Speaker 1: Ay twenty nine, Happy Tuesday. If if you have KCD talk station,
Speaker 1: it is that time of week. We do a deep
Speaker 1: Dive with Daniel Davis. Find them online where your podcasts
Speaker 1: are found, The Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Retired Lieutenant Colonel
Speaker 1: Daniel Davis, It's always great having you on my program sir.
Speaker 2: And it's always great to be here. All right.
Speaker 1: So Europeans finally stepping up and maybe wanting to engage
Speaker 1: in the process involving the war between Russian and Ukraine.
Speaker 1: I get this sense that up to this point they
Speaker 1: sort of kind of been sitting on the sidelines. I know,
Speaker 1: we have been the dominant resource for Ukrainian military in
Speaker 1: terms of aid, and you, as I have gone over
Speaker 1: this many times before, it doesn't seem like it's really
Speaker 1: stopping Russian incursion and the Ukrainians seem to be losing
Speaker 1: the battle. So now that Trump's working directly with Vladimir
Speaker 1: Putin trying to negotiate some sort of peace resolution, the
Speaker 1: European Union is now stepping up to the plate in
Speaker 1: some way. What's the story, backstory or otherwise on this one,
Speaker 1: Daniel Davis.
Speaker 3: Well, you know, I think it's not some that they're
Speaker 3: stepping up is that they have been very content to
Speaker 3: let the Body administration in the United States, through the
Speaker 3: Biden administration, take all of the lead because then Biden
Speaker 3: and the European Union were all in lockstep. Everybody agreed
Speaker 3: that Russia has to lose, that Ukraine has to win,
Speaker 3: and we're going to just give them all of our stuff,
Speaker 3: at least in dribs and drabs, just to perpetuate the war,
Speaker 3: to keep it going, because anything to keep Russia from winning.
Speaker 3: Now in here comes Donald Trump, and suddenly the United
Speaker 3: States is taking about a forty five degree angle course change,
Speaker 3: and the rest of Europe is still on the previous course,
Speaker 3: and they don't like it very much at all, and
Speaker 3: they want to try to pull Trump back onto it.
Speaker 3: So in one hand, they're taking the lead only because
Speaker 3: they're trying to go back to where they were before.
Speaker 2: They don't want to change.
Speaker 3: So you have really some strange comments coming out of
Speaker 3: uk where you have Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister, saying
Speaker 3: that they want to put troops into Ukraine as part
Speaker 3: of any kind of a deal that they want to
Speaker 3: keep this thing going. You have the the Polish Foreign
Speaker 3: Minister it's just we cannot stop this war.
Speaker 2: We have to keep going, et cetera.
Speaker 3: Meanwhile, you have, and this is out just hours ago,
Speaker 3: you have senior Trump and Putin officials meeting in in Ryod.
Speaker 3: Right now in Saudi Arabia, you have the you're the
Speaker 3: Lavrov and some other key Russian leaders are saying the
Speaker 3: same thing. Trump is saying that this has to be
Speaker 3: negotiated between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Everybody else can
Speaker 3: figure out what's gonna happen later. And they specified that
Speaker 3: the UK and EU they specified them by name, cannot
Speaker 3: be part of this because they are wholly bent on
Speaker 3: preparing for war with Russia. Zelensky can't be a part
Speaker 3: of it because he won't acknowledge reality.
Speaker 2: Only the US and Russia.
Speaker 3: And so that's making Ukraine, the European Union and others unhappy.
Speaker 3: But so far Russia and US seem to be driving
Speaker 3: the train. Okay, let me just pose a question here.
Speaker 3: I mean my entire life, Daniel, as I've been watching,
Speaker 3: you know, conflicts around the world, peace in the Middle East,
Speaker 3: and how long you've been here for that?
Speaker 2: Peace in the Middle East.
Speaker 1: Every new administration since my birth has engaged in peace
Speaker 1: in the Middle East? Now, why is it always the
Speaker 1: United States' responsibility to endeavor to negotiate peace in war
Speaker 1: torn areas? Okay, So with that sort of background thought
Speaker 1: in mind, what would happen if we just said, you
Speaker 1: know what, we're gonna wash our hands of this European Union.
Speaker 1: You think you got it right, knock yourselves out. Well,
Speaker 1: we seem to be moving in that direction.
Speaker 3: And in fact, you had at this Munich security conference
Speaker 3: last week, you had Zelenski himself was point blank ask
Speaker 3: can the you continue to fight without the support from
Speaker 3: the United States? What would happen if you lost it?
Speaker 3: And he said, we'd lose the war. We couldn't fight
Speaker 3: without it, we couldn't continue on without it. So that
Speaker 3: tells you right there that there is the cognition on
Speaker 3: the Ukraine side that hey, without the United States, this
Speaker 3: is not.
Speaker 2: Going to work.
Speaker 3: You had Keir Starmer last not tell it, go on
Speaker 3: a national television between in his country and say that
Speaker 3: the European Union is ready to step up with troops
Speaker 3: for to you know, support it, seasfire and all this
Speaker 3: kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: But it can't work, no security.
Speaker 3: Guarantees without the United states, it is essential that the US.
Speaker 3: So it's not even US trying to impose ourself on
Speaker 3: people now, it's Trump trying to extricate ourselves. And I
Speaker 3: guess because of all of the decades you're talking about
Speaker 3: where that's been the case, they don't want to be
Speaker 3: able to go it alone. But here's the thing that
Speaker 3: none of these people in the European Union anyway seem
Speaker 3: willing to acknowledge that they're not the Ukraine side, and
Speaker 3: European Union don't have the capacity for Ukraine to do
Speaker 3: anything except lose more slowly, right, Okay, And I.
Speaker 1: Was just gonna say that. I mean, this is shining
Speaker 1: a light on the lack of preparedness among all the
Speaker 1: European Union countries are NATO allies. I saw a figure
Speaker 1: the other day. Germany only has what one hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people in its military or something crazy like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they have no military hardware equipment anymore.
Speaker 1: They can't not only can they I guess, not afford
Speaker 1: to give away supplies, but even if they embrace the
Speaker 1: concept of trying to support a militarily, they've got nothing
Speaker 1: to draw from.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and uk is not much different.
Speaker 3: I think it's one hundred and eighty six thousand, if
Speaker 3: I'm not mistaken, the entire active armed forces, that's not
Speaker 3: just the fighters. I think that there you might can
Speaker 3: get two combat divisions out of the entire UK military.
Speaker 2: Two divisions. That's a drop in the bucket when you're
Speaker 2: talking about a.
Speaker 3: European wide war and they're talking about possibly ten to
Speaker 3: twenty five thousand UK soldiers to be patrolling this mythical
Speaker 3: seasfire line, which I don't think Russia will ever agree to,
Speaker 3: so I think that's a dead on arrival conversation anyway.
Speaker 2: But he's talking about signific.
Speaker 3: Shifting a significant portion of his combat forces to just
Speaker 3: be standing in the middle between two fighting forces, which
Speaker 3: is just really strange to me.
Speaker 1: Well, I was thinking about our prior conversations and this
Speaker 1: veiled threat that, oh my god, if Russia, you know,
Speaker 1: ends up winning and taking over Ukraine, it's somehow some
Speaker 1: existential threat to our NATO allies of the European Union.
Speaker 1: And you and I have talked about this before and
Speaker 1: said there's no way Russia can wage that kind of war.
Speaker 1: But with the backdrop of these very paltry, underfunded and
Speaker 1: small supplied military forces.
Speaker 2: I don't know, maybe maybe it is a legitimate Do
Speaker 2: you think two things are important? Right now?
Speaker 3: Russia is signaling that their conditions are and they've reiterated
Speaker 3: this from the June fourteenth line last summer. They're saying
Speaker 3: today that it's the four oblosts, the Zepparisia, Luhans, Donsk
Speaker 3: and Kirshn, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and that has yet
Speaker 3: to be deciphered. And then and negotiation are a deal
Speaker 3: signed with a new Ukrainian leader who has passed an election.
Speaker 3: It is legitimate to be able to author a sign
Speaker 3: That's what they're calling for. They're not saying that we
Speaker 3: want to go somewhere else and we want to attack
Speaker 3: something else. If Trump is able to agree to that,
Speaker 3: that's the end of it right there. That leaves the
Speaker 3: European Union everybody else free to provide their own national security, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, Secretary of Defense Hexcess said, you guys
Speaker 3: ought to focus on Article three of the Natal Charter,
Speaker 3: which says every nation is required to provide its own
Speaker 3: national security.
Speaker 2: Right. So Trump is moving in that direction, and I
Speaker 2: really applaud that.
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess and I half jokingly bring this up
Speaker 1: because I have a feeling you probably agree with me
Speaker 1: that the United Nations is probably the most corrupt and
Speaker 1: incompetent entity on the planet. I may be overstating a
Speaker 1: little bit, but aren't there you in peacekeeping forces?
Speaker 2: And why do they always seem.
Speaker 1: To be suspiciously absent in major conflicts? Daniel, Yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean, of course there are no quote you in peacekeepers.
Speaker 1: I know, they're just soldiers from other countries that wear
Speaker 1: a blue helmet. And of course they're powerless because they're
Speaker 1: only there for peacekeepers, which by definition means that there
Speaker 1: has been a peace agreement reached and the two sides
Speaker 1: have agreed that that's what's going to happen, and then
Speaker 1: they just sit in the middle to try to make
Speaker 1: it harder for one side or the other to break it.
Speaker 3: Obviously, Russia is not even contemplating that. In fact, they
Speaker 3: said there will be no peacekeepers. That's part of what
Speaker 3: they define is the demilitarization of Ukraine, not the remilitarization
Speaker 3: by bringing Western military forces into the conflict.
Speaker 2: So they're never going to agree to it. And Russia
Speaker 2: has said.
Speaker 3: If there's troops come in that are that we don't
Speaker 3: agree to under the EUN auspices. Interestingly enough, then we'll
Speaker 3: consider them enemy combatants. Now we don't care what nationality are,
Speaker 3: and we'll fight them. And you had Hexcess say, if
Speaker 3: y'all do that, Europe, there's no Article five here and
Speaker 3: there won't be any American troops as well. So that's
Speaker 3: going to give an appetite suppression to Europe, I think.
Speaker 3: But I'll just tell you, Brian, overall, I think that
Speaker 3: this is just the death throws of the way things
Speaker 3: have always been in Europe, not realizing that there's you know,
Speaker 3: a new force in a America coming in, going in
Speaker 3: a different direction, but they're gonna have to come in
Speaker 3: line because they don't have the capacity.
Speaker 2: To do what they want to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wonder how much of this is being
Speaker 1: driven by the UH military industrial complex. You know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people with powerful interests and a lot
Speaker 1: of money feeding the fuel fuel for the fire, and
Speaker 1: as long as that more continues to rage, then you
Speaker 1: know who's going to be making money off of it,
Speaker 1: Which is a really sorry thing to contemplate. Lots of
Speaker 1: unpack on that one, Daniel Davis, but I sure appreciate
Speaker 1: your insight and your thoughts on it, and I'll always say,
Speaker 1: as I always do, look forward to another discussion with
Speaker 1: you in another deep dive next Tuesday at eight thirty.
Speaker 1: Between now and then, best to health, my friend, see
Speaker 1: you then, looking forward to it. It's a thirty nine
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