Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
With trade through that critical waterway, the Strait of Hormaux
still blocked. President Trump tonight announcing a new plan to
help guide cargo ships linked to countries not involved in
the war to safety, Posting on social media, the president
writing quote, for the good of Iran them mi ad
least in the United States, we have told these countries
that we will guide their ships safely out of these
(00:22):
restricted waterways so they can freely and ably get on
with their business.
Speaker 2 (00:27):
Yes, it's a new operation called Operation Freedom, though it
wasn't specifically said how we're going to guide the vessels through,
and it doesn't include US sailing warships next orm or
something like that. If that's what you were picturing, it's
what I was picturing. We're specifically not going to do that.
So then it was news reports that a couple of
US flagged boats, big ships that had been there since
(00:49):
the start of the war, got out for the first time. Well,
that sounded like good news, But then just a couple
hours ago, a South Korean flagged ship was fired upon
on the latest news being that it was fired upon
in its engine room on the port side, which would
be the side facing Iran on an outbound transit. So
(01:09):
somebody in Iran fired on this South Korean flag ship,
probably to say, how serious are you Trump about this
whole guiding ships out of the strait.
Speaker 3 (01:22):
I don't know why you're nitpicking. This trade is open.
The announcement's been made.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Well, IRGC announced like two hours ago that it is
the strait is closed.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Oh boy, what is the situation? What's it likely to
turn into? Let's discuss with military analyst Mike Lyons, who
joins us now. Greetings, Mike, how are you?
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Heygo money guys, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 3 (01:41):
Is it safe to say confusion rains today?
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Yeah? No, I think it does. It's hard to say
what specifically this naval mission would look like. I mean,
we've done it before. Back during the Iran Iraq War
in the eighties, the United States used naval assets to
escort tankers Koiti World tankers in particular through the straits
there to make sure that they weren't attacked by iron
back then, and it's you know, the results were mixed.
(02:07):
That you know, kept some of the lanes open, but
it did led to some direct clashes. There were mine
fields and the like. And again I'm not sure we're
that concerned about that, I think we'll respond right to them.
But the point that was just made about that ship
that was hit on that side, the real threat is
coming from these coastal batteries that are almost indefensible from you.
You know, they've they've got the standoff, they've got this
(02:29):
capability to hit the ships without us having any way
to protect those real ships. So we have to see
what happens if they're going to take cruisers and destroyers
and put them alongside those ships and actually escort them through.
That's that's a big mission and that's going to take
a lot of military assets to do that.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Yeah, well we were talking about it earlier. Is really the.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Unless you're going to do it, you just described like
have a whole bunch of big warships go through there
and and you know, fight fight the people on the
on the on the beach. The only way to do
it is to to th threat in such retaliation that
they don't want to fire on the ships.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Like it's a bigger picture.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's the people that would make the decision say do
not do this, And apparently we don't have that to
terns yet.
Speaker 4 (03:11):
Yeah, No, I mean that's the escalationion management, you know
I talked about in my Wall Street Journal article. I
think that needs to be proven again that they'll do that.
It'll take an incredible bombardment along that coastline of naval
assets in order to destroy anything that's there. But if
the IRGC still wants to do that, that one off
asymmetrical threat still can do a lot of damage. And
(03:33):
I think that's what we've got to be concerned about.
And it doesn't still show at the turnshet even the
lack of this US being afraid of escalating it to
a higher levels not deterring them enough.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
We know, you take in a wide variety of inputs, news, etc. Micha,
what's your perception of how much a squeeze on the
world economy this whole thing is. Is it merely uncomfortable
or is it uncomfortable leading toward like severe comfort and
counter reaction.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Now I think it's uncomfortable, but I think it's part
of this administration's overall plan to someone inoculate the United
States from the problems of the rest of the world.
I think the rest of the world is going to
be much more uncomfortable. I think the Chinese are considerably
worried about their energy security with this conflict, especially what
what happened in Venezuela when we took over that operation
or have more control over it. But that Trump says,
(04:25):
the US is energy independent and we are. The challenge, though,
is that the US oil market is still in Petro
dollars are tied to US dollars. The whole economy runs
on that, which is why we have to, you know,
benchmark everything off the price of Brent crude oil. And
that creates the challenge for Trump economically because if we
had to turn inside, we could do what we can
(04:46):
to lower gas prices like the Biden administration did when
they were trying to win an election. Right, So there's
things that the United States can do to help inoculate itself.
It's the rest of the world. I think that's got
the challenge.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
So this is asking for a guess. I suppose, as
opposed to announce, are we going to get back into
the kind of kinetic action that we saw at the
beginning of this war?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
Do you think I.
Speaker 4 (05:06):
Wouldn't be surprised. I think Trump is trying to do
everything he can not to do that. He gave the
sixty day notice to Congress that he's ended combat operations.
But all that's really done is we start the clock again.
If you look at the War Powers Act, he has
this capability to go to war sixty days at a time,
and by ninety days the Congress can force him out
(05:27):
of it. Well, he's told Congress that he's done with
that first part of the conflict, so he could start
the clock again. I do believe that it's not the
last time you're going to see us, you know, firing missiles.
I do believe they're going to see a lot more
kinetic action in the future.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Shore On that topic, there's been a great deal made
about the amount of ordinance we've spent in this conflict,
some of it sincere, some of it I think just
this sort of partisanship we're used to scale of whatever
you want, one to five, one to ten. How concerned
are you about how much we've.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
Spent probably five and a half. I mean, the thing
is Ukraine for the last three years. It took us
a couple of years to revamp our artillery rounds, as
we've used a lot of the deep DPICM, the rounds
from the eighties and nineties that we're sitting in shelves
and we've sent them to Ukraine, so that manufacturing capability
(06:17):
has now increased. But the missiles that we've used here,
the missiles coming from the ships and coming from the sidewinders,
all those things are expensive. They ticul air of minerals
to make. And so when this is over in the
next few months, and it's already the planning has already started,
there's got to be a much bigger increase in the
military industrial complex. And I think that's why this trillion
(06:38):
and a half dollars budget he's trying to put forth
next year is going to do a lot towards rebuilding
a lot of those stocks. I mean, I still don't
believe the Chinese will because of this. We'll look at
this as a weakness on our side and the side
to invake Taiwan, and I don't think that will force
us there. But I do believe we're going to have
to have a reset in the next two years once
things go, and we're going to have to really rebuild
(06:58):
a lot of our ammunitions.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Here's a question I think a lot of us laymen have,
and you can answer it because you're a guy who
you know, are the military fighting on the ground. I
don't think most of us can understand why we can't
get to where we want to get accomplish our objectives
with just air power.
Speaker 3 (07:16):
It seems like.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
We're to be able to bomb out, bomb regime change,
or bomb opening straits or whatever. And apparently, and apparently
a lot of president's also, I was reading out the
other day, presidents fall in love with air power, the
fact that we have so much of it and think
they can accomplish our goals, but we can't.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
And why is that.
Speaker 4 (07:35):
Yeah, there's a book written back in during the Korean War,
a guy named Fahrenbach in this kind of war, and
he basically said, you can fly over land, you can
pound it, you can bomb it into oblivion, but until
you're willing to do what the Roman legions did was
put your men on the ground, you can't hold it,
you can't take it. And I think I don't think
we're trying to hold her take around here, but you
still really can't have any kind of impact until you
(07:58):
do something on the ground in order to that forward.
So the airpower can bomb them back to civilism, you know,
back their civilization, and can really set them back, and
I think that's what Trump is looking for now that
that visual sign he keeps talking about that their nuclear
program is twenty years set back and all of the
like that. But for all practical purposes to change things,
you have to occupy it. If you want to hold it,
(08:19):
you got to occupy it. And that's that's where the
army comes in. And again we're not going there anytime soon.
So this is going to continue to be in air war,
I think for the very near future and long future.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
One more angle on this, mike, if we might that
Wall Street Journal has a piece about how our adversaries
are watching what's going on and learning about our capabilities
and limitations militarily speaking, and they point out one of
the big takeaways is that they see the power of small,
low cost munitions even in the midst of all this technology.
(08:51):
What do you think of that? And what else would
you add? What are our advertisers taking or I'm sorry,
adversaries taking from this?
Speaker 4 (08:57):
So the two issues, The first one is right, the
economics don't work on air defense as well. You know,
we have a two million dollar missile we're firing at
one hundred thousand dollars missile to try to take it
out of the sky so that economics don't work. Then
we'll do whatever we have to to defend and protect.
So it shows you that we have to go on
the offense. We can't be in the air defense system.
We have to go on the offense to make sure
that our enemies don't have the capability. But number two,
(09:20):
there's this huge undercurrent right now to develop the same
kind of low cost munitions and technology within our country,
within entrepreneurs and the like. And I think you're going
to see more of that in the next few years.
You know, the United States is just always going to
out muscle anybody. We can still do that based on
our economy and what we're willing to spend. And so again,
our enemies are looking at us and are trying to
(09:42):
figure out a way to defeat us, but we'll We've
been able to stay one step ahead of them in
most cases, and I think I think we'll continue to
do that.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Military analyst Mike Clients really interesting stuff, Mike Hecke, it
could be completely different tomorrow. We appreciate the time. Thanks
very much. Great. I think for me, yeah, yeah, I
think maybe what warfare looks like in five years is
just anybody's guess, no kidding, uh.
Speaker 2 (10:10):
I think maybe the biggest misunderstanding that regular people have
about war is what you can accomplish by bombing with planes.
And apparently, like I said, presidents fall for that too. Yeah,
we can just bomb our way toward whatever objective we have.
And according to Mike Liones and reality, based on having
(10:33):
observed many wars now in my adult life, now you
got to have people on the ground to accomplish what
you want to accomplish.
Speaker 3 (10:40):
Which brings us to the Joe Getty would it be
an axim or a what would it be? Joe Getty principle?
There you go Creed motto, mm Creed. I like Creed
the Joe Getty Creed is in an era of low
cost munitions and drones. You can't remove your opponent's ability
(11:03):
to use those weapons weapons, so you must review Jesus
if I could spit it out, I mean, as axioms go,
this one's pretty incoherence.
Speaker 2 (11:10):
So fun.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Let me have a second. Do we have enough tape? Michael?
Can I have? As razors go, this is a difficult one.
If somebody is carving this in granite they're getting pissed off.
They're wasting a lot of good chisel time. And let
me rewind it real quick. I'm off, so I asked,
(11:33):
all right, in an era of low cost munitions and drones,
you can't remove your opponent's ability to attack, so you
must remove their will to attack. The oh yeah. Counter
to the Getty axiom is, hey, are you gonna do
that without exacting such pain? Did you have to send
(11:57):
in ground troops and all and complete warfare? Especially if
you're dealing with a religious death.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
That's what I was going to throw in that your
your your action Creed motto razor works if you're not
dealing with nihilists who are perfectly okay with dying and
they're there are people dying and on all their people
dying right yeah or starving. Yeah, that was a good thing.
If I die and you die, we're all in a
better place. This is this is perfect, this is good.
(12:27):
So let's go ahead and die. Super Wow, the hell's avoided.
Do get that carved in the granite. Put that up
on a pedestal. People can check that out at their leader.
I'd appreciate an obelisk. Oh gotta love a good obelisk.
Speaker 1 (12:44):
What was that?
Speaker 3 (12:44):
The other thing? We got another thing coming up this hour.
There's worth mentioned. Oh it's so good, so I don't
remember me. I'll wait. What what was it? I was
excited about it? I said, let's do it. There. Have
you listened to that show with the old guys who care?
Remember what they're going to talk about? The one guy
(13:05):
so mush mouthed. He announces grand sayings and you can't
even understand them. Okay, whatever it was, it was on
the way so here.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Armstrong and Getty.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
That's funny.