The Best Weekend Talk Show in America 3-5

Jack & Joe talk to Jeff McCausland about the great tank debate among NATO nations.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
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(00:31):
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(00:54):
enjoy the best weekend talk show in America. They have
made incremental progress, uh, in the last few days, There's
no doubt about it. And they've done it at a
great cost. I mean, they continue to throw body after
body into this, uh, into this effort to secure these
two towns. So that's John Kirby from the White House

(01:14):
yesterday talking about how the Russians are willing to throw
a lot of people at various towns in Ukraine to
try to get over We have our Secretary Defense over
there right now. Uh, there's quite the argument going on
over whether or not Germany is gonna give them tanks
or they won't give them tanks unless we give them tanks,
and the leak from the White Houses we're not gonna
give Ukraine the tanks. Uh. It seems to be a

(01:35):
crucial moment. Let's discuss that and more with Dr Jeff McCaslin.
Jeff is a CBS News military consultant, founder and CEO
of Diamonds six Leadership and Strategy l l C. Jeff,
It's always a pleasure. How are you doing really well, sir?
We are terrific. Thank you. Hey. Before we get into
some of the proposed additions to Ukraine's arsenal, let's just

(01:58):
take a look at at the situation as it stands
right now on the ground and where it's likely to
go as the spring warms. Well. In the last couple
of months on the ground, things have kind of frozen
in place. Part of that driven by I think the
changes whether it hasn't had a really super cold winner
and a hard prieste because we've had a lot of
mud and marsh, particularly down there in the Dawn Boss

(02:20):
region where a lot of fighting is occurring, and that
has caused the ground operations to slow that being said,
as you suggested, the top a lot of fighting, as
the Russians have been trying to take a relatively small
city called back Mut and in doing so they have
employed really in many cases human wave attacks. Interesting a
combination of Russian army but also the Wagner Group, this

(02:42):
mercenary group owned by a guy name Guinea progos In
that Mr. Putin has used around the world in some
public disagreements between the Wagner Group and the Russian army
over who actually is being successful, who's the best military,
who's being provided the most support by the Russian government,
And right now they're making some very slow progress at

(03:02):
great at great losses. Then, of course we had the
war in the air, which has been this continuous Russian
missile attack drone attack on major Ukrainian cities. In the
last a few days, we had this missile strike on
the town of Nipro, in which the Russians used an
older actually missile that was designed to take it down
aircraft carriers back in the Cold War, relatively inaccurate uh

(03:25):
and they struck Nepro, hit an apartment block, took down
a whole sectionist imparting block, probably the single most devastating
loss of civilian life and one attack. Over fifty people
so far have been listed as killed in that particular
apartment house, to include a large number of children. Underscoring
once again the Russian intent, which is to terrorize the

(03:46):
Ukrainian population, hopefully break their willpower and get the Lensky
government to sue for peace with their more accurate systems.
They've been trying to take down Ukrainian electric power, grid,
water supply, etcetera. To deprive people of those things in
an effort to get them again to try to kick
quit this war. So that's where things stand. What's happening

(04:07):
in terms of military hardware you suggests as a transfer
of more asshisticated military hardware during this interim period and
the training of Ukrainian forces on smificant number right now
training in groups of about five hundred about of Italian
at some of our bases in Germany. Another number of
Ukrainians now trading on the Patriot back in Oklahoma. So
I think this is intended by Lake Spring to see

(04:30):
that equipment fielded Ukrainians trained on it, so in either
they a they can conduct a counter offensive and try
to take more territory back from the Russians, or at
least be they've got mobile forces that can act as
a mobile defense if in fact the Russians are able
to get their act together and conduct their own Spring offensive,
which many people think is likely. So I don't know

(04:52):
if you saw the Wall Street Journal editorial board opinion
piece today where they're saying the Biden administration is being
too timid, giving the ukrain menans just enough to not lose,
but allowing them to take just horrible, horrible, horrible losses,
but not giving them enough to win, and arguing that
we absolutely need to give them the Abrams tanks with
would the would the with the tanks from Germany and
from US? Would that make a big difference? To start with?

(05:15):
It would if they were delivered insignificant numbers. I mean
the British of announcement and they'll deliver fourteen Challenger tanks
to the Ukrainians, not a not a militarily insignificant amount
of equipment. But that's about one company. If you look
at what the Ukrainian General staff says they require to
conduct an effective counter offensive, they would say we need
three or four hundred main battle tanks. We need several

(05:37):
hundred additional artillery pieces, several hundred additional personnel cares. So
it's it's a matter of the quantity as well as
the quality of the equipment that there has been some
hope that the British making that particular announcement would kind
of break the damn of the political opposition across the
alliance to include the United States to provide the Ukrainians

(06:00):
UH more advanced tanks and most notably not only M
one tank but also the Leo to Leopard two tank,
which is German constructed, which major many of the NATO
allies have. The polls have already indicated they would be
willing to provide some Leo two's to Ukraine. But under
these foreign military sales agreements, if you buy a major
weapons system from one country, part of the agreement is

(06:23):
you can't then transfer or sell it to a third
country absent the producers agreement to do that, and then
also then guarantees resupply of spare parts and all that
kind of stuff. So the Germans are pivotal UH in
this discussion in terms of agreeing to let Polish LEO
two's or German Leo Tis obviously or others to be

(06:43):
provided to Ukraine. That will be a major topic of
conversation tomorrow in Ramstein, Germany, where the Ukrainian Contact Group,
including Secretary of Defense Austin will meet to talk about
military aid to Ukraine. Jeff mccauslin's online and Jeff obviously,
the question of what you equipped the Ukrainians with has
been a push and pull between what they need and

(07:03):
fear of escalating the conflict with Russian and perhaps pulling
in NATO, ETCETERA interesting story reporting in The New York
Times in that direction that after months of discussion with
Ukrainian officials, the Biden administration is finally starting to concede
that Kiev may need the power to strike the Russian
the Russians in Crimea, and may be willing to say, yeah,
go ahead, Yeah, exactly right. I mean, one of the

(07:26):
things that has been ongoing is the goals of the
United States and this war and the goals in Ukraine
and this war overlap. But I've not been necessarily coincident,
and the Ukrainians have talked from the very onset that
their goal is to recover all of the territory Ukraine.
Which includes that territory Crimea and a portion of Lahn's Province,
which were sieved by the Russians back in two thousand

(07:47):
and fourteen. Now, the United States and the world community
at large has never recognized those territories as Russian has
always insisted that they were still part of Ukraine. But
the fear always was if we push Russia on the
Red Lines and those territorial areas, that might then result
in escalation where you might see the war expand geographically,

(08:08):
might the Russians attack a NATO partner, or might even
escalate even to the consideration of using nuclear weapons. So
one of the goals of the Bid administration, frankly, has
been let's confine this war to the territory Ukraine and
be careful about what those things that might encourage Russian escalation.
Over the last ten months, so obviously that has changed
dramatically in terms of sort of our self imposed restraint.

(08:31):
I mean, think about the Germans. For example, when the
war began in February, the German defensemaners to the time
announced that Germany would ship five thousand helmets to Ukraine,
which didn't dissuade the Russians from continuing their attack UH,
and now ten months later, the Germans are considering sending
Patriot missile battery and Part two tanks. So there has
been a steady, if you will, elevation in the kind

(08:55):
of military hardware, numbers, sophistication, etcetera that the West United
States as well as others is willing to provide. And
we're at another juncture which is also then bespoke about
are we willing to then find our willingness to support
them in securing all that territory back. UH. These weapons
and offensive capability might threaten UH seizure of Ukraine, or

(09:17):
might cut Ukraine off or Crimea. I mean cut Crimea
off from the land bridge of Russians have seized and
Russia proper, and then I might put the Russians in
re bind and trying to support their residual forces they
might have in Crimea. So to what Joe was just
talking about, the Wall Street Journal editorial board is arguing
that the US has to let Ukraine strike Russian territory

(09:40):
and and the fact that the Russians know they won't
be hit in their territory allows them to amass forces
right on the border. And and that sort of thing.
And their question is why should a dictator who rolled
over a foreign border be free to claim it's territory
as sacro sank. Do you agree with that? You would
that make a big difference? And do you think that
that a red line that Putin would react to. Yeah,

(10:04):
I mean we were allowing them a sanctuary is what
it boils down to. Uh And but we've seen Putin
you know, announced red lines, but then not exactly fulfill
those red lines. We talked to that, you know, attacks
on Russian territory would result in massive responses by Russia. Well,
the Ukrainians have routine the conduct the attacks against Crimea.
They were the ones that took down a portion of

(10:25):
the Kurch Bridge, for example, they struck a couple of
air bases, They sank the MOSCOA, which was the flagship
of the Black Sea Fleet there, which is based on Crimea.
And we've seen Ukrainian drone attacks against Russian air bases
on Russian territory and reports of Ukrainian special operations attacks
of being contructed on Russian territory, and we have not

(10:46):
seen that consummate response. In addition, of course, the Russians
announced that they were annexing four four provinces of Ukraine
as part of now Russian territory, so therefore you would
think they would be part of that red line and
are seeing attacks by Ukrainians in in Zaporzia and the
Hans and Crimea UH in those four provinces on a

(11:07):
daily basis. So once again we're not seeing that consummate
response to that red line that Mr. Putin announced. So
it seemed only logical that you know, you can't provide
the aggressive of that sanctuary and Ukraine's ability to strike
basis that the Russians using to launch aircraft that are
launching missiles against Ukrainian cities and killing nine thousand Ukrainian civilians,

(11:28):
which they have done, or Ukraine or Russian supply lines
that are on Russian territory that are supplying Russian forces
conducting military operations UH in Ukraine would only seem appropriate
if in fact, you really want to win this war.
CBS News military consultant Jeff McCaslin, Jeff, always enlightening, Thanks
so much for the time. Take care, guys. I'm pretty

(11:52):
hockeyish on the whole support Ukraine thing, I think for
because of American interest. I think the American first argument
is that we make sure Ukraine wins. But you know,
like our friend Mike Lyons doesn't believe that. Our other
military consultant, he says, it's a regional conflict that we
don't have much national interest in. So, uh, this, this

(12:14):
would be a very provocative thing. Man. We give them
US tanks and say go ahead and hit Russian territory.
I mean, that's like mccosin was just explaining, that's a
long way from where we all started, a long way
from where we all started. Yeah, for those of you
like the Tucker Carlson crowd, you know that, like you're
begging for a nuclear war, what the hell are you doing? Well?

(12:37):
I think this illustrates a rather nicely something we've talked
about in the past, and is worth remembering that as
history unfolds, it's much more complicated and much less predetermined
seeming than history books would have you believe. Right, looking backwards, Yeah,
looking backwards, it's of course the Unit. Of course, the
colonies overthrew the British. Everybody wanted to They are oppressive.

(13:01):
The Tea Party I've read about that, the Boston Tea
Party and and the tars and featherings, and of of course,
and oh no, it's incredibly controversial. I mean, the let's
overthrow England crowd barely won. Or of course, appeasing Hitler
was a bad idea, you know, it was the concern that, uh,
it's a basically the same argument. You know, you don't
want to make him angry, who knows what we'll do.

(13:22):
Then let's just let him take a little bit of land,
you know, um, and keep negotiating and keep you to
avoid a world war. I not saying that would have worked,
but yeah, I'm glad I'm not making these decisions. I
think all of us are glad you're not making these decisions. Jack, Sorry,
it's just too easy. Heck of a thing. If we

(13:44):
give him our tanks, we actually have US tanks rolling
across the landscape of Ukraine and then crossed the borders.
I mean, that seems crazy now, but the things we're
talking about now seemed crazy a year ago. How about
how about Crimea? Nobody has recognized Crimea as being part
of Russia, except like Belarus. So is that striking Russian territory? Really?

(14:10):
I don't think so, But it matters to what what
Putin thinks, yeah, you know. One of my gripes with
the oh, and then we need to wrap this up.
At the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which
you're quoting, was it was framing the question of whether
the Ukrainians ought to be able to hit Russians inside
of Russia. It's some sort of moral question or logical question.
It's entirely a practical question. Will this provoke horrors that

(14:34):
the world is not willing to endure, not whether they
should be able to. That's ridiculous. And anytime somebody frames
a question in a way that is inappropriate and they're
smart enough to know it, I wonder what's going on.
I feel like I'm getting jobbed or somebody's trying to
job me. Well, we'll see this playout over days, weeks,

(14:58):
and months, hopefully not years. It's been a year and
a couple of weeks it will have been a year
since this whole thing started. Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty.
We are Armstrong and Getty and this is the best
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