Get Woke, Go Broke. Mike Lyons Talks to A&G

Mike Lyons joins Armstrong & Getty to talk about Russia's Ukrainian ambitions...and whether anyone has the means to put an end to the aggression.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Ukrainian troops on this side of the border are nervous.
They're worried about what they describe as provocations. They say
that the Russians are and Russian back separatists are trying
to goad them into a fight. And if you remember,
just a few days ago, the White House said and
the Pentagon announced that Russia it believed had already infiltrated

(00:24):
provocateurs into this country who could carry out an attack
to deliberately cause a conflict, to to deliberately give Russia
a pretext to cross the Rubicon, to cross that border
and invade Ukraine. As richer angle of NBC News, it
seems that the tensions between Russian and Ukraine and just

(00:47):
the world in general have ratcheted up quite a bit
in the last twenty four hours or emergency meetings going
on today now. Europe is heavily involved, France and Germany
among others, in talking to Russia and Ukraine and trying
to figure this all all kinds of threats, going various
directions of sanctions and not starting up the nord Stream pipeline, etcetera.

(01:07):
To assess the military and diplomatic aspects of this thing.
It's a great pleasure to welcome back to the show.
Mike Lions, military analyst who served with various military organizations,
uh in the US and Europe throughout his career. You've
seen him on Network TV the rest of it. Mike,
how are you sir? Hey, guys, great to be back
with you. Have you new year? Oh yeah, and and
the same to you. Uh. First of all, let's start

(01:29):
with Vladimir Putin. What is his interest in Ukraine, whether
legitimate or no. Yeah, he needs it from a monetary perspective, Um,
you know, Russia's is a dying country. Unfortunately in in
some place that covers the web land masses with thousand
nuclear weapons. It's got that outside. But country is going

(01:49):
in the wrong direction in a lot of ways. And
so this is a money play and it costs money
to go to war. But he's figuring that the money
he'll take out of Ukraine and we'll get from it
will allow his country to survive, you know, maybe another
decade or so. I mean, he's got a short lifespan now. Uh.
It's himself and that he realizes that he wants to
you know, at the former Soviet Union. And this is

(02:11):
how he's gonna do it. I mean, it's very clear
they've moved troops now into Belarus, into the north. Um,
They've got Ukraine totally surrounded with a large number of troops.
And from from a straight military perspective, it's it's just
a matter of time. So I was looking at your tweets.
Do you feel like the whole Belarus angles not getting
enough attention that and that it's important. Yeah, I think
a couple of things. So Belarus in the last year

(02:33):
and now has fall out of favor with NATO. It's
not one of those alliance partners anymore so, so that
relationship has been shattered. Now you look to the north
again of of Belarus, the stony Latvia, Lithuania, and those
are NATO countries Poland on the border of Belarus. Now
Poland is gonna feel threatened as a NATO country with
Russian troops the other Russians could possibly move nuclear weapons
into Belarus. I think, I think Belarus is gonna end

(02:55):
up falling very quickly now under Russia in terms of
kind of like a new Iron curtain so to speak.
Are just gonna fall in their in their atmosphere as
a very minimum and allow Russia now to attack Ukraine
from from the north. As people are going to try
to leave KiB They're gonna try to leave Ukraine go
probably due west, but they can't no longer escape from

(03:17):
the north now at this point, with that that kind
of anvil at the top of their country now being
being locked off, I'm gonna jump to like maybe the
biggest question that the average person who doesn't follow this
stuff very closely wonders. Any chance where militarily with actual
troops pulled into this US, I don't see it. We

(03:39):
wouldn't get there on time. It'll be over before we
could get troops to a boat to get them anywhere
near the place. There's not a chance. I mean that
that ship sailed. Back in the nineties when we took
three troops out of out of Europe Um, we talked
of big game NATO. NATO has tried to be this
alliance now and it's become too big and too wielding,
and of how it's intimidating all. One of one of

(04:02):
Russia's demands is to basically restore NATO back to it
was in which kicks out about fourteen countries, kicks out
all those Slovenia kicks out Romania, Lithuania, the Estonia's, Hungary, Poland,
and the Czech Republic. So so you know, they want
to set the clock back and because of what they
feel the threat is. Now we have some troops in
these places, but nothing to the matter of a hundred

(04:24):
and twenty seven thousand. We have to have three hundred
a thousand troops in order to try to do anything
in Ukraine at this point, well to that demand of NATO.
With all due respect, Mr Putin, go to hell, I mean, please,
never going to happen. I hate to get political about
it this about this, but it does strike me that
I thought Trump was the Russian stooge who Putin was

(04:44):
running rough shot over and that that Biden would stand
up to him. Yeah. No, And I think the other
calculation that Putin's are making is that he's probably only
got about a year left of the Democrats running the
country right now, because the Republicans will come and take
over the House and the Senate next fall. Let's saying
if that happens without the president, it doesn't matter. You're
just gonna see a lot more Republican influence here. So yeah, no,

(05:07):
for sure, we were elected because Joe Biden was gonna
save NATO. It was gonna be great. Um and he
and he was going to force them to back down.
And and it's just the opposite. Is like everything else
you've been gasolate from, you know, these people about what
actually happened during the last free years and the Trump
administration and and um, now here we go, the student's
gonna start. So you've talked before about how many retired

(05:29):
generals there are out there in the media. So there
there's an awful lot of them, and they they there
are a lot of different opinions among them. I've heard
some opinions that Putin most likely is going to do
something because this is way too expensive to just be
a bluff. How do you feel about that? I agree
it is. It is too expensive. You can't um moved

(05:52):
to the amount of troops and the logistics he's moved
not only close to the border, but second and third
tiers away from it. There from what we've seen in
satellite shots, again, I bring back Belarus by moving troops
in there and the threads making their You know, we
always knew he needed he needed Crimea because he has
to have that warm water port from for Russia to
have any kind of fordable navy power, to be able

(06:14):
to project power throughout the world. So that was gonna happen.
Happened at the Obama nothing was really responded to that
we could have moved troops into pol We could have
done a lot more things back then to repair what
was going to happen now. But I do think that
at this point, similar to US when we were moving
troops to Saudi Arabia and moving to these places, the
thirst thing I thought of it is like, you don't
move down that level of troops there without using them.

(06:36):
So it's just a just again think it's just a
matter of time. Major Mike Clients is on the phone, Mike,
I've heard it suggested that the US might indeed arm
UH the Ukrainian forces top rate as guerillas and perhaps
may get so painful and financially draining for the the
Russians that they have to pull out eventually or or
soften what they're doing. It's you know, it is straight

(06:57):
out of our playbook in Afghanistan way back in the
eighties and nineties. What do you think of that possibility, Well,
I think it's a little bit more challenging because Ukraine's
more of a developed country. It's a built up area
they don't have. That happened in Afghanistan because the terrain,
because they were able to use the terrain against the
Russia invaders at the point. But now Ukraine's got built

(07:19):
up areas. It's it's red basket. It grows wheat, it's
not It doesn't have the same advantages that you would
from a from a counterinsurgency perspective to try to do that.
I don't know how we're gonna get that money in
the first thing he's gonna do is like likely sealed
the border. He's gonna own those areas within the Black Sea,
Odessa and places without you know, so supplies. You're not
coming in from from water. He's he's sealed off the

(07:42):
northern portion. It's gonna come only from the east. I'm
not sure how that stuff is getting there. And this
is what this has come down to, And that's what
the calculus is is what's there now, what's going to
get there in the future? On how basket he closed
it off. It's just not the same kind of place
to conduct the counterinsurgency. It's it's not it's not a
desert of a rock, or it's not the mountains of Afghanistan.
Ukraine is built up areas that he can easily control

(08:04):
with the forces he's got there. So we um, we're
threatening all kinds of sanctions Europe is threatening and then
you know they'd be after the fact, loaning of arms
and all that sort of stuff that we've talked about.
But you said it would be over too fast for
us to help even if we wanted to. How do
you see this playing out militarily? Is it something that
last days, weeks, months? How does how does that look days,

(08:25):
two weeks or so? Let's say I mean the kind
of material and equipment that they have on their border
there is in line with more of like a blitz
Creek heavy armor infantry mobilized mechanized infantry type operation that
will move very quickly in areas that they'll bypass where
there's any strongholds, like the Ukrainian military has built up.

(08:46):
They've done certain things, but I think they're we're setting
themselves up to a big failure as well. Um, they'll
just bypassed any of those strong points and then you know,
hook back around them and then looked us around them
and choked them off. So I just it's gonna it's
gonna go too fast for us to try to think
we're gonna get anything there with any time, with any
kind of urgency that's going to help the Ukrainian military

(09:08):
do with what they need to do. You know, Mike
cat like to circle back to one of the first
things you said. You're describing how Russia is a decaying country,
how it's economically you know, bordering Third World is um
I did hear it asked the other day by somebody
I can't remember who. Do you have a single product
in your home, in your garage where you work that
was made in Russia? And the answer is absolutely not.

(09:32):
Right now that they are one they're one trick pony,
and that is energy gas. Um. You know that pipeline
is important to them. But at some point this taking
Ukraine brings another economic lever intom and that's wheat, and
that's other other products that come out of the country
that will likely, you know, be closed off initially, but
look what sanctions have done to run that's that's that's

(09:52):
stopped them. They still continue to fund terrorism. I mean,
we continue to talk this good game with all these partners,
but at the end of the day, some of these
partners have to still do business with with Iran and
then something in some cases the Germans again, for example,
the Germans outsourced energy. You've got to be kidding me,
you know, they outsourced their energy to the Russians here
and now they're talking about closing off the pipeline. This

(10:14):
is just talked because at the end of the day,
there's not going to be cold nights in Germany just
because of this. They're just gonna say, you know, well,
we're gonna we'll figure it out and and we'll continue
to buy our energy from from the Russians after closing
down all the nuclear plants, so you know, you get
will go broke, because really, what's happen to some of
these just you know, these Western European countries. Final question,
if you were in charge, do you think this is

(10:35):
worth American lives? You know, if we had the opportunity, Yeah,
not one at this point. It's it's unfortunate. It's the
way of the world. It's it's again, it's so many
things could have happened in the past, not to this spot.
But as you look at China with their hundred year
view of the world, Russia is probably more ten to fifteen.

(10:56):
And how this has been going on, you know since then,
the fact that they want to restore NATO back to
who tells me that Russia has been looking at this
for the past twenty years, but we're every four years.
Every four years, we decided to change and we can't
kind of figure out what to do there. So I
think again the die has been cast for this to happen. Um.
Ronald Reagan try to foresee that back when he was president,

(11:17):
for example, recognized the nuclear problem to the disarmament. This
is this transcends just the conventional side of Ukraine. It's
the missile trees that we don't have anymore with the
Chinese and the Russians, and it's all the other things
that are gonna escalate as an arms race that's gonna
take place once this happens. And the question is how
can we get the lid back on that as soon
as possible. I'm not sure we have the intellectual capital,
I'm not sure we have the stomach to do that
within this this administration, at least, whether or not the

(11:39):
next administration just will see it's an ugly world. Major
Mike lyons a great follow on Twitter. By the way,
Mike is always great fun to talk to you. Thanks
a million for making the time. Oakkay, thanks for having me.
It's an ugly world, Like Joe just said, it always
has been. We had a brief period that we all
got lulled into thinking, No, this is the natural state

(11:59):
of things where everything you know, one country wouldn't invade
another country. That just can't happen anymore. And we got
lulled in to thinking that the stated world. No, this
is the state of the world. The bully on the
playground does whatever the hell he wants unless somebody can
stop them. That's the state of the world, right, And
you can keep him out of year yard, but you
probably can't keep him out of two yards away unless

(12:21):
you're willing to fight him. And everybody's got to come
up with their own self interesting, like Mike Line said, no,
no, no no, not one, not one. American life is worth this.
So you know, hey, Europe, you want to send some troops,
go ahead. Otherwise that what are you gonna do? Interesting?
And Putin knows that too, of course he does. Yeah,
he's not much of a sentimentalist. Putent right, more like
a reptile. I'm glad we talked to Mike, because man,

(12:43):
this could happen at any moment, As the White House
said yesterday,