China's Secret Playbook For War - General Robert Spalding - #463

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
What's happening, people? Welcome back to the show. My guest today is General Robert Spalding. He's a retired United States Air Force Brigadier General after more than 25 years of service, a senior fellow at Hudson Institute and an author. China has injected itself into pretty much every area of life we care to care about, from media to technology, energy, food, transportation and even culture. But this strategy wasn't random. It turns out that their entire plan was detailed in a book from 1999, which General Spalding is very familiar with. Expect to learn what's actually happening with the Shanghai lockdowns, how facial recognition and drones are able to automatically find citizens who break laws, why American companies can't stand up to Chinese demands, why China's recent increase in military spending should worry everyone and much more. It really does blow my mind that China and their plan for future global domination is just this big looming elephant in the world that no one appears to care about actually pointing a finger at. Whilst everybody's accusing everyone else of misogyny or closet homophobia, no one's actually bothered about the fact that there is a huge superpower on the other side of the world slowly gearing up to take over everything. And the fact that there is a playbook that was written nearly 25 years ago doesn't surprise me in the slightest. They are significantly better coordinated than the West. In other news, this episode is brought to you by Manscaped and their Lawnmower 4.0. It is the ultimate ball and body hair trimmer ever created, featuring a cutting edge ceramic blade to reduce grooming accidents, a 90 minute battery so you can take a longer shave, waterproof technology which allows you to groom in the shower, and an LED light which illuminates grooming areas for a closer and more precise trim. They've also upgraded to a 7,000 RPM motor with quiet stroke technology, lengths in sizes 1 to 4, and it's got a wireless charging system using electromagnetic induction to help the battery last even longer. All of this together means that you can have a safer shave, which doesn't take as long, and the little LED light can help you in dark crevices if you have some of them. Plus, it is like less than 60 pounds, I think, or $60 with discount, plus free shipping worldwide. So you have no reason not to get it and to stop using that old face shaver on the most sensitive part of your body. Head to manscaped.com and use the code MODERNWISDOM to get 20% off everything site-wide, including their Lawnmower 4.0, but also their fragrances, their pants and all of their accessories, plus you'll get free shipping worldwide. That's manscaped.com and the code MODERNWISDOM for 20% off, plus free shipping. In other, other news, this episode is brought to you by Lucy. Some people choose to use nicotine to relax, focus or just unwind after a long day. Lucy is a modern oral nicotine company that makes nicotine gum, lozenges and pouches for adults who are looking for the best, most responsible way to consume their nicotine. If you are looking to cut back on your consumption, why not switch to a new nicotine product that you can actually feel good about? Maybe you are going on a plane or maybe you are just looking to control your dosage so you know exactly what you are taking. Lucy comes in strengths from 4mg all the way up to 8mg and in different flavours like fruity and minty. Plus, if you are looking to do some creative work, nicotine has been used as a nootropic for a very long time. Hamilton Morris said on this very show that it is his favourite nootropic for creative work. So if you don't want to start up smoking, which would be a bad idea to do that, maybe try some Lucy to just give you a bit of an extra creative kick. Also, you can get 20% of everything sitewide from Lucy by going to lucy.co, that's lucy.co, and using the code MW20. If you're in the UK, it's uk.lucy.co, and you can use the code MW20 to get that big fat 20% discount. Also, I do have to read this disclaimer. Warning, this product contains nicotine. Nicotine is an addictive chemical. But now, please welcome General Robert Spalding.
What do you know about what's happening inside of Shanghai right now?

**Robert Spalding** (4:42)
Well, I mean, I think I'm as informed as everybody else is, which is I'm looking at all the Twitter videos and all the articles. So, the specifics, it sounds like, it's fairly similar to the Wuhan lockdown where they were keeping people in their apartments. I think the thing that they've moved on to is, if you're quarantined, like they just take your pet right away and there's no like, I think they've gotten more efficient at defining how they implement a lockdown. A lot of these decisions that were probably painful in the very beginning, like in Wuhan, what do we do about these pets? They've made the decision, this is what we're going to do.