“They Have No Chance” - Military Expert Predicts Ukraine is Doomed

let's start off with Ukraine Russia when it first got started um you know you were one of the ones that said this is going to be done in no time it's almost done it's going to be done it's going to be done in a week it's going to be done in a month it's going to be done in two months it's gonna so a lot a lot of people felt the same way as you but you were one of the main spokespeople that kept saying this is going to get done why is it still going on today and it's been as long as it's been no I think that's an important question and it surprised me as well as lots of other people by the by the way the Russians went into Ukraine their their initial operation was very different from what anybody anticipated and I think President Putin went in with the following objectives remember he's been talking for at least 15 years about his opposition to the movement of NATO to his borders he's made it very clear that he regarded it as a threat one of the reasons he moved into Crimea was that he saw that becoming a NATO Naval base principally for the U.S Navy obviously in the Black Sea so he moved on that first and then said look I it's got to stop well what happened of course is you know is we had the coup in Kiev where now the ukrainians call it Keith and as a result we installed a government that was prepared to do essentially whatever we wanted them to do and we poured billions of dollars in very early to build up an enormous Ukrainian military force whose sole objective was to attack Russia and it wasn't very long before Putin concluded that if I don't act soon I'll have missiles sitting on my border that will be able to reach my Nuclear deterrent in no time and Rob Russia of any sort of security at all so he decides to go in but I think he thought at the beginning and this was a false assumption that he would have someone to negotiate with so he said I'm going to go in really initially with only about 90 000 troops organized into small contingents he gave strict orders that they were to avoid collateral damage at all costs didn't want to kill anybody he knew he was moving into an area which was largely Russian anyway but he also didn't want to kill Ukrainian forces at that point he said I want to demilitarize the place but he said I don't want unnecessary casualties on the Ukrainian side and remember from his vantage point these were also Slavic cousins Brothers whatever you want to call them and the Russians felt that way I think initially and so he moves in with this very small Force he encounters a lot of resistance I think the resistance is exaggerated in the sense that the Russians have never taken heavy casualties but nevertheless he encountered a great deal of resistance but most important when he met with people for negotiations he discovered there there's no willingness to reach an agreement because Washington principally is in charge Washington doesn't want an agreement I mean he can read the tea leaves and the tea leaves are very clear this is Washington's opportunity to quote unquote bleed Russia in addition to bleeding Russia once we've bled it we're going to see Putin and his regime removed and ultimately then we'll think about what we want to do with Russia to include stripping it of resources breaking it up into smaller parts whatever this of course was a horror story that he had not really believed it and he found out gee I was wrong and so by the summer he has a meeting with all the senior officers and they say look we we wanted to go in hard you told us to go in soft we wanted more troops you said no now we're in the middle of something we're not going to end this conclusively unless we build a larger and more decisive force with the right capabilities and so you had this change in strategy that says we will consolidate control over what we've got which is about 20 to 22 percent of the territory where most of the Russians but not all of them lived where most of the resources are too by the way and we will run essentially an economy of force Mission our strategy is to build an impractable Fort and then let the ukrainians expend themselves against it and then when we're ready we'll take the offensive and that's effectively what's happened and the ukrainians have expended themselves they are now at a point where I would say there's practically nothing left anybody who was really trained to do much is dead or wounded it depends on which source you want to trust but it runs from 250 000 dead up to 300 000 dead to 350 000 did on the Ukrainian side and that's military force not yeah that's just that's just the soldiers that's just soldiers now I don't know how many civilians have been killed and I'm very very suspicious of that because despite the change in strategy that resulted he has always been unwilling to kill quote unquote innocent so if he strikes something or you see a President Putin yeah so if you see a strike going somewhere as we did quite recently the objective was to kill Frankly Speaking foreign forces it were ability in the Hotel this included U.S UK and others because he's been warning everybody in NATO get out if you don't get out you're going to be at risk and then of course next to it I guess was a school or something and so immediately the ukrainians say see the Russians are killing people in schools you know we went through this repeatedly where the ukrainians would set up gun positions inside hospitals schools malls and once that happened the Russians had no choice but to destroy those gun positions which meant that they were inevitably attacking what were formerly only civilian targets I mean this is not new we've been through this in the Middle East we've experienced something similar so the bottom line is that now we're at a point where the ukrainians really have expended virtually everything they've got they're now talking about mounting one last counter-offensive I don't know how they're going to do it whatever they do it won't succeed they have no chance of breaking through Russian defenses in the meantime I think we've had a certain amount of unrest in the senior ranks of the Russian military because a lot of the senior officers want to attack and end this war and they're very concerned about a lot of what senior officials General officers in the in the Russian army the senior generals so so then there's a misalignment between Putin and his leaders well I don't know if I'd call it a misalignment as much as Putin is still reluctant to take decisive action to end the war quickly because he's concerned about our predisposition to intervene the great fear from the beginning has always been that once it became clear that the Ukrainian position was hopeless there would be pressure in Washington to intervene to rescue what's left we almost have to protect our 150 Billion Auto investment it's it's almost a if you think about it it's like it's like hedging if that does happen hey we're so in it now that we said once we're not going to send them tanks if we do it's going to be this now we're talking you know planes and all this stuff we almost have to defend Ukraine now well I I don't think so but uh I'm sorry from the bidens administration yeah well your argument actually uh Probably sounds more like how we got ourselves into the first world war but the bottom line is with with this crowd right now they've expended enormous sums of money so I'm sure there's pressure from BlackRock and Raytheon and others somebody told me the other day there are only three branches of government in the United States now one is Blackrock one is Raytheon and the other is the Pharmaceuticals so there's some there's some Tragic Truth to that since the hill is basically owned by donors and we have government by donors the American people really don't have much of a voice and they don't know much about it so they don't say much about it but the truth is right now the ukrainians are are on the on the ropes there's no doubt about it and there's this discussion I think behind the scenes do we just move now and end this thing decisively because they can or do we wait some more and let the ukrainians expend some more time and effort and now you have discussions in the west about a joint polish Lithuanian intervention into Western Ukraine and that's exactly the sort of thing that the Russians have been concerned about and that could never happen without us without us authorizing it supporting it and encouraging it and Putin knows that so we're to kind of crossroads right now in terms of what's next and the Russians have to make a decision well there's there's a lot there I'm sorry Tom it's just there's a lot there uh that we covered a few things so from a strategist standpoint okay you know the the world when they think about who Putin is you know former KGB this guy is going to be shrewd guy he's going to be 15 steps ahead or he's going to identify his next 5 10 15 moves so you're gonna sit there and say if we do this that guy's gonna do this if we do this or we're going to push NATO to want to move quicker to support them if we do this maybe it's going to be easier to take over a part of Ukraine that we want under Biden not Trump because it's I'm picturing him as a guy that sat there with his generals looking at every single possibility that could happen how did he miss the ball on hey let's go soft on this it's going to be fine they're going to cave in we're going to get him in no time his military guys say no let's go hard that's a big miscalculation there on his end isn't it well I think President Putin you mentioned his KGB background one of the things that people do not understand about the KGB is that the individuals that served in it were practically the only people in the Soviet Union that were allowed to travel beyond the borders of the Soviet Union that meant that they could travel in the west Putin was very familiar with the West particularly with Germany and by the way he likes Germans speaks pretty pretty good German because I've listened to him in his interviews uh so from his standpoint he saw a West that he thought they could work with they could deal with and he's always been criticized inside Russia for taking that position because I would say the mainstream Russian position is you can't do business with the West the West is our implacable enemy that will never change we are Russians we are not part of Europe we are not part of the West I think Putin took a different position I think he thought that Russia should be part of the larger European concert and should have a role in the west well he turns out his critics were right and he was wrong now he's still a very popular leader because he has improved the standards of living Prosperity he's restored a lot of Russian national pride and dignity I think his latest poll unofficial poll that we get out of out of Russia puts him at about 89 percent approval whereas Biden is at about 30 percent so I think Putin is very secure in that sense now but he has always struggled with his idea of how far do I want to push it because Putin is a smart man he says when this is over we want to live with the Europeans and we want to live with the United States we never thought about that during the second world war there were some people who did because we did enormous damage to Japan enormous damage to Germany which is one of the reasons we had to stay there for 50 years and there were a few voices admiralihi who was effectively the chairman of the Joint Chiefs at the time for Roosevelt brought in the generals and said look you're doing terrible things to these people we want to be able to live with the Germans and the Japanese when this is over well we didn't pay too much attention to that but Putin is taking a different position and he has also made it very clear that this is Russia this is not the Soviet Union and the Russian military contrary to what the ukrainians have been claiming have not committed atrocities all over the place they have not murdered and raped and pillaged in other words this is not Stalin's Force his slave Army of 1944 and 45. Putin's made that very clear he still wants to get along quote unquote he would he wants to avoid a direct war with the United States and with NATO that drives much of his behavior but as I said now he's at a point where he's got to make some decisions and that is what do we do do we continue to move slowly and deliberately and watch as the polls and lithuanians presumably backed by the United States intervene in Western Ukraine is that what we do or do we act because what he doesn't want is whatever is remains of Ukraine when this is over he wants that to be neutral he doesn't want it to be militarized he doesn't want it to be a platform for attack against Russia he views Ukraine the same way we viewed Cuba in 1963. we don't want it to be a platform for attack against us we still don't and that's his position now can he achieve that if he stands by and allows the polls the lithuanians or anybody else even the U.S forces to move into Western Ukraine I think the answer is no Colonel is the position you just described very eloquently on President Putin is that the resolved view that is in front of President Biden is that where the Joint Chiefs are or are they taking a different View what I do know is that the senior officers in the Army in the Pentagon I can't speak for the other services but certainly the Army had made it very clear that we are in no position to wage conventional war against the Russians and they're are they presenting what you just presented as Putin's attitude and position with that I doubt it simply because if you try to present that position to the people who are really running the government they are so full of hatred in animosity and antipathy for Moscow and what it represents to them that no one will listen so they're I think they're they're they have what we call ideological blinders on so is that why there is so much willingness if that is a prevailing view that's being propagated not only to the President's Day Late you know threat report I assume and to the president himself then is it any surprise to you that senators or green lighting billions of dollars for Ukraine because it's to defeat this evil not to not to go Middle East on you but to defeat this evil Satan that is the old USSR Russia well remember part of the problem here is of Putin's own making at the beginning because of the way he went in it conveyed to the West this notion of see the Russians aren't serious they're weak they're weak they don't know what they're doing and then we flooded the Airways with all of this propaganda about the Russians are stupid and they describe the Russians exactly the way the Germans described the Soviets during World War II which of course was nonsense I mean I I was in graduate school and Soviet East European studies so I'm very familiar with it and they literally lifted phrases and things out of books that had been written about the Soviet Army in the end of the second world war and they were hurling this crap at the Russians and and everybody in the west of course was eager to believe it remember we have the Cold War behind us so it's not very hard to say you know the Russians are really bad sure oh yeah yeah right they they were bad a few years ago so they must be bad again that that's part of the problem but Putin went in he was he was too easy and it looked as though he was weak well now everything is turned around you've got about 750 000 troops focused on the western military District in Russia in other words the Western theater here about 350 000 in the south now where are the other four hundred thousand well some of them are tied up in logistical support infrastructure some of them are in missile rocket artillery batteries some of them are up in build Russia some of them are just in Western Russia the the point is that this is an enormously powerful force now with all the most modern equipment and Technology I think even the the biggest Skeptics are shocked and surprised at the Precision the accuracy and the responsiveness of Russian missile and strike assets for people who are listening who don't have a map in front of them when you say the Western theater of Russia you mean the Eastern also border of Ukraine right there and South you mean Crimea I'm talking about I'm talking about in southern Ukraine the area which is referred to by the Russians as novel Russia this is this stretches from basically Odessa all the way up to karkov most of that is now under Russian control with this force of three quarters of a million yes so okay so let's go let's go back to uh thinking trying to think what Putin was thinking about so let's go soft instead of going hard what what's what's the advantages of going soft so for you as a strategist to be fair I mean you know when you're saying you know how you would do it and what you would do you have a PhD I think in international uh uh relations from University of Virginia if I'm not mistaken so if if what is the advantage of going soft are you going soft because you're thinking that guy's gonna cave okay fine so let's flip it what is the advantage of going hard right off the bat where his soldiers are saying no uh we have to go strong with these guys to get what done what's their argument of going hard instead of going soft well first let's be clear about the phds and degrees you know thermometers have degrees and you know where you stick those uh I'm not I'm not disparaging my PhD I'm just being honest there are a lot of people walking around with degrees that don't know anything in fact I would argue that most of them don't amount to anything they don't produce anything they're not practitioners I focused when I went to graduate school in military matters because I'm a professional Soldier and it was my obligation I thought since the American people were funding my education to focus on Military Affairs and specifically at that point on the Soviet Union and to a lesser extent East Germany and Poland and Czechoslovakia those are those are the areas where I focused now having said that again it goes back to a set of assumptions I think that Putin if you go back and look at his willingness to negotiate there was a point during the first three weeks when the negotiators met that Putin said I will immediately embrace the ceasefire while these negotiations are on and they stopped the Russians stopped in their Tracks Of course people in the west said well that's because they're logistically unsustainable and all this but that wasn't true he was sending a signal I'm serious I'm willing to negotiate and remember that the whole thing revolved around the Minsk Accords nobody in the west pays much attention to those Accords but they were signed by Germany France we backed them and we promised that the Russians who live in Ukraine would be treated as equal citizens equal before the law along with ukrainians they would not be pressured to become Ukrainian as long as they were good citizens that obeyed the law they could speak their own language go to their own schools go to their own church and so forth that was a big lie as it turns out and Angela Merkel who was the German Chancellor was the first to come out publicly and say we lied that was just to buy time for Ukraine to build itself up into the military power that it has become subsequently macron admitted it was a lie so even after having been lied to prolifically about all the things that were important to the Russians uh he decided I'll call a ceasefire we'll see how these uh talks progress well the talks didn't progress and then suddenly we had this man Boris Johnson who flew in as as effectively a surrogate for Biden and said stop don't give up anything and that was because solenski had said sure I think we could live with neutrality actually made that statement which was the end goal as far as Putin was concerned we wanted to be neutral in other words you have this nice large neutral State the size of Texas it lies between Russia and NATO gosh that's a good thing in fact back in 1999 and 1998 when I was the director of The Joint operations center at shape headquarters Supreme headquarters Allied Powers Europe these discussions went on and somebody said well what's ukr where's Ukraine in all of this and everybody said Ukraine's mission is to be a nice buffer you know don't don't fight there don't go there let them be a nice buffer between Russia and us I mean that was widely viewed as a positive thing well that was thrown out of the window and instead Boris Johnson says we will back you to the hilt we will give you everything that we possibly can your job is to go out there and fight and will back you and eventually we will be victorious the Russians will collapse Putin will be gone etc etc etc none of that's happened happy Fourth of July too we have a special event that's coming up with Tom Brady Mike Tyson and we'll get there in Miami Vault conference it'll be August 30th to September 2nd this weekend for 4th of July we're running a special buy one get one free bring your spouse bring your business partner bring your running mate if you haven't yet registered click on the link below or above get registered looking forward to spending three days with you in Miami thank you

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Id: fgGuQvDwOD0

Length: 21min 8sec (1268 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 29 2023