Speaker 1: Hello there from Avilius. Lovely morning here in Lithuania. And
Speaker 1: we should note there are Ukrainian flags everywhere in this city,
Speaker 1: a city that has completely turned out and show solidarity
Speaker 1: with the war effort, the resistance against Russia. Of course,
Speaker 1: here in a former Soviet state in the Baltics.
Speaker 2: One.
Speaker 1: And I'm standing in George W. Bush Plaza, named after
Speaker 1: the former president because he gave a speech here in
Speaker 1: two thousand and two in which he urged Lithuania to
Speaker 1: be admitted to NATO. And NATO transformed then and it
Speaker 1: has done so again now.
Speaker 3: So goes on to make the point that he is
Speaker 3: about three miles from the Belarusian border, like one hundred
Speaker 3: miles from Russia, right next to Ukraine. All the world
Speaker 3: leaders there are within striking distance of a war. I
Speaker 3: guess that's not a concern.
Speaker 2: Apparently not that would absolutely usher US into World War three.
Speaker 3: Sure, respect, Sure, but it was seen as a big
Speaker 3: deal when various leaders were going to Kiev. I just
Speaker 3: I was surprised they're all gathering right there in the corner.
Speaker 2: So many things to discuss with Mike Allions, who served
Speaker 2: the United States military and a variety of capacities in
Speaker 2: a variety of places now respected military analysts for CNN,
Speaker 2: among others. Mike, how are you, sir.
Speaker 4: Hey, good morning guys. Great to be back with you.
Speaker 2: I've been following your Twitter feed and we know your
Speaker 2: neck of the woods has been affected by the horrendous
Speaker 2: rainfalls in the northeast. How's everybody doing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, West Point underwater on the town outside Highland Falls.
Speaker 4: The same roads are out. Actually I can't get up
Speaker 4: there right now. There's no way nine W. The main
Speaker 4: artery into the academy is shut down, both from the
Speaker 4: north side and the south side the town. So it's
Speaker 4: pretty devastating. Hopefully the Army Corp of Engineers is moving
Speaker 4: quickly to try to restore services there. Out of the
Speaker 4: building I work in is un habitable right now. It
Speaker 4: was flooded in the floor, so you got mold. All
Speaker 4: kinds of things are going to happen. So yeah, once
Speaker 4: in a thousand year storm, they're saying it was.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of powerful forces, mother nature is unmatched. Let's
Speaker 2: talk about the situation in Ukraine. We talked a little
Speaker 2: bit about your opinion on cluster munitions yesterday. We know
Speaker 2: you're in favor of Ukraine using them.
Speaker 4: Why Yeah, First of all, let's set the law of
Speaker 4: land warfare dictate, and that should be the litmus test
Speaker 4: for this right. I mean, the legality of the situation.
Speaker 4: Number one, it's a military necessity. Right now, Ukraine is
Speaker 4: trying to do a counter offensive without air superiority, which
Speaker 4: is foolhardy in some ways to begin with. And you
Speaker 4: can even say it's not even a counter offensive, it's
Speaker 4: just trying to figure out some probing operations anyway. At
Speaker 4: the bottom line is they're running out of ammunition, so
Speaker 4: they need more ammunition. We've knew this eight months ago
Speaker 4: that eventually they would run out of ammunition because we
Speaker 4: can't resupply them at the pace that they're using it.
Speaker 4: We don't have enough of material on our side, and
Speaker 4: we don't have enough reserves. And that that was the
Speaker 4: no known that they were going to run out of animals.
Speaker 4: So that's number one as a necessity to use these rounds.
Speaker 4: Number two, proportionality. They are proportional in that Russia's use
Speaker 4: them already. They've used them on civilian targets, they've used
Speaker 4: them on things they shouldn't be But this is not
Speaker 4: going to be a game changer, it's not going to
Speaker 4: allow them a tremendous advantage, and they're going to use
Speaker 4: them in a way. On the third thing, civilian or
Speaker 4: military targets only, there's going to be a distinction between
Speaker 4: combatants and non combatants. And so again, if you use
Speaker 4: those three tests of the law of land warfare, you
Speaker 4: know Russia has failed all three. Russia, you know, uses
Speaker 4: them without necessity, has fired him on civilians, and doesn't
Speaker 4: use them in proportionality. But Ukraine's going to do that.
Speaker 4: I think legally they have a case that they they
Speaker 4: should use them.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people were hoping the Ukrainians
Speaker 3: would make some big advances once the Wagner Group had
Speaker 3: to pull out, since that was Russia's best fighting for us.
Speaker 3: Why does that not happen?
Speaker 4: Right? So they're not twenty five thousand men as you
Speaker 4: could see now too. I never thought they were going
Speaker 4: to just disappear or be part of thee the Russian military.
Speaker 4: Ladimir Putin is not giving up on the Wagner Group.
Speaker 4: They're earners. They you know, Progosians an earner. He earns
Speaker 4: it not only in Ukraine, he earns it in Africa
Speaker 4: and rare earth minerals and all the things going on,
Speaker 4: so that you know, we're surprised that you know, he's
Speaker 4: meeting with Vladimir Putin. Progosion is no, we shouldn't be
Speaker 4: surprised because he's not going to get rid of them.
Speaker 4: The bottom line is Russia still out guns Ukraine artillery
Speaker 4: almost ten to one on the front. They've had six
Speaker 4: months to dig in, they have more AMMO, they can
Speaker 4: throw an endless number of resources at this. You know,
Speaker 4: it was a lot of hope that some counter offense
Speaker 4: would be able to break through. The only place that
Speaker 4: would really matter is in the south, and Russia blows
Speaker 4: that last bridge, that last dam, that floods in the
Speaker 4: entire area that definitely that narrow is now the avenues
Speaker 4: of approach there. So they're going to march into these
Speaker 4: kill zones. Now. They could wait another eight to ten
Speaker 4: weeks when the native equipment arrives, because right now Ukraine
Speaker 4: crew survivability is so important, and the equipment coming from
Speaker 4: nat it would still not there yet will be there
Speaker 4: and they'll have a little bit more of a chance.
Speaker 4: But Russia still owns the air space, they still own
Speaker 4: a lot of different things they need attack thems. They
Speaker 4: need deep strike missile capability, they need air defense artillery
Speaker 4: in order for them to have any success. To think
Speaker 4: they're going to have success with this counter.
Speaker 2: Offensive, anticipate in my next question, do we have any
Speaker 2: idea of the timetable, Say Abrams tanks or F sixteen's
Speaker 2: being brought.
Speaker 4: To Bear September and the crews are still being trained
Speaker 4: on them, and just because you know, what they'll do
Speaker 4: is they'll allow the crews to survive more. The question
Speaker 4: is whether they're still going to be able to fight
Speaker 4: with them. They're they're complex systems. I mean, in some ways,
Speaker 4: the catillacts what the gunner uses to hit targets with
Speaker 4: is believe it or not, is designed after It's kind
Speaker 4: a video game, and it's a lot of things to
Speaker 4: kind of go into that from a simulation perspective, But
Speaker 4: they are They are big, heavy pieces of equipment that
Speaker 4: have long logistical supply chains to them. They get like,
Speaker 4: you know, eight gallons to the mile that you know,
Speaker 4: there's a lot of things that go in. It's that
Speaker 4: it's not just these tanks showing up. It's going to
Speaker 4: be the support that's gonna that's going to that's going
Speaker 4: to keep them running. They're not getting F sixteen. They're
Speaker 4: not seeing any kind of air superior already happening within
Speaker 4: the next year or so. But but again, September would
Speaker 4: they'd be lucky, And that's the time that I thought
Speaker 4: they were going to go on this counter offensive. It
Speaker 4: looks like they had to do this politically. They looked
Speaker 4: like they had to do something right before the NATO
Speaker 4: summit to show that they were doing it. But I'm
Speaker 4: afraid that they're just throwing, unfortunately, Ukraine soldiers into that
Speaker 4: meat grinder that Russia was doing eight months ago.
Speaker 3: So the NATO leaders, as you mentioned, the NATO summit
Speaker 3: are meeting there just a couple of miles from the
Speaker 3: border there with you know, an opponent of NATO. How
Speaker 3: big a deal is Sweden joining NATO?
Speaker 4: Yeah, big in both of them and Finland because of
Speaker 4: their neutrality for the past you know, seventy plus years,
Speaker 4: and more than that, this has drawn NATO together, I think,
Speaker 4: and NATO has never been as united as of right now.
Speaker 4: I'm glad at least we're not allowing Ukraine into NATO.
Speaker 4: I think we've talked about this before. I've never been
Speaker 4: a fan of all these countries joining NATO. We can't
Speaker 4: have the membership of NATO to be everybody but Russia,
Speaker 4: because that's how the First World War started. But that's
Speaker 4: where we're at right now, and I think that there'll
Speaker 4: be a path if Ukraine continues to smash the Russian
Speaker 4: military in place and hold its own, you know, four
Speaker 4: or five years from now, they're going to have a
Speaker 4: case that they're going to want to be in NATO.
Speaker 4: Depends on what Russia looks like at that point. But
Speaker 4: we also can't put in NATO a country that has
Speaker 4: a border dispute with a country like Russia, because then
Speaker 4: that triggers, you know, Article five, and next thing you know,
Speaker 4: we're at World War three.
Speaker 2: I was reading coverage in the Wall Street Journal about
Speaker 2: that very question, and they were writing that the European
Speaker 2: powers seem to be in favor of a fairly direct
Speaker 2: paths to membership. For you, I heard Macrone in France said, Hey,
Speaker 2: Ukraine's the best military in Europe right now, so why not.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the one of the largest, I think after Turkey,
Speaker 4: they're the third largest or whatever in Europe at this point.
Speaker 4: And that's that's kind of at some point that we
Speaker 4: have to watch that as well, to make sure that
Speaker 4: they don't get too powerful. As again, as we just
Speaker 4: look at history as the course, but you're going to
Speaker 4: see other countries eventually start to puke over this, like Germany,
Speaker 4: for example. Germany at the end of the day wants
Speaker 4: everything to go back to February twenty twenty two, twenty
Speaker 4: twenty two. They want this whole thing to be over.
Speaker 4: They want to wake up like a bad dream, and
Speaker 4: they want to get cheap you know oil again. They
Speaker 4: don't They're not interested in making Russia angry. So I
Speaker 4: think that people are talking a good game right now.
Speaker 4: Germany has talked a good game in some ways. But
Speaker 4: when push comes to shove, putting you know, Ukraine into
Speaker 4: NATO is going to be a really, really big deal.
Speaker 4: I mean that they should only agree to that if
Speaker 4: we don't believe Russia is the threat that it currently
Speaker 4: could be, and as long as they have nuclear weapons,
Speaker 4: that might never be the case.
Speaker 2: We're talking to military analysts, Mike Lyons, Mike, we can't
Speaker 2: let you go without asking you about recruiting in the
Speaker 2: United States military was just reading yet another report saying
Speaker 2: that other than the Marines, everybody's falling miserably short, and
Speaker 2: everybody's trying to understand why. Any thoughts on.
Speaker 4: That, Yeah, I think I think it is two things.
Speaker 4: I do think. Number one, that those of us in
Speaker 4: the military are stopping no longer sending our children into
Speaker 4: the military. I mean, my son's in the Navy, and
Speaker 4: I'm glad he's serving, But I talked to more and
Speaker 4: more of my peers that were in the military and
Speaker 4: their children are not going. And it was very much
Speaker 4: a family business. So that's there's no question that that's
Speaker 4: impacting it. And the second thing is that the bar
Speaker 4: remains very high to get into the military. I mean,
Speaker 4: if the the amount of information on an individual that
Speaker 4: is in their country right now, for example, any kind
Speaker 4: of drugs, any kind of drug use, any kind of
Speaker 4: ADHD medication is disquality, So.
Speaker 3: They're going to eliminate a lot of people.
Speaker 4: There exactly, aside from overweight, aside from not being in shape.
Speaker 4: There's all there's. So the poll is shrinking all the time.
Speaker 4: I think it's a national security issue on some level.
Speaker 4: But you know, and and it did something did happen,
Speaker 4: a lot of those restrictions might go away, So they
Speaker 4: still might go in and they did, they did drop
Speaker 4: the restrictions during combat times. It's called a category four.
Speaker 4: It's just a high risk recruiter that that the military
Speaker 4: doesn't look let in. That's because the Army does a
Speaker 4: pretty good job of knowing who is and isn't going
Speaker 4: to succeed in the army, right because we've been recruiting
Speaker 4: people for a hundre, you know, two hundred years, so
Speaker 4: they know they have pretty good data as to what
Speaker 4: a person is going to do inside the military. You know,
Speaker 4: there it's different. It's a different world, but it's a
Speaker 4: different life. But but you know, I'm still seeing I've
Speaker 4: got a young man that I've been working with last year.
Speaker 4: He just finished up basic training. He's on his way
Speaker 4: to Airborne school and Special Force of school. So it's
Speaker 4: still you know, the bar is pretty high still, which
Speaker 4: I think is good. And I think our army today
Speaker 4: is still better than it was twenty years ago, better
Speaker 4: than it was when I was in. So you know,
Speaker 4: full steam ahead.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of good reasons for tradition and
Speaker 2: not being you know, flitting from one trend to another,
Speaker 2: and I'm glad the US military is that way. But
Speaker 2: do you see signs that they are adapting to the
Speaker 2: modern young person in the modern world.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they have done that before. Back if you look
Speaker 4: remember twenty years ago, there was this recruiting campaign called
Speaker 4: the Army of One. And back then when we were
Speaker 4: in we were all shaking our heads, going, well, the
Speaker 4: army is the last thing. The army is is an
Speaker 4: army of one. And that lasted about five minutes and
Speaker 4: then everyone realized that that's just not a good message
Speaker 4: because then they got into the army and realized it
Speaker 4: was no army of one. But I think they do
Speaker 4: have to stay current with social media and all the
Speaker 4: forces that act on them, but they still have to
Speaker 4: hold the line with regard to of the primary mission
Speaker 4: of the US military is fighting to win the nation's wars. Period.
Speaker 4: It's not to create diversity, it's not to force feed
Speaker 4: social changes into the military, which is you can easily
Speaker 4: do because of the government control over it. The bottom
Speaker 4: line is the military exists to win the nation's wars,
Speaker 4: and if we can't do that, then then we'll fall
Speaker 4: short and we will let our country down.
Speaker 2: Mike Lyons always pleasure. Thanks so much for the time, Mike, great,
Speaker 2: thanks
Speaker 4: For having me