Speaker 1: This is a question that became something of a joke.
Speaker 1: My answer is direct. We are not getting prepared. We
Speaker 1: are not working on a dirty bomb. With protests gripping
Speaker 1: the country's universities and high schools, and strike action by teachers,
Speaker 1: business owners, factory workers, even oil refinery workers the backbone
Speaker 1: of Iran's economy, the call for a form and for
Speaker 1: regime change is only growing louder. So what you first
Speaker 1: heard there was a spokesman for somebody in the government
Speaker 1: with Ukraine scene, We're not building a dirty bomb. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: And then there is some belief from some people involved
Speaker 1: in the Russian military that Putin is never going to
Speaker 1: use nuclear weapons, which I hope is true. I really
Speaker 1: really hope it's true. We welcome to the program, Miclines.
Speaker 1: He's a military analyst we'd like to have on all
Speaker 1: the time. I served with various military organizations in both
Speaker 1: the United States and Europe throughout his career. UM I
Speaker 1: went to West Point, all kinds of really cool stuff
Speaker 1: that make you a regular guest to CNN. I see
Speaker 1: you there all the time. I look for your your
Speaker 1: shots on CNN. Mic Lines. Uh, thanks for joining us today.
Speaker 1: Appreciate it, ob Jack, thanks so much for having me back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm following this story closely, but I feel like there's
Speaker 1: been a dead spot in coverage for the last week
Speaker 1: or so over what's going on with Kirsan and that
Speaker 1: region with Can you fill us in on what's happening? Sure, So,
Speaker 1: the tactical military guys, right, the generals and the people
Speaker 1: that like to see the moving tanks on the ground
Speaker 1: are noticing that the Ukraine military is doing very well.
Speaker 1: They're winning battles in this area there, and they're taking
Speaker 1: advantage of the Nepro River, which is a natural boundary
Speaker 1: between um, let's say, Kersan and kind of the rest
Speaker 1: of that occupied region within Ukraine that Russia has been
Speaker 1: instance and um if if um, Ukraine can push Russia
Speaker 1: out of Kirsan back across that river, and then the
Speaker 1: question gets through Ukraine is how do they cross the
Speaker 1: river if they want to keep this attack going. But
Speaker 1: then also if you go a little bit further east
Speaker 1: there there's a separation that could take place. They could
Speaker 1: they could basically cut off the Russian military from its
Speaker 1: supply chain that would come from from the east, and
Speaker 1: you could have ten to twenty Russian soldiers surrounded and
Speaker 1: potentially surrender. They're gonna get cold to the winner's coming, right,
Speaker 1: So they're gonna get cold here in December and January,
Speaker 1: and and so I think from the tactical perspective, from
Speaker 1: the battleship space perspective, the military guys were looking at
Speaker 1: this saying, we have a real opportunity to really put
Speaker 1: Russia in a binding. However, Russia is still fighting the
Speaker 1: strategic battle and they're coming back with drones, they're hitting Kiev,
Speaker 1: they've got swarms, they've got all other kinds of things,
Speaker 1: and so Ukraine has got to also worry about air defenses.
Speaker 1: So there's multidimensional military chess taking place right now. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, if the Ukraine military on the ground, in
Speaker 1: the chaotic face of the battle can force Russia to
Speaker 1: large area surrenders, they might bring them to the negotiations table.
Speaker 1: Who knows. There is a pretty consequential battle perhaps being
Speaker 1: lined up right now. Yeah, that's why I see it.
Speaker 1: And it's not only for Carson, it's for that whole
Speaker 1: southern region because now it threatens crime and which I
Speaker 1: think is their alimo. Um that is non negotiable from
Speaker 1: Russia's perspective. They have to have that warm water port,
Speaker 1: and they've had it for the last hundred plus years.
Speaker 1: They've had a an agreement with the Ukraine government to
Speaker 1: have it. You see Elon Musk, you know, in his
Speaker 1: tweets about trying to make peace, saying that you know,
Speaker 1: Russia gets it. I mean, it's almost like a fate
Speaker 1: to complete um. You know that that is something that
Speaker 1: without that, Russia does not project power in in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, doesn't project power in the Mediterranean or in
Speaker 1: the Atlantic. It creates a significant problem for the Black Fleet.
Speaker 1: Where does the Black Fleet go at that point? So,
Speaker 1: so that's there, that's their Alimo, and that might be
Speaker 1: this place where they do use those tactical nukes to
Speaker 1: to to create a boundary between them and Ukraine as
Speaker 1: they as they try to formulably try to retake it. Well,
Speaker 1: I want to ask you about that, but before we
Speaker 1: get to that, you know, Zelinski says it it's non
Speaker 1: negotiable from him stand point to that you're staying in Crimea.
Speaker 1: Of course that could be a negotiating position. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's gonna be hard, difficult for the Ukraine people
Speaker 1: and him in particular to you know, actually any territory.
Speaker 1: I think back to Russia, even though they've occupied a
Speaker 1: lot of those reasons. Since they've they've had influence over
Speaker 1: at the very least, and they've influenced their Congress. It's
Speaker 1: part of the reason why the Ukraine government was in
Speaker 1: such turmoil for the past few years because they so
Speaker 1: many of the politicians in that part of Ukraine were
Speaker 1: on Russia's side. And um, you know, it's hard again
Speaker 1: today's world, all of a sudden cutting up this country
Speaker 1: and then having its slice to Russia. But that might
Speaker 1: be the likely scenario espectly, you know, they could start
Speaker 1: building a wall, you know, get back to the nineteen
Speaker 1: fifties technology here, and they start building up wall between
Speaker 1: those two areas, and then it becomes, you know, really
Speaker 1: a pretty large demarcation line. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the nuke thing before I get to that. I was
Speaker 1: going to read from a piece later in the program
Speaker 1: from Day but French and the Dispatch, who continues to
Speaker 1: make the argument that this is the most consequential story
Speaker 1: in the world, is what happens with Ukraine and Russia,
Speaker 1: and making the argument for why we need to continue
Speaker 1: to support the Ukrainians etter, etcetera. Would you agree that
Speaker 1: it is the most consequential thing going on right now? Um,
Speaker 1: for now, I say it's no. It's it's a regional
Speaker 1: conflict and it has more impact on what happens in Europe.
Speaker 1: And for those people who are globalists, they might think
Speaker 1: that's the case. But really, at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: this is a regional conflict. It does not. You know,
Speaker 1: it's important for the United States from a from a
Speaker 1: national security perspective, but it's not. It's not the most important.
Speaker 1: We've got to keep our eye clearly on our main threat,
Speaker 1: and that's China, and that's what could happen in the Pacific.
Speaker 1: I think we can do what we can as an
Speaker 1: infrastructure to support the Ukraine military. I mean what's happening is,
Speaker 1: for example, of year defense platforms that we ordered the
Speaker 1: the army order fifty of them. Let's say I think
Speaker 1: that's what the number was fifty from raytheon and I
Speaker 1: think we've bumped that number down to allow twenty of
Speaker 1: them to be built for Ukraine. They won't get there
Speaker 1: till the spraying, and it might not even matter. So
Speaker 1: those are the kind of things we're doing in our country.
Speaker 1: To try to help this, but from our national security perspective,
Speaker 1: it's not you know, up in troops there, it's not
Speaker 1: it's not enough to start World War three, that's for sure.
Speaker 1: Well I'm glad to ask you. So you don't think
Speaker 1: if this went the wrong way in Russia gets to
Speaker 1: keep a big chunk of Ukraine, that that destabilizes the
Speaker 1: world so much that it's the most important story out there.
Speaker 1: I don't. And it all comes down to back to
Speaker 1: what these European countries do when that potentially happens. If
Speaker 1: they you know, everybody wants the world to go back
Speaker 1: to February twenty three, right, they all want they want,
Speaker 1: they want the oil, they want, you know, they want
Speaker 1: to happen. But that that won't happen. So look at
Speaker 1: the Germans. The Germans have decided to go ahead and
Speaker 1: sell China a quarter of one of their major ports
Speaker 1: in Hamburg. I mean, like no one's learning, no one's
Speaker 1: realizing where the world is going here and how it's getting,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of divided up. I think that we
Speaker 1: have to recognize it. You know, when when there's finally
Speaker 1: peace in Ukraine, at some point, there will be something
Speaker 1: called Ukraine left over and the and the west to
Speaker 1: do what it can to rebuild that country. But but
Speaker 1: anything to the east of it, we've got to be
Speaker 1: dealt with, and we've got to recognize we have to
Speaker 1: cut that off and not have these kind of relationships
Speaker 1: with that that will allow them to expand their imperialistic motives,
Speaker 1: because that's what they're trying to do. Great Glad, I asked, Glad,
Speaker 1: we got that point of view. Now to the nuclear
Speaker 1: weapon thing. Why is Russia claiming that the Ukrainians are
Speaker 1: going to use a dirty bomb? What do you think
Speaker 1: is going on there? Yeah, it's false flag stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: the Prutent playbook right, all that, all those things, you know,
Speaker 1: these guys talk about it. It is. Um it's a
Speaker 1: scorched earth type uh strategy or tactic. Actually that doesn't
Speaker 1: do anybody any good. If they decide to destroy the
Speaker 1: nuclear plant and typ of Reza for example, or um,
Speaker 1: you know, use some kind of chemical that will have
Speaker 1: a long term effect. I mean obviously a nuclear type
Speaker 1: implosion or something would be a lot worse. Um, the
Speaker 1: dirty bombs are you know terror type weapons systems that
Speaker 1: that you know deployed in subway systems for example, designed
Speaker 1: to you know, kind of killed quickly and terrorize the population.
Speaker 1: Russia is going to wreck anything that can't keep it's
Speaker 1: going to wreck, and we have to say that that's
Speaker 1: what's gonna happen and know that they have the capability
Speaker 1: to do that, and they're not going to stop. It's
Speaker 1: in their DNA. They're not stopping, and they're going to
Speaker 1: continue to fight this. They're not going to give up
Speaker 1: the winner. For example, They're gonna do whatever they can
Speaker 1: as the drones and the and the missile systems they're
Speaker 1: targeting right now, the infrastructure, energy, infrastructure. They're going right
Speaker 1: after the heart of Kiev. They're going to try to
Speaker 1: put as many Ukraine in the cold and the dark
Speaker 1: as possible they can for for this winter. They're not
Speaker 1: gonna They're not gonna give that opportunity up. So you
Speaker 1: are uniquely qualified to talk about this whole using a
Speaker 1: tactical nuke, Explain what your background is in that, and
Speaker 1: then how Russian might Russia might use that to escalate
Speaker 1: to de escalate there in Crimea. So I was a
Speaker 1: tactile nuclear officer in Europe in the in the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighties when we had those weapons systems, and if we
Speaker 1: were going to use them, we'd use them in the
Speaker 1: retreat um as because they fire a certain distance let's say,
Speaker 1: anywhere from eighteen to twenty miles ahead, and they would
Speaker 1: render that area, you know, in an inhabitable for a
Speaker 1: certain period of time. They they are combat multipliers, and
Speaker 1: they also kind of fixed conventional forces in play because
Speaker 1: they can't then come through those areas, and that's likely
Speaker 1: what they could possibly do in crime if they if
Speaker 1: they use that as kind of the last ditch effort.
Speaker 1: Now we would be able to monitor whether they're in
Speaker 1: theater or not, using satellites, using different technologies to say
Speaker 1: um but um. But they're also dangerous and given the
Speaker 1: fact that they haven't necessarily have fired one, they're like
Speaker 1: they're most likely delivered by artillery. They could blow up
Speaker 1: in the twos, they could destroy Russian units that are
Speaker 1: trying to use them themselves. So there's lots of things
Speaker 1: that can go wrong still with what's going there when
Speaker 1: it comes to using a nuclear weapon, which in most
Speaker 1: cases that's why they'll be used at the at the
Speaker 1: episolute very last use. So was our policy. See back
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with this during the Cold War, if
Speaker 1: we were getting overrun by you know, the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: I'll have decided, you know what, We're gonna try to
Speaker 1: take more of Europe. If we were getting overrun, we
Speaker 1: would have used a tactical nuke to to give us
Speaker 1: ourselves some time to regroup or whatever. Yeah, absolutely, we
Speaker 1: had them in our in our battery. We would have
Speaker 1: we practice taking them on our tactical exercises, and we
Speaker 1: practice going through the authentication codes of having them released
Speaker 1: and actually using them. And they were not used in
Speaker 1: the office. They weren't intensively used in the offense. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can talk about this now. It's all be classified.
Speaker 1: The General Defense Plane of Europe's called the thirty three
Speaker 1: double A one. I'm shore any of your listeners that
Speaker 1: were back then, they probably bringing back a good memory
Speaker 1: of it. But but that's what it was all about.
Speaker 1: It was using a tactical nuke in order to buy
Speaker 1: us time to to retreat because we were outnumbered and
Speaker 1: outguns six to one, ten to one in terms of
Speaker 1: people back then, and that was the way we were
Speaker 1: going to defend Western Europe in the mid eighties. Well,
Speaker 1: that's interesting. So I'm and I'm far from a Putin apologist.
Speaker 1: But so it wasn't unthinkable for us to do that
Speaker 1: if we were getting our asses kicked in retreating, so
Speaker 1: Russia might do the same. Yeah, that's exactly right, and
Speaker 1: it's their perception. If they are, you know, not doing
Speaker 1: well and if their conventional forces aren't aren't doing that
Speaker 1: that I The thing is, they probably have enough conventional
Speaker 1: firepower to at least hold that off, and if they
Speaker 1: if they have to cross it, it's going to again
Speaker 1: it's likely that last piece in CRIMEA that they would.
Speaker 1: They would if they think that that's being threatened. That
Speaker 1: might be that only time. But what it does, again
Speaker 1: fixes the conventional forces on the other side, because once
Speaker 1: you fire tactical nukes across the front, then you're not
Speaker 1: seeing conventional forces going in that area or anytime soon.
Speaker 1: It renders that area uninhabitable. Aren't some of these videos amazing?
Speaker 1: And these fat old men are young kids with buying
Speaker 1: their own uniforms and no weapons, no food, no water
Speaker 1: and everything. It's just incredible. Yeah. The thing is, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't fight that way obviously, but for every one
Speaker 1: of those you see, there's nine other Russians that are
Speaker 1: doing because they know that if they don't do it,
Speaker 1: you know, if they try to get away, they're gonna
Speaker 1: get shot in the back or something like that. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, Russia is trying to buy time. You saw
Speaker 1: them making a deal with Belarus, for example, to use
Speaker 1: some kind of joint task force. They need, you know,
Speaker 1: twenty troops right now. If they had twenty kind of
Speaker 1: shock troops that were trained for the last six months
Speaker 1: that were you know, good at soldiering and good at
Speaker 1: doing this, it would be very influential on the battle
Speaker 1: field right now. They just don't have that. So both
Speaker 1: sides are war atrition taking place on both sides are
Speaker 1: being treated down and Russia is just peacemealing holes in
Speaker 1: the lines here. But if they can, if either side
Speaker 1: can come up with affordable force, it would influence the
Speaker 1: tactical battle and and and really you know, win the
Speaker 1: day for for example. Interesting stuff. That's why I follow
Speaker 1: Mike Lions on Twitter and perk up whenever I see
Speaker 1: him on cable News. Thanks for coming on with us today.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Thanks for me