Escalated Military Conflicts - Concerning?

Multiple military escalations have the world on edge.  Joining to talk about how concerned we should be is military analyst Mike Lyons.  

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Good morning. I'm Tony Cruz alongwith Mike Lions then military expert and analyst,
and he joins us. This morningis always it's a privilege, Mike,
thanks for your time. Hey,good morning, Tony, thanks for
having me back. Let's talk alittle bit about particularly yesterday maybe a lot
Russia attacking children's hospital and you heardthe story from our reporter, uh there

(00:22):
with the Kiev What what is thisor what does this say as Biden?
President Biden now expects you know,the NATO allies to come and join him
here in the near in the nextfew hours. Hey, and Antonio,
I never thought, you know,Russia plays the kind of game where they
send signals as NATO allies are gettingtogether. But this one in particular has

(00:44):
a lot of that signature to itbased on the kind of attack it was
that this this cage one on onecruise missile long range, flew a long
distance from Russia to hit its target. And you know, in the past
it hasn't been accurate, but inthis case it was accurate. Hits this
children's hospital central central Kiev, whichmeans it could hit anywhere now in that

(01:06):
area using a different tactic that gotthrough the air defense systems uh AS has
been been reported as well. SoRussia continues to step up their game with
regard to putting pressure on Ukraine inorder to UH succumb to its its will
of trying to make it surrender.Figure out what that you know, what
that looks like. But but inthe long run, though, I think

(01:30):
you're starting to see Western resolves somewhatbe shaky about this. And if,
if, if the Western countries don'tstart sending more air defense systems and other
ways, or allowing really Ukrainian attackinside of Russia, I think you're gonna
see. You're gonna see a lotmore of this Russian capability that they've been
keeping on the shelf. Even ourown Congress, it took a while to

(01:51):
get an aid package to go overhere for those weapons. One of those
weapons arrive, well, the smallarms are probably a now as we speak,
but some of the larger weapons arereally made to order from US factories
and they won't be there for anotherlet's say, four to six months.
We still don't have the F sixteensthere that would give them strategic capability to

(02:13):
bunch launch missiles as well as attackinside of Russia. That training has been
taking place, but we all knowthat that still takes a while to do
that. And the downside is theF sixteens that we are standing here about
twenty years old and they don't havethe same survivability as our current fleet.
So it'll take a lot of braveUkrainian pilots to go try to defend the

(02:35):
Ukrainian airspace in those air platforms.Speaking of which manpower in this case boots
on the ground, it sounds likethat Ukraine is having a hard time getting
young men to fight in this war, and we're seeing older and older generations
of men and women that are battlingthe Russians. Now, that's true,
and a lot of it has notbeen reported. There's a serious refuge issue

(03:00):
and people are leaving. It's funny. I ran into somebody a couple of
weeks ago that I was at MyrtleBeach. He was an uber driver and
he's definitely a young man, youknow. Asked where he was from and
he told me he was from Ukraineand he was from the southern half of
Ukrainie. He had to get outof there, is what he said.
And I kind of asked him aboutdefending his country, and he said,
well, you know that's not forme right now. My family is here

(03:23):
in the United States. But youknow, that's kind of a micro example.
But the macro issue is just thatthat the young people that normally fight
these wars, and you must getsupport from historically, whether you go back
to the Roman legion times or fromyou know, our country's perspective are looking
for ways to get out and theolder generation is bearing the brunt of this

(03:44):
right now that will hit a tippingpoint if Russia continues to put pressure.
And they know that Russia knows thatbecause they have more or less an endless
supply of people given their population.Well, we do know that we're starting
to hear more about conscriptions with theGermany, perhaps France, and some other
NATO allies so to speak. Youalso, I guess I don't know where

(04:08):
we're going to go with this inthe United States with conscription. Can you
imagine if we had a war theway we have so much division in this
country. Men and women that wouldagree to go the Vietnam wouldn't even hold
a candle, I think to thosewho would reject service. Yeah, you're
right, And the fact that somany young people now are not qualified just

(04:30):
to begin with, that bar wouldhave to change, as we would need
a large number of troop formations.Recruiting is already down in all the forces,
especially the army in particular, andif we're not if we're twenty to
fifty thousand men and women short onan annual basis, they are treading out
on the other side of that.That's kind of the hard part here because

(04:51):
of these the two the three tofour year enlistments that take place, and
so it's not being filled on theother side. So we haven't hit a
crisis yet, but it could itcould mean something. I'm watching closely now
what's happening in this NATO summit.You're already seeing whispers of Canada already saying
that they're not going to ever meettheir defense budget requirement. I think this

(05:13):
is the issue of NATO now havingso many countries in it that it's going
to be very difficult to get allthese countries to agree on one thing.
And what will be the consequence ofa country decides that they're not going to
meet that defense requirement. That's thattrump issue of you know, you got
to pay to play, and we'realready seeing some some forces that are saying
that's not going to happen. I'mTony Cruz. He's Mike Lyons military analysts
extraordinary Major Mike is joining us thismorning. As we're talking in all things

(05:35):
military, let's talk about the NATOsummit a little bit more in depth.
It looks like most NATO allies haveprecluded or precluded at least that Donald Trump's
going to be the president again.And with that, you know, it's
a pay for play kind of situationwith the President Trump. Mike, I
didn't know this, but the UnitedStates represents sixty eight percent of the total

(05:59):
expenditure of NATO. That's a lotof money, and it's almost a trillion
dollars, eight hundred and sixty billiondollars. When people see that their so
security could go away because of ourpopulation, a situation with younger people not
working or are they are working,but not enough to keep those things going.
This is some of the pressure thatit's creating for our United States,
and even Canada says we're not goingto pay our share. Ever. Yeah,

(06:20):
it is a problem. It isa problem, but the bubble hasn't
burst yet. A lot of thishas to do with the level of security
that provides. And the reason whythe US does so much there is because
it did from the very beginning.It's the infrastructure, it's the backbone.
It does provide command and control forUS though when things go off, and

(06:41):
the problem is we've allowed these countriesto fall off in the past twenty years
and now we've added two more NATOcountries where at thirty two now and there's
just different levels of countries enthusiasm forit. So an interesting report about Argentina
looking to join NATO now that inan effort to help Ukraine. That's interesting.
I think, you know, NATOwill have I'm sure it will take

(07:02):
a hard look at that. Itdoesn't make a lot of sense on some
level. What you do have theyou know, northern hemisphere countries in NATI,
you have county United States, ofcourse. But so NATO's going to
try to, you know, havea party this next couple of days here
to try to you know, youknow, bring itself together and project more
power going forward. All right.Finally, this hemisphere, we know that

(07:25):
China is trying to control the Chinaseason and really that whole region. It
is interesting to me that while wehave NATO allies, there are our only
allies. When we think about likeSouth America, we really don't have a
lot of allied participants with US Argentina. I didn't know that that was part
of the deal. But why doyou think that we haven't been able to

(07:46):
work with the South Americans with astructure of military kind of construct Yeah,
great question. I think a lotof this has to do with Culturally,
we've been so focused on Europe,you know, for the last fifty eighty
almost one hundred years. As youknow, the United States comes from Europe,
from you know that from that,from that side, and we've ignored

(08:07):
our own hemisphere. And I thinkit's going to be a mission for you
know, future Americans is as theworld will eventually revert back to geography.
If it's the Chinese continue it theirways, they're going to look to control
you know, that part of theworld. In the United States, as
it expands, its influence will betterexpand. It's going to take economic pressure

(08:28):
on uh, these countries down thereto make sure that we're all aligned.
But without revolution in the Southern hemisphere'stcountries, they don't pose a threat to
us, for right now, butthat's that's likely a great growth opportunity for
the United States. Something that thatthat you could say anyway, Cuba fails,
right, Cuba is one of themthat major fails for US to begin
with. So we've got to focusmore on a southern hemisphere for sure.

(08:50):
Yeah, I agree. Hey,appreciate your time, Mike, as always.
Thank you, Mike Lyons joining ushere, CNN military analyst Ghord there,
Thanks so much. I'm Tony Kruz. You trading away, Porting,
WHS, Traffic and Weather Times.Scottigerald has sports coming up.