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February 25, 2025 12 mins
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey twenty nine on a Tuesday. Regular listeners know it's
even appointment listening time. You can also find the podcast
at five Caresee dot com. Welcome back my retired lieutenant
colonel friend Daniel Davis for the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
Good to talk to you today, sir, as always.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Always a pleasure to be here. Look forward to this
every week, and so do I.

Speaker 1 (00:20):
And interesting times with Trump negotiating with Putin over a
resolution of this war, and it seems to me for
some reason it's got the left all bent out of shape.
And I don't know why, because in addition to negotiating
with Putin on some sort of resolution, he's also trying
to open up economic cooperation for the benefit of both countries.

(00:44):
And what I observe here if you put down this
whole idea that Vladimir Putin is the same thing as
the Soviet Union. And I know he doesn't have clean hands,
but we work and trade with a lot of countries
who don't have clean hands, right, I mean, we're picking
and choosing who is good and who's bad. And I
point to the Chinese gum in the Chinese Communist Party.
We trade with them all the time, and they are
our outstanding number one enemy in the world. So putting

(01:07):
that aside, though, if we could negotiate some sort of
economic cooperation along with this and along with resolving the conflict,
and I know you want to talk about that, but
that would, I would argue, have the result of benefiting
both countries economically. We can stop worrying about getting into
a shooting war with the Solviet or with the Russians.

(01:28):
Here I slipped with the Russians. You know, NATO wouldn't
have to concern itself with being invaded by Vladimir Putin,
and it might tear the getting cozier relationship between Russia
and China away, so we got all focus on the
real enemy, which is China. I don't know, I'm just
I know, I'm kind of sort of on a stream
of consciousness on this, but I don't see this discussion

(01:51):
as a bad thing in any way. Your reactions, sir, well.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
My initial reaction, Brian is, I don't know how much
you like your job, but if you wanted to quit
and go work as a deputy, say secretary of state,
I would endorse you're a person to go and do that,
because man, I would love that kind of view up
at the Secretary of State, because you're absolutely nailing all
the things that are important to the United States. I mean,
that's what Trump ran on. He ran on wanted to

(02:15):
be the America First. He actually signed that into an
executive order that his foreign policy would be America First.
And he's doing exactly what he said he was going
to do, and so far, all of those things you
mentioned are good for the United States. And I guess
to answer your question about you know why this is
and why there's so much reticence and resistance from the
Europeans especially, Yeah, it's because we've tied all of this

(02:38):
action over the last three years to our credibility as
an alliance and even to the essence of who we are.
We said, and I actually did this on my show
yesterday a little bit kind of running through the history
of the last three years and in just a few minutes,
but basically we said that Russia had to lose, Ukraine
had to win at the outset of the war, and

(02:59):
then everything to that extent was said throughout the rest
of it.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
And many still say to this.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
Day they cannot conceive of not winning, even if it
comes to the expense of benefits to our country, as
you pointed out, and so far it looks like Trump
is willing to just blow off all that pressure to
do what makes sense.

Speaker 1 (03:18):
Well, the alliance that we're talking about here was built
on a post World War two Europe that needed to
be rebuilt, but also then immediately began to be fearful
of the Soviet Union and their communist ways. I mean,
FDR sold out all those Eastern European countries at Yalta.
They became a part of the Iron Curtain. Their lives
became miserable. Postfall of the Soviet Union, many of them

(03:40):
became more prosperous. I mean Ukraine, for example, breadbasket of
Europe at least at one point until this war showed up,
so they were in a better position. I just don't
know understand why again, this animosity and this fear that
we have over Russia now them invading.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
I'll tell you though, on.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
That point there, it's important because there's another benefit that
happened prior to February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, and
that was that Europe was significantly benefiting from Russian oil
and gas because it was coming in at a very
low price, which benefited all of Europe and all of
their economy, and everything was predicated on low inputs, low
cost of inputs, so that they could have cost of outputs,

(04:24):
they could have higher profits and all that kind of thing.
We have absolutely shot ourselves in the foot and maybe
even one knee by keeping these sanctions on Russia because
it's harmed us a lot more than it has them.
And listen, all of this, all of this, one hundred
percent came from our absolute overt insistence on putting NATO
into Ukraine, something that would never keep anybody in Europe safer.

(04:47):
All that would do is exactly what it did is
raise the tensions, increase the chance of something bad happening
where we could end up in a war, and it
didn't do anything but destroy Ukraine. That is I think
going to be one of the biggest blights on the West,
on the previous administration that history can put on us.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Yeah, country filled with land mines in a post war situation.
It's just just a terrible thought when you come when
it comes down to it, and.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
I drew a parallel.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
I just kind of bounced this off your head. Earlier
in the program I said, you know, if you look
like Crimea, for example, the vast majority of folks there
were pro Russia. They didn't have any problem with the
Russians taking them over. I said, you know, it's a
lot like those multiple counties in Illinois that want to
become part of Indiana or half of the state of
California that wants to break off and separate itself from

(05:32):
the insane leftists that currently run the country. You know,
we're not going to get Crimea back. And if you
ask the Crimeans, they probably would say, we don't want
to go back.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
Ohred percent they and it's not just that they're pro Russian,
they're ethnic Russian. I mean they they are historically Russian.
And in fact, I may get the year wrong in this.
I think it was something about nineteen fifty. They were
part of Russia, they were part of the Soviet Union,
et cetera.

Speaker 2 (05:57):
And then I think it was the ship. Don't hold
me to that.

Speaker 3 (06:01):
It was one of the one of the Soviet premiers
just designated it to Ukraine, which didn't really cause much
of us stir at the time because it was all
within the USSR. But the historically they have been Russian
and they ethnically are still Russian and they voted. You
don't even have to ask them because they told you
what their own voice. With this plea to decide that
they overwhelmed the I think ninety five percent voted to

(06:22):
be in Russian and all of them Russians and Ukrainian
Crimeans consider themselves to be Russians today, so that's never
coming back. And that's the case with the majority of
the area that is under Russia control today in terms
of ethnic Russians that are in there, and it's even
on the other side of the line up to the
Danepa River, still significant portions are ethnic Russians. When that

(06:44):
outcome is kind of what a lot of people are
wondering where these negotiations are going, because a great many
of those people want to go to Russia as well.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Well.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Trump talking directly with Putin to the exclusion of Lensky,
that seems to have rubbed them the wrong way. He's
also though, negotiating with the President of Ukraine's Lensky to
deal with economic relationships with them, because they have stuff
that we would like to buy, and if we buy it,
then that benefits them economically. So there seems to be
an air of positivity associated with it in a post

(07:15):
war environment, how do you think Trump is dealing with
the war component? He can talk with Peutin all day
long about economic relationships, but settling the war, how do
you think he's going to approach that and what announcement
do you think is going to come from that if any?

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Yeah, that's going to be the really difficult part, which
is kind of shrouded in mystery so far. I'm sure
that's intentional because I'm sure there's lots of discussions about.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Where the line is going to be.

Speaker 3 (07:43):
Is it going to be on the current line of
contact between the two Is it going to be on
the administrative borders of the for oblasted Russia annexed in
twenty twenty two, because right now a subsiizable portion of
all three of the southern provinces are still under Ukrainian control,
and for that to be the line, which Russians is
their minimum standard, Ukraine would have to withdraw from there

(08:04):
and abandon those areas through negotiations, not being forced out
by war.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
That's what I advocate.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
I think that's the best thing that could happen, because
the alternative is that Russia doesn't agree to the current
line of contact, and they continue marching forward with their
armed forces until they seize territory by force of RUMs,
which means more Ukrainians would die. The line's going to
be over there, in my view, one way or the other,
either by negotiations where a lot of Ukraines have to
suffer the embarrassment but are alive to withdraw out, or

(08:33):
they'll take it and those people will be dead. And
so I think that it's that stark of an option
right now, and it's unknown right now what Trump's going
to agree to.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Do you think there's an economic component that would benefit
Ukraine in that type of resolution, like, hey, okay, we're
willing to concede the territory, but Russia, you got to
do something for us, maybe providing energy or other resources. Again,
if you have free trade between those two countries after
you resolve your differences, it can only benefit both countries.
Is there a dangling carrot in there for Ukraine that

(09:02):
can make a concession.

Speaker 2 (09:05):
You would have to.

Speaker 3 (09:06):
Have Russia make a concession from a position of strength
that they don't have to make. They don't have to
offer almost anything because Russia is willing to pay the
price of losing more their soldiers, extending the war, and
the cost to go along with that, in order to
secure this what they view as their minimum security requirements
on their border. That's the real crux of all this

(09:27):
is that Putin is not looking at the getting the
war over with. He's looking at the long term security
on his western border and why they went to war
in the first place. If he thinks the current line
of contact won't provide him that long term security, he
won't agree to it, and he doesn't have to. And
if Trump doesn't, Russia will just keep fighting. And that's
the problem is that Russia has leverage that we don't have.

(09:47):
But to your question about the economics, Ukraine, whatever is
going to be left of it will one hundred percent
benefit economically because Europe is standing by already and that
was in Trump's meeting with MACRONI yesterday. They're standing boy
to have all kinds of post war development and you know,
taking care of things that were destroyed, etc. So there's
a lot of benefit for the Ukraine's not the least

(10:10):
of which nobody else would have to die.

Speaker 1 (10:12):
Now if this treaty, if a treaty resolution land concessions
that Russia gets what they want. There's all this talk
about peacekeeping forces being kept in Ukraine. Do you think
there's really a necessary element of a peacekeeping force? If
Russia ultimately gets back or gets its Russian components out

(10:33):
of Ukraine, a new line is drawn. Is there any
further risk of Russia saying that's screw it, We're going
to go for the whole thing. I mean, if they
want to do that, they already have the force in
place right now, and they can just do it. There's
reports out this morning that in the Russian media and
the Russian military media that what Zelensky had said last

(10:54):
week was one hundred and fifty thousand formation of Russian
forces is actually closer to two hundred thousand in contact.
It's in addition to everything that's about seven hundred thousand
on the line of contact right now Russian forces, there's
another two hundred thousand, which by the way, is bigger,
probably by a factor of two, than the one that
invaded Ukraine in the first place.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
That's the size we're talking about.

Speaker 3 (11:14):
It's not engaged anywhere, it is positioned to where it
can go into a number of different places. If negotiations
apparently break down so they can do it right now.
But I think that they want to get things done
diplomatically as long as they can get what they think
is their security going forward. And that's really what it
all comes down to, all.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
Right, As we've parted coming to today, Daniel Davis, I
just always thoroughly enjoyed these conversations. Do you see this
a negotiated resolution happening in the near term, you know,
like weeks as opposed to six months or another year.

Speaker 3 (11:50):
Well, Trump yesterday at his press conference said out loud
that he thinks that Zelensky could be here either this
week or next week to sign a deal for the
mineral right, and then he said the war itself could
be wrapped up within a few weeks. He had his
National security advisor earlier that morning yesterday said he could
be done.

Speaker 2 (12:07):
As quickly as a week or two.

Speaker 3 (12:10):
So he's definitely thinking that this is in the end
game right now. And then the question is going to be,
is Zelenski you gonna accept it? Because I'm thinking that
Trump is getting to the position to where he's not
going to say to Zelenski, you either accept this deal
or good luck to you, and you're up trying to
figure it out on your own because we're coming to
an end.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
I think that's what Trump's setting up.

Speaker 1 (12:28):
Fair enough. This has been another Daniel Davis deep dive.
I've always looked forward to it. I'm already looking forward
to another one next Tuesday. Daniel. Have a wonderful week, sir,
and thanks for spending time with my listeners. In me.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
Same to you. I love you guys, to see you
next time.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
Take care, brother eight forty two fifty five care. See
the talk station joking up up the phone line. If
you want to comment on something, please fill three five one,
three seven four nine to fifty five hundred eight hundred
and eight two three talk pound five fifty on AT
and T phones.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
I'll be right back.

Speaker 3 (12:51):
This is fifty five KARC an iHeartRadio station.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
My name is car

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