Whistle Blower REVEALS Truth About West's War Obsession | Kolja Spöri

## Framing the playbook: what the conversation reveals about manufactured conflict The conversation with Kolja Spöri presented a stark, recurrent claim: many of the violent flashpoints around the globe are not spontaneous eruptions of local grievances but manufactured phenomena shaped to serve external strategic interests. Seen from his decades of travel and encounters in war zones, the pattern is consistent — local actors are trained, armed, or co-opted; an artificial problem emerges; and the presence or policies of outside powers are then rationalized as necessary fixes. Whether one accepts every empirical detail Spöri offers, the bigger analytic question deserves attention: how and why do powerful states (and their proxies or local partners) cultivate instability in order to secure geopolitical advantage? The conversation maps a playbook that repeats across oceans and continents, and it forces us to reframe familiar crises as potentially engineered instruments of control rather than merely local tragedies. ## The Philippines: Bangsamoro, Abu Sayyaf and the controlled opposition thesis One of the clearest cases advanced in the exchange was Mindanao — the long-simmering Muslim-majority south of the Philippines — and the emergence of groups like Abu Sayyaf and the Moro insurgencies. The account traced a lineage from Cold War-era security programs to the later transformation of trained local battalions into rogue armed groups. Spöri points to operations with names like Merdeka and Jabida and to the familiar tactic of turning a trained unit into an “opposition” force once it becomes useful to other agendas. Viewed through this lens, terror and insurgency are not merely the product of ideological radicalization; they can also be the outcome of statecraft in which external patrons create or enable armed actors to destabilize governance centers, justify security measures, and shape political outcomes. The implication is uncomfortable: the original actors who are recruited and armed can become both instruments and victims of broader geopolitical projects, their violence deployed selectively to advance interests far removed from local grievances. This interpretation is not new in scholarship on counterinsurgency and covert operations, but the conversation vividly links the Philippine case to a wider pattern — suggesting that the Bangsamoro phenomenon is an early exemplar of later interventions in Afghanistan, Syria, and beyond. Whether the historical and documentary claims hold in full is a matter for detailed archival and field research; what cannot be dismissed is the analytic value of recognizing how patronage and training can spawn durable violence that serves external strategic aims. ## Piracy, the Horn of Africa and the logic of choke points The discussion turned next to Somalia and the piracy that for years menaced global shipping lanes — particularly around the Gulf of Aden and Bab al-Mandab. Spöri’s account situates pirate groups in a familiar strategic architecture: a “strategy of tension” that both creates a problem and legitimizes a military or commercial response. He described episodes of coastal training programs that later produced actors operating off-shore, and he emphasized the role of the Horn as a chokepoint whose control is of existential importance to trading powers. Two analytic points follow. First, geopolitically sensitive maritime corridors inevitably attract attention and intervention; security narratives around piracy or smuggling can be marshalled to justify bases, patrols, and influence. Second, the presence of international forces — and the selective protection of particular vessels — can fuel suspicions of managed insecurity. The Horn of Africa example illustrates how a localized criminal phenomenon can be transformed into a strategic asset or pretext, and how the distribution of counter-piracy resources itself becomes part of the contested terrain. Again, the claim here is not that crime is an illusion, but that crime and conflict can be instrumentalized. The way insurance, naval deployments, and commercial interests intersect with local political economies merits scrutiny because it reveals how ostensibly technical security responses are enmeshed in power politics. ## Colombia and the Panama Canal: frontiers of control and the use of violence The Colombia segment of the discussion links insurgency, illicit economies, and the protection of a far larger strategic interest: the Panama Canal. Spöri recounted journeys into FARC-held regions and described internal dynamics in which both leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitaries became enmeshed in a long-term system of external training, funding, and geopolitical containment. The Darién Gap and the porous borderlands between Colombia and Panama were presented as more than local backwaters; they are, in this view, buffer zones whose instability helps secure control of a vital interoceanic passage. This framing highlights a recurring theme: contested peripheries are kept unstable in ways that preserve strategic chokepoints and deny potential rivals access or alternative routes. The historical examples — from training facilities to curricular legacies of institutions like the notorious School of the Americas — show how external actors have long invested in shaping local armed forces and irregulars. The result is a layered conflict in which illicit economies, geopolitics, and crude security calculus converge. For analysts, Colombia provides a reminder that insurgency studies must link micro-level grievances with macro-level strategic objectives if we are to understand why some wars endure and others are resolved. ## Syria and the proliferation of proxy actors: the recycled playbook When the conversation reached Syria, the same explanatory frame reappeared: local armed groups that at times behave like “terrorists” are also co-opted instruments within a larger contest between external patrons. Spöri pointed to personalities and affiliations that have shifted over time, sometimes receiving patronage, sometimes being branded enemies depending on convenience. The image is of a battlefield populated by actors whose loyalties are fungible and whose capacities are sustained by external supply lines. Syria is an especially instructive case because it dramatizes the multiplicity of patrons — regional states, great powers, and private networks — each pursuing different objectives while recycling familiar tactics: train, arm, fund, and when necessary, assimilate or rehabilitate actors who have been useful. The paradox is that the very groups that are publicly condemned can become bargaining chips or assets in covert diplomacy. For observers, Syria underscores the difficulty of neat moral categorization: the line between “proxy” and “partner” is often imposed retroactively, after the strategic utility of an actor has been established. ## Donbas, Minsk and the calculus of European escalation The conversation also explored Europe's eastern frontier — the Donbas and the Minsk process — and raised the specter of escalation between European powers. Spöri and the interlocutors contemplated how external involvement in localized conflicts can generate incentive structures that feed further confrontation. In such settings, formal agreements (like ceasefires) are fragile because they sit atop networks of covert influence and entrenched local interests that benefit from continued instability. A critical point emerges about incentives: states or coalitions that profit from a frozen conflict often have reasons to prevent full resolution. Frozen conflicts sustain military presence, defense contracts, and political narratives that can be mobilized domestically. Moreover, the risk calculus of escalation becomes distorted when local violence is seen primarily as an instrument of deterrence or pressure by external patrons, rather than as a problem to be solved for the sake of the communit

Whistle Blower REVEALS Truth About West's War Obsession | Kolja Spöri This man has seen almost every country on earth. And during his travels he witnessed one recurring pattern: The violence and wars in this world followed a simple pattern—induced and guided from Europe and America. In this talk he reveals his observations. Drawing on encounters in the Philippines, Somalia, Colombia, Syria and Donbas, Kolja Spöri presents his interpretation of covert influence, strategic waterways and prolonged warfare. Pascal questions the evidence behind these claims and explores the relationship between local conflicts and outside powers. Their conversation concludes with European security, political incentives and fears of a wider war between European countries. Kolja's Links: Picture of the Book cover featured in Kolja's travelblog: https://luxuryrogue. wordpress.com/ Book: Dr. Dangerzone (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/3903713023 Website: http://www.spori.net X: https://x.com/SporiSport LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/koljaspori/ Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 Introducing Kolja Spöri and Dr. Dangerzone 02:09 The Philippines and Spöri’s claims about covert warfare 08:33 Somalia, piracy and strategic shipping routes 17:29 Colombia, the FARC and the Panama Canal 26:48 Questioning the evidence and discussing Syria 33:43 Donbas, Ukraine and the Minsk agreements 47:16 European escalation and the incentives for war 01:01:18 Dr. Dangerzone and where to follow Kolja #Pascal Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies, today for the first time with a colleague from Germany, Mr. Kolja Spöri, the author of quite a couple of books, and his most recent one, the first one in English, called Dr. Danger Zone: In Search of Truth in the Most Dangerous Places, because Kolja actually traveled the entire globe and has seen almost all places. Kolja, welcome to the channel. #Kolja Spöri Thank you very much, Pascal, for having me on your program today. #Pascal I'm very happy that you reached out because, well, you traveled a lot, but you also made quite a few observations about how things are running around the globe. Can you maybe give us first a little bit of your background, and then the main thesis of your book, and how you come to the conclusions that you're drawing there? -- 1 of 18 -- #Kolja Spöri Yes, I'm an economist by studies, and I worked in mainstream areas for about 20 years. I was a Hugo Boss manager. I was working in Formula One for 15 years. I did an internship at the European Union. I was a consultant to the Rothschild Bank in Geneva. I even worked for a British spinoff of MI6 for a year, consulting ultra-high-net-worth individuals about travel security. I did an internship in Hollywood, and I always had the talent to open doors, to get anywhere and see reality on the ground. And the same I did in travel. I went to every country in the world. There's 193 United Nations member countries. There's a couple more, depending on the definition. I went to basically all the war zones or terror areas or piracy areas and came back with the conclusion that everything we see on television is the opposite of the truth. All the phenomena that I just described, especially wars, terror, and even large piracy, is made by the West. #Pascal Can you give a couple of examples of these places? What did you witness there that led you to this conclusion? #Kolja Spöri The most interesting observation for me was three years ago when I led the first small group of travelers after about 50 years to the south of the Philippines, to Mindanao, in an area called Bangsamoro, which actually means the people, the Bangsa of the Moors, like in Mauritania. So it's Muslims in the south of the Philippines who have been battling all kinds of central control and authority from Manila, be it Spanish or British or Japanese or Americans or the central government in general. And I was the first group with my yearly meeting of the most traveled people in the world that are organized. And we go specifically to difficult places to have an incentive for all the big travelers to really come together. So here I found myself on Jolo Island, which has a very dangerous reputation, rightly so, because Abu Sayyaf terrorists had famously abducted all kinds of travelers and tourists and businesspeople, brought them there, and chopped their heads off in many cases. And what I found on that trip was that this phenomenon of terror in the Philippines was created artificially by the West in the same way it has been done later on in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc. How did I find out about this? I looked up the history of Abu Sayyaf and the MILF, Moro Islamic Liberation Front, on Wikipedia, and it's written right there nowadays. It's sort of declassified. The Marcos regime, Ferdinand Marcos, that was put into power by the Americans in the 1960s, mid-1960s, created for the first time a Muslim battalion of young men recruited from those southern islands to train them to officially be part of the forces of the Philippines. However, after training, they fled. They went away with weapons. They turned rogue. That is the official story. And the operation was called Merdeka, which means -- 2 of 18 -- freedom, while they were trained. And once they went rogue, it was called Operation Jabida, which means to deceive. Like, for example, in the Mossad motto, "war by deception." And here we have a controlled opposition created that fights, let's say, policemen, gendarmerie, even military, with terrorist methods, but is always financed and controlled by the secret service of the central government or the Western overlords who run this to serve the purposes of their own and of their local stooge or puppet politician. And in my research, this is the first phenomenon of Muslim terror, so-called Islamist terror, created by the West. And later on, we find it in Afghanistan with the Mujahideen against the Russians or the Soviets at the time. Then they become Taliban. They become Al-Qaeda, later blamed for destroying the World Trade Center, where everybody knows nowadays it was not Islamist terrorists who landed in the skyscrapers in New York and in the Pentagon. And the same is obviously true for Syria, where everybody can see nowadays that a former head chopper from an ISIS organization, I guess Tahrir al-Sham, his name was al-Julani and maybe now al-Shara. And who knows what his real name is? He is an Islamist terrorist who never really attacks Western interests. He works for Western interests. And that's the playbook that I witnessed in all the war zones and terror areas, and even piracy at the Horn of Africa, which I went to visit in Bosaso. So, a number of stories that I'm telling in my book. #Pascal I mean, it's quite fascinating, right, that these opposition forces that then use terrorism, that they at some point always switch over in order to help the West when that becomes politically convenient. I mean, al-Shara is probably the best example, right? I mean, absolutely fantastic. He had a $10 million bounty on his head by the Americans. And the moment he flips and switches, he's basically in a suit. And the script that went off there is mind-boggling, even to a lot of us, because it seems so blatant. But you've seen this play out in many different forms. And Mindanao is probably a good example that a lot of people don't know about, because this ethnic divide over there is quite old. But I mean, as you said, it goes back to the dad of the current president, right? I mean, interestingly enough, the Filipinos voted in his son when he came back into the presidency. Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there. The pirates in Somalia, can you explain that episode a little bit, and also how you know about it? Like, what are the sources of your knowledge apart from, you know, the written sources and maybe also what you have seen in discussions on the ground? #Kolja Spöri Yes. In Somalia, a country that I visited three times, and I want to mention I have visited the major war zones at least three times because sometimes people think that country collectors like myself, -- 3 of 18 -- they just hop in and out of places and don't even talk to local people. That's not the case. Although I have been to little Caribbean islands, maybe just at the airport, the interesting countries and the conflict countries I've traveled to thoroughly. So I found myself for the third time in Somalia. And I had already made acquaintance with the local people, Al-Shabaab rebels at a roadblock before, when I organized a help transport for the local population during the famous famine in about 2011. And I managed to flee. I was driving a car around that roadblock by those al-Shabaab terrorists. But when I came then to Bosaso in Puntland, which is right at the Horn of Africa, it's the capital of piracy for, I guess, 20 years or so. I was shown around with a—we had actually Special Forces protection, both locally and two, may I say, Blackwater guys, which is not the people I like to work with in general. But it was a huge company that had bought Blackwater. They're called Constellis. And we had a German CEO of the company and a British colleague help us around in this area just to be safe, because it is dangerous. And so here's what I learned about the piracy at the Horn of Africa. It is a strategy of tension that controls piracy, the trade routes, that controls the resources, and that controls the populations and population movements. And it goes back to books from maybe the most famous author, the British Jewish author Frank Kitson, who wrote the book Gangs and Counter- Gangs and describes this kind of warfare. And here's how the Somali pirates were created: the British were actually financing and training a local coast guard in the Horn of Africa. I think that was in the 1990s, end of the 1990s. And then, what happens? Those locals who were trained turned rogue. They went missing, and nobody knew where they went, but the equipment was gone. And here they show up again on the open waters and are a problem for the shipping route, most important shipping route in the world as it is. And I had previously spent a week in Djibouti, in the Sheraton Hotel, where all the soldiers, including German soldiers of Operation Atalanta, were staying to fight the piracy. And, I mean, those soldiers, they don't really have a clue about the real forces behind it. But I was pointed at it by a friend of mine. What happened there, and it is a classic way of creating a Hegelian dialectic, where you create a problem, and the solution is you have control over, in this case, the local area. You create the tension that allows you to keep military there and to allow some ships to pass, others don't. There was always the rumor that Lloyd's-insured ships do not get attacked. This is the reason why. So here I found myself in another geopolitical choke point with a Western-made, not terror phenomenon, but let's say a strategy of tension, as it's called professionally. #Pascal Yeah, and let's just point out the geography of this place, right? I mean, we are talking about the area right around the Strait of Bab al-Mandab and the Horn of Africa over here. And, you know, it's fascinating, right, how all of these tension points always happen in geopolitically very important places. And also that Djibouti, of course, is this last piece that was carved out of—not Eritrea, sorry— of Ethiopia, that then is so strategically connected and right opposite to Yemen. So, I mean, your -- 4 of 18 -- allegation is that this is