Speaker 1: Welcome Mike Liones to the Armstrong and Getty Show.
Speaker 2: Hey Jack, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about your piece and real
Speaker 1: clear defense about the twenty thousand dollars drone that should
Speaker 1: wake up the Pentagon, because that sounds really, really interesting.
Speaker 2: But before we get.
Speaker 1: To that, I was just reading at least one piece
Speaker 1: in the Wall Street Journal where they were comfortable declaring
Speaker 1: that we lost this war and certainly that other Iranians
Speaker 1: feel like they want it. Is there a way there
Speaker 1: that at West Point or you know, those of you
Speaker 1: in college classes who'd study war determine a win versus
Speaker 1: a loss?
Speaker 2: And at what point do you determine that?
Speaker 3: Well, if you look at war as an extension of
Speaker 3: foreign policy, you know, the warfare, the operational success that
Speaker 3: we have here, did that give the president the country
Speaker 3: the leverage to negotiate what we're considered to be favorable
Speaker 3: terms for us Right now?
Speaker 2: It is looking like that that's just not the case.
Speaker 3: The operational success, the military success was clear on the ground,
Speaker 3: given what's been to destroy of the Iranian navy, their
Speaker 3: capability to manufacture, we're fighting capability going forward. However, what's
Speaker 3: the political outcome of this. You know, the best comparison
Speaker 3: is Vietnam. Right, We've never really lost the battle on
Speaker 3: the ground in Vietnam. However, we end up losing that
Speaker 3: from a strategic perspective, so that the story is not
Speaker 3: out there yet, it hasn't been told. But you know,
Speaker 3: I think the can's been kicked down the road right now.
Speaker 3: And the question is whether or not the military did
Speaker 3: gave the president the leverage. I think we did give
Speaker 3: the president the leverage you needed to negotiate harder, but
Speaker 3: it doesn't look like that's the outcome.
Speaker 1: So it seems to me most people left right and
Speaker 1: center don't like this deal. But we've had a few
Speaker 1: people who say, and this might be where Trump is,
Speaker 1: you got to live in the real world where we
Speaker 1: are today with a possible worldwide recession if we keep
Speaker 1: the Straight closed, and what it's doing to the price
Speaker 1: of oil and this and that, and what it would
Speaker 1: take for the military to get to our objectives at
Speaker 1: this point? Is this the smart thing to do?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: So look them at that. Would it have been possible
Speaker 2: for us to.
Speaker 1: Force open the Straight or horror moones, what would that
Speaker 1: have looked like if we had decided to go that far.
Speaker 3: Well, it would have looked like what it did back
Speaker 3: in the eighties when we had when we were in
Speaker 3: that mission with regard to open up the straight and
Speaker 3: keeping it open. Then it's not that it was impossible.
Speaker 3: Then what was that earnest will that mission was called.
Speaker 3: We had over two hundred and fifty tankers that went
Speaker 3: through that environment with navy escorts, and maybe perhaps we
Speaker 3: don't have those assets there right now. We really don't
Speaker 3: have the destroyers, that we don't have the same level
Speaker 3: of navy that we had, but that would have been possible.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is a good example of while you
Speaker 3: can defeat the Iranians militarily, think their navy, destroy their capability,
Speaker 3: take away their nuclear future, the bottom line is they
Speaker 3: still have geography on their side, and that geography is
Speaker 3: the Straits, and with coastal batteries and mines and fast
Speaker 3: moving boats, they live in the crevices and they can
Speaker 3: use asymmetric warfare to the threatn I like that expression
Speaker 3: of it. Yeah, I want to live in the real
Speaker 3: world too, But to all of a sudden, it just
Speaker 3: decide when it's not going to play anymore. After starting
Speaker 3: this seems like it's a little unfinished as well, and
Speaker 3: again just really kicks the can down the road with
Speaker 3: regard to solving this problem.
Speaker 1: How troubled are you by leaving their rocket making capability
Speaker 1: and some of their rockets.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I remember the big journalistic piece that came out that
Speaker 1: said they still had whatever it was, seventy percent of
Speaker 1: their rocket capability. Are you okay with leaving them with
Speaker 1: that and the threat that they may someday overwhelm the
Speaker 1: iron dome system there in Israel?
Speaker 3: Well, I'm not sure it's that high. They have it
Speaker 3: on their mobile tracks. But let's be clear. They're ballistic
Speaker 3: missile capability is offensive. You know, when the President made
Speaker 3: that comment, it's like, oh, it's okay for them to
Speaker 3: have some offensive ballistic missiles.
Speaker 2: Absolutely not those are You're not, you.
Speaker 3: Know, if they ever had patriot missiles or air defense systems,
Speaker 3: which is what the market's going to boom, especially with
Speaker 3: what we see in Europe and Ukraine and Russia right now,
Speaker 3: there's going to be you know, if you're invest in
Speaker 3: air defense stocks because Androil and these companies that make
Speaker 3: those missiles or are going through the roof, they're gonna
Speaker 3: going to be able.
Speaker 2: To manufacture them.
Speaker 3: But but again, the missiles that the reigns have are offensive.
Speaker 3: They're not designed to protect them. They're they're they They're
Speaker 3: not used for deterrence. They're used to terrain terror on
Speaker 3: their enemies, and so I'm really concerned with that. Mike
Speaker 3: POMPEII has been talking about that since even Secretary of
Speaker 3: State in the first Trump administration. This whole thing is
Speaker 3: it's all tied together, the ballistic missiles with the nuclear
Speaker 3: capability because because you have one thing to have a
Speaker 3: new because I think, to deliver it, and those ballistic
Speaker 3: missiles allow them to do both.
Speaker 1: I know some of this stuff is getting into kind
Speaker 1: of philosophical stuff as opposed to just strict military strategy
Speaker 1: stuff that you're an expert with. But like Joe and
Speaker 1: I have been saying for a while, if Iran announced
Speaker 1: they have a nuclear bomb, and they have when, that
Speaker 1: would be one of the biggest days in world history,
Speaker 1: wouldn't it?
Speaker 2: Yeah for sure because of their capability to deliver it.
Speaker 3: And you know it's one thing, yeah, exactly, and how
Speaker 3: they could deliver it and what you know, they're not
Speaker 3: putting it on the back of a Toyota pickup truck
Speaker 3: and pushing it across the border. If they're going to
Speaker 3: launch it at Israel is what they would do. They
Speaker 3: would they would do it without recourse. I you know,
Speaker 3: we as I said a few months ago, the Rains
Speaker 3: never thought we would do what we did. They never
Speaker 3: thought we would do epicure. They never thought we would
Speaker 3: do that. Well, that looks like we're not going to
Speaker 3: finish it. And I think that's, you know, to their advantage.
Speaker 3: We've we've become we've reverted back to self deterrence again,
Speaker 3: and I think that's an issue. But sure, the North
Speaker 3: Koreans have a nuclear capability. We watched that happen and
Speaker 3: we all put our hands in our him and say, boy,
Speaker 3: look at that. And many presidents just let that go
Speaker 3: as well. They didn't, They didn't do anything about it,
Speaker 3: trying to at least keeps them in a box. But
Speaker 3: there's no country that's going to keep the Ranians in.
Speaker 2: The box, right.
Speaker 1: And while I really hate that North Korea has a weapon,
Speaker 1: he doesn't every day have you know, his people in
Speaker 1: the street chanting death to you know whatever a little
Speaker 1: country nearby him.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And the way that the Uranians do their intention and
Speaker 1: their ability coming together would be horrifying. One of the
Speaker 1: way way to get to your drone piece today maybe
Speaker 1: would be to look at, uh where Russian Ukraine are
Speaker 1: right now. I just I'm not following it as closely
Speaker 1: as I used to, and I just keep seeing headlines that, uhh,
Speaker 1: Ukraine's on the front foot.
Speaker 2: Yeah they are, as you know.
Speaker 3: We also that video was it last week of hitting
Speaker 3: and oil refinedly blowing the top of it. I mean
Speaker 3: that's ten miles outside of Moscow, and you know that
Speaker 3: battle has become much more closer to home there, but
Speaker 3: they're gaining some ground uh in the domebath in the
Speaker 3: region there, which is now virtually destroyed. Anyway, if you'll
Speaker 3: see videos of the drone tethers and the like, I
Speaker 3: mean it and the land mines that have been that
Speaker 3: have been buried there, and they like that. It's it's
Speaker 3: a perrooric victory at this point because the ground is
Speaker 3: virtually untenable. But droning warfare is now the of the game.
Speaker 3: And what my piece is that there to be published
Speaker 3: tomorrow and Record Defense just talks about we got a
Speaker 3: little bit of a wake up call with that Apache
Speaker 3: getting shot down with a drone from from the Iranians
Speaker 3: can still swarm them. They can still take a twenty
Speaker 3: thousand dollars drone and had a thirty million dollar helicopter
Speaker 3: by just swarming at it, just loitering until it finds
Speaker 3: the target. But then the second component to that is
Speaker 3: the fact that it was picked. A drone ends up resting,
Speaker 3: you know, autonomous vehicle ends up rescuing the pilots in
Speaker 3: the in the in the water as well.
Speaker 2: So that we're in a new whole new state of
Speaker 2: warfare right now.
Speaker 3: But we need to get you know, the economics again
Speaker 3: straight with regard to this where irn assists right now
Speaker 3: with their military capabilities like in between what i'll call
Speaker 3: the bubbles, and that's this. You know that there's nothing
Speaker 3: on that Apache that could have seen that drone coming
Speaker 3: because we were too busy trying that patchy was designed
Speaker 3: to take out tanks.
Speaker 2: And in the eastern western Europe.
Speaker 3: So we've got to gain more capability to make sure
Speaker 3: that these autonomous systems don't don't live inside the wire
Speaker 3: and autonomously and asymmetrical takeout our capability.
Speaker 1: So, as you wrote in your piece, the twenty thousand
Speaker 1: drone that should wake up the Pentagon when that Apache
Speaker 1: went down. That's a roughly twenty thousand dollars drone taking
Speaker 1: down a roughly thirty million dollar helicopter. Yeah, obviously you
Speaker 1: can't keep that up very long.
Speaker 3: No, And it was the same argument that was made
Speaker 3: months ago when our Patriot missiles were taking out the
Speaker 3: ballistic missiles coming from Iran's and the same thing with
Speaker 3: Ukraine and Russia. The one hundred thousand dollars ballistic missile
Speaker 3: is taken out by four to five to six million
Speaker 3: dollar Patriot missiles.
Speaker 2: In some cases.
Speaker 3: The Navy Air Defense systems those AC threes, they are
Speaker 3: thirty and forty million dollars rockets, one at a time,
Speaker 3: at one shot. So because they're designed to protect the carrier,
Speaker 3: they're not necessarily designed to take out one one missile
Speaker 3: out of time.
Speaker 2: So again, the economics of this doesn't work.
Speaker 3: We're going to have to be faster, procure better and
Speaker 3: developed systems that are gonna that are gonna take out
Speaker 3: these autonomous threats that are going to do nothing more
Speaker 3: than increase and I'm more concerned.
Speaker 2: About them even here in the United States.
Speaker 3: Look at that situation last week with DFC fight right
Speaker 3: like a drone swarm here. I look at the stadium.
Speaker 3: You know, we have to develop not only things for
Speaker 3: the military. I was at West Point working with a
Speaker 3: bunch of cadads and they're they're developing these projects that
Speaker 3: will help protect their platoons for drones. I look at
Speaker 3: them and says, we need to develop things to protect
Speaker 3: stadiums from drone swarms.
Speaker 2: Because that's that's the next threat. That's what's coming here.
Speaker 1: It's going to happen, whether it's a terrorist attack or
Speaker 1: some you know, militia group on the left or the
Speaker 1: right or whatever is going to pull off some sort
Speaker 1: of drone it that's going to really horrify people. There's
Speaker 1: something psychologically. I've watched a lot of these videos where
Speaker 1: these the Russians are out in the field and they
Speaker 1: hear the drones coming and they start running and the
Speaker 1: drones catch up to them and you hear them. There's
Speaker 1: something psychologically more terrifying about that. Then if it was
Speaker 1: a guide chasing you with a gun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, because you know it's going to hit.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not going to stop. You know that,
Speaker 2: it's just your time is up.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's really, you know, I guess in combat
Speaker 3: the way to go is just you know that single bullet.
Speaker 3: Who you know Paton talks about that about getting killed
Speaker 3: in combat, But that's not the case anymore. You're going
Speaker 3: to see something loiter around and mess with your head
Speaker 3: before it finally decides to take you out.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to hear that you and the military
Speaker 1: circles who think can talk about these things are talking
Speaker 1: about it as just like domestic protection also, because that
Speaker 1: is clearly the future.
Speaker 2: Yeah, due use, I think is what's happening here.
Speaker 3: And you know, I'm working a lot more with innovative
Speaker 3: startup companies now to see not only help protect soldiers
Speaker 3: on the battlefield, but what's that capability going to do
Speaker 3: to protect our stadiums and protect crowds. And I think
Speaker 3: that's the next threat, whether you know we're going to
Speaker 3: live with it or Not's like everything else, it's where
Speaker 3: the future is.
Speaker 2: Before I let you go.
Speaker 1: Is there a mood among you guys who text and
Speaker 1: tweet and talk to each other of a little bit
Speaker 1: of despair for losing a war or or where are
Speaker 1: you on this?
Speaker 2: No? I think it's the same.
Speaker 3: I don't want to call it cognitive distance. I won't
Speaker 3: to go that far as to say that we're not
Speaker 3: real about it, but the military is just concerned that
Speaker 3: we think that we gave the president more better leverage
Speaker 3: than he's probably applied, and maybe one more strike and
Speaker 3: a couple of different things. Look, you know, to say
Speaker 3: we were going to regime change from airpower along was
Speaker 3: never probably the case. But I don't mind keep going
Speaker 3: down a few more layers and we see how strong
Speaker 3: the iergy see their control is over the Iranians and
Speaker 3: over that country in a forty seven years. It's calcified
Speaker 3: at this point. And so but but if the if
Speaker 3: this gets strung along, we just lose our patients. To
Speaker 3: Jadevan says, you know, I've just had enough. I'm going home,
Speaker 3: and you just you know, we're just.
Speaker 2: Going to end it here.
Speaker 3: You know, Trump didn't get its visual sign of victory,
Speaker 3: and I think that's what most concerns me. There's no
Speaker 3: there's no real visual sign.
Speaker 2: In victory, so that I think that that translates into defeat. Maj.
Speaker 1: Mike lines that's how you follow him on Twitter anytime
Speaker 1: and anything big military breaks, I always go there to
Speaker 1: see what he's going to say about it and his
Speaker 1: op ed tomorrow in real clear defense. Mike Lines, thanks
Speaker 1: for your time today, Thanks FIRS for me Man the future.
Speaker 1: This whole drone thing is so fascinating. But like we
Speaker 1: were talking about with that group of numb nuts who
Speaker 1: wanted to attack Trump's UFC fight there in the white
Speaker 1: out lawn, at some point, whether it's ISIS al Qaeda
Speaker 1: or some homegrown terrorist nut job, somebody's gonna pull off
Speaker 1: a drone attack and that's gonna change everything.
Speaker 2: All of a sudden.
Speaker 1: We're gonna spend be spending money all over the place
Speaker 1: protecting things from drones.
Speaker 2: It's inevitable, really armstrong and