Speaker 1: The official name of that defensive umbrella is Operation Prosperity Guardian.
Speaker 1: It's a coalition of more than twenty nations that includes
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom, but most of the ships, aircraft, and
Speaker 1: firepower are coming from America. When was the last time
Speaker 1: that the US Navy operated in this place for a
Speaker 1: couple of months?
Speaker 2: I think you'd have to go back to World War
Speaker 2: Two where you have ships who are engaged in combat.
Speaker 2: When I say engagement, combat where they're getting shot at,
Speaker 2: we're getting shot at and we're shooting back.
Speaker 3: You'd have to go back to World War II. Since
Speaker 3: the Navy's been engaged in that sort of thing sustained
Speaker 3: period of time.
Speaker 4: Sounds like combat to me.
Speaker 5: Let's discuss the developments in the Gulf, in the region
Speaker 5: around the world with CNN military analyst Mike Lyons, who
Speaker 5: joins us.
Speaker 4: Mike, thanks great to talk to.
Speaker 6: You, Hey one, guys, great to be back with you.
Speaker 3: So does that sound accurate to you? That's the most
Speaker 3: engagement our Navy's had since World War Two.
Speaker 6: Probably from a naval perspective. If you take out the
Speaker 6: naval air assets that have been participating in combat, you know,
Speaker 6: really in every conflict for the past twenty twenty five years.
Speaker 6: This is you know, combat towards the ships, you know,
Speaker 6: the destroyers, the aircraft careers were always safe, you know,
Speaker 6: naval tactics or protect carry at all costs. Well, now
Speaker 6: they've got to be concerned about that. The fact that
Speaker 6: our enemy is targeting actual naval assets in the water
Speaker 6: is somewhat new. And this new thing is this underwater drone.
Speaker 6: Doing some research on that coming from irun it loiters.
Speaker 6: It's kind of like a loitering torpedo is kind of
Speaker 6: the best way to describe it. And the fact that
Speaker 6: they were able to shoot that out before it got
Speaker 6: close to it. Things are getting dicey. No question for
Speaker 6: the naval operators in the Red Cina.
Speaker 4: Just a quick tangential question, Mike.
Speaker 5: I think a lot about the navy for various reasons,
Speaker 5: both personal and patriotic. I'm troubled by our lack of
Speaker 5: capacity for shipbuilding as China's navy grows.
Speaker 4: By leaves and bounds.
Speaker 5: At the same time, though, with the growings of shistication
Speaker 5: of missiles, both ours and the Chinese in particular, I
Speaker 5: wonder how long a big manned surface fleet is going
Speaker 5: to have the significance it has now.
Speaker 6: Well from a principle of war perspective, it provides mass
Speaker 6: on that domain. So I think that's always going to
Speaker 6: be there. I'm turned about it as well. I do
Speaker 6: think we need to increase our enable capacity, both what
Speaker 6: we have in the water and the sea as well
Speaker 6: as underwater. We're talking about submarines there as well. So
Speaker 6: I do believe that as the Chinese are going to,
Speaker 6: you know, kind of rely on the old school gunboat
Speaker 6: diplomacy and what's happening in the Pacific, we've got to
Speaker 6: match that with similar assets. Now we use our technology
Speaker 6: to gain the advantage. But right now that's being flipped
Speaker 6: on its head. You saw that sixty minutesry for Norah
Speaker 6: O'Donnell talking about you know, we're taking million dollar cruise
Speaker 6: missiles and knocking out ten and fifty thousand dollars drones.
Speaker 6: Let's say with it, because we have to protect our shifts.
Speaker 6: So from an economic perspective, we're not on the right
Speaker 6: side of that. We have to you know, kind of
Speaker 6: figure that as well. We can we get away with
Speaker 6: that because we're prosperous country. We can afford it, but
Speaker 6: we might not be able to afford that in the future,
Speaker 6: especially as these countries change their taxes. I'm concerned about
Speaker 6: swarming technology for example, that's going to impact the battlefield
Speaker 6: on the sea.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I mentioned a couple
Speaker 3: of different times. They're not exactly sure what they're up to,
Speaker 3: Like what's their goal? Picking a fight with the biggest,
Speaker 3: baddest bull in the barn and what you know is
Speaker 3: an attrition like you guys were just talking about her.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I don't know what the Huthi's goal is, just
Speaker 6: just besides from a purely religious perspective, to go meet
Speaker 6: their maker there. It doesn't make sense. And that's why,
Speaker 6: you know, the rational negotiation with these terrorists don't. It
Speaker 6: doesn't go go anywhere because they don't have the same
Speaker 6: you know, kind of value sets we do. So they're
Speaker 6: going to continue to until until where they've been deterred
Speaker 6: or either out of ammunition. They're going to continue to
Speaker 6: do exactly that, and the Ron's going to use them.
Speaker 6: I think it's a laboratory. And again, the submarine rones
Speaker 6: and the surface drones and the things that they're doing,
Speaker 6: these unmanned the things, they're easy to they're easy to
Speaker 6: get there, and they're easy to deploy.
Speaker 3: I saw your tweets about Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine lost
Speaker 3: a major city over the weekend to Russia. But you
Speaker 3: seem to say Russia is not quite on the verge
Speaker 3: of winning. What's going on there?
Speaker 6: No, I don't think so. I think that. You know,
Speaker 6: for the last four months, they've expended about forty thousand
Speaker 6: soldiers that have been lost on their side and all
Speaker 6: kinds of battle damage assessment from thirty square kilometers. You know,
Speaker 6: there's not this immediacy with regard to Russia breaking through
Speaker 6: on an offensive operation. Ukraine's got to go into a
Speaker 6: defensive mode now and and stop any kind of counteroffensive.
Speaker 6: And what Russia's doing is taking back some of those
Speaker 6: areas that they lost during that counter offensive in the
Speaker 6: past nine months. But Russia is learning, they recognize that
Speaker 6: they've they ask forces in certain areas they'll be successful.
Speaker 6: That this area Aft Difcas in the middle of this
Speaker 6: very long front, and you know, you look at it
Speaker 6: from a strategic perspective, it looks like a divide and conquer,
Speaker 6: but they just still don't have the resources to do that.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 6: Eventually they might if they Ukraine government doesn't get resupplied
Speaker 6: the military, I think't resupplied in the next let's sake,
Speaker 6: thirty sixty ninety days. They're running out of ammunition, no
Speaker 6: question about that. Artillery. We saw Denmark decide to give
Speaker 6: all of its artillery inventory to Ukraine. That's a that's
Speaker 6: a nice gesture. But they need the fifty or sixty
Speaker 6: billion dollars of aid that's that would come from the
Speaker 6: from the West in order to have this fight to
Speaker 6: be sustained for the next couple of years. And what
Speaker 6: we'll do is take stock things out of our stocks,
Speaker 6: send them to Ukraine, and rebuild them here in the
Speaker 6: United States. So it's kind of a win win from
Speaker 6: a political perspective. But I guess right now neither side
Speaker 6: wants to give the other side any kind of political victory,
Speaker 6: which is it's going to hurt the Ukraine military.
Speaker 4: It's interesting to watch the arguments.
Speaker 5: Listen to the arguments here domestically, particular on the right
Speaker 5: side of the aisle between those who are staunchly in
Speaker 5: favor of helping Ukraine and those who seem to think
Speaker 5: it's a bad idea for a variety of reasons. But
Speaker 5: there doesn't seem to be a lot of disagreement in Europe.
Speaker 5: The EU is remarkably united in thinking Putin's a hell
Speaker 5: of a threat.
Speaker 6: Right, yeah, and look what he's done to Nivaldi now.
Speaker 6: And he does this because it's getting closer to the election.
Speaker 6: He picks and chooses when he wants to assassinate people.
Speaker 6: And you know, these kind of bloody leaders, they exist
Speaker 6: because they take their they take their opponents out before
Speaker 6: they you know, they get close to becoming more powerful.
Speaker 6: But yeah, over the weekend you saw the foreign minister
Speaker 6: of Latvia and Lithuania make comments about the threat as
Speaker 6: they are close to Putin, They're close to what's going
Speaker 6: on in Russia there. We've got to get you know,
Speaker 6: the Germans and the French and know others involved and
Speaker 6: start spending more money. Only seven countries in NATO are
Speaker 6: meeting that two and a half percent goal that they're
Speaker 6: supposed to be for GDP.
Speaker 5: That's just not enough, my clients, CNN Military analyst Mike,
Speaker 5: it's always great to talk before we let you go
Speaker 5: on this President's Day. Are there any is there a
Speaker 5: president or are there a couple that you admire, particularly
Speaker 5: that you think about a lot read about a lot
Speaker 5: to maybe use his role models.
Speaker 6: There's so many. I've studied them. JFK was inaugurated in
Speaker 6: the year of my birth. I guess, but I guess
Speaker 6: my favorite president has got to be Abraham Lincoln. If
Speaker 6: you go to the Lincoln Memorial and you look above
Speaker 6: the statue that the great statue that exists in that
Speaker 6: the monument to him, and there's a quote above it
Speaker 6: and it says something goes like this. I don't have
Speaker 6: it exact, but it's like, for who we saved the nation,
Speaker 6: the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined in this temple forever.
Speaker 6: And I was with that and said, you know, forever
Speaker 6: was a long time. You know, I'm sure the Romans
Speaker 6: put up a lot of statues and said the memory
Speaker 6: of this guy is going to be here forever. So
Speaker 6: the soldier I get to the Lincoln Memorial, I look
Speaker 6: up and there, I said, you know, I would look
Speaker 6: around here. It's going to be defending this place someplace
Speaker 6: because the United States said his memory is going to
Speaker 6: be here forever.
Speaker 4: That's a good one.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Amen to that, Mike, Thanks very very much, good
Speaker 5: to talk to you.
Speaker 6: Thanks guys, thanks for having me.
Speaker 4: Armstrong and Getty