The Barbarians Had Hatchets. Mike Lyons Talks to A&G

On the Friday February 21, 2025 edition of The Armstrong & Getty Extra Large Podcast...

• Joe talks to one the premiere military analysts, Mike Lyons, about the ongoing efforts to end the war in Ukraine.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Because four hours.

Speaker 2 (00:02):
Simply, this is Armstrong and Getty extra large.

Speaker 3 (00:09):
President Trump is the only one that could have prevented
this war from taking place. And President Trump now is
cleaning out the mess that Biden left behind.

Speaker 1 (00:16):
And President Trump will.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Get it done. He will negotiate an end to this war.
He wants to see the war ended, regardless of how
that takes place. He wants to see a win for
Ukraine and a win for Russia at the same time,
because there's a lose lose going on for for both countries.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Right now.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
People are dying, and the President said he wants people
to stop dying.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
As Senator Mark Wayne Mullen, friend of the Armstrong and
Getty Show, we're in the stage of Trump communication where
Trump says something outrageous and sometimes ridiculous, and then his
allies reinterpret it for us in a more sane way.
And I want to talk about, you know, some of
the things Trump's said and done lately, is they try

(00:56):
to move toward a solution of the Ukraine Russian conflict specifically,
but first a general discussion with Mike Leons, military analyst
to Mike served with various military organizations in both the
US and Europe throughout his career and joints us. Now, Mike,
how are you.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
Good? Good? Thanks for having me back.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Oh, it's always a pleasure. Thank you. So before we
get into some of the specifics of the Ukraine Russian
thing right now, you're a student of history, as we
know it is, I think beyond question that there is
a serious change in the chemistry the magnetic fields. However,
you want to describe it of post World War Two

(01:36):
NATO and the Western Powers, where would you start in
telling a class about that.

Speaker 4 (01:44):
I'd start at nineteen eighty nine, nineteen ninety when the
Soviet Union falls as the West completely screws up what
happened of the Russian Empire back then, and you go
back at that point, you know, NATO wins the Cold
War and Russia's bankrupt rold Reagan a lot of it
has to do with what he wanted to do with

(02:05):
Russia and decides and the Soviet Union breaks up, and
instead of managing that properly and making sure that the
Russian Empire had zero chance of ever coming back again,
the West decided to bring countries into NATO one at
a time or so over the course of the next
thirty years since then and thinking that that was going

(02:26):
to be a stable way to go, as opposed to
recognize not recognizing that you can't have every member of
NATO to be everybody except Russia, because that's how the
First World War started. So we're seeing now the effects
of lack of NATO doing anything in O six when
Georgia gets invaded. We're definitely seeing the effects of fourteen
when Obama and Merkle does do nothing when Crimea is taken.

(02:48):
And then very clearly Joe Biden when he was president,
was the reason why Vladimir Putin decides to go after Ukraine.
And now we're faced with a NATO that's disarmed on
the continent that but for the United States nuclear umbrella
that the defenses don't.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
Happen the last twelve years.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
Historians are going to look back at the European countries
and say they had multiple warnings to rearm and re
mobilize their forces, to put some kind of leverage behind
any kind of military operations, and they didn't. And I
think that's where we're at right now, and that's where
the message being cleaned up.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Which leads me beautifully to the next topic. I'm on
to address, and that is I've been reading a lot
about the domestic politics and economics a lot of the
European countries now, particularly because several of them are having
important elections, virtually all of the biggies are. And it
strikes me, whether you're talking about technology or the economy
in general, the politics, the freedom of speech policies in Germany,

(03:45):
which has been much discussed lately, it all feels like shrinking,
not growth. Europe just feels like a diminished force that's
continuing to be diminished with few signs of life.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
Yeah, and the thing is, we needed each of those
individual countries to have their own individual leaders that had
that same vision with regards to where they were going,
but instead each of them have been more aligned with
i'll just say, more liberal tendencies of unlimited immigration. The
free speech conversation that's taking place in Germany right now

(04:25):
is appalling. I mean that what happened over with the
sixty minutes interview, and they're arresting people for putting memes
on the Internet and then trying to equate that summer
reason like because thus free speech, that's why.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
We had the Holocaust.

Speaker 4 (04:41):
I can't even connect these dots or whoever thought they
were going to get connected is just virtually insane at
this point. But what's happened is and then go back
to Germany. You know, they've they've gotten rid of all
their nuclear energy power plants. The world runs on energy,
you have to you can't have a country unless you
have that, so they rely on Russia.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
So you kind of bring all this together.

Speaker 4 (05:01):
I saw a good quote the other day that talked about,
you know, when the Roman Empire fell, it's not because
of the elites, you know, didn't improve their cost of
living or didn't improve their their lifestyle, as it fell
because the barbarians had hatchets. And that's still the same
for today. You've got to have a military presence and
show leverage and show capability of doing things. And all
of those countries, to include England. England is no less

(05:24):
guilty in any of these countries right now. And they
really risk Europe in particular England, France, Germany, some of
these countries really risk losing their cultures, losing everything that's.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
About them well, and every sign is that they have
no inclination whatsoever to do the things that need to
be done to fix it. In fact, the minute somebody suggests,
for instance, hey, our welfare state is draining our coffers,
and we don't have the money to defend themselves. They
get voted out of office. So I don't have a
lot of hope. So let's get a little more specific

(05:53):
about Ukraine and Russia. You can either address some of
the incendiary things Trump has said lately or not, it's
up to you. But as as the folks gather for
various peace talks, how does the whole thing strike you overall?

Speaker 4 (06:08):
Well, yeah, he said some outrageous things. Obviously, you know,
the dictator here is Prutin, and you know, Russia did
invade Ukraine. It's unjustifiable, and Russian aggression is something that
has to be dealt with. The question is how what's
the leverge that we can apply back in order to
have them not do it again? And Trump's transactional view

(06:30):
this whole thing is it has to stop. Once it
does stop, we create an armascist. But he's afraid of
the same thing over and over again. We you know Land,
the European troops there, we put American troops there. American
troops will be forwarding this and they became really what
will be a tripwire. I mean, again I appreciate what
the British Prime Minister was talking about sending troops to Ukraine.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
I'd like to know exactly which troops.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
There's less than one hundred thousand active duty troops that
are in the UK army right now, which is ridiculous
for a country that size for once was once a great.
I mean, they might as well be Portugal, they might
as well be you know, some some mid Atlantic, you know,
the Middle Eastern country right now. So so again, none
of these countries have got really any capability to do this.

(07:13):
But I think I think the question is I think
we're going to get to the spot that everybody is,
you know Pete Heggs that said the quiet part out loud.
Russia will contain, will have the twenty percent of that
they've kept, they'll likely keep CRIMEA, they will put up
a border.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
NATO won't be won't.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
Be bringing in Ukraine anytime soon, and they'll be lucky
to get some some EU you know kind of money
they're going forward and to try to get the fighting
to stop.

Speaker 1 (07:37):
I think that's where it's going to go.

Speaker 4 (07:38):
And that's that's where it should have went back when
the first thing started four years ago and three years
ago at this point.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
And honestly, whatever's next is not going to play out
in the next year. It's going to play out in
the next thirty years. So we'll all fight out together.
Military analyst Mike Lions online, Mike, we're really putting you
through the paces today, and we appreciated another topic speaking
of Pete Hegzeth and in Trump's order to take a
serious look at the Pentagon, cut budgets, cut the fat.

(08:04):
What do you think of that in general? And you,
as an experienced Pentagon hand, tell us about the efficiencies
and inefficiency of the Pentagon.

Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, they go.

Speaker 4 (08:15):
Through this every once in a while. They've tried a
couple of different administrations. What you're seeing though, is Pete
Heggs that's being very overly transparent. He put about an
eight minute video out last night with regard to what
that was going to be about. Specifically left certain things
out of it, certain domains that won't be cut. But
like anything else, there are there are things that are

(08:35):
redundant within the Pentagon that it's an easy place for
fivetoms to be built. And you know, for kingdoms to
kind of move forward as people, you know, try to
stay in one location and don't change their jobs.

Speaker 1 (08:47):
So I think he's looking to knock down some of
those stylos.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Some of those styles are calcified, I'll put it that
way in terms of where they don't talk and nine
to eleven it did actually a pretty good job of
knocking those silos down when it came to information communication.
But they they still get rebuilt and they still get
re established, and I think that's what Pete wants to do.
He's up against a very strong momentum on the other side,
because there's people that are going to dig in pretty

(09:10):
deeply and they're going to want to keep their fivectems
and keep their dollars.

Speaker 1 (09:14):
But when you think about it, the Pentagon is the.

Speaker 4 (09:15):
Most the largest discretionary budget that we have right now,
and so if we can get some savings out of
their ten percent, then I think that'll be a win, right.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
And we have always said around here at the A
and G Show that the kindest, best thing we can
do for our actual fighting men and women is to
ensure there's efficiency at the Pentagon, and the idea that
scrutinizing the Pentagon or re ordering budgets is somehow weakening defense,
I think is foolish. Final question, speaking of our military
in these turbulent times, what do you see as our

(09:45):
greatest strength right now as our forces exist, and what's
your greatest concern our greatest weakness.

Speaker 4 (09:53):
I think our greatest strength remains this intangible of being
an American. I think anytime you see America, it's in
a situation where they have to rally and put themselves together.
Not just in the military, you see it in corporate
America sometimes. But but there's this thing about being an American,
which is why everybody wants to come here, why everybody
wants to be part of this thing. When when when
push comes to shove, when a mission has to get done,

(10:16):
I remember, you know, my time in active duty, that
that people would say, you know, this is we're going
to get this done.

Speaker 1 (10:21):
We're going to you know, look left and look right
and take care of each other.

Speaker 4 (10:24):
So I think our greatest strength is this tangible that
runs in our DNA of of being an American and
what that means.

Speaker 1 (10:31):
And being on the high on the high ground and
doing whatever it takes.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
I often think about, you know, I look at these
videos and I watch the Russians leave their soldiers behind
and things like that. I remember being and when I
was at combat thinking that, you know, you never see
Americans surrender and things like that. So we have this
intangible that's there. But then that greatest strength is a weakness.
If we still don't have the technology and don't have
the equipment, and we if we come up with somebody

(10:57):
that has better, better kind of things, we're not going
to no matter no matter how great that intangible is,
it's not going to overcome that. So we still have
to have military might, we have to have material might,
and be able to put our money where our mouth is.

Speaker 1 (11:09):
I think those are the two biggest things.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Right, And that's so perfect. I was just going to
interject it. In reading about Germany and the elections and
that sort of thing, a German analyst was saying, what
really weakens us and strengthens the Americans is that we
have a culture of we better be careful, we'd better
not hear the things that can be wrong, that could
go wrong, Rather whereas the Americans have a spirit of

(11:32):
let's try it and see what happens, learn from it
and go from there. And yeah, If we ever lose that,
including technologically as you're saying, then you know we're screwed.
Military analyst Mike Clients Mike, great to talk to you.
Thanks so much for the time.

Speaker 1 (11:48):
Yeah you. Thanks for

Speaker 2 (11:51):
Extra large