Speaker 1: From the Abraham Lincoln Radio Studio at the George Washington
Speaker 1: Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Show Jetty Armstrong and Jetty Show.
Speaker 1: President Biden is praising US intelligence workers while also warning
Speaker 1: them not to underestimate Chinese President He is deadly earnest
Speaker 1: I'm not becoming the most powerful military force in the
Speaker 1: world as well as the largest and most prominent economy
Speaker 1: in the world. Today, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin clarified the
Speaker 1: Pentagon's position. You know, a conflict with China. We recognize
Speaker 1: that we will compete. So we're gonna talk to Mike
Speaker 1: Lions a little bit about China and other things. Mike
Speaker 1: Lines is our go to military analysts, served with all
Speaker 1: kinds of military organizations in both the United States and
Speaker 1: Europe throughout his career. Um was commander during Operation Desert
Speaker 1: Shield and Desert Storm, Award of the Bronze Star for
Speaker 1: his actions in combat. Also has a Bachelor Science degree
Speaker 1: from West Point and we love talking to him about
Speaker 1: all things military. Mike leins, welcome to the show. A
Speaker 1: great to be back with you. You know, before we
Speaker 1: get into the details of the military stuff, and it's
Speaker 1: more that's more technical and things you can predict how
Speaker 1: much of how much of military strategy is trying to
Speaker 1: read somebody's personality like president and I shouldn't even call
Speaker 1: him president, dictator she and trying to figure out is
Speaker 1: he the kind of guy that would try to move on,
Speaker 1: move on Taiwan or not? Yeah, it's you know, rational
Speaker 1: leader theory. It happens all the time in foreign policy
Speaker 1: and how diplomats try to you know, when they put
Speaker 1: together their deals. So, but from the military's perspective, you
Speaker 1: have to consider all possibilities from the worst possible things.
Speaker 1: He launches a first strike nuclear attack too, he sits
Speaker 1: back and does nothing and lets us basically wind up
Speaker 1: our military and put it into position where it can
Speaker 1: do something. So the military has got a tougher job
Speaker 1: because again has to take in all those scenarios where
Speaker 1: when you're sitting across the table as a diplomat you
Speaker 1: just have to look at and say, well, as he rational,
Speaker 1: is he going to be rational and trying negotiate from there?
Speaker 1: Are you comfortable making a read on him or are
Speaker 1: you not comfortable without having more information? Oh? No, I
Speaker 1: think he's definitely very aggressive moving forward. I mean, what
Speaker 1: he's done in the South China. See in the past
Speaker 1: five years, he's you know, built missile basis. He didn't
Speaker 1: build condos. He's not moving people out there into those places.
Speaker 1: Another report came out in the New York Times that
Speaker 1: shows nuclear sights and some of their deserts in the
Speaker 1: in the western part of China that will clearly threaten Europe.
Speaker 1: These i cb ms fundamentally can be can hit the
Speaker 1: United States. Um, they need to be part of any
Speaker 1: future Russia US nuclear proliferation Uh, you know treaty uh
Speaker 1: that that that have that have since expired. Right now,
Speaker 1: I mean there's real threat that that there's an arms
Speaker 1: race taking place. And it's not just the US and Russia.
Speaker 1: It's not the U S and China and Russia. Well,
Speaker 1: since you brought up Russian and we'll get back to China. Second,
Speaker 1: they announced last week that they've got a supersonic weapon
Speaker 1: that that that that that they say are our technology
Speaker 1: can't stop a missile and a new plane that matches
Speaker 1: our best stuff. Are you worried about that? You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not. I mean those are kind of fire once
Speaker 1: and in some ways fire and forget that none of
Speaker 1: them are really into the world weapons. I mean, the
Speaker 1: existential threats still remains the undred nuclear tip warheads that
Speaker 1: could be fired from their their launch sites inside of Russia.
Speaker 1: They could decide to move their people into two bunkers
Speaker 1: to try to prevent anything that would happen on the
Speaker 1: way back if we decided to respond. The existential threat
Speaker 1: is really that as opposed to any kind of one
Speaker 1: of one or two one off weapons they might create.
Speaker 1: It might create havoc or so, and will eventually come
Speaker 1: up some way to fight against it, but it can't
Speaker 1: be mass produced and it won't be something that will
Speaker 1: affect over the long run miclines military analysts. So back
Speaker 1: to China. It troubled me. I was watching the opening
Speaker 1: ceremony the Olympics with my son, and they don't call
Speaker 1: Taiwan Taiwan in the Olympics. They call it the Chinese
Speaker 1: Republic of Taipei or something like that, And I thought, wow,
Speaker 1: So the world bends over backwards to uh to go
Speaker 1: with the language that China wants because they don't consider
Speaker 1: Taiwan a country. Yeah, the more you see things out
Speaker 1: there from project that this is where this great you
Speaker 1: know nation battle is going to take place. Um, there
Speaker 1: was a recent war game that took place but last
Speaker 1: year again US versus China over Time one. It took
Speaker 1: place well into the future ten years, and we got
Speaker 1: our butts kicked in it. And you know, again, war
Speaker 1: games are it happens all the time and it's not
Speaker 1: that not that big a deal in some ways. But
Speaker 1: what's the big deal is that they released the results
Speaker 1: of it. Usually these are classified and they keep these
Speaker 1: things in close hold. Um. And that's because we kind
Speaker 1: of fought the normal way we normally fight, and that's
Speaker 1: we kind of wind up our military. And you look
Speaker 1: at the last two wars we wound up. You know,
Speaker 1: the Desert Storm, we took five months, we brought all
Speaker 1: the troops there, and even Iraq we wound up in
Speaker 1: the troops there. China's not gonna let any of that happen.
Speaker 1: China's gonna come after us, initially first with a cyber
Speaker 1: attack that will knock all our command and control out,
Speaker 1: and then they'll they're gonna go after our carriers. They
Speaker 1: go right through our navy right away. So this was
Speaker 1: no match in this war game that took place in
Speaker 1: the Air Force run. And maybe you they didn't lean
Speaker 1: towards the Navy like they should have. But but I
Speaker 1: think there's no question China is gonna fight differently than
Speaker 1: anyone we haven't seen since, you know, really the Second
Speaker 1: World War. Wow, that is troubling stuff. So I taken
Speaker 1: a lot of podcasts about this stuff, and um, it
Speaker 1: seems to me that the Biden administration, the Obama administration
Speaker 1: kind of tried it, and Trump tried it, and Biden's
Speaker 1: going further with it, just like saying, Okay, the hell
Speaker 1: of the Middle East, we gotta focus on China. And
Speaker 1: so getting into position, like you call it winding up, Um,
Speaker 1: getting into positions so that there's a deterrent that China want.
Speaker 1: The best way to win the war the battle for
Speaker 1: Taiwan is to make it clear to China that it
Speaker 1: wouldn't be easy to do. So we're trying to focus
Speaker 1: that direction. Is at what we're doing exactly. There's an
Speaker 1: article written by a congressman and you're out talk to
Speaker 1: me about you know, prepared now for this war that's
Speaker 1: going to take place in the Pacific. It's not theory.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's really gonna be. And you know, again
Speaker 1: in Desert Storm and in the first I Rock, we
Speaker 1: found up, we had the opportunity to move hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of troops to the region. Um, they did nothing.
Speaker 1: I'll take a quick story. We were in August of
Speaker 1: sitting in the conference room watching the twenty fourth Evertry
Speaker 1: Division come off their boats, their ships and and being
Speaker 1: deployed inside of Saudi Arabia. How the Iraqis attacked them
Speaker 1: and destroyed that division while they were in the port. Basically, Um,
Speaker 1: the Middle East looks completely different and would have taken
Speaker 1: a Sunday, say four years to get back a foothold on.
Speaker 1: So they just didn't do anything. And that's the point.
Speaker 1: The Iraqis had that capability, but they just did. Call
Speaker 1: it God's call whatever you want to do it. But
Speaker 1: the Chinese will. The Chinese will do that. They'll they'll
Speaker 1: go after They'll sink a carrier with five thousand sailors
Speaker 1: on it and go on to the next one. They
Speaker 1: won't think anything of it. And I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the difference between this enemy versus previous enemies we've had
Speaker 1: over the past thirty years. While in their ability with
Speaker 1: their population and just their their their attitude, their nationalism,
Speaker 1: uh their ability to absorb losses is anything unlike you know,
Speaker 1: certainly anything of the Western powers would do. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean again, the first attack comes cyber, they're gonna
Speaker 1: blind us, they'll shut our command and control down. That
Speaker 1: where this war game failed was they did that. And
Speaker 1: we have a lot of joint things. We have a
Speaker 1: lot of sexy technology that kind of connects a lot
Speaker 1: of dots and you know, if you find a target
Speaker 1: on one side of the battlefield and then it allows
Speaker 1: that to be communicated to the group that's over there. Well,
Speaker 1: if you shut that all that stuff down, that side
Speaker 1: doesn't see it, um, then the threats are just they
Speaker 1: just keep magnifying. And that that's what this war game showed.
Speaker 1: And again the fact that they released this tells me
Speaker 1: that they're concerned about it um and that they're going
Speaker 1: to start moving and changing certain things and and and
Speaker 1: bring different people into different leaders in because we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to fight a very different war like likely within
Speaker 1: the next ten years. And I hate to stay that.
Speaker 1: I got a son of the Navy, believe me, I'm
Speaker 1: not I'm not looking to advocate for that. But this
Speaker 1: is what this is, what the world is as as
Speaker 1: it currently is outlined, and who knows, maybe we won't
Speaker 1: even fight for time wine when the time comes, who knows?
Speaker 1: Who knows what the exactly? Yeah, and that the world
Speaker 1: would look different the day we make that decision. Yeah
Speaker 1: for sure. Um yeah, we want to be this specific power.
Speaker 1: We want to be this power. We're gonna have to
Speaker 1: reallocate a lot of those resources towards these strategic weapons.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have to do better in space. We're gonna
Speaker 1: have to become more resilient in our in our cyber
Speaker 1: and and we're gonna have to have a navy that's
Speaker 1: going to be able to protect air field and protected
Speaker 1: carriers from what's going to be a very nasty Chinese
Speaker 1: threat of missiles and all kinds of technology that they
Speaker 1: have that other our enemies didn't have in the past.
Speaker 1: It's so hard to wrap your head around. I think
Speaker 1: for most people, the idea of a country attacking is
Speaker 1: it's just it's been so long and it's been so
Speaker 1: unlikely most of everybody's lives that it just seems like, well,
Speaker 1: nobody would ever do that. We're the big bad you know,
Speaker 1: there were there were the big bad bully. Nobody would
Speaker 1: ever do that. But the time will come I mean,
Speaker 1: the history of the world is the history of the world,
Speaker 1: and the time will come when somebody takes a shot. Yeah, Jack,
Speaker 1: And you're right. And the bottom line is, this is
Speaker 1: still in away game for us, right, I mean, we
Speaker 1: still have to deploy these resources eight nine, twelve time
Speaker 1: zones from from here in order to get that done. Um.
Speaker 1: And but the Chinese again, or or the type that
Speaker 1: could do that and could reach us here in the
Speaker 1: US and could reach us on the West coast and
Speaker 1: the East coast and go after our cities. Are we
Speaker 1: willing to trade off Taiwan for New York City, for
Speaker 1: Atlanta for Los Angeles San Francisco. I'm not sure. I
Speaker 1: don't know what an American president does. We made bad
Speaker 1: assumptions in this in this war game. We didn't assume
Speaker 1: that they would nobody would use nuclear weapons. I think
Speaker 1: that's a bad assumstances good The newly Midway has got
Speaker 1: a great example of what happened with the Japanese. Tried
Speaker 1: to G two and figure out what's gonna happen at
Speaker 1: Midway before and they made the Japanese American side fight
Speaker 1: a certain way, and they fought. They didn't fight the
Speaker 1: way the Americans were going they wanted to fight because
Speaker 1: they were losing and they just didn't want to see
Speaker 1: it that way. And that's the question here. We have
Speaker 1: to become much more open as to what what's the
Speaker 1: realm of possibilities and be ready for that that scenario. Man,
Speaker 1: that's fascinating stuff. I'm just the kind of guy. I
Speaker 1: could talk to you about that all day long, but
Speaker 1: we are out of time. Mic Lions. We always appreciate
Speaker 1: your time. We'll link your Twitter account to ours end.
Speaker 1: People should follow you. Great check, Thanks very much, thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you talk about something that we can't imagine. We just
Speaker 1: can't imagine that another country would actually ever use nuclear weapons. Well,
Speaker 1: it's gonna happen someday, and you have to be prepared
Speaker 1: for it. And you know, every indication from Winnie the
Speaker 1: Pooh over there in China is that he's held bent on,
Speaker 1: you know, becoming the dominant force in the world. Um,
Speaker 1: what's the old saying when somebody you know tells you
Speaker 1: who they are, believe him that sort of thing, or
Speaker 1: shows you who they are, believe him. That's what she's doing.
Speaker 1: He's showing, He's telling everybody, he's showing the world who
Speaker 1: he is. We need to believe him