Who can we believe on national security? That's the question driving this conversation. Paul sits down with Preston Stewart — West Point '09, two-tour Afghanistan combat veteran, field artillery officer, and the independent national security analyst who has built a million-plus YouTube following by cutting through the spin. They open with Iran, where the ceasefire is buying time but solving nothing, where Iran's missile and drone capacity is far less degraded than the White House claims, and where the Strait of Hormuz remains a loaded gun aimed at the global economy. Then they widen the aperture to Xi Jinping flexing on Taiwan, a Chinese regime that plays a hundred-year game while Washington burns through munitions in months.
From there it's Ukraine — where, for the first time since 2022, Kyiv has the momentum, hammering Russian air defense, oil refineries, and logistics deep behind the lines with homegrown long-range drones. Preston breaks down the kinetic sanctions strategy, the magazine-depth problem haunting the Pentagon, the terrorism threat we've quietly back-burnered, and the domestic deployments Trump is telegraphing for the World Cup summer. It's a no-BS conversation about what's actually happening on the modern battlefield, why independent veteran voices are filling the vacuum corporate media left behind, and why staying focused — on Iran, on Ukraine, on Taiwan — is now an act of citizenship.
In this episode
- Why Preston calls Iran the story we're about to lose focus on — and why that's exactly what the regime wants
- The Strait of Hormuz reality check: Iran's surface fleet is gone, but their capability to shut the strait is not
- Cutting through the hyperbole: how much of Iran's missile and drone capacity is actually degraded
- Why drones — not ballistic missiles — may be the more consequential threat right now
- Xi's hundred-year patience vs. America's magazine-depth problem and shrinking public stomach for war
- Ukraine seizes the momentum: middle-strike doctrine, kinetic sanctions, and 40-50 Russian air defense systems killed in a month
- The terrorism threat we quietly back-burnered — and why the Sahel should be on your radar
- National Guard across state lines: the civil-military fault line Trump keeps testing, with the World Cup summer ahead
- Why independent veteran voices are eating corporate media's lunch on national security
- Something good: an Air Force rescue wing pulls 11 souls from the ocean — the military story you didn't see
