August 19, 2025 • 11 mins
"Frankly, I don't think theres enough leverage being put on Putin...we have a ways to go".
Mike Lyons (retired U.S. Army Major and combat veteran of Operation Desert Storm) join Jack & Joe to talk about military implications of the still-in-process peace deal between Ukraine & Russia.
How will a security guarantee be enforced? What level of involvement will the United States have--will their be US boots on the ground?
Stupid Should Hurt: https://www.armstrongandgetty.com/
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So they're not going to be a part of NATO.
But we've got the European nations and they'll frontload it,
and they'll have some of them France, in Germany, a
couple of them UK. They want to have boots on
the ground, not in. I don't think it's going to
be a problem, to be honest with you. I think
I think Putin is tired of it. I think they're
all tired of it. But you never know. We're going
(00:20):
to find out about President Putin in the next couple
of weeks that I can tell you, and we're going
to see where it all goes. Is it possible that
he doesn't want to make a deal.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That Vladimir Putin is going to continue to commit war crimes,
that he has a significant military force, that he needs
to be stopped, and that he is in every sense,
I'll use a nautical term here, putting a shot across
the bow the president of the United States. We had
to be mindful of that and respond to it with
(00:54):
real force and strength.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
That's James Stravitus on CNN, former NATO commander, and he
and Trump someone in line there that Putin may just
want to keep prosecuting this war. Now, as to boots
on the ground and all that sort of stuff, Trump
offered up some security guarantees yesterday, including saying the US
will have the back, and wanted to clear that up
(01:19):
today apparently because just moments ago he said, you have
my assurance no US boots on the ground in Ukraine.
So he has definitively ruled that out.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well, let's discuss all of this with the military analyst
Mike Lyons, who, among his many experiences, served as an
aide de camp to a general officer in NATO command
back in the day. Mike, as we started the show,
first of all, greetings, is always good to talk.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
How are you hey, It's great to be back with you.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
So we started the show today with a discussion of okay,
in spite of the amazing pictures from the White House
and all of the diplomacy and the meetings, and it
was really quite something.
Speaker 6 (01:57):
Now comes the hard part.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Yeah, for sure, this is probably the beginning of the
beginning if you're looking for some kind of analogy here,
And the hard part is going to be getting Russian
negotiators sit to sit down with Ukraine negotiators as well
as the United states here trying to figure out how
to redraw that map. I think Delenski has come to
the conclusion that he's going to lose territory, and the
(02:22):
Russia does already occupy. They've took it from a military perspective,
so they've got to figure out what that is now.
If the Ukraine negotiators or the team that they have
on that side, if they doesn't think he's going to
get that through his Congress or his government, then that
this is all for naught because he doesn't have this
power to just give land away on Ukraine. So there's
(02:45):
definitely a hard part here. You saw the German chances
of trying to get a ceasefire, because you wake up
this morning and Russia continues to attack civilian targets inside Ukraine,
and frankly, I still don't think there's enough leverage being
put on Latimer Kutin want to stop this anytime soon.
So I think we've got a waste to go.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
So all the talk of security guarantees, if Trump or
if Putin would agree to some sort of deal, the
security guarantees, British troops on the ground, French troops on
the ground, and then a backup of the United States.
It's interesting that so one of Putin's red lines is
no NATO guarantees, and so Trump's getting around that by okay,
(03:26):
we'll have different We'll have some of the European countries
that are in NATO and have a guarantee with them.
But so what does that all look like to you?
And how easily could we get pulled into the whole thing?
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Well, I think we'll still provide air cover, air defense
systems that will still be involved with the security guarantee.
But just the boots on the ground is where that
thing could get, you know, cut sideways quick looking for
like a historical analysis, you'd go back to the date
and the cords in Bonsi and Serbia when the United
States did put boots on the ground inside that country.
(03:57):
But they brought a lot of combat power to the
battlefield than I do remember some conversation taking place between
the general that ran it and Melosovich himself saying, if
you even look sideways at when any one of our
soldiers were going to come and destroy all of you.
So the question is the security guarantee is greatest? Is
what combat power will they bring to the battlefield? You know,
twenty to thirty thousand troops of French and British troops
(04:20):
are going to need logistical support, and they're going to
have to be enough of a threat that would keep
Russia at bay. So again, a lot of has to
be fleshed out when it comes to what that security
agreement looks like.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
And rewinding just a bit back to the topic of
Vladimir Putin. Given the reality on the battlefield right now
and his goals, how much incentive do you think he
has to actually negotiate in a serious way.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
I don't think he has much yet, and I think
that we should have already put the sanctions on. And
I think the Biden administration wasted all of their time.
And you know, he is longer, he could kind of
let this go. It makes he thinks, it makes Zelensky
look weak, and eventually his goal was to get rid
of him. He's looking for a win here. He'll he'll
(05:07):
take the wind being the land that he's captured, let's
say inside Ukraine. He didn't get the whole country, but
he's going to do other things to try to destroy Zolensky,
that's for sure. You know, I don't see this monoca
Bagan Sadat Jimmy Carter moment to three of them, Putin,
Trump and Zolensky, you know, shaking hands and raising their
you know, signing some peace of preement. I think we're
(05:28):
away from that.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Man, just stepping back and looking at for a moment.
The idea that Russia twenty thousand dead last month, a
million over a million casualties at this point, and tens
of thousands of Ukraine's that it's just shocking that this
is going on, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Yeah, it just.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Shows you the level of control he has over the country,
right Russia, with eleven time zones and enclaves in all
these different areas, and the fact that he can control
the message, and the fact that there hasn't been revolution,
there hasn't been anything that's come from Russian mothers. I mean,
that's kind of a Western narrative to try to think
that there's going to be this internal Russian pressure to
(06:07):
get Vladimir Putin to stop that that's just not going
to happen. He's able to pick different Russian tribes still
out and send them to the battlefield into the meat
grinder fundamentally of their death, and then he'll continue to
do that because they have four times the amount of
people that Ukraine does.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
Mike Lions military analyst is on the line.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Mike, before we let you go, I've been reading a
fair amount about our incredible deficit in shipbuilding and capacity
for growth of our navies compared to China.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
How dire is that situation in your mind? It's bad.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
I think we have time to catch up. The fact
that we recognize that it's a problem. I think this
administration does recognize it is it is an issue. The
question has always been the maritime capability of moving equipment
across from the United States to the where a combat
will place, which is why this pivot to the Pacific
is so important. China, though, has gotten well out in
(07:05):
front of the United States when it comes to docks
and it comes to the automation that they have and
containers and then the like. We just haven't prioritized it.
But I think you'll see more emphasis as navies project power.
This is both real politic and gunbolt diplomacy is still
very much in vogue in the way the world works
(07:26):
right now, so I'm concerned about it. I got a
son of the Navy, so I'm vested in what happens here,
but I do believe that we're moving in the right direction.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
I add one more question. It's back to Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Sorry for the jumbled order here, but one of the
great headlines from that battlefield is the use of drones
and automated tools and weapons and that sort of thing.
What do you hear from our own defense establishment? How
hard are we working at keeping up with that technology.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
It's incredible the amount of things that are taking place
in the AI drone space. I know at the Military
Academy of the complete focus now shifted towards drone technology,
adding drones to all of the different training that they're doing.
We're going to get to the point where a drone
will be part of a basic kit of an infantry soldier,
aside from their weapon and canteen and the like. The technology, yeah,
(08:17):
it's either from an intel gathering perspective, dropping grenade or whatever.
There are so many things that have changed warfare that
we've learned, and we're going to continue to move that forward.
But I know at the Military Academy in particular, there's
so much focus plus working. I'm working with some a
lot of startup companies that are looking to create different
(08:40):
missions for these different kinds of drones and doing a
lot of different things, and you lay the artificial intelligence
over that. You know, we're not there yet where they're
going to determine the targets. But you know the things
about the drones and the AI is that you know
it can hubver forever, it can take a lot of
time and can be selective on targets, and it's really
changing the way at the battlefield of commanders. Have a
(09:01):
look at the battlefield.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
You ought to follow him on x at Major Mike Lyons.
Mike always great to talk. Thanks so much for the.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Insight, great, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Thank you. So Trump said this yesterday.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Trump says Putin agreed to accept security guarantees.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
What I just don't believe that.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
And I don't understand why Trump believes it, or if
Trump believes it, maybe he's just going along for now
to see if Trump, if Putin backs that up or not.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But the presumptive clothes he accepted some security guarantees, so
I'm sure he'll accept these security guarantees.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But I heard this on Friday and I forgot to
mention it yesterday. I think this is huge Leon Panetto
was on one of the shows I think on CNN.
He's he's been one of my favorite Democrats my whole life,
and he was Obama's sect deaf and CIA director. He said,
I was happy that there was not a ceasefire. Ceasefires
(09:58):
are where borders have been drawn all around the world.
You have a ceasefire, the border's frozen. You never get
that land back. If Ukraine wants any chance of getting
any land back, or wants different borders than what they
are now, you do not want a ceasefire. And I
haven't heard anybody else say that, but that's clearly true.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, the problem is that Russia is on the front foot,
so I could see Ukraine saying, yeah, let's freeze them
now before we lose those four critical defensive cities in
the East. But why would Russia agree to that, because
they don't want to spend all those lives machine gun fodder. No,
they're spending them Willynilly.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But the idea that the borders get locked in place
on a ceasefire, I didn't hear anybody else bring up
the entire weekend other than Leon Panetta, And that is
what happens lots of times see Korea.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
How does that differ though from a more extensive peace
settlement might have better borders.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I guess, yeah, you can argue over where the border's
going to be. You do the ceasefire and it just
gets locked there. All the troops get lined up to
force the ceasefire, and he just you never moved the
borders again.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
So read a great piece about US Russian relations that
mentioned the big Armenian Azerbaijani agreement the other day that
I'd thought, oh, that's nice, they're not killing each other.
Speaker 6 (11:16):
That was a major blow to Putin.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Didn't know that.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
The drive by inch deep analysis of Trump's foreign policy
misses a lot, and Trump makes me nuts.
Speaker 6 (11:33):
But there's a lot going on. Man.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
There is some AI therapy stories out there that we
should discuss.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's its own interesting realm and world. You should be
aware of this, especially if your kids are doing it
on their own. I don't know how you stop them.
But anyway, I got a whole bunch of things to
talk about today. Stay here,
So they're not going to be a part of NATO.
But we've got the European nations and they'll frontload it,
and they'll have some of them France, in Germany, a
couple of them UK. They want to have boots on
the ground, not in. I don't think it's going to
be a problem, to be honest with you. I think
I think Putin is tired of it. I think they're
all tired of it. But you never know. We're going
(00:20):
to find out about President Putin in the next couple
of weeks that I can tell you, and we're going
to see where it all goes. Is it possible that
he doesn't want to make a deal.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That Vladimir Putin is going to continue to commit war crimes,
that he has a significant military force, that he needs
to be stopped, and that he is in every sense,
I'll use a nautical term here, putting a shot across
the bow the president of the United States. We had
to be mindful of that and respond to it with
(00:54):
real force and strength.
Speaker 3 (00:56):
That's James Stravitus on CNN, former NATO commander, and he
and Trump someone in line there that Putin may just
want to keep prosecuting this war. Now, as to boots
on the ground and all that sort of stuff, Trump
offered up some security guarantees yesterday, including saying the US
will have the back, and wanted to clear that up
(01:19):
today apparently because just moments ago he said, you have
my assurance no US boots on the ground in Ukraine.
So he has definitively ruled that out.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Well, let's discuss all of this with the military analyst
Mike Lyons, who, among his many experiences, served as an
aide de camp to a general officer in NATO command
back in the day. Mike, as we started the show,
first of all, greetings, is always good to talk.
Speaker 5 (01:44):
How are you hey, It's great to be back with you.
Speaker 6 (01:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
So we started the show today with a discussion of okay,
in spite of the amazing pictures from the White House
and all of the diplomacy and the meetings, and it
was really quite something.
Speaker 6 (01:57):
Now comes the hard part.
Speaker 5 (01:59):
Yeah, for sure, this is probably the beginning of the
beginning if you're looking for some kind of analogy here,
And the hard part is going to be getting Russian
negotiators sit to sit down with Ukraine negotiators as well
as the United states here trying to figure out how
to redraw that map. I think Delenski has come to
the conclusion that he's going to lose territory, and the
(02:22):
Russia does already occupy. They've took it from a military perspective,
so they've got to figure out what that is now.
If the Ukraine negotiators or the team that they have
on that side, if they doesn't think he's going to
get that through his Congress or his government, then that
this is all for naught because he doesn't have this
power to just give land away on Ukraine. So there's
(02:45):
definitely a hard part here. You saw the German chances
of trying to get a ceasefire, because you wake up
this morning and Russia continues to attack civilian targets inside Ukraine,
and frankly, I still don't think there's enough leverage being
put on Latimer Kutin want to stop this anytime soon.
So I think we've got a waste to go.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
So all the talk of security guarantees, if Trump or
if Putin would agree to some sort of deal, the
security guarantees, British troops on the ground, French troops on
the ground, and then a backup of the United States.
It's interesting that so one of Putin's red lines is
no NATO guarantees, and so Trump's getting around that by okay,
(03:26):
we'll have different We'll have some of the European countries
that are in NATO and have a guarantee with them.
But so what does that all look like to you?
And how easily could we get pulled into the whole thing?
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Well, I think we'll still provide air cover, air defense
systems that will still be involved with the security guarantee.
But just the boots on the ground is where that
thing could get, you know, cut sideways quick looking for
like a historical analysis, you'd go back to the date
and the cords in Bonsi and Serbia when the United
States did put boots on the ground inside that country.
(03:57):
But they brought a lot of combat power to the
battlefield than I do remember some conversation taking place between
the general that ran it and Melosovich himself saying, if
you even look sideways at when any one of our
soldiers were going to come and destroy all of you.
So the question is the security guarantee is greatest? Is
what combat power will they bring to the battlefield? You know,
twenty to thirty thousand troops of French and British troops
(04:20):
are going to need logistical support, and they're going to
have to be enough of a threat that would keep
Russia at bay. So again, a lot of has to
be fleshed out when it comes to what that security
agreement looks like.
Speaker 4 (04:31):
And rewinding just a bit back to the topic of
Vladimir Putin. Given the reality on the battlefield right now
and his goals, how much incentive do you think he
has to actually negotiate in a serious way.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
I don't think he has much yet, and I think
that we should have already put the sanctions on. And
I think the Biden administration wasted all of their time.
And you know, he is longer, he could kind of
let this go. It makes he thinks, it makes Zelensky
look weak, and eventually his goal was to get rid
of him. He's looking for a win here. He'll he'll
(05:07):
take the wind being the land that he's captured, let's
say inside Ukraine. He didn't get the whole country, but
he's going to do other things to try to destroy Zolensky,
that's for sure. You know, I don't see this monoca
Bagan Sadat Jimmy Carter moment to three of them, Putin,
Trump and Zolensky, you know, shaking hands and raising their
you know, signing some peace of preement. I think we're
(05:28):
away from that.
Speaker 3 (05:29):
Man, just stepping back and looking at for a moment.
The idea that Russia twenty thousand dead last month, a
million over a million casualties at this point, and tens
of thousands of Ukraine's that it's just shocking that this
is going on, isn't it.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Yeah, it just.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
Shows you the level of control he has over the country,
right Russia, with eleven time zones and enclaves in all
these different areas, and the fact that he can control
the message, and the fact that there hasn't been revolution,
there hasn't been anything that's come from Russian mothers. I mean,
that's kind of a Western narrative to try to think
that there's going to be this internal Russian pressure to
(06:07):
get Vladimir Putin to stop that that's just not going
to happen. He's able to pick different Russian tribes still
out and send them to the battlefield into the meat
grinder fundamentally of their death, and then he'll continue to
do that because they have four times the amount of
people that Ukraine does.
Speaker 6 (06:22):
Mike Lions military analyst is on the line.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
Mike, before we let you go, I've been reading a
fair amount about our incredible deficit in shipbuilding and capacity
for growth of our navies compared to China.
Speaker 6 (06:38):
How dire is that situation in your mind? It's bad.
Speaker 5 (06:42):
I think we have time to catch up. The fact
that we recognize that it's a problem. I think this
administration does recognize it is it is an issue. The
question has always been the maritime capability of moving equipment
across from the United States to the where a combat
will place, which is why this pivot to the Pacific
is so important. China, though, has gotten well out in
(07:05):
front of the United States when it comes to docks
and it comes to the automation that they have and
containers and then the like. We just haven't prioritized it.
But I think you'll see more emphasis as navies project power.
This is both real politic and gunbolt diplomacy is still
very much in vogue in the way the world works
(07:26):
right now, so I'm concerned about it. I got a
son of the Navy, so I'm vested in what happens here,
but I do believe that we're moving in the right direction.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
I add one more question. It's back to Ukraine.
Speaker 4 (07:37):
Sorry for the jumbled order here, but one of the
great headlines from that battlefield is the use of drones
and automated tools and weapons and that sort of thing.
What do you hear from our own defense establishment? How
hard are we working at keeping up with that technology.
Speaker 5 (07:51):
It's incredible the amount of things that are taking place
in the AI drone space. I know at the Military
Academy of the complete focus now shifted towards drone technology,
adding drones to all of the different training that they're doing.
We're going to get to the point where a drone
will be part of a basic kit of an infantry soldier,
aside from their weapon and canteen and the like. The technology, yeah,
(08:17):
it's either from an intel gathering perspective, dropping grenade or whatever.
There are so many things that have changed warfare that
we've learned, and we're going to continue to move that forward.
But I know at the Military Academy in particular, there's
so much focus plus working. I'm working with some a
lot of startup companies that are looking to create different
(08:40):
missions for these different kinds of drones and doing a
lot of different things, and you lay the artificial intelligence
over that. You know, we're not there yet where they're
going to determine the targets. But you know the things
about the drones and the AI is that you know
it can hubver forever, it can take a lot of
time and can be selective on targets, and it's really
changing the way at the battlefield of commanders. Have a
(09:01):
look at the battlefield.
Speaker 4 (09:02):
You ought to follow him on x at Major Mike Lyons.
Mike always great to talk. Thanks so much for the.
Speaker 5 (09:08):
Insight, great, thanks for having me.
Speaker 6 (09:10):
Thank you. So Trump said this yesterday.
Speaker 3 (09:14):
Trump says Putin agreed to accept security guarantees.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
What I just don't believe that.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
And I don't understand why Trump believes it, or if
Trump believes it, maybe he's just going along for now
to see if Trump, if Putin backs that up or not.
Speaker 4 (09:29):
But the presumptive clothes he accepted some security guarantees, so
I'm sure he'll accept these security guarantees.
Speaker 3 (09:37):
But I heard this on Friday and I forgot to
mention it yesterday. I think this is huge Leon Panetto
was on one of the shows I think on CNN.
He's he's been one of my favorite Democrats my whole life,
and he was Obama's sect deaf and CIA director. He said,
I was happy that there was not a ceasefire. Ceasefires
(09:58):
are where borders have been drawn all around the world.
You have a ceasefire, the border's frozen. You never get
that land back. If Ukraine wants any chance of getting
any land back, or wants different borders than what they
are now, you do not want a ceasefire. And I
haven't heard anybody else say that, but that's clearly true.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
Well, the problem is that Russia is on the front foot,
so I could see Ukraine saying, yeah, let's freeze them
now before we lose those four critical defensive cities in
the East. But why would Russia agree to that, because
they don't want to spend all those lives machine gun fodder. No,
they're spending them Willynilly.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
But the idea that the borders get locked in place
on a ceasefire, I didn't hear anybody else bring up
the entire weekend other than Leon Panetta, And that is
what happens lots of times see Korea.
Speaker 4 (10:44):
How does that differ though from a more extensive peace
settlement might have better borders.
Speaker 3 (10:52):
I guess, yeah, you can argue over where the border's
going to be. You do the ceasefire and it just
gets locked there. All the troops get lined up to
force the ceasefire, and he just you never moved the
borders again.
Speaker 4 (11:04):
So read a great piece about US Russian relations that
mentioned the big Armenian Azerbaijani agreement the other day that
I'd thought, oh, that's nice, they're not killing each other.
Speaker 6 (11:16):
That was a major blow to Putin.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
Didn't know that.
Speaker 6 (11:21):
Yeah, yeah, we'll get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 4 (11:25):
The drive by inch deep analysis of Trump's foreign policy
misses a lot, and Trump makes me nuts.
Speaker 6 (11:33):
But there's a lot going on. Man.
Speaker 3 (11:36):
There is some AI therapy stories out there that we
should discuss.
Speaker 6 (11:40):
That's it.
Speaker 3 (11:40):
It's its own interesting realm and world. You should be
aware of this, especially if your kids are doing it
on their own. I don't know how you stop them.
But anyway, I got a whole bunch of things to
talk about today. Stay here,
Hosts And Creators
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Jack Armstrong
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