Speaker 1: Well bid administration officials should stop chasing after their Chinese
Speaker 1: communist counterparts like love struck teenagers. It's embarrassing and it's pathetic.
Speaker 1: In fact, it projects weakness to China. It encourages them
Speaker 1: to do things like buzz our aircraft or come within
Speaker 1: a few hundred yards of our ships. Encourages them to
Speaker 1: spent send spy balloons floating all across America.
Speaker 2: All three of those things have happened, two of them
Speaker 2: in the last few days. I don't know if you've
Speaker 2: seen the video of that Chinese warship going right in
Speaker 2: front of one of our ships and we had to
Speaker 2: slow down to avoid collision. They said, yeah, you better
Speaker 2: stand up our waters is what they said the Chinese did,
Speaker 2: And what the heck is the what are they up to?
Speaker 2: What's their goal?
Speaker 3: That in the Ukraine situation? As well? A couple of
Speaker 3: topics to discuss with the military analyst Mike Lyons served
Speaker 3: in the United States military all over the world and
Speaker 3: is now on CNN among other places. Mike, great to
Speaker 3: talk to you.
Speaker 4: How are you hey, guy, guys, good to be with you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what are they trying to accomplish by constantly jabinus
Speaker 3: in the chest.
Speaker 4: The Chinese, well people, they don't believe that the water
Speaker 4: between China and Taiwan is international. They believe it's theirs,
Speaker 4: and so they've not signed up to that treaty. So
Speaker 4: they think anytime the United States drives a destroyer with
Speaker 4: a frigate from Canada, actually two ships traveling together, so
Speaker 4: they're undeployment, they're fully stocked, that warship is fully loaded
Speaker 4: with you know, cruise missiles, the whole thing. Yeah, they
Speaker 4: don't believe that that's their international water, and so this is
Speaker 4: their way of trying to make that point. Now, the
Speaker 4: rest of the world does things that it's international water.
Speaker 4: And what they did was, you know, they'd kind of
Speaker 4: a serpentine in front of a warship going you know,
Speaker 4: ten to fifteen knots that had to slow down, that
Speaker 4: had to alter its course. So not abiding by the rules,
Speaker 4: the of the sea and all those things that go
Speaker 4: with it. You know, there's way of sending a message.
Speaker 4: I mean, there's no other way to put it. But
Speaker 4: it's just a really dumb thing because this is you know,
Speaker 4: how wars start and how bad things happen in that
Speaker 4: part of the world.
Speaker 2: Well, do we keep if they do it again, do
Speaker 2: we keep slowing down or what?
Speaker 4: What?
Speaker 2: How do we react?
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a game of chicken. I don't think we're
Speaker 4: going to knock into uh, we're gonna We're not gonna
Speaker 4: hit another ship on purpose. I don't see that that
Speaker 4: would not be It'd be a catastrophe in that region
Speaker 4: given what what you know, the environmental impact alone, what
Speaker 4: happened there potentially you know, to warships thinking, yeah, I
Speaker 4: can't imagine that happening. So we're gonna just we'll monitor
Speaker 4: watch the situation. You know, the Navy now is taking
Speaker 4: tremendous precautions in that part of the world when it
Speaker 4: comes to not hitting other ships, right from the Fitzgerald
Speaker 4: and McCain took place a couple of years ago, right, so,
Speaker 4: you know, there's people on the watch, there's people, there's radar,
Speaker 4: there's all kinds of signals that are going out there.
Speaker 4: I personally think what we're going to do is send
Speaker 4: more ships. We're gonna we're gonna have more uh things
Speaker 4: going there and have planes and have other things that
Speaker 4: are going to support them, because what they're doing is
Speaker 4: keeping a shipping lane open, UH, supporting our allies that
Speaker 4: are there, So we're not We're not going to back down,
Speaker 4: I think at all.
Speaker 3: So let's turn to Ukraine. Mike, uh, the attacks of intensified.
Speaker 3: Is this the begin of the counter offensive? What's your
Speaker 3: take on the situation?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm no, I'm the only guy in the world
Speaker 4: saying this is not a counter offensive. I mean, I
Speaker 4: can't even figure out the definition of a counter offensive
Speaker 4: is anymore. So a counter offensive in history is the
Speaker 4: battle of the bulch on both sides. The Germans take
Speaker 4: thirty divisions and they go one direction. In the United
Speaker 4: States takes the counter offensive and goes in the other direction.
Speaker 4: The president, let's get admits to the Wall Street Journal,
Speaker 4: But they don't even control the airspace in the forward areas.
Speaker 4: I don't know how in the world they think they're
Speaker 4: going to have any kind of successful counter offensive. Not
Speaker 4: all the Abrams tanks are there. There isn't bridging equipment
Speaker 4: that's there. There's not a sixteen insight that's going to
Speaker 4: show up at least for twelve to eighteen months. So
Speaker 4: the messaging is kind of weird. And then on the
Speaker 4: other side, you've got the Ministry Defense now releasing this
Speaker 4: Twitter feed about keeping the plans silent. Well, you got
Speaker 4: your president talking about the account offensive it's going to start,
Speaker 4: and you have the soldiers on the ground saying to
Speaker 4: be quiet. So the messaging is way off when it
Speaker 4: comes to what exactly is going on right there. I
Speaker 4: And then this morning you have the Russians say that
Speaker 4: they defeated Ukraine offensive Operation inton Esque, exactly where the
Speaker 4: counter offensive could take place, and then they wiped out
Speaker 4: a bunch of Ukrainian soldiers. So I'm not sure what's
Speaker 4: going on. I can tell you this, there's not a
Speaker 4: counter offensive going on based on my definition of counter offensive,
Speaker 4: which is a large number of troops with a lot
Speaker 4: of equipment that's going to do it. An offensive operation
Speaker 4: that's going to matter. It's going to mean something that's
Speaker 4: not happening anytime in Ukraine anytime soon.
Speaker 2: Well, Washington Post, I think it was, had a big
Speaker 2: story yesterday about how NATO has been training in all
Speaker 2: these Ukrainian troops and the latest greatest tactics we have
Speaker 2: on a lot of the best weapons that we've given them,
Speaker 2: on all that sort of stuff, and they're ready to
Speaker 2: go with a modern American like attack. You don't think
Speaker 2: so or what.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the equipment is not there yet. The tank
Speaker 4: crews are still in Graphenvier, they're still training. They won't
Speaker 4: see M one tanks, they won't see the Abrams tanks.
Speaker 4: They're saying for twelve weeks, you know, and again until
Speaker 4: that level of equipment shows up, that level of survivability
Speaker 4: and they're only something thirty, they need four hundred in
Speaker 4: order to make any kind of impact unless they've got
Speaker 4: other information I don't have. So like, for example, again
Speaker 4: we've talked about this area in the south staying on
Speaker 4: the right side of of the Bnepa River. If they
Speaker 4: can navigate that, maybe they think they're going to get
Speaker 4: twenty or thirty thousand Russian soldiers to surrender, I don't know,
Speaker 4: and turn around a threat crimea. But there doesn't appear
Speaker 4: to be the material in the region in order to
Speaker 4: conduct the counter offensive. Considering the fact that Russia has
Speaker 4: been digging in in some of those areas since twenty fourteen.
Speaker 4: The Nek, for example, that has been Russia controlled since
Speaker 4: twenty fourteen. It's not like they've just shown up there
Speaker 4: and they've been planning the defense there for the last
Speaker 4: almost eight years.
Speaker 3: Wow, that is so interesting. So obviously, you know, the
Speaker 3: cavalry and the foot soldiers and artillery just isn't kind
Speaker 3: of cut it.
Speaker 4: You're saying, no, no, no, it's got to be a
Speaker 4: combined arms force. He's got to control, have some assets
Speaker 4: coming from the air. You bring artillery, you bring ventry
Speaker 4: fighting vehicles, M one tanks for shock effect, have bridging equipment.
Speaker 4: There's you know, they have the home field advantage. They
Speaker 4: know where the obstacles are. That's that's why I think
Speaker 4: Russia got backed up and back moved because they didn't
Speaker 4: They didn't couldn't cross basic rivers and they couldn't navigate
Speaker 4: basic obstacles there. But but you gotta have all that
Speaker 4: stuff in order to move quickly, which is the definition
Speaker 4: of the counter offensives, which again I don't know the
Speaker 4: definition what the Ukraine government is using for a counter
Speaker 4: offensive because they think that that's a counter offensive. What
Speaker 4: they're doing right now. It's just it's they're going to
Speaker 4: still using my favorite turn wallowin Ovcan. They're not going
Speaker 4: to move anywhere. They're not going to get off the
Speaker 4: snide one bit.
Speaker 2: Well, so I've been thinking about it, like I remember
Speaker 2: when the Iraq War was going to start, and they
Speaker 2: were talking about shock and awe and leading up to it,
Speaker 2: there'd be a little thing here there in various places
Speaker 2: in Iraq, and the media would say was that the
Speaker 2: beginning of shokun And they'd say, no, when it starts,
Speaker 2: you'll know. And I was kind of thinking that this
Speaker 2: giant counter offensive will be like that. When it starts,
Speaker 2: will know, But you're you're not certain that that's the
Speaker 2: way it's gonna roll out.
Speaker 4: No, I don't know what. They don't have the baton
Speaker 4: to start it with, they don't have the they don't
Speaker 4: have the mass of weaponry to start it like that. Again,
Speaker 4: it's just not there. So unless it's something else, I
Speaker 4: don't know what it could be. There's no other way
Speaker 4: unless they're just saying it. The counter offensive is started, Okay,
Speaker 4: let's see it. But the all they do then is
Speaker 4: set themselves up for failure because they really are poking
Speaker 4: the bear here. I'm gonna use that term right that
Speaker 4: they It just makes no sense for them to say
Speaker 4: that on any level until it's actually going to start.
Speaker 3: Interesting military analyst and Mike Alliance, Mike, thanks so much
Speaker 3: for the perspective.
Speaker 4: Good to talk to you great guy. Thanks for me