Speaker 1: Please welcome Mike Lyons military analysts. Mike served with various
Speaker 1: military military organizations in both the US and Europe throughout
Speaker 1: his career, decorating with the Bronze Star, among other things. Mike,
Speaker 1: how are you, sir. It's great to be back with you.
Speaker 1: On a lighter note, first of all, our executive producer
Speaker 1: Mike Hanson informs me that he bothered you in the
Speaker 1: midst of the Super Bowl yesterday as you're attempting to
Speaker 1: enjoy that great national holiday. I apologize for that. No,
Speaker 1: no problem, no, no problem. Always on. I'm always available
Speaker 1: for you guys. Of course, thank you. And that's what
Speaker 1: a worker he is too. He's amazing. Anyway, So I
Speaker 1: saw the latest headlines over the weekend were that a
Speaker 1: number of nations were evacuating embassy personnel, civilians, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing. I don't know on what basis they make
Speaker 1: those decisions, but the number, the sheer number of countries
Speaker 1: doing that was pretty ominous. It is, and we're all
Speaker 1: trying to look for the historical analogy at this point.
Speaker 1: You know, is it nineteen fourteen before first, you know,
Speaker 1: the First World War? Is it appeasement to take place
Speaker 1: in ninety eight with Munich and the British is it
Speaker 1: Independence Day where you know, the spaceships are all kind
Speaker 1: of lining up and everyone's trying to get out of
Speaker 1: the cities before something happens. And so I think that
Speaker 1: they're gonna give diplomacy one more chance. You saw that
Speaker 1: the Ukraine minister is going to look to talk to
Speaker 1: Russia with this now potential promise of not joining NATO.
Speaker 1: But that's really not anything that's tangible whatsoever, because the
Speaker 1: bottom line is to get Ukraine and NATO, it would
Speaker 1: take agreement of all other NATO countries right now, and
Speaker 1: in Turkey wouldn't agree with it, neither with Germany, and
Speaker 1: neither with a bunch of other nations, so that that
Speaker 1: really is a fatal complete And that's so I don't
Speaker 1: think that Russia is gonna take that seriously. They want more.
Speaker 1: They're gonna want maybe a new missile defense tree. There's
Speaker 1: a lot more things that Roden M. Putin wants, uh
Speaker 1: or else. He likely launches a kind of combat on
Speaker 1: the on the on the continent we haven't seen since
Speaker 1: the Second World War. You know what I don't have
Speaker 1: a grasp on at all is whether Putin is sincerely
Speaker 1: seeking uh security concessions of the sort you just described
Speaker 1: um or whether this all is a pretext for snatching
Speaker 1: up land that he considers rightfully part of the great
Speaker 1: restored Soviet Empire, or does he have both options to
Speaker 1: him and then he's neither one nor the other necessarily. Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I think it's more of the second. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: to take this land back. You know, he's got a
Speaker 1: finite life shelf life himself. He sees Russian greatness, and
Speaker 1: he's trying to project Russian into the future. That's really
Speaker 1: what from his perspective, what this is about. And the
Speaker 1: only way that a country does that is by taking
Speaker 1: over resources. I think I think he's got to be
Speaker 1: faced with the decision of taking Crimea, taking already taking Crimea,
Speaker 1: taken Ukraine and possibly destroying things that he's going to
Speaker 1: want to use in the future. But to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, he gets Ukraine, he has influence over Belarus.
Speaker 1: What's not to say he's going to want to encroach
Speaker 1: in potentially the northern countries and Latvia stillity NATO countries. Now,
Speaker 1: how's how's that going to go? So I think that
Speaker 1: that's why this appeasement argument is out there because people say, well,
Speaker 1: if we've given out of this, then he'll just look
Speaker 1: to do that in the future. But you know, he's
Speaker 1: got to look forward in a country that's dying. Fundamentally,
Speaker 1: Russia is going in the wrong direction, and I think
Speaker 1: he recognizes that, and this is the way he thinks
Speaker 1: he can rehearse that. Well, yeah, I guess what I'm
Speaker 1: asking is, are the international diplomats trying desperately to to
Speaker 1: talk sense to Sergei Lavrov and all the Russians? Are
Speaker 1: they just Neville Neville Chamberlain going to Hitler And there
Speaker 1: was never anything that was going to appease Hitler. He
Speaker 1: had a specific plan. Do you think Putin's still weighing
Speaker 1: options there? Would you guess he has a specific plan? Now?
Speaker 1: I think he has a plan. And that's the point
Speaker 1: about Neville Chamberlain going and to Hitler was you know,
Speaker 1: I watched historians now try to say, well, actually that
Speaker 1: wasn't that bad because it bought the UK another year
Speaker 1: or so to get ready for the war that's coming.
Speaker 1: I I kinda shake my head saying that's not what's
Speaker 1: happening here. Ukraine's not getting any further ready. For a war. Um,
Speaker 1: I have to wonder what the military is doing right now.
Speaker 1: They're obviously on highl earth. They're they're going to be undermanned,
Speaker 1: They're going to be underwhelmed by the technology that they
Speaker 1: have compared to what the Russians have on the other side.
Speaker 1: I wonder what the USS and soldiers thinking on their
Speaker 1: side of the border. Do they know when they're coming?
Speaker 1: Are they sitting? Did they get the order and they
Speaker 1: were told to pause? I've been in that situation before,
Speaker 1: but I do I don't think that. I think. I
Speaker 1: think food and clearly has a strategic plan. He's always
Speaker 1: been one of those kinds of thinkers over over the horizon,
Speaker 1: making sure he has something in play, and I believe
Speaker 1: that in this case he'll play that out. Military analysts
Speaker 1: Mike Lions on the line, Mike, we don't We civilians
Speaker 1: don't really have a sense of how great Russia's superiority
Speaker 1: is over the Ukrainian forces were told that they're they're
Speaker 1: pretty well trained, A lot of a lot of them
Speaker 1: are battle hardened. The Ukrainians reasonably well eclipped equipped. Is
Speaker 1: it like two to one, five to one, ten to one,
Speaker 1: it's you know, you to compared both militaries, it's more
Speaker 1: like seven or eight two one. It's very high. But
Speaker 1: but the issue is what they've got a math on
Speaker 1: the border and what they're up against and what Russia
Speaker 1: does have a success in the military. I think that's
Speaker 1: been understated here. Um, Russian military units have been deployed
Speaker 1: as Syria for the past ten years working that civil war,
Speaker 1: so they're going to be somewhe battle tested themselves. And
Speaker 1: the Ukraine's no, They've got within their culture, they're embedded
Speaker 1: to fight and and and the and the like. And
Speaker 1: you've got people now and looking to try to create
Speaker 1: this model of well let's let them in and then
Speaker 1: we'll have this counterinsturency that takes place. You just Russia
Speaker 1: won't play with that. I don't think that's going to
Speaker 1: be an issue at all. Russia is going to look
Speaker 1: to destroy the Ukraine military. There's going to be significant
Speaker 1: you know, artillery missiles, all kinds of indirect fire against
Speaker 1: their military targets, looking to destroy their military before it
Speaker 1: gets out of the motor poole. And um, it's it's
Speaker 1: going to be unfortunate if you're if you're wearing a
Speaker 1: Ukraine uniform or you're you've got a gun in your
Speaker 1: hand walking around Ukraine. You're gonna be a target for
Speaker 1: the Russian military and you're out and you're outnumbering the
Speaker 1: emotion military outnumbers. I'm onner the ground right now, three
Speaker 1: to one, four to one. Wow. Wow. Uh So, finally,
Speaker 1: we Americans tend to fixate on one story at a time.
Speaker 1: Are there any other hotspots around the globe that you
Speaker 1: have special interest in that have really grabbed your attention.
Speaker 1: I'm always looking at the Middle East, and got my
Speaker 1: son deployed there, so I've got a little hit eyes
Speaker 1: there as well. With what's going on with the missile
Speaker 1: with the Iranian missile deal or I'm sorry, the nuclear deal. Um.
Speaker 1: From a military perspective, though, we could need to project
Speaker 1: power and I think you know, this is going to
Speaker 1: give us an opportunity to if we do this properly,
Speaker 1: to to really think about if they do decide to
Speaker 1: go in Ukraine, what what are we gonna do? We
Speaker 1: us start protecting our assets that are in space if
Speaker 1: we're going to help the Ukraine military, which is what
Speaker 1: we would do. Now, let's see if that they do
Speaker 1: role tanks, Um, We've got some ground surveillance, radars and
Speaker 1: things that we could possibly help them with intelligence and information.
Speaker 1: UM I do. I do think that next stiff dimension
Speaker 1: we'll take place in outer space and they'll be they'll
Speaker 1: be combat up there at some point. And the question is,
Speaker 1: you know, perhaps this was the precursor to that. If
Speaker 1: we can you know, protect those assets there, I think
Speaker 1: will be okay. You know, that's the topic we ought
Speaker 1: to pursue on another day. Absolutely interesting and the idea
Speaker 1: that the previous administration will leave the T word out
Speaker 1: of it, but the previous administration's solidifying and starting up
Speaker 1: the space force. The fact that that was mocked and
Speaker 1: laughed at is just it's a measure of how stupid
Speaker 1: we can be. I think, no, no, no question, And
Speaker 1: that's exactly where the next battle takes place, cyber overseas,
Speaker 1: all of that, especially in space as well. We can
Speaker 1: we're concerned about these countries that have nuclear capability. We've
Speaker 1: talked about before. You can't you know, have a new
Speaker 1: can you have able to deliver a new can be
Speaker 1: a space force in order to get it across the continents. Um.
Speaker 1: I do think that right, And we've got so much
Speaker 1: intel collection assets up there right now. What if what
Speaker 1: if China decides to knock some of those things out
Speaker 1: right now in precursor to this invasion in Ukraine, that
Speaker 1: that can already be starting in some ways, and we've
Speaker 1: got to figure out a way how we're going to
Speaker 1: protect that. Wow. Wow, Mic Lions military analyst, Mike, thanks
Speaker 1: a million, good to talk to you. We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Thanks alright, absolutely wow. The idea that the next front
Speaker 1: in warfare is blowing each other's satellites out of the sky,
Speaker 1: and then I would imagine aggressively launching dozens, hundreds, thousands
Speaker 1: more satellites up in the sky so our eyes and
Speaker 1: the years uh continue to function up there, because I
Speaker 1: know that's that's an enormous part part of American military
Speaker 1: capability is a communications and uh and that's that's a
Speaker 1: great field in itself. If you ever want to get
Speaker 1: truly wonky about the communication systems we're trying to design
Speaker 1: so that if they knock out A, we go to B,
Speaker 1: they knock out B, we go to C and and
Speaker 1: just always have a certain amount of reasonable command and control.
Speaker 1: But the idea that um that all of that is
Speaker 1: now vulnerable in a way that it hasn't been in generations.
Speaker 1: I mean, that'll get your attention.