Speaker 1: Because four hours.
Speaker 2: Simply, this is Armstrong and Getty extra large.
Speaker 3: President Trump is the only one that could have prevented
Speaker 3: this war from taking place. And President Trump now is
Speaker 3: cleaning out the mess that Biden left behind.
Speaker 1: And President Trump will.
Speaker 3: Get it done. He will negotiate an end to this war.
Speaker 3: He wants to see the war ended, regardless of how
Speaker 3: that takes place. He wants to see a win for
Speaker 3: Ukraine and a win for Russia at the same time,
Speaker 3: because there's a lose lose going on for for both countries.
Speaker 1: Right now.
Speaker 3: People are dying, and the President said he wants people
Speaker 3: to stop dying.
Speaker 2: As Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, friend of the Armstrong and
Speaker 2: Getty Show, we're in the stage of Trump communication where
Speaker 2: Trump says something outrageous and sometimes ridiculous, and then his
Speaker 2: allies reinterpret it for us in a more sane way.
Speaker 2: And I want to talk about, you know, some of
Speaker 2: the things Trump's said and done lately, is they try
Speaker 2: to move toward a solution of the Ukraine Russian conflict specifically,
Speaker 2: but first a general discussion with Mike Leons, military analyst
Speaker 2: to Mike served with various military organizations in both the
Speaker 2: US and Europe throughout his career and joints us. Now, Mike,
Speaker 2: how are you.
Speaker 1: Good? Good? Thanks for having me back.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's always a pleasure. Thank you. So before we
Speaker 2: get into some of the specifics of the Ukraine Russian
Speaker 2: thing right now, you're a student of history, as we
Speaker 2: know it is, I think beyond question that there is
Speaker 2: a serious change in the chemistry the magnetic fields. However,
Speaker 2: you want to describe it of post World War Two
Speaker 2: NATO and the Western Powers, where would you start in
Speaker 2: telling a class about that.
Speaker 4: I'd start at nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety when the
Speaker 4: Soviet Union falls as the West completely screws up what
Speaker 4: happened of the Russian Empire back then, and you go
Speaker 4: back at that point, you know, NATO wins the Cold
Speaker 4: War and Russia's bankrupt rold Reagan a lot of it
Speaker 4: has to do with what he wanted to do with
Speaker 4: Russia and decides and the Soviet Union breaks up, and
Speaker 4: instead of managing that properly and making sure that the
Speaker 4: Russian Empire had zero chance of ever coming back again,
Speaker 4: the West decided to bring countries into NATO one at
Speaker 4: a time or so over the course of the next
Speaker 4: thirty years since then and thinking that that was going
Speaker 4: to be a stable way to go, as opposed to
Speaker 4: recognize not recognizing that you can't have every member of
Speaker 4: NATO to be everybody except Russia, because that's how the
Speaker 4: First World War started. So we're seeing now the effects
Speaker 4: of lack of NATO doing anything in O six when
Speaker 4: Georgia gets invaded. We're definitely seeing the effects of fourteen
Speaker 4: when Obama and Merkle does do nothing when Crimea is taken.
Speaker 4: And then very clearly Joe Biden when he was president,
Speaker 4: was the reason why Vladimir Putin decides to go after Ukraine.
Speaker 4: And now we're faced with a NATO that's disarmed on
Speaker 4: the continent that but for the United States nuclear umbrella
Speaker 4: that the defenses don't.
Speaker 1: Happen the last twelve years.
Speaker 4: Historians are going to look back at the European countries
Speaker 4: and say they had multiple warnings to rearm and re
Speaker 4: mobilize their forces, to put some kind of leverage behind
Speaker 4: any kind of military operations, and they didn't. And I
Speaker 4: think that's where we're at right now, and that's where
Speaker 4: the message being cleaned up.
Speaker 2: Which leads me beautifully to the next topic. I'm on
Speaker 2: to address, and that is I've been reading a lot
Speaker 2: about the domestic politics and economics a lot of the
Speaker 2: European countries now, particularly because several of them are having
Speaker 2: important elections, virtually all of the biggies are. And it
Speaker 2: strikes me, whether you're talking about technology or the economy
Speaker 2: in general, the politics, the freedom of speech policies in Germany,
Speaker 2: which has been much discussed lately, it all feels like shrinking,
Speaker 2: not growth. Europe just feels like a diminished force that's
Speaker 2: continuing to be diminished with few signs of life.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and the thing is, we needed each of those
Speaker 4: individual countries to have their own individual leaders that had
Speaker 4: that same vision with regards to where they were going,
Speaker 4: but instead each of them have been more aligned with
Speaker 4: i'll just say, more liberal tendencies of unlimited immigration. The
Speaker 4: free speech conversation that's taking place in Germany right now
Speaker 4: is appalling. I mean that what happened over with the
Speaker 4: sixty minutes interview, and they're arresting people for putting memes
Speaker 4: on the Internet and then trying to equate that summer
Speaker 4: reason like because thus free speech, that's why.
Speaker 1: We had the Holocaust.
Speaker 4: I can't even connect these dots or whoever thought they
Speaker 4: were going to get connected is just virtually insane at
Speaker 4: this point. But what's happened is and then go back
Speaker 4: to Germany. You know, they've they've gotten rid of all
Speaker 4: their nuclear energy power plants. The world runs on energy,
Speaker 4: you have to you can't have a country unless you
Speaker 4: have that, so they rely on Russia.
Speaker 1: So you kind of bring all this together.
Speaker 4: I saw a good quote the other day that talked about,
Speaker 4: you know, when the Roman Empire fell, it's not because
Speaker 4: of the elites, you know, didn't improve their cost of
Speaker 4: living or didn't improve their their lifestyle, as it fell
Speaker 4: because the barbarians had hatchets. And that's still the same
Speaker 4: for today. You've got to have a military presence and
Speaker 4: show leverage and show capability of doing things. And all
Speaker 4: of those countries, to include England. England is no less
Speaker 4: guilty in any of these countries right now. And they
Speaker 4: really risk Europe in particular England, France, Germany, some of
Speaker 4: these countries really risk losing their cultures, losing everything that's.
Speaker 2: About them well, and every sign is that they have
Speaker 2: no inclination whatsoever to do the things that need to
Speaker 2: be done to fix it. In fact, the minute somebody suggests,
Speaker 2: for instance, hey, our welfare state is draining our coffers,
Speaker 2: and we don't have the money to defend themselves. They
Speaker 2: get voted out of office. So I don't have a
Speaker 2: lot of hope. So let's get a little more specific
Speaker 2: about Ukraine and Russia. You can either address some of
Speaker 2: the incendiary things Trump has said lately or not, it's
Speaker 2: up to you. But as as the folks gather for
Speaker 2: various peace talks, how does the whole thing strike you overall?
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, he said some outrageous things. Obviously, you know,
Speaker 4: the dictator here is Prutin, and you know, Russia did
Speaker 4: invade Ukraine. It's unjustifiable, and Russian aggression is something that
Speaker 4: has to be dealt with. The question is how what's
Speaker 4: the leverge that we can apply back in order to
Speaker 4: have them not do it again? And Trump's transactional view
Speaker 4: this whole thing is it has to stop. Once it
Speaker 4: does stop, we create an armascist. But he's afraid of
Speaker 4: the same thing over and over again. We you know Land,
Speaker 4: the European troops there, we put American troops there. American
Speaker 4: troops will be forwarding this and they became really what
Speaker 4: will be a tripwire. I mean, again I appreciate what
Speaker 4: the British Prime Minister was talking about sending troops to Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I'd like to know exactly which troops.
Speaker 4: There's less than one hundred thousand active duty troops that
Speaker 4: are in the UK army right now, which is ridiculous
Speaker 4: for a country that size for once was once a great.
Speaker 4: I mean, they might as well be Portugal, they might
Speaker 4: as well be you know, some some mid Atlantic, you know,
Speaker 4: the Middle Eastern country right now. So so again, none
Speaker 4: of these countries have got really any capability to do this.
Speaker 4: But I think I think the question is I think
Speaker 4: we're going to get to the spot that everybody is,
Speaker 4: you know Pete Heggs that said the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 4: Russia will contain, will have the twenty percent of that
Speaker 4: they've kept, they'll likely keep CRIMEA, they will put up
Speaker 4: a border.
Speaker 1: NATO won't be won't.
Speaker 4: Be bringing in Ukraine anytime soon, and they'll be lucky
Speaker 4: to get some some EU you know kind of money
Speaker 4: they're going forward and to try to get the fighting
Speaker 4: to stop.
Speaker 1: I think that's where it's going to go.
Speaker 4: And that's that's where it should have went back when
Speaker 4: the first thing started four years ago and three years
Speaker 4: ago at this point.
Speaker 2: And honestly, whatever's next is not going to play out
Speaker 2: in the next year. It's going to play out in
Speaker 2: the next thirty years. So we'll all fight out together.
Speaker 2: Military analyst Mike Lions online, Mike, we're really putting you
Speaker 2: through the paces today, and we appreciated another topic speaking
Speaker 2: of Pete Hegzeth and in Trump's order to take a
Speaker 2: serious look at the Pentagon, cut budgets, cut the fat.
Speaker 2: What do you think of that in general? And you,
Speaker 2: as an experienced Pentagon hand, tell us about the efficiencies
Speaker 2: and inefficiency of the Pentagon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they go.
Speaker 4: Through this every once in a while. They've tried a
Speaker 4: couple of different administrations. What you're seeing though, is Pete
Speaker 4: Heggs that's being very overly transparent. He put about an
Speaker 4: eight minute video out last night with regard to what
Speaker 4: that was going to be about. Specifically left certain things
Speaker 4: out of it, certain domains that won't be cut. But
Speaker 4: like anything else, there are there are things that are
Speaker 4: redundant within the Pentagon that it's an easy place for
Speaker 4: fivetoms to be built. And you know, for kingdoms to
Speaker 4: kind of move forward as people, you know, try to
Speaker 4: stay in one location and don't change their jobs.
Speaker 1: So I think he's looking to knock down some of
Speaker 1: those stylos.
Speaker 4: Some of those styles are calcified, I'll put it that
Speaker 4: way in terms of where they don't talk and nine
Speaker 4: to eleven it did actually a pretty good job of
Speaker 4: knocking those silos down when it came to information communication.
Speaker 4: But they they still get rebuilt and they still get
Speaker 4: re established, and I think that's what Pete wants to do.
Speaker 4: He's up against a very strong momentum on the other side,
Speaker 4: because there's people that are going to dig in pretty
Speaker 4: deeply and they're going to want to keep their fivectems
Speaker 4: and keep their dollars.
Speaker 1: But when you think about it, the Pentagon is the.
Speaker 4: Most the largest discretionary budget that we have right now,
Speaker 4: and so if we can get some savings out of
Speaker 4: their ten percent, then I think that'll be a win, right.
Speaker 2: And we have always said around here at the A
Speaker 2: and G Show that the kindest, best thing we can
Speaker 2: do for our actual fighting men and women is to
Speaker 2: ensure there's efficiency at the Pentagon, and the idea that
Speaker 2: scrutinizing the Pentagon or re ordering budgets is somehow weakening defense,
Speaker 2: I think is foolish. Final question, speaking of our military
Speaker 2: in these turbulent times, what do you see as our
Speaker 2: greatest strength right now as our forces exist, and what's
Speaker 2: your greatest concern our greatest weakness.
Speaker 4: I think our greatest strength remains this intangible of being
Speaker 4: an American. I think anytime you see America, it's in
Speaker 4: a situation where they have to rally and put themselves together.
Speaker 4: Not just in the military, you see it in corporate
Speaker 4: America sometimes. But but there's this thing about being an American,
Speaker 4: which is why everybody wants to come here, why everybody
Speaker 4: wants to be part of this thing. When when when
Speaker 4: push comes to shove, when a mission has to get done,
Speaker 4: I remember, you know, my time in active duty, that
Speaker 4: that people would say, you know, this is we're going
Speaker 4: to get this done.
Speaker 1: We're going to you know, look left and look right
Speaker 1: and take care of each other.
Speaker 4: So I think our greatest strength is this tangible that
Speaker 4: runs in our DNA of of being an American and
Speaker 4: what that means.
Speaker 1: And being on the high on the high ground and
Speaker 1: doing whatever it takes.
Speaker 4: I often think about, you know, I look at these
Speaker 4: videos and I watch the Russians leave their soldiers behind
Speaker 4: and things like that. I remember being and when I
Speaker 4: was at combat thinking that, you know, you never see
Speaker 4: Americans surrender and things like that. So we have this
Speaker 4: intangible that's there. But then that greatest strength is a weakness.
Speaker 4: If we still don't have the technology and don't have
Speaker 4: the equipment, and we if we come up with somebody
Speaker 4: that has better, better kind of things, we're not going
Speaker 4: to no matter no matter how great that intangible is,
Speaker 4: it's not going to overcome that. So we still have
Speaker 4: to have military might, we have to have material might,
Speaker 4: and be able to put our money where our mouth is.
Speaker 1: I think those are the two biggest things.
Speaker 2: Right, And that's so perfect. I was just going to
Speaker 2: interject it. In reading about Germany and the elections and
Speaker 2: that sort of thing, a German analyst was saying, what
Speaker 2: really weakens us and strengthens the Americans is that we
Speaker 2: have a culture of we better be careful, we'd better
Speaker 2: not hear the things that can be wrong, that could
Speaker 2: go wrong, Rather whereas the Americans have a spirit of
Speaker 2: let's try it and see what happens, learn from it
Speaker 2: and go from there. And yeah, If we ever lose that,
Speaker 2: including technologically as you're saying, then you know we're screwed.
Speaker 2: Military analyst Mike Clients Mike, great to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Thanks so much for the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah you. Thanks for
Speaker 2: Extra large