The Most Important Battle: Jeff McCausland Talks To Armstrong & Getty

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Ukrainians believe Moscow is making its unfounded claims about
Key of preparing to use a so called dirty bomb
because Russia's troops are pinned down in this area and
Carlson's commander believes it's only a matter of time before
they ouced Vladimy Putin's army from here by the end
of the year. We believe Hassan will be under Ukrainian
flags by the end of the year. That's only a

(00:24):
couple of months. Uh. We'll see how pinned down is
the Russian army in that area of the country. And
I think that's like like the actual trained army where
they have weapons as opposed to those new conscripts are
old fat men. They're shipping in with no uniforms or weapons.
We thought we'd check in with someone who's more in
the know on this than certainly I am Jeff McCaslin,
CBS News military consultant, founder and CEO of Diamond six

(00:49):
Leadership and Strategy ll LC. Uh, Jeff, welcome back to
the Armstrong and Getty Show. So are we about to
see a major battle there in the Curissaneri? Good wealth
to do that if there's evidence that the Russians are
preparing to defend the city, and so it might be
a house to house, you know, inner inside a city fight.

(01:10):
This is an important battle, of course, because her Son
was the first major city captured by the Russians of
the onset of the invasion back in February, and the
problem the Russians of god is her Son sits on
the west side of the Niper River and Nipa River,
and as a consequence, as Ukrainians have been trying to
encircle them, looks like they're being more and more success
someone doing so, the Russians are confronted with the problem

(01:32):
of either withdrawing or being surrounded and forced eventually too surrender.
They are, as you suggests, evacuating an awful lot of
civilians out of particular city, suggesting again that they think
their position is non tenable. And there are reports actually
that senior military commanders have gone to Mr. Putin and said,
you know, we need to pull back. This is we
can't hold this and he has told them basically to

(01:53):
stay and hold it at all costs. If they did
get surrounded the so I read their Russian soldiers, would
that be the end of the war. Would it be
that big a deal or not. No, I don't think
it would be the end of the war. It would
be a major disaster for the Russians. It would be
very difficult for Puttin back in Moscow to cover up
the disaster like this for the folks back at home,

(02:14):
But it would not be the end of the war.
And unfortunately, who could even push Mr. Putin more and
more into a corner and encourage him to escalate even
prother Wow. Yeah, that's a good point. So a strategic
victory by the Ukrainians, major disasters you called it, by
the Russians might make it more likely the world gets
drug into a nuclear conflict. It's it's certainly as possible

(02:38):
that you know, the Russians are doing this this information
campaign right now in which they are claiming that the
Ukrainians are preparing to detonate a so called dirty bomb
on Ukrainian territory. No, there's no evidence that that is
in fact happening. Most people believe this is preparation by
the Eruptions, perhaps to do so themselves and then try
to blame on Ukrainians. Yeah, that's an ugly story. Um.

(03:01):
I want to ask you this question because it came
up earlier in the show, and I hear differing opinions.
You know, you got thirty Democrats that send a letter
to the President saying hey, hey, let's back off on
the whole Ukraine support. You got a chunk of Republicans
that feel the same way, and Kevin McCarthy said no
blank check for Ukraine a week or so ago. So
I don't know if that's a growing sentiment in the House,

(03:22):
but so far we've got bipartisan support. But to that question,
how big a deal is this? I was going to
read from David French in the Dispatch at some point.
He wrote a big piece yesterday saying this is the
biggest story in the world and it's crucial that we
continue to back Ukraine until they've defeated the Russians. Do
you think this is the biggest story in the world.

(03:43):
Is it crucial? I think it absolutely is, without a doubt.
I mean, let's just look at this way. If he
is successful and using military force to take territory that
clearly belongs to a neighboring country, and what's to keep
him from moving on to the balt of view public
to lab Let's any Estonia parts of Poland because he
thinks they can get away with it. What's to stop

(04:04):
the Chinese? I'm saying, obviously, the international community is not
gonna respond to these things. The norms that we established
at the end of the Second World War. The territory
is not seized by armed aggression or no longer valid,
and therefore we can move on on Taiwan. So I
think it's absolutely crucial that we are successful. You know,
it really bothers me is when McCarthy said that, and

(04:26):
Progressive Democrats said that. One thing we know for sure
it brought a smile to Vladimir Prutins right. Oh, absolutely, yeah, absolutely,
without a doubt. And I don't want to drag into
politics discussion because you're a military expert, but it's disappointing
that there aren't more Republicans and Democrats who have been,

(04:46):
you know, voting for all this funding. At least throw
it into your speech on the campaign trail now and
then why it's important for the United States to back
this effort so that you don't have the support start
to drip away a vote by vote. I guess that
being said, you know, the Pell opinion polls that I

(05:06):
look at suggests the American people are pretty strongly behind
this continues. The majority of both the House and the
Senate strongly support this. Ms McCarthy, Mr mcconoal, I'm sorry, Uh,
the Senate Minority leader has been very outspoken about BIPARTIST
and support for Ukraine. We did see about ten Republican
Senators vote against the most recent package for Ukraine, and

(05:28):
about fifty Republicans in the House and back in May
um and that might expand somewhat, and there might be
some insistence that greater oversight is put in place to
ensure that the funds that we're providing are in fact,
you know, getting to where we think they're going, which
not necessarily a bad idea, But I still think by
and large there is a strong support for supporting Ukrainians.

(05:51):
And uh, the question of when it should be over though,
the Ukrainians get to make that decision for themselves, but
we can stop funding whatever we want. Also, do we
if they get back everything going back to February? Is
that good enough for us? Or do we continue to
fund them until they try to push the Russians out
of Crimea, which might be a pretty tough task. That'll

(06:14):
be a pretty tough task, no doubt about it. And
I think for not only the Biden administration, but frankly,
the Europeans are returned the statusco anti, that being the
borders that roughly were in placed back on the February
with a real spanking and the Russians in the process
might well be acceptable. And the other thing were watching
only is support here in the United States, but support

(06:34):
here in Europe where I am right now, which does
also seem to be a bit brittle and based on
the amountain kind of military assistance men of European countries
are providing. They're they're providing just enough military equipment to
you know, keep the Russians at bay and hopefully move
them back to their status coo anti without providing them
so much military hardware that the Ukrainians would would launch

(06:57):
the kind of major offensive you're talking about to take
back Ama or even start trying to strike cities on
Russian territory. Doctor Jeff McCaslin, retired colonel from the U. S. Army,
Senior Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership at
the Naval Academy, appreciate your expertise and opinions today it's
always a pleasure. Armstrong and