Why Ukraine Will Win: Interview with Gen. Ben Hodges

[Music] well I'm really delighted to be able to speak to General Ben Hodges General Hodges was the commander of U.S forces Europe he had a long distinguished career in the U.S military he was particularly involved with NATO issues and the reason I'm particularly happy to talk to him is because ever since February 24th of 2022 he has been one of the leading Advocates of strong Western and American support for Ukraine and unlike many of the pundits that are pronouncing on issues like the anticipated you know Ukrainian counter-offensive General Hodges actually knows something about military operations and I think it's a very good time to be able to discuss this so Ben if I may please um you have been much more optimistic than most observers right from the beginning of the Russian invasion and uh my question is why why have you been an optimist and I think you've been proven right up till now with the advances that Ukraine made last year and you're still predicting that they're going to see considerable success in this coming counter-offensive so maybe you can talk about that well thanks for this privilege and I acknowledge that I am in a minority position everybody wants Ukraine to win but not everybody believes that it's that it's possible so a lot of really good smart people will disagree with some of this and you know I could be wrong but we know from history that war is a test of will and it's clear that Ukrainian people and Ukrainian soldiers have Superior will I don't think you'll find many Russian soldiers that really actually want to be in Ukraine ukrainians are defending their homes uh the Russians are the Invader and most of them are conscripts are released from prison and it's and it's still even with modern technology the Russian army is still a tsarist Army in its leadership style and enforcement of discipline so overly centralized very centralized I mean you know there's a report that just came out that's the scandal of how much money was spent on this new Command Center in Moscow from which every decision is made and so but that's that's the way they've always been and when more and this comes to the other thing that war is also a test of logistics and when in the Soviet methodology where it was about math Superior artillery numbers of artillery Mass infantry Mass tanks Mass aircraft then a centralized approach works but that clearly has not worked in Ukraine because the ukrainians have been more agile more Adept um and again it goes back to this will so that's that's the main reason I am optimistic now if you look at what's happened just over the past few weeks every indicator is trending in favor of Ukraine except our will um the uh the incoherence of the Russian general staff the leadership they still haven't figured out who's actually in charge uh the very open visceral hatred between Mr pagosian and kadera of shoigur garissimov these guys hate each other and so you don't have a coherent defensive plan in the last week we've heard about 3 billion Euro pledge by Germany that's on top of what they've already done the French the UK even just now our president has finally made the decision to allow other nations to provide F-16 for example so all of these things are trending in favor of Ukraine even around Bak moot you're seeing which is not strategic for Ukraine except that the Russians are willing to bleed there so ukrainians are going to allow that while they continue to build up their courses for this what we think is a coming counter-offensive so um the the key will be will the United States will our president say what our strategic desired strategic outcome really is so far he hasn't that's that's what's missing and the president has not said we want Ukraine well we need Ukraine to win and then provide everything that's required yeah well let's let's talk about the the outcome that we're we're seeking more specifically but before we get to that you've actually had Direct experience working with ukrainians and training programs maybe you can talk about that experience a little bit um back in about 2015 I think is when we started a training program in Ukraine at the alvareef training center near La Vie from the Far Western part of Ukraine we were tasked to help set up a training center which Ukrainian battalions could through which Ukrainian battalions could rotate before they headed east to what was then called the ATO the anti-terrorism operations Zone the dumbass and so um we saw right away that while they still had a long way to go in terms of the institutional Army and you still had several of the older what we call the big hat um soviet-trained officers the younger officers the younger soldiers showed me a resilience a toughness independence of thought and the most amazing ability to learn and adapt new technologies I've never seen any soldiers including our own that are as fast as ukrainians integrating new technologies and new ideas and so um what we saw in the absence of a strategy from any Administration for the Black Sea region at least we saw Ukrainian troops that were ready to learn were willing to learn and general majenko was the chief of chief of the general staff at the time even though he was an old school Soviet trained officer you can see from him that he still knew how to do stuff I mean he was professional enough there still were too many of the older big hat guys around him I think we're now in a place where you've got uh journals you're losing of course who came in he never served in the so in the Soviet so it wasn't tainted by that Soviet experience not to the same extent obviously all of his commanders would have been that he was not personally and not so now we see an army that um I don't want to overstate this but we see an army uh where the most of them were not even in uniform 18 months ago um that is very Adept and has a western approach to uh decision making decentralized right command and control right so uh so maybe we can talk about the operational expectations that you have I mean we'll get to the long-term strategic goal but the operational expectations for this uh offensive now presumably the main objective is really not the donbass it's it's the you know kerasan and zaporizia hope lost to the South along the Black Sea Coast of Ukraine how do you expect that operation to unfold well of course uh you hear this phrase spring offensive toast around that never came from the general staff that was a creation I think of uh uh journalists and old people like me um trying to guess about what was going to happen the the Ukrainian general staff has really impressed me with their discipline the way they protect information their understanding of the operational art how to design a campaign and then properly prioritize the available resources that they have I think that Crimea is the decisive terrain and so this counter-offensive is designed to set the conditions for the ultimate liberation of Crimea you could kill every Russian within about 200 kilometers of black Moot and that would not change the Strategic um kind of situation liberating Crimea changes everything so what are they going to do I think julushny and the general staff have said there are three conditions that they that need to be met before they're ready to go the first one is the condition of their own forces do they have enough combat power that could penetrate all of these linear Russian defenses the trench lines the Dragon's Teeth the minefields all of that and make it all the way to I think to the Sea of azov to cut the so-called land bridge as well as to secure the nuclear power plant in separage I think they are very very concerned understandably for that thing so do they have the combat power to do that that's going to primarily be armored brigades tanks mechanized infantry armored Engineers self-propelled artillery air defense that can move forward and attack an overwhelming combat power on a narrow front there's no need to attack the full six seven eight hundred miles up front but where do you want to get overwhelming combat power and so not only is it numbers and I think they probably have put together several brigades more than we know publicly of units that are properly equipped and have been training there for the past few months I mean none of these were diverted to Bachman which is why it's so important the sacrifice that Bach moot was to allow this to happen so that's number one and of course you've got brigades that are equipped with Ukrainian equipment brigades that are equipped with captured Russian equipment and then you'll have brigades that are equipped with German martyr American Bradley French Amex I mean the whole zoo of uh Western provided equipment which will be very capable but also that's a heck of a logistics challenge the second condition is the Russian forces have they degraded enough the command and control the headquarters the logistics of the Russian defenses uh you know we see fuel storage places on fire all the time now ammunition storage those kinds of things Transportation Network that would make it difficult for the Russians to react and adjust and then the deception plan obviously the Russians know something is coming but just like in June of 1944 the Germans knew the Allies were coming but where when and how was still unknown and so I think that's what the Ukrainian general staff is working on still the third condition is the ground you can't do a single thing about that except wait and uh the the ground in this part of Ukraine in particular because of the drainage of so many rivers and where it heads towards the and the Black Sea is uh particularly nasty when it's wet so they have to wait until it's dried out enough so that the hundreds of heavy tracked armored vehicles will be able to keep moving not get stuck literally in the mud those are the three conditions and I think when that said then General solution he will turn to as president and say we are ready to go and I think there's been a lot of pressure from Washington and from other NATO capitals to move up the timetable but that's probably a big mistake given what you just said about their needing to be ready yeah I think president zielinski has said we'll go when we're ready you know uh just the other day he said we could go right now and we would win but it would cost us so many more casualties whereas if they wait until those three conditions are fully met to the extent that is feasible I think of course that that's entirely a Ukrainian call and you know they know the ground better than we'll never know they know the condition of their own forces better they know the Russian side better than we'll ever know and so there is a sort of a impatience almost because there's so much coverage of all this and and it's uh people are anxious to see what's going to happen and so there is there is pressure um I think the ukrainians that will do what they have been doing is they'll they'll make the decision on their time and they'll do it their way um and I think that will be very successful so let's talk a little bit about Crimea specifically so uh it's a peninsula it's isolated there's basically two supply lines there's one that goes from Russia proper through Molita palmariopal you know that's the land bridge that's the land bridge and then there's the Kirch Strait bridge and presumably if the uh if the ukrainians can Liberate kerasan the rest of karasan oblas they've they're going to be sitting on top of both of those right and yeah the um they they can already reach some parts of like melatopo with high Mars and and those kinds of weapon systems and that was Storm Shadow they can reach almost all of Crimea but to really isolate the Crimean Peninsula I think the key is cutting that land bridge with land forces and then eliminating the Russian forces that are in the uh on Harrison on the east side of the you know on the east side of the neighbor River and then in Japanese they'll want to eliminate all of that and the kurch bridge of course I don't know what their what their plan is but I'm thinking that um as long as you don't have a lot of Russian reinforcements and resupply coming in over the bridge I think they'll leave it up um until they're ready because you want to leave a way for the Russians to get out of there yeah you'll encourage them look there's there's your off ramp yeah right there and uh and then once they have finally liberated uh all of Crimea which I absolutely believe happens this year then I think they will destroy that bridge because otherwise it blocks effectively access in and out of the as of C which will make it very difficult for them to rebuild their economy but if the bridge starts playing a role uh in helping Russia defend Crimea then I think they will go after it and you you think that they could actually push across that I mean that Isthmus is only four or five kilometers wide but do you think they could actually well of course this will be extremely difficult the paracup Isthmus has always been a challenge for attacking forces the Russians have a map they have a history there too um that I think the the key to liberating the Crimean Peninsula is verse to make it untenable for Russian forces and that's why the long-range Precision weapons are so important uh when you start putting a Precision weapon like a whether it's Storm Shadow or attack ons or uh Great Eagle drones not throwing hell fires down there or uh the ground launch small diameter bombs these make it impossible for the Black Sea Fleet to sit and sevastopol you either lose ships or maybe even more importantly you start losing the maintenance facilities the refueling facilities the ammunition facilities that make sevastopol an important navy base for the Russians same thing with the air base at Saki there's there's actually several bases there a huge Logistics Hub at gencoi started hitting these things the Russians they can't sit there there's nowhere to hide so unless you're able to effectively block or stop these incoming Precision weapons you're going it's going to become untenable and I think that's that's the uh the concept that's what I would recommend I should say it that way I don't know this but that's how I would recommend they do this and then eventually they will figure out um the old-fashioned way how you get in there but it I think they will be very Innovative and clever in how they get combat power into the peninsula in ways that we would not have even thought of yeah so one of the really uh frustrating things about the Biden Administration has been their slowness to decide on giving these different levels of Weapons Systems so no eight Hawkins up till yesterday no f-16s and still no f-16s directly from the U.S how much of a difference is that going to make I mean even even if the f-16s start flowing the training and maintenance it's going to be months right until until that's uh I don't understand why the the decision-making process is so incremental I think there's an exaggerated concern not exaggerated I think they are overly concerned that Russia might use a nuclear weapon and so there's a huge amount of caution there and and I do believe that this is the president I don't think he's just doing whatever the next social security staff says or the Pentagon says although I think they have a similar view they're very concerned and of course I mean the president literally has the weight of the world on his shoulders and has to be more suspect than than I do but I think this is part of the reason why they've been so incremental but the fact that they haven't made the declared a statement we want Ukraine to win and here's our objective without that then then you start making policy decisions in an incremental way now I don't know this I think the Chinese are communicating somehow that they clearly do not want Crimea to fall because they don't want to see the Russian Federation collapse so that may be one of the calculations I I don't know that but of course I was happy to read yesterday that the administration and then again this morning has made the decision that if anybody else wants to provide f-16s we're not going to stand in the way and yes we'll do training uh Pilots a really good Ukrainian pilot in a very short amount of time like three or four months will be very proficient in flying that aircraft but it's not just the pilot it's the mechanics you know the ground crew that have to be trained also I think that actually takes a little longer why didn't we start this months ago yeah it would have been much better I asked um let's say a very senior defense official I said why can't you guys at least start training in anticipation of the possibility of a policy decision and they had said they're not going to do that so we are where we are um and there is a there is a valid point from the administration that this is also about the long term I mean this is not like if you don't get it now you never get it so there is a long-term aspect to this which I think is a valid it's a valid point okay and then uh in terms of something like a final uh well okay let me back up I don't think that the final settlement is really possible as long as Putin is is running Russia because any ceasefire is simply going to be a a time for him to re-equip rearm and then the war is going to start again and so if we think about the conditions under which you would not get peace necessarily but a stable situation that the Russians aren't going to try to disrupt as I think about it it seems to me there's no alternative but to take uh Ukraine into NATO and maybe even to have you know NATO forces uh you know forward deployed in Ukraine so that they're a tripwire you know that will really raise the cost that means that if the Russians try to start the war again they are automatically going to be fighting NATO and they claim they're fighting NATO now but not really yeah you're right so you know our great Alliance the most successful Alliance in the history of the world that's not just a bumper sticker I mean that's a that's a historical fact uh of course it's not perfect I mean it's a a group of 31 Nations soon to be 32 and hopefully uh 33. um will uh the Russia has never wanted to take on the alliance but they don't want to face the combined military economic power and diplomatic power of all those Nations and and so that's why despite our flaws uh every there are several Nations that are in a queue trying to get into NATO all right um and why Nations that used to be Soviet republics or Worse Alpac countries the day they could they immediately came knocking we want to get inside NATO because they know what sure they know what's out there the baltics have not gotten into nato in the 1990s they'd be the front lines you're exactly right we this would be a uh it'd be a different sort of situation and so I agree with you completely that Ukraine's ultimate long-term security only comes with membership in NATO and frankly adding the best Army on the continent to Nato is will be good for for NATO and it will also help us have a much better strategic approach in all domains in the greater Black Sea region which I think from a strategic standpoint is is more important than the Baltic Sea so um what what can we do before we get there I think that um but let's assume I mean I take your point it Putin will not be satisfied with okay you know I made a big mistake sorry um but I do believe that his number one priority is regime survival saving himself literally himself and staying in power uh and I can I can Envision a scenario where he's they can come up with another narrative that explains why they're pulling out because when he sees that they're losing when he fights right now he doesn't believe they're losing or he doesn't believe that they can't win because they can see still see glimmers of hesitancy on our part and so I think that they're like another year the the West is not going to be able to support Ukraine anymore and so um they're they're going to play that out but when he does finally realize they've lost and I don't think that happens until he loses Crimea then they have to come up with a new narrative to explain to his supporters and his own people why they had to leave okay we defeated NATO we stopped NATO from invading Russia we have killed all these Nazis and now we need to go deal with other threats I mean I think most Russian people will say okay good um yeah there will be a lot of people around him that won't be happy about that but I think they will figure out a way for him to save his skin and that can happen even if they lose Crimea so that's that's one thing but the um I saw where Dr Kissinger was who to be candid I have not agreed with a lot he said over the last couple of years I mean you know legendary figure and Statesman but that didn't mean you're always right and I think he's been wrong on a lot of things but it was very interesting uh this thing interviewing the economists that just came out where he says actually the only possibility for Ukraine is membership in NATO so that's that was a change for him but the thing that I had not anticipated he said if he had the chance he would tell Vladimir Putin you will be safer also Russia will be safer with Ukraine in NATO and I thought how can that be and he just explains it and I think it's very compelling that if Ukraine is not inside NATO but yet we're arming them to the teeth and they're going to keep getting stronger and stronger and stronger and we still have this kind of a situation where Russia still occupies Crimea or parts of Don bass and they're still threatening then Ukraine's going to come after them again Ukraine will come after them to finish the job and that would be a real problem for Russia yeah so in effect with Ukraine being inside NATO Russia will never ever have to face a military threat from Ukraine like they don't have to face one from NATO yeah well it's my opinion that we really need to think very soon and hard about how to get Ukraine into NATO because I actually think that a piece again forget the peace deal but an Armistice is really not going to be possible until something like that happens I agree yeah okay well uh that was that was terrific I don't often get to interview Military Officers with lots of operational experience if I could just ask a couple of uh kind of lower level questions about lessons that this war has just military lessons so there's been this big debate over the future of the tank you are an old tanker so I figure you know you're probably not that sympathetic to the idea that the tank is obsolete now actually um I was an infantry officer my whole life I was in mechanized infantry in Germany back in the early 80s so I've been around tanks obviously every Commander I know wants protected mobile Firepower you want that gun that can survive in a terribly intensified now whether that looks like a 75-ton Abrams or a 30 or 40 ton vehicle that doesn't have a crew up in the turret so you don't need as much steel around it but you absolutely want a weapon system that can move through all kinds of terrain and then can survive and and then can deliver effect at with Precision at range so absolutely I would want to have a tank and listen to what ukrainians have been begging for and more and more tanks they want to lay a party they wanted they were and they know if the other guy has a tank you need a tank now there is no doubt from looking at the uh the videos that all of us have been watching of endless amounts of Russian tanks being destroyed but every time I look at them without fail these tanks are sitting out in the open they're not properly employed in a tactical way with dismounted infantry around them if they're in a wooded area or in a town you would always put out entry to keep away the guys that have the shoulder firing weapons so yes it absolutely is the end of tanks that are improperly employed or that don't have um Crews that are trained and disciplined when you don't have sergeants the sergeants are the ones that make people do the right thing yeah and so obviously they don't have that so again I guess then to the point you know the biggest takeaway from me is what has been true forever that it's the woman and the man in the with the equipment that makes the difference you can put uh good soldiers well trained well discipline in Old equipment and a hundred times out of 100 they will defeat somebody in a brand new weapon system that's not properly trained and Lead so that that emphasis on training and developing the talent of your of your soldiers is still got to be job one the the second thing though clearly the as general milley said the character of war is changing because of Technology everything can be seen now because of overhead imagery from drones and other sensors so we have to learn how to protect ourselves it's not just about you know green paint on your face and camouflage in your helmet yeah you have a thermal signature and you also all of us are emitting all kinds of uh uh signatures from our Communications equipment she you have to protect that otherwise you're going to be founding you're going to be destroyed the range and precision of weapons makes that very important and then the final point I would make here is that um to our president on day one at his inaugural speech talked about the importance of allies I mean he knew first of all he had repair damage from the previous administration but also the United States even with the biggest budget defense budget in the world does not have enough capabilities to do everything that needs to be done whether it's air land sea whatever so being able to work with allies is is going to be essential for our security and so that's what's happening in Europe now and NATO now under General cavoli under the alliance leadership I mean we are in a we're in an increasingly better place in terms of readiness and uh and we've all been reminded from this war that this is what failed deterrence looks like right right and that has big implications for Taiwan and China a lot of people have been criticizing at Ukraine saying that it's drawing down our stocks if we needed to defend Taiwan well so first of all I'm not sure that they would actually want to defend Taiwan I think they're just using this as a kind of political argument but the other thing is I think the war has revealed you know these weaknesses in our defense industrial base and we really got to wrap that stuff up and I think that you know now the Pentagon is thinking more seriously about that so assuming that uh invasion of Taiwan doesn't happen the next year or so you know it may actually be a kind of good warning that will get us more ready for the kinds of presidents that is a great that's a great point I imagine that President XI is actually not real happy with his uh best friend friends without limit uh President Putin because what Putin did has it woke all of us up a year ago we were making 8 000 rounds a month of artillery ammunition which is exactly what we needed for to meet our training requirements the U.S is now making 25 000 rounds a month and then they're on an upward track and you know there with the place where they make the gmlrs rockets and hellfire they're increasing production so the Chinese won't be very happy about that and I think you're also right in that the Chinese are watching this that if we are not willing to really commit to defending sovereignty freedom of navigation human rights the international law all the international organizations if we're not willing to do that in this Russo Ukrainian War then they won't be too impressed I think with what we might say about freedom of navigation in South China Sea or respect for sovereignty in other places so I think these are not separate there in fact I'll very closely connected no the cohesiveness of the alliance was really impressive I mean I myself was surprised at the way that NATO responded to the Russian aggression and I think the Chinese are going to have to take that aboard I mean they obviously want to split us from the Europeans but whether they can actually do that you know it's it's less clear after Ukraine than before so General Ben Hodges thank you very much that was really fascinating I think the bottom line I take from what you said is that we need to be patient that the ukrainians are actually going to win this war you should not assume that there's going to be a prolonged stalemate and therefore we need to somehow negotiate any kind of a peace you know in the short run well I think you're right what clouds would say is still true that you know the nature of war is still the nature of Wars It's violent there's uncertainty there's friction and hundreds of thousands of humans are involved so you can't guarantee what's going to happen but I think Ukraine has the potential in in the conditions or the the trends are going in the right direction I think and I'm optimistic good okay thanks very much thank you for the privilege good

Channel: Frankly Fukuyama

Views: 201,852

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Id: dsXNJlH-4iM

Length: 33min 14sec (1994 seconds)

Published: Mon May 22 2023