Daniel Davis Deep Dive

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
About KRCD talk station. It's Tuesday regular listeners. No, it's

(00:03):
appointment listening because we're doing a Daniel Davis deep die
with the retired lieutenant colonel, talking wars, talking ceasefire agreements,
and of course a new sheriff in town, Donald Trump
making some bold, bold, bold promises to get that Russia
Ukraine war settled. Welcome back, Daniel David's always a pleasure
to have you on my program. It's always a pleasure
to be here, Brian, thanks for having me. Well, let's

(00:23):
start with the Israel Palestinian prisoner exchange. They entered into
a ceasefire agreement. Some of the hostages have been released.
I guess I kind of been wondering in the back
of my head. The status of the hostages is largely unknown.
We do know that some of many of them have died,
but do we have a head count on how many
remain alive and how soon will they all be released?

(00:45):
And I guess a more broad question because I have
no faith that this ceasefire agreement has going to remain.
I just think the AMAS is going to just tank it.
But what's your take on where we stand on that one?

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Daniel?

Speaker 3 (00:58):
Yeah, we don't know to your question, their head count.
We don't know who's live, who's not, how many are there.
The Humasaid has intentionally kept that vague to continue to
give themselves leverage.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
One of the things they're afraid of.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Is if they just gave all the hostages back in
one big, you know, passage, then all their leverage is
gone and there's nothing to stop Israel from returning to
the fight. And that's one of the things they continue
to be very worried about. So that's why they've kind
of spread it out over a long period of time
that I think the plan is three hostages every seven
days until it's six weeks. Then all the rest of

(01:35):
the hostages are supposed to be released and there'll be
a big whatever is left after that, they will be
in a big push into Phase two allegedly if the
thing gets that far. It's been a bit of a
problem because this cease far has really shown how Hezbolay
has really weathered this storm much better even than I

(01:55):
thought that they would. In their tunnel systems, they have
rebuilt a lot of the tunnel system ms. You actually
had a secretary blinking on the way out admit that
Hamas had almost completely rebuilt its strength.

Speaker 2 (02:06):
So it is really a stunning.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Development that Israel is no closer to success today than
they were before then. And I think that in many
ways the Israeli side needed this ceasefire more than the
Hamas side did. But I suspect that both sides are
going to use the opportunity to rebuild their strength. So
to your point, I don't see any evidence this is
going to be over anytime soon, but at least, thankfully
for the people of Palestine, the daily killing has at

(02:31):
least temporarily stopped.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Yeah, And I guess part of you wonders what the
political reality will be in the stability of the ceasefire
arrangement if more of the hostages have actually been killed
and there really aren't that many left remaining, to you know,
hand back over, that situation sounds like it might be
a politically volatile in terms of this the relationship being

(02:55):
lasting or not.

Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, the only thing that mitigate against it is everybody's
very aware that possibly as many as half of the
remaining hostages that they've identified are probably not alive. So
it won't shock anyone, but especially for the family members
they they all most of them are saying they're not well,
not that they don't care, but that the one way
or know that they want their person back no matter what,

(03:17):
whether they were alive or dead, they.

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Just want you know, the proof or so.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Yeah, so it's still a big issue there. Well, this
I was unaware that they had done so much rebuilding.
I find it almost not I'm not questioning your authority
or what you're saying, but in the midst of this conflict,
when Israel's presence is fully there, that they had the
opportunity and the ability to rebuild all those tunnels, and
with the ceasefire agreement in place, they've got all the

(03:42):
opportunity of the world to continue rebuilding, which means basically,
if they go back to fighting each other, it sounds
like both sides are starting at square one.

Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it does.

Speaker 3 (03:53):
And you know, a lot of this was exposed not
just by Secretary of blink and saying it out loud,
but Hamas had a parade, an actual parade following the
ceasefire when it was announced. A lot of them came
out of their tunnels and you know, they're in uniform
and they don't have lots of their equipment, their vehicles,
their rockets. It shows that they never lost all of
their capacity, even though the images on the on the

(04:15):
surface looked literally like a moonscape, shocking the amount of destruction.
But under the ground, they've weathered that storm. Yeah, and
I saw a photograph the other day the same thing.
My just my mouth fell open.

Speaker 1 (04:27):
It's just it, it's I mean, it's completely in hospitality
to people living there. There are no buildings, they're all
blown up, and they're in piles and rubble, and I
just just wonder what kind of rebuilding effort is going
to go on, And I mean, can they even rebuild?
And where the resource is going to come to rebuild.

Speaker 2 (04:47):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (04:47):
You know, a lot of people in America don't know it,
but in the the Korean War, in the latter stages
of the Korean War, when we were trying to get
the the armistice signed, the US.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Air Force almost literally.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
Wiped out every village and town in North Korea, turned
it entirely into rubble. And the same question was there too.
But the people will find a way to do it.
There's already some talk, especially among the Arabs in the
Middle East, about funding a lot of this Europe is
to wanting to do some et cetera.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
But it's going to be.

Speaker 3 (05:18):
Decades plural before that stuff gets done. And of course
it won't even start until there's some kind of political settlement.
It won't even start until then, So it's a long
long road.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
To hoe well.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Of course, pivoting over to the Russia Ukraine situation, at
least I suppose Ukraine has enough quote unquote resources that
at least it'll be more financially able to perhaps do
some rebuilding. They do have the bread basket, they have resources.
They of course would have some measure of support from
the NATO countries the European Union given how their proximity,

(05:52):
whether or not they're let in or not as a
completely different story, but in order to resolve that conflict,
as you and I have talked about, and Donald Trump
wants to settle, that Ukraine's going to have to make
some major concessions. I mean, seems like Russia has all
the cards. Well they really do it.

Speaker 3 (06:07):
And and two events over the last since you and
I were on last have been published that got almost
no notice here in the West, but that are crucial
and vital to this especially as Trump has now assumed office,
and that on the Ukraine side you had their General Sersky,
their commander in chief of the armed forces, admitted that
they are not even able to force mobilize enough people

(06:30):
to offset their losses. So we flatly said, we are
basically our armed forces are shrinking. We suspected this all along,
but he has now confirmed it. Even if they go
to eighteen year old and lower the age down to mobilization,
there simply aren't enough.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Men to be able to offset the losses.

Speaker 3 (06:46):
And they're bringing in thousands every month, but they set
their casualties are more than that every single month. On
the other side, you have their national security Russian national
security advisor and one of their other senior members of
their government have said that they plan to they have
a plan, a resource plan to win the war by

(07:06):
twenty twenty five. So they're already thinking we're gonna keep
We're not. There's not an eminent wind of this, but
we're going all through twenty twenty five, and we plan
on taking all four of the territories that they have
annexe et cetera. Deep notzify the government. However they want
to define that et cetera. But that's important because they
are not thinking, hey, we want Trump to come into

(07:26):
negotiating into this. On the current line of contact, We're
going to keep going until we have all four of
those oblasts. And as you just said, they don't have
to negotiate an into it. They can just keep fighting
until they seize it by force. But the Ukraine side can't.
I mean, it's just they don't have the capacity.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
Well, and you know, going back to your comments and
observations about the North Korean soldiers going to fight in
that conflict on Russia's side in order to get experience
and learn how to be effective fighters. If Ukraine is
basically snatching up every you know, a live male person
in the country eighteen and up and putting them on

(08:04):
the front line, so those folks don't have experience, and
they're more than likely going to be casualties the season fighters,
the veterans more than likely have been killed already, wouldn't
you think.

Speaker 2 (08:14):
Oh, one hundred percent, that's absolutely right.

Speaker 3 (08:17):
That's and that's a bigger issue than people who don't
have military experience may realize, because too many times you think, well,
you'll just mobilize more people and put another fifty thousand
in uniform.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
But a uniform doesn't make you a soldier.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
It just means you're a civilian who's wearing a uniform
and here's a rifle, go fire that direction, and they
have no idea what they're doing. You can't function as
a as a coherent fighting force unless you have trained
people at every single level, all the way up, you know,
from private up to colonel in general or whatever. The Russians,
because they have more people, they've had the luxury of

(08:51):
training a lot of their guys over many months out
of contact, and then they'll rotate out people who at
key leader levels into new units here, so they'll bring
people back in. So when they have this unit that's
getting beat down, they'll take the unit out, they'll bring
a new one back in, and then this is already trained.
But the Ukraine side, they literally throw everybody that they

(09:11):
get into uniform into the front lines, almost no training,
and that's just militarily unsustainable. So that gets into this
calculation for Trump as well.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
Now we got a new Secretary of State unanimous to
confirmed yesterday, Marco Rubio. And is that in any way,
shape or form a game changer, A new president who's
wanting and desirous of settling the conflict. Marco Rubio at
the helm here at the State, what do you think
about that?

Speaker 3 (09:35):
Well, it definitely is a game changer, without question, because
the outgoing administration just kept saying for as long as
it takes, and you know, shoveling money out the door
on their way out of office, with no strategy, no
plan whatsoever to how this could result in anything positive.
At least Trump is coming in. Both the Secretary of
Rubio as well as Trump has continued to say we're

(09:56):
looking for a negotiated settlement.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
He said. Trump said it again last night.

Speaker 3 (10:00):
Yes, he says, you know, Russia's hurting and you know
they can't just they can They're grinding it out is
the term he used. But he also said, but they
have more people, so he acknowledges that just the math
is going to be moving in this direction. So the
President and Secretary of State are both talking about this
is going to have to be a negotiated settlement.

Speaker 1 (10:17):
Well, and part of the leverage of getting the Ukrainians
that negotiate and maybe express a more desire to perhaps
make these concessions if we quit funding them and giving
them weapons that presents a genuine problem for them, that's
going to knock them back on value.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
Well, it doesn't. That's one of the other things.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
I'm glad you brought that up, because that's one of
it was surprising too many to include myself, that Trump
didn't mention Ukraine at all or Russia at all during
the entire inauguration speech, but he did give some codes
in there, and he said, we're going to stop any
kind of foreign aid if it can't be shown that
it actually is in America's interest to do so. And
I think that was a definite shot across the bow

(10:56):
to the Ukraine that if we can't see how this
is going to work, it ain't gonna just keep getting
shoveled into the furnace like the Algony administration did. And
I think it's pretty clear where the Trump Administration's going. Oh,
I think most definitely that's what that was directed toward.
And of course they have folks in Ukraine closely observing
and listening and parsing out the words. They got the message,

(11:18):
and they got the message too. I sure you've seen
you Ukraine and the media this morning. They got that message.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yes, they did every Tuesday at eight thirty The Deep
Dive with Daniel Davis. Find them online to search for
Daniel Davis Deep Dive and until next Tuesday. My friend,
thank you so much for your time. Every week I
look forward to another conversation.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Always my pleasure. Thanks Bran, See you next time. Forty one.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
If you have KCD talk station, don't go away. We're
gonna be celebrating over to exits twenty fifth annivers where
you get asked the expert coming up shortly.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
Be right back.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
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