:34Well, I mean, weird things can happen. And I think one of the things that we can't ignore when they went in and we're getting close to Moscow is when there's a lot of uncertainty, it's human nature. people are loathe to create certainty by doing something like shooting someone. And these guys are on the same side, Wagner and the other kind of Russian military personnel who were along the way. And usually for like a civil war to take place, you need a time period where there's significant polarization, like dehumanization of the enemy so that you can prepare yourself essentially to kill them. It's just not an easy thing to do.

52:14And there was none of that. These guys just were going. And if I was a Russian soldier, the last thing I would want to do in that moment of confusion is just be the guy who shot one of these guys. Yeah, no kidding. And so if you put that up on a large enough scale, it makes sense. Here in Washington, D.C., I'm sitting in the most powerful nation in the world, and a bunch of pretty much unarmed protesters managed to storm the nation's capital and get pretty far. And this is a convoy of dudes who are armed. So it's unsurprising that they fell into a surprisingly small amount of resistance. Imagine being one of those Wagner soldiers who shot down a Russian helicopter and now there's no coup.

52:53It's like, whoops. Yeah. Who saw me do that? Well, they said amnesty. So that's what I would be trying to call for. Yeah. I would just be saying, good thing that wasn't me. You know, amnesty, but maybe not for the guy who shot down air. I'd be changing my call sign for sure. For sure. They say amnesty, but then like the next day they're raiding Wagner officers' houses and taking vans full of money. And there's videos of defectors being executed, being killed very slowly and gruesomely, videos being posted on Telegram. I don't know if that's happening widely, but they certainly didn't like that guy.

53:27And can we dispense of the conspiracy theory, for lack of a better word, that this whole coup, this is theater, they just wanted to secretly have cover to move Wagner to Belarus and now they're going to attack there. it just seems like the dumbest sort of explanation. They could have moved Wagner to Belarus in a million other ways. It's the equivalent of shooting yourself in the foot so you can get a free trip to the hospital because you need to pick up a prescription. It doesn't make any sense to me. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. If there's a more simple explanation where people are just really dumb, and I'm sure that there are a lot of incompetent people involved in this entire thing, then it's unlikely to be a conspiracy.

54:02You would hope that this would kind of put the final nail in the coffin of this idea of Putin as playing 5D chess while the rest of us are playing checkers. But I think the people who are convinced of that are never going to be unconvinced of it. And so it's just an unfortunate reality of trying to talk about Russia is that, I mean, it's like the show Veep. The scary thing when you get into the room with the center of power is you look around and you realize these are just normal people. And that's even scarier than the conspiracy theory. It is. It is, especially if you see like those hearings with Mark Zuckerberg and the senators and he's trying to explain how Facebook works and you're just like, holy crap, these guys are going to regulate AI.

54:45We are doomed. This guy probably doesn't even understand what Gmail is. This is insane to me. Yeah. And it's the same thing. I mean, you're dealing with a ton of very imperfect people and people who by default of getting to where they are at that level in the government are probably not the most creative thinkers. Prigozhin actually does know how to think out of a box because, I mean, as of now, he's remained alive after doing probably the craziest stunt during Putin's 20 plus years in power. I would say so. What's going to happen to Wagner now? They're in Belarus. They're possibly going to have a base there.

55:21If they're not going to make a go for Ukraine, what are they going to do? Yeah. It's like the end of like an Ocean's Eleven movie where everyone goes to Hawaii and, you know, enjoys the money that they made. Right. Did they just all schlep off to Africa and then Prigozhin watches over his shoulder? You know, I think folks are kind of talking about maybe they're able to keep their Africa operations. But for the same time, there's a lot of logistical difficulties about keeping those, right? Not being able to leverage the state for your flights, sourcing material and equipment. There's a whole headache of other things that they would have to try to figure out.

55:57The short answer right now is just that we really don't know where this is going to go organizationally. organizationally. Jeez, if I'm Purgosian, I'm calling China as quickly as possible and finding maybe a new master to serve on that front. The only other thing I can think of is if he can paint this in a way where he's quietly okay with the West, it might be his only lifeline. Like he ends up, but then again, he's so dirty, the West could never work with him. No. I wouldn't want to be him right now. I'll tell you that. No, but he's painted himself into his own corner. Oh yeah. I don't feel sorry for him.

56:29I'm just saying, holy shit, man, if there's a guy in the world that's in a mess right now, it's him. And I think what he probably does and probably what was part of what he was doing is that you just have to like drink your own Kool-Aid. And he's probably mentally preparing himself to be this like nationalistic martyr for Russia. If you're like, it's likely you're going to die, then I would be like, okay, I'm going to go down with like some sort of legacy. Yeah, you may be right. You're listening to The Jordan Harbinger Show. This is Out of the Loop on Wagner and the Russian coup. We'll be right back.

57:02This episode is sponsored in part by The Gist Podcast. If you're looking for a news podcast that is smart, unfiltered, and doesn't just echo whatever side you already agree with, check out The Gist with my friend Mike Peska. Mike's been doing this longer than just about anyone. It's actually the longest-running daily news podcast. It's earned that spot on Apple's top charts for a reason. Each episode's around 30 minutes, so it's perfect for your commute or while you're making breakfast. It's always packed with sharp, thought-provoking takes. What I love about the gist is that it's not stuck in a partisan box.

57:28Mike, he's a really smart dude. He digs into real questions, the kind that most shows avoid because they don't fit neatly into a political lane. He'll challenge the right. He keeps the left honest. He dives into stuff like the New York City mayoral race, that whole cluster, and the chaos of sports betting, or even whether talking to your plants actually does anything. He's an award-winning journalist. He's not some schmo like me who's totally unqualified. You've probably seen his work in the Atlantic, the Free Press, the Washington Post. He's got that rare mix of wit, skepticism, and depth that makes even heavy topics fun to listen to.

57:57And he's a great dinner guest, just saying. So if you want your daily news with more brains and less noise, check out The Gist with Mike Peska every weekday on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. If you like this episode of the show, I invite you to do what other smart and considerate listeners do, which is take a moment and support our amazing sponsors. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. And you can always search for a sponsor using the AI chatbot on the website as well, jordanharbinger.com slash AI. Thank you for supporting those who support the show.

58:28Now for the rest of Out of the Loop. All right, now that we've heard all about Wagner, let's talk to my friend and former show guest, Brian Kloss on coups, why coups work, why they fail, and of course, why this one failed and what happens next. Here we go. Brian, thanks for doing on the show, man. I know you have a super interesting field of study. You've been on the show before about corruption, but also coups, pretty damn cool area of academic research. Yeah, I've traveled around the world interviewing people who have carried out coups and failed to carry out coups and gotten sort of caught out and gotten tortured.

59:03General soldiers, rebels, that sort of thing in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia and post-Soviet Europe. So it's a very weird field of study, but it's an interesting one. It's got to be strange to research coups because you ask one side and they go, what coup? Because they're the ones who won or were challenged and the other guys are maybe dead. Well, it's really interesting because actually it's difficult to measure what a failed coup is because sometimes dictators invent them. There was a time I sort of uncovered a fake coup plot in Tunisia where people had thought it was real. And these poor soldiers had basically just gotten dragged out of the barracks and tortured just because the dictator wanted a pretext to purge the military.

59:40So it's very difficult to measure the data because sometimes they just fake them. And the coup plotters never tell me the real reason why they did it, which is usually power or money. They usually have some sort of pretext. So you have to basically listen to people who lie to you and read between the lines about what they're really doing. Wow, that's a whole different show. By the way, you were here on the show before episode 650 on the corruptible influence of power. Really, really interesting episode. But we're here to talk about Putin and coups because speaking of fake coups, I'm not even sure what the hell just happened.

1:00:11And I think a lot of people are in the same boat. Your article on the Atlantic, which I'll link in the show notes was fascinating. You mentioned since World War Two, two thirds of dictators have been deposed in coups. If I'm a dictator, that statistic is not comforting at all. Yeah, I mean, it's the main way they get ousted from power. And very often, even when we think there's a revolution, like, you know, in the Arab Spring, for example, there were revolutions in the sense that they were broad base mass uprisings. But the actual thing that got the dictator out of power was in the military turned on them.

1:00:39And that's the way it tends to work in these regimes is you can sort of weather a little bit of protest. You don't really care that much if your people don't like you. It's what the people in the military want. And that's why every dictator, when they come to power, start making precautions to basically insulate themselves from the risk of a coup because they know it's the most likely way they're going to get taken out. You mentioned that the coup is usually a faction in the military. And I believe I copied this from your piece here half asleep last night, but you said when the coup is carried out by a faction within the military sector, as has happened in Russia, so we're talking about Wagner having possibly attempted whatever this coup was, the dynamics become more complicated.

1:01:16Such a coup plot is not like a battle in which the bigger superior force tends to win. Rather, the plot will likely succeed less on strength than on perception. Flesh that out a little bit because that certainly seems to be, I don't know a hell of a lot about military, but when a mercenary force that doesn't even have any air assets, goes against the entire Russian military, despite their performance in Ukraine. I'm immediately thinking, how do they expect to win? This is virtually impossible. Yeah, so this is a big difference between civil wars and coups. So civil wars, you actually expect to fight.

1:01:47And that's where the force strength actually matters. So it matters how many guns, how many tanks, how many soldiers you've got. In a coup, it's all about perception. And the reason is because basically nobody actually wants to fight. The Russian military didn't really have much interest in fighting Wagner and nor did Wagner Group have much of an interest in fighting the Russian military. So what they're trying to do instead is they're trying to topple the government through effectively what's called a coordination game in political science. It basically means they're trying to convince people they're going to win in the end and they need to join the winning team.

1:02:17So I liken it to a sports team, right? I mean, the fans abandon the team when they lose all their games because it's pointless. They're not going to make the playoffs. As soon as they start to get towards the playoffs and it looks like a serious championship drive, all of a sudden the stands fill up. And that's exactly what happens with coups, is you're trying to make it seem inevitable because nobody wants to be caught out on the losing team. So if you're part of Putin's elite and you think that Prigozhin's gonna win, you're gonna abandon ship because you don't want to be the loyalist who then gets tortured after they do win.

1:02:48And the exact same is true on the flip side, right? If you're someone who's part of the Wagner mercenary force, you're basically thinking to yourself, well, if we get caught and we lose, we might die. So all of this is sort of a confidence game. And what you're really hoping to do when you have a coup plot underway is you're trying to convince the other side that it's inevitable. And as soon as you do that, you win. Because what happens is there's a sort of bandwagon effect where elites, you know, senior figures in the Russian military, for example, would start to defect. And for that to have successfully been carried out, this coup plot would have needed to maintain itself for longer.

1:03:24As it were, it fizzled pretty quickly. And as a people waited on the sidelines and they waited long enough to not have to make a decision. That does seem to be, now that you explain it from the outside, what happened, right? They roll into this Rostov-Andan. Wagner rolls into Rostov-Andan, this military hub. People kind of don't seem to care. And I think it was you who pointed this out in your piece in The Atlantic. The soldiers are just running around getting coffee from places that used to be McDonald's and are now like, you know, Russo coffee or whatever. Nobody seems to care. Like they just go to work and go home again and drive around the tank that's blocking their way home and take a different route.

1:04:02And it's just another day in Russia, like a grand theft auto reality. Right. And they just don't care. And then the guy leaves and he gets a couple of photo ops of people shaking his hands, whatever those were, and then leaves. And now those same people in that city are just going back to work, but the tank isn't in their way anymore. It's just comically ridiculous. Why did Prigozhin attempt the coup in the first place? and why did he think he would succeed? It seems like he read the room really poorly. Yeah, I mean, this is one of the things that it's worth speculating on, but there's no clear answer.

1:04:33It seems very unlikely that he actually thought he was going to seize power. Putin was not going to just let him. And unless there had been a mass sort of defection very quickly from the elites around Putin, this was probably doomed to fail. And most coup plots do fail. But he did abruptly turn around the troops. And that's where the speculation is around what leverage Putin had. A classic ploy for dictators is to threaten the family of a coup plotter or to just say, look, we're going to kill you when this is all over. And that's a pretty credible threat from Vladimir Putin, especially because the Russian state has the ability to kill people anywhere in the world.

1:05:10And so even if he were to flee in exile, they would know that they could get targeted at any point. So I think that there's delusion, ambition, misreading. Maybe he thought that the entire apparatus, all the oligarchs, etc., would immediately turn on Putin. But that clearly didn't happen. And given how long it took for the sort of convoy to approach Moscow, there was a lot of time for Putin to prepare. And the best coups, the most successful ones, are genuinely lightning strikes where they sort of, they last a few hours. And the dictator's arrested in the first hour. The airport is seized. The airwaves are shut down.

1:05:48and none of that was going to happen here. So I didn't know what was going to happen during it because these are very difficult to predict events, but my money would not have been on this one succeeding just because the kinds of things that have to happen were not happening. Yeah, there's that saying, if you take a shot at the king, you better not miss. And this just seems like a huge miss. He rolled in, everybody sort of looked on, and then he ends up turning around so quickly that any military leader who was thinking like, do I get my Spetsnaz guys and join these guys and march on the Kremlin.

1:06:18Let's see what happens. They went to bed and they woke up or not even. They took a nap and they woke up and it was over already. And now he's just supposedly somewhere in Belarus and all is well for Russia. It doesn't make any sense. There were like, at least from the sound of it, from the look of it, very few defections either to or from Wagner or the Russian military. Yeah, so the main thing to understand here is that information flows don't operate the same way in dictatorships as they do in democracies. So in other words, Putin doesn't really know the strength of his adversaries or who really supports him because everybody lies to him.

1:06:53So he has no way of knowing whether his elites are actually going to hold strong or defect, you know, in the last minute. And the same thing, the Wagner group really doesn't understand the layout either. So what ends up happening is they sort of roll into this town and everyone's just looking around and thinking like, who's going to win this? We don't want to get caught out. So nobody knows where the momentum is. And this is where the political implications of the coup are actually quite profound for Putin, because everybody has now seen something they didn't know, that somebody is willing to challenge Putin.

1:07:22And that information is not going to go away. So Putin doesn't know the real strength of loyalty within his regime. He does know that now everybody is looking around and thinking, is there going to be somebody else who challenges me? And that is very, very damaging for a dictator, because once the floodgates open, where it's like the myth has been shattered, the myth being everyone loves Putin, right? As soon as that's been shattered, then the question is, is somebody else waiting in the wings? And that's where dictators get really paranoid. And that's why the most likely outcome of this is going to be Putin trying to assert control through purges and trying to do sort of shows of strength.

1:07:56It's the kind of thing that dictators do to sort of reassert dominance after they have had this moment of obvious vulnerability that's been on display for everyone else. I noticed that on the news, they showed Shoigu, who's the defense minister, who I guess Wagner was saying, hey, we need to get rid of this guy. He showed up pretty quick. And it seems like that level of very deliberate visibility is from Putin to say, not only did you go home or go to Belarus, not even home, you just went to Belarus in exile. The guy you wanted to get rid of, here he is on TV giving a press conference. We didn't capitulate to any of your stuff.

1:08:31That's not why you left. You didn't leave because you got one of your demands. You left because we kicked you out of here knowing that you were gonna leave in a body bag or are you gonna leave on your own because you're in my good graces for the time being, because I'm so benevolent or whatever that sort of message was. It almost seems like Putin has coup-proofed himself in some ways by showing up on TV right away. Although you can kind of hear the anger and fear in his voice, or am I imagining that? No, I mean, I think this is the most dangerous time he's had in his 20 plus years in power. Coup-proofing is something that happens both sort of long-term and also in the actual moments of a coup being underway.

1:09:07way. So the long-term stuff is actually creating structures that are like your insurance policy. I've been around Madagascar, for example, where there are literally cars parked outside the palace and the people who live there and sort of work there in this elite special forces unit, their only job is to shoot back if someone shoots at the president. And that's all they're paid to do, right? So you pay them an extra amount of money so that when the coup happens, they don't turn the guns on you, they shoot back. So you have things like that. You also play various factions off each other so they jockey for power and they want to tear each other down.

1:09:38That protects you. And then during the actual coup itself, the main thing you have to do is be highly visible. If you look back on the history of coups, a lot of successful ones have taken place, believe it or not, when a dictator is under general anesthesia, when they're actually taking a surgery abroad. Oh, I was going to say, is that a literal thing or a figurative thing? So literally asleep. Yeah. Okay. And it's done very, very carefully. It's why dictators are very cagey about talking about their health. Because if you know that they're going to be literally asleep having a surgery, let's say you're an African dictator who's traveled back to Paris or London for a surgery, that moment of vulnerability means that that extra time, let's say it's six, eight hours that it takes you to actually muster a response, that's enough for the government to fall.

1:10:19Coups usually are carried out. The Russian one was a bit of an exception. They're usually carried out in less than six hours. So it's a situation where speed and timing actually make a huge difference, which is why I said, you know, look, nobody knows how this is going to turn out because these things are extremely contingent events. Sometimes the timing is really good. You catch a break, people bandwagon to your side, all of a sudden the government collapses. Other times you're unlucky, the timing's bad. Erdogan in Turkey in 2016 went on FaceTime and broadcast to the nation. And he did that because he knew that if he waited to go to a studio, his government might actually collapse.

1:10:53So he just instead broadcast from his phone. That shows you the need for speed. If they're going, sir, we need to get you to the main studio with all the lighting and you're like, no, no, no, no. I'm three hours away because I'm at my cottage. Where's my iPad? Turn all the room lights on and open the windows and get me a microphone if we have. I mean, that's when you're defending your regime using AirPods, you're potentially in some trouble. I mean, it's literally what happened. He was away from the city and that's why they struck when they did. It's why dictators are really paranoid about travel and orchestrating their movements.

1:11:22And they usually put in when they go on international trips for diplomacy, they usually have very strong contingency plans in place where they've delegated what to do if a coup happens because they all know, it's not rocket science, right? Like most of these people came to power in coups. So they understand pretty viscerally that it's the way they can get toppled as well and they learn on the job very, very quickly. Yeah, wow, interesting. So what other ways has Putin coup-proofed himself, right? He's, now that I hear you talk about this, it makes me think all this stuff with Prigozhin going on Telegram and doing these videos about how Shoigu's terrible and Shoigu being like, what are you talking about?

1:11:55You're just a dumb mercenary. That almost seems like he's got those two factions fighting. Now, whether that bit him in the ass a little bit with Wagner going, hey, look, we're getting away with this. Why don't we just drive to Moscow? I guess that's another story. But what other ways has he created infighting and things like that? You do see a lot of oligarchs falling out windows. And I wonder if that's part of it. Yeah. So there's the culture of fear stuff where it's obvious that standing up to Putin is a very, very dangerous game. There's the factions where none of them want to let the other one get an upper hand because that means they lose.

1:12:24So sort of playing people off each other. There's sort of these elite special forces units within some of the Russian intelligence branches, and those are supposed to be the line of last defense, the sort of Praetorian Guard. And then you also try to make sure that nobody gets their own individual power base. Now, one of the reasons why the Wagner group, I think, was allowed to do this is because the imperative in Ukraine became more urgent than coup-proofing. So normally it's the case that a dictator will not allow any single force to amass a significant amount of power because they understand they're like the enemy within, the potential enemy within.

1:12:56But because they had the enemy without, which was Ukraine, you know, the enemy outside, he allowed the Wagner group to develop its own power base. And that's what ultimately led to this moment. There are even strategies that dictators use where when somebody gets popular, they give them a plumb post as the ambassador to, you know, the United States or France or something like that to get them physically out of the country. And it's, you know, package is this nice honor. And, you know, often the person likes being able to take their family to this elite, you know, sort of experience in Europe. But it's literally done just because it's hard to launch a coup from 3 ,000 miles away.

1:13:29So there's a trade-off in dictatorships as well between coups and civil wars. So if you let people amass power internally within your regime, then they can take you out in a coup. If you sideline people, like what's about to happen with the Wagner Group, it seems like, is that there's a risk of a civil war. Because even though that's unlikely, I think in this case in Russia, in the at least the short term, the more you push people outside the regime and they can't get power for themselves inside of it, the more there's a sort of risk of sort of outsider violence. So the more you damp down the coup risk, the more you increase the civil war risk and vice versa.

1:14:02You mentioned that it's hard to let any group gain power. That seems like in dictatorships, I may be overstepping here. It seems like then in dictatorships, you can't have a super powerful military because they're the people who are going to overthrow you. So by virtue of the way that Russia works, he has to limit military power, which is not great because you're fighting a war in Ukraine against a NATO trained army. So how's that going to work? Yeah, I mean, there are tradeoffs here, right? I mean, one of the things I did research in Tunisia and after the Arab Spring collapse, they realized they basically didn't have an army because the dictator had sidelined the army and had set up a private police force, secret police.

1:14:41And that was loyal to him, right? So he wanted to downgrade the army and sort of upgrade this loyalist police force. But then when the dictatorship collapses and you can't have the secret police, you actually need national defense. So there's like a tradeoff here. And they had to rebuild the military from scratch. There's other places where what you do is you try to sort of rotate generals. And this is a classic, hilarious case in Madagascar, another of the countries I work in, where there's something like several thousand generals. I think it's 1 ,000 generals for like 6 ,000 soldiers, something like that.

1:15:11And it's just because they keep promoting people to buy their loyalty and then they rotate them. But it's hilarious because it's like the most top-down structure. And then all the generals fight each other and they keep each other down. So I'm not an expert on the Russian military, but I would say that this is the kind of thing in coups that you look at a situation like these trade-offs and you think, what's my most imperative problem now? Well, for Putin for the last several months and certainly for the last year, it's been military dominance in Ukraine. But the more you amp up those generals, delegate to them, do all the things that make them an effective fighting force, the more they get bastions of power.

1:15:44And that's where the cracks in the regime start to show. So dictators are basically people who are constantly living in fear and always taking actions that decrease one form of risk to them and necessarily increase another form. There's no costless action. So whatever they do is going to risk that they have down the road a new threat to their power, and they just have to make a lot of short-term decision-making, which is why they often break apart catastrophically in the end. Right, it's all just sort of, how do I get through the next couple of months here and not let's think about what's gonna be good 10, 20 years from now.

1:16:15Yeah, that does make a lot of sense. All right, in closing here, one of the worst things for a dictator is to look weak or to have those cracks show, like you mentioned earlier. Putin definitely just got a slap across the face. So he can't let that go, right? I mean, yes, he exiled him to Belarus. Who cares? That guy's got to fall out of three windows now, I would imagine. He can never fix this, right? The vase has shattered onto the floor. He can glue it back together, but you're still going to see the cracks. What do you think he's going to do? What do you think we're going to see in the next few weeks or months for him to try to glue the vase together in a way where maybe from the outside, you can't really tell?

1:16:52Yeah, so there's a few things here. One is that you have, again, a trade-off. So if you go too hard against the coup plotters, you might actually make more coup plotters because there's people who are sympathetic to this mutiny or coup plot, whatever you want to call it. And they're going to be angry if there's too much of a crackdown. So there might be a second wave, right? But if you do nothing, if you look weak, then there's going to be coup plotters who are just opportunists who think, well, this guy is going to fall anyway. I might as well be me who's in charge. So there's a sort of sweet spot.

1:17:21And there's some research from a couple of years ago in political science that basically shows that sort of modest purges that don't harden the opposition to the regime, but do send a clear message to the regime's opponents are what actually works best for maintaining power for longest. So, you know, I don't think that Putin reads political science journals, but if he were to, the smart move here, unfortunately, I'm not trying to give advice to Putin, but it's the sort of thing that tends to work in these regimes is to do enough of a purge to show your dominance, but not so much that you alienate larger sections of your elite class, which frankly, in this instance, are already pretty skeptical about Putin because of the war going so badly.

1:17:59Right. So we don't really know, but I know there's some raids going on on Wagner officers, families and they're kind of saying, hey, we're just going to look through all your stuff and treat you poorly because you were on the wrong side. So maybe he's trying to toe that line a little bit, right? The idea that, okay, we might not throw you guys out of windows, but we want you to know that you have to join the military now or retire. You can't just go back to Wagner and keep making money in a private army and maybe threaten me again. You have a choice here. You're either with us or you're out of the game entirely, or you will die a horrible, slow, painful death.

1:18:35Yeah. I mean, I've written something to this effect where I've said, look, it's very difficult to predict these situations because they're extremely different from each other. But the one prediction I'm pretty confident in is that that Yvgeny Pogosian is not going to die an old man. I think that's pretty clear. And he's not going to die a natural death because because ultimately it's probably not a wise move to do anything really severe right now, but six months, a year, two years down the road, I think that guy is going to be watching his back for the rest of his life. Definitely. Yeah. He's going to be checking his teeth with a Geiger counter if he's smart.

1:19:06Brian Klass, thank you very much. I know you've got a substack going. We'll link it in the show notes and we'll link to the Atlantic piece in the show notes as well. Where else should we send people? Cause you do have fascinating content. I read pretty much all your stuff, at least all the stuff that I, that I find online. Yeah, I've got a podcast called power corrupts. And the substack is called the Garden of Forking Paths. Great. Thank you so much, man. Thank you. Thanks a lot. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with geopolitics analyst Peter Zion. We're kind of in this soft moment in history where everyone's holding their breath and wondering if the next time there's an incident, the U.S.

1:19:40is going to intervene or not. And I would argue we are not. Safety on the waves is what allows us to have the East Asian manufacturing model, less than 1 % of that shipping happens on land. And that is a recipe for 1910s and 1930s style conflict and competition. Countries are increasingly finding in their best interest to kind of hoard what consumption they do have and not allow trade access to it, and then producing more locally. We were moving this way before the Ukraine war, before the Chinese started to break down, and before the German industrial model started to implode. This has just sped everything up.

1:20:17So we'll probably see significant drops in agricultural output next year, especially in the second half of next year, which should suggest that we're going to have significant problems with food supply on a global scale in the months that follow. I mean, the food issue is the issue that gives me nightmares because I don't see a way to fix it. The biggest loser by far is China. Everything about China's functionality is dependent on a globalization and a demographic moment that has passed. I think we're in the final decade of the European Union, because without that Russian energy, there is no German manufacturing model.

1:20:50And without the German manufacturing model, you don't have the money that is used to keep the EU in existence. The pace of the disintegration here is really difficult to wrap your mind around. We've had a really good run the last 75 years. It was never going to last. and it's going to be a rough ride. So anyone who thinks this is going to be easy is wrong in every possible way. For more about how globalization and our way of life will change dramatically in the coming decade, check out episode 781 of The Jordan Harbinger Show. Fascinating stuff. The story's developing. Might even end up with another out of the loop.

1:21:25Who knows? All links and resources mentioned in the show will be in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com. You can also ask the AI chatbot. That includes transcripts, also in the show notes, advertisers, deals, discount codes, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. And yes, we have a newsletter, highlights and takeaways from the most popular episodes of the show going all the way back. jordanharbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. And I can reply to you if you reply to me there. So you can send me your feedback, passive aggressive, constructive, whatever.

1:21:59I'll take it all. Snarky comments slash appreciation. it's brand new. I'd love to hear what you think of it. Jordan harbinger.com slash news. And don't forget about six minute networking as well. Also on the website at jordan harbinger.com slash course. Once again, a reminder that the stitcher app will no longer work for any podcasts as of August 29th, 2023. So if you're using the stitcher app, time to switch. If you're on Android podcast addict is a good one cast box. And if you're on iOS, I suggest overcast or Apple podcasts. The Stitcher app is going away, folks. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram.

1:22:33You can connect with me on LinkedIn and I will say hello there as well. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, Milio Campo, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Remember, we rise by lifting others. The fee for this show is you share it with friends when you find something useful or interesting. The greatest compliment you can give us is to share the show with those you care about. If you know somebody who needs a little bit of background on this, is interested in the coup, interested in geopolitics, definitely share this episode with them.

1:23:01There's probably new stuff in here that they don't know. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. And we'll see you next time. This episode is sponsored in part by Everything Everywhere Daily. You've heard the phrase, learn something new every day. Sounds nice, but do you actively do it? That's where Everything Everywhere Daily comes in. This podcast makes it effortless. Just 10 minutes a day, you'll walk away with a fascinating fact, a slice of history, a science gem. It's no wonder the show has climbed up to the top is the number one history podcast.

1:23:27It covers history, science, technology, geography, and stories of remarkable people always in a way that keeps you hooked. Not sure where to jump in? Start with these favorites. The eruption of Krakatoa, nature's fury in one of the deadliest volcanic events ever recorded, or the spice trade, how a handful of spices changed the course of global history. If you want to make learning effortless and fun, check out Everything Everywhere Daily. It's quick, fascinating, and a perfect way to stay curious. Listen now wherever you get your podcasts. This episode is sponsored in part by Conspirituality Podcast.

1:23:57You know how I'm always talking about critical thinking and spotting manipulation? Well, there's a podcast that's all about dismantling New Age cults, wellness grifters, and conspiracy mad yogis, basically the wild overlap of spirituality and misinformation. It's called the Conspirituality Podcast. The hosts, a journalist, cult researcher, and a philosophical skeptic, dive deep into how this stuff spreads, from Project 2025 and the Heritage Foundation's dystopian vision of the future to how former leftists get pulled into far-right conspiracies. An interesting episode to check out is called Speaking Truth to Goop, where Jen Gunter breaks down the pseudoscience behind the wellness industry in a way that is super entertaining and eye-opening.

1:24:34It's sharp, funny, and makes you a lot harder to fool, which, if you listen to this show, you know I'm all about that. From exploring cults to analyzing our cultural and political landscape, the Conspirituality Podcast will help you stay informed against misinformation and resist fear tactics. Find Conspirituality on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts.