Speaker 1: The US Navy defeated a large scale attack by Iranian
Speaker 1: backed Houties in the Red Sea this weekend, the largest
Speaker 1: single attack to date. US warships shot down at least
Speaker 1: twenty eight drones in just four hours. Days earlier, the
Speaker 1: Houties fired an anti ship ballistic missile at the Envy
Speaker 1: True Confidence, a commercial bulk carrier, killing three sailors.
Speaker 2: How's our deterrence going?
Speaker 3: The largest attack over the weekend since this whole thing
Speaker 3: started a little more from Jennifer Griffin on Fox.
Speaker 1: Senthcom Commander General Eric Krilla, just back from the region
Speaker 1: told Congress Iran is not second guessing backing proxies.
Speaker 2: Iran is undeterred in support to the Huthies.
Speaker 1: They're undeterred and their support to am Hezbala, their support
Speaker 1: to hamast So.
Speaker 3: Iran's completely undeterred supporting the proxies. And then when I
Speaker 3: see the headline over the weekend won thousand US troops
Speaker 3: deploying to build offshore port in god, how do we
Speaker 3: not end up attacked and sucked into this thing?
Speaker 4: To discuss that hot spot and several others, please welcome
Speaker 4: Mike Lyons, the Shocian and military analyst Mike.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure. How are you.
Speaker 5: Hey, Good morning guys. Great to be back.
Speaker 3: I feel like I'm not hearing anybody ask this question anywhere.
Speaker 3: Maybe there's an obvious reason. I'm just an idiot, but
Speaker 3: we're sending a thousand troops to build a port and Gaza.
Speaker 3: Why wouldn't we be a target if we're a target
Speaker 3: all over the Middle East?
Speaker 6: No, no question, They're going to be a target. And
Speaker 6: this is I'm finding it a polarizing issue with other
Speaker 6: analysts I'm speaking to, so okay, it's very political, and
Speaker 6: that's really the bottom line is because from a political perspective,
Speaker 6: the military wants to show it has this capability, and
Speaker 6: then the Army has this capability.
Speaker 5: That's where it's coming from. Of all things.
Speaker 6: It's not something that the Navy does. But Ak Dearborn
Speaker 6: Corps has a ship that's stationed off of Virginia and
Speaker 6: it's heading to the Middle East right now, and the
Speaker 6: Navy will support it. And there's a it's called j LOTS.
Speaker 6: It's a joint command that the Army and Navy will
Speaker 6: get together and work with and marines. About a thousand
Speaker 6: marines have been activated in order to provide the security
Speaker 6: force for it, so it will take a few months
Speaker 6: and to get it all set up. And where military
Speaker 6: analysts I think are conflicted is it will create a
Speaker 6: big target. It could be similar to what happened in
Speaker 6: eighty three and Lebanon. It could be the coal it
Speaker 6: could be something where it'll be an easy target because
Speaker 6: it'll be wide open in the Red Sea there. But
Speaker 6: from a political perspective, it's checking a lot of boxes
Speaker 6: right now for the industry.
Speaker 3: I'm interested in. You said it was polariz is polarizing
Speaker 3: within the military. Are you saying it's polarized the military
Speaker 3: versus the politicians or where's the polarization.
Speaker 6: No, I think from analysts just trying to figure out
Speaker 6: whether this is a good idea or not. It's kind
Speaker 6: of a good, good example of civilian control of the military,
Speaker 6: whereas there's probably people in the military that don't think
Speaker 6: it's a good idea on any level. Just from what
Speaker 6: you said, the security and protecting other force is going
Speaker 6: to be challenging, but this is an example of the
Speaker 6: commander in chief says this is what we're going to do.
Speaker 6: The military has the salute and obey the mission. I'm
Speaker 6: finding more and more of my colleagues and people I've
Speaker 6: talked to him, for example the West Point, feel that
Speaker 6: it's really a dangerous mission and it's putting a lot
Speaker 6: at risk. Usually these kinds of humanitarian efforts are not
Speaker 6: necessarily into combat zones, especially in one like this where
Speaker 6: it'll be well inside the range of the Houthis as
Speaker 6: we continue to degrade their capability, that's not done yet.
Speaker 6: But also this is kind of a classic small boat
Speaker 6: Iranian attack target that they could likely go after as
Speaker 6: well as you're aiding and abtding the enemy on some
Speaker 6: level in Hamas. So there's lots of reasons you could
Speaker 6: argue that we shouldn't be doing this, but the military
Speaker 6: has to salute and get the mission done right now.
Speaker 4: And it's easy for Americans to forget that Hezbola is
Speaker 4: at war with Israel. In effect, now it's a fairly
Speaker 4: restrained trading of artillery across the border, but I've got
Speaker 4: to imagine if they wanted to make a big splash,
Speaker 4: that would be a target for.
Speaker 2: Them as well.
Speaker 6: Now absolutely, and it's going to be likely in a
Speaker 6: place right by Gaza City there that Israel has closed
Speaker 6: this port, they don't have a port. Israel has not
Speaker 6: allowed Hamas to bring goods and services through this port
Speaker 6: for many years. It's been blockaded. And so that's what
Speaker 6: the United States is doing. It's almost sticking its finger
Speaker 6: in the eye of Israel as well, opening up this
Speaker 6: port and saying, you know, try to try to stop
Speaker 6: us doing this. Israel has no choice but to now
Speaker 6: provide oversight and security for it. But it's going to
Speaker 6: be very challenging in that to try to get it's
Speaker 6: going to be like a causeway port. So let me
Speaker 6: get the visual. Put a ship out offshore about let's
Speaker 6: say half a mile that'll have a lot of capability
Speaker 6: for it to take in and receive certain ships that'll
Speaker 6: come in from Cyprus and humanitarian efforts. And then a
Speaker 6: long causeway road similar to what we saw like D
Speaker 6: Day for example, when they built those causeways, long roads
Speaker 6: where trucks will bring supplies back and forth. And that's
Speaker 6: going to be the target. You know, you blow up
Speaker 6: that middle of that causeway, you blow up a truck
Speaker 6: in there, and think a few trucks, and you create
Speaker 6: a very easy target for a terrorist organization.
Speaker 4: Wow, So it's going to be a manufactured road out
Speaker 4: into the harbor of the Bay of the Sea there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's the plan for right now.
Speaker 6: And that's from our perspective, the safest thing as well,
Speaker 6: because it keeps the ship and most of the supplies offshore,
Speaker 6: providing more oversight to anything that could come from an attack.
Speaker 6: And the risk is going to be that kind of
Speaker 6: noman's land between where the ship is, whether it really
Speaker 6: originatorship's dock, and then the supplies traveling on that road
Speaker 6: into Gaza. Now, they do have a port that's there,
Speaker 6: and this will help eventually help improve that capability once
Speaker 6: this is over. And that's to say it even goes down, right,
Speaker 6: I mean, it's going to take probably sixty days in
Speaker 6: order for this to say it's up and running and
Speaker 6: completely functional.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: So I just don't understand what if there if a
Speaker 3: variety of different entities are sent drones at our barracks
Speaker 3: all around the Middle East hoping to kill a bunch
Speaker 3: of US servicemen, Obviously they're gonna be sending drones of
Speaker 3: this thing, right yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean the air defense umbrella is they'll likely have
Speaker 6: battleship they'll destroy, they'll keep they'll keep naval presence there.
Speaker 5: As well.
Speaker 6: That'll be looking over the horizon air defence platforms. But
Speaker 6: this is a good example again of a swarming drone
Speaker 6: target where you get a thousand drones or do something
Speaker 6: with who these are going to do, and go after
Speaker 6: it and just one or two of them gets through.
Speaker 6: It creates, you know, pierces that veil of the security
Speaker 6: and then people start to question, you know, what's going on.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 6: Again, so from a theoretical perspective, it does show the
Speaker 6: United States it's got this capability.
Speaker 5: But whether we can really pull it off in the
Speaker 5: long run, it.
Speaker 6: Remains to be seen, and it will be a tremendous
Speaker 6: risk if there is a catastrophic incident like we had
Speaker 6: in eighty three and Lebanon, or the coal being attacked,
Speaker 6: or we just drop our guard because all they got
Speaker 6: to do is get one or two through and then
Speaker 6: that's it.
Speaker 4: UH. Military analyst Mike Clions on the line. Mike, I
Speaker 4: have a bad habit of asking questions that really ought
Speaker 4: to be answered with a book, and I'd love to
Speaker 4: read it if you ever write it. But I was
Speaker 4: reading at CNN dot com the other day that Russia
Speaker 4: is producing three times more artillery shells than the US
Speaker 4: and Europe combined.
Speaker 2: For Ukraine, their.
Speaker 4: Military industrial complex, if you will, is much more capable
Speaker 4: or efficient at this point. And with all due respect
Speaker 4: to Eisenhower's warning and that there's always profiteering in war
Speaker 4: and military production, blah blah blah, we Americans like to
Speaker 4: think that we won World War two because we're just great.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about
Speaker 4: you know, popular perception, when indeed it was the Russian
Speaker 4: sacrificing millions of troops are brave fighters, and the fact
Speaker 4: that we were the arsenal democracy, we had this mind
Speaker 4: boggling production capacity for the tools of war. Anyway, finally,
Speaker 4: a very long question comes to its end. Are you
Speaker 4: worried at our lack of ship building, artillery building, and
Speaker 4: the rest of the capacity to make the armaments of war.
Speaker 5: In the short term.
Speaker 6: Yes, In the long run, we've proven historically that when
Speaker 6: we want to crank up the war machine, watch out,
Speaker 6: because when that happens, it's really no match for anybody else.
Speaker 5: But for right now, as others.
Speaker 6: Are doing that, as the Chinese are building a six
Speaker 6: hundred chip navy, and as Russia creates more artillery ambudition.
Speaker 6: You know, we actually increased our supply line about another
Speaker 6: fifteen to twenty thousand artillery rounds a month. We're now
Speaker 6: producing about forty five thousand rounds a month. Ukraine needs
Speaker 6: one hundred thousand a month. They probably have about eight
Speaker 6: or nine month left and so they're not being replenished
Speaker 6: at a faster rate. In addition to we've taken some
Speaker 6: out of our Pompkins stocks already in order to support
Speaker 6: this the mission there, so we've not put ourselves in
Speaker 6: any kind of war footing.
Speaker 5: Europe is trying.
Speaker 6: We see some European countries, especially when it comes to
Speaker 6: artillery air, trying to do that as well. But it
Speaker 6: takes time. It's dangerous. Creating artillery shells is dangerous. You're
Speaker 6: creating bombs, you're creating explosives. So in the short term,
Speaker 6: the whole planet's always been all along that our standing
Speaker 6: force has got to be able to and absorb the
Speaker 6: initial blow. But everybody's confident that we'll for crank the
Speaker 6: war machine up once that will be fine. Whether we
Speaker 6: can do it again or not remains to assume. I
Speaker 6: haven't done it in what eighty years? Haven't done it
Speaker 6: eighty five years.
Speaker 2: Any other thoughts on Ukraine before we let you go?
Speaker 6: No, I think that the longer we wait to get
Speaker 6: them this a to get them this sixty billion dollars
Speaker 6: of what was American jobs, of what will help crank
Speaker 6: up the war machine in our country, it's slipping away.
Speaker 6: And without trying to sound chicken too much like chicken little,
Speaker 6: the fact that Ukraine has held on for as long
Speaker 6: as they can has been nothing short of miraculous. But
Speaker 6: when Russia decides to grind you down from a historical perspective,
Speaker 6: they will grind you down. And that's that's what they're
Speaker 6: doing right now. They're putting them they're putting their front
Speaker 6: on the gas and that's what they're going for and
Speaker 6: we just need to wake up and see it.
Speaker 4: CNN Military analyst Mike Liines, Mike, thanks so much for
Speaker 4: the insight.
Speaker 2: Good to talk to you.
Speaker 5: Thanks guys, things for me, Armstrong and Getty