Speaker 1: About KRCD talk station. It's Tuesday regular listeners. No, it's
Speaker 1: appointment listening because we're doing a Daniel Davis deep die
Speaker 1: with the retired lieutenant colonel, talking wars, talking ceasefire agreements,
Speaker 1: and of course a new sheriff in town, Donald Trump
Speaker 1: making some bold, bold, bold promises to get that Russia
Speaker 1: Ukraine war settled. Welcome back, Daniel David's always a pleasure
Speaker 1: to have you on my program. It's always a pleasure
Speaker 1: to be here, Brian, thanks for having me. Well, let's
Speaker 1: start with the Israel Palestinian prisoner exchange. They entered into
Speaker 1: a ceasefire agreement. Some of the hostages have been released.
Speaker 1: I guess I kind of been wondering in the back
Speaker 1: of my head. The status of the hostages is largely unknown.
Speaker 1: We do know that some of many of them have died,
Speaker 1: but do we have a head count on how many
Speaker 1: remain alive and how soon will they all be released?
Speaker 1: And I guess a more broad question because I have
Speaker 1: no faith that this ceasefire agreement has going to remain.
Speaker 1: I just think the AMAS is going to just tank it.
Speaker 1: But what's your take on where we stand on that one?
Speaker 2: Daniel?
Speaker 3: Yeah, we don't know to your question, their head count.
Speaker 3: We don't know who's live, who's not, how many are there.
Speaker 3: The Humasaid has intentionally kept that vague to continue to
Speaker 3: give themselves leverage.
Speaker 2: One of the things they're afraid of.
Speaker 3: Is if they just gave all the hostages back in
Speaker 3: one big, you know, passage, then all their leverage is
Speaker 3: gone and there's nothing to stop Israel from returning to
Speaker 3: the fight. And that's one of the things they continue
Speaker 3: to be very worried about. So that's why they've kind
Speaker 3: of spread it out over a long period of time
Speaker 3: that I think the plan is three hostages every seven
Speaker 3: days until it's six weeks. Then all the rest of
Speaker 3: the hostages are supposed to be released and there'll be
Speaker 3: a big whatever is left after that, they will be
Speaker 3: in a big push into Phase two allegedly if the
Speaker 3: thing gets that far. It's been a bit of a
Speaker 3: problem because this cease far has really shown how Hezbolay
Speaker 3: has really weathered this storm much better even than I
Speaker 3: thought that they would. In their tunnel systems, they have
Speaker 3: rebuilt a lot of the tunnel system ms. You actually
Speaker 3: had a secretary blinking on the way out admit that
Speaker 3: Hamas had almost completely rebuilt its strength.
Speaker 2: So it is really a stunning.
Speaker 3: Development that Israel is no closer to success today than
Speaker 3: they were before then. And I think that in many
Speaker 3: ways the Israeli side needed this ceasefire more than the
Speaker 3: Hamas side did. But I suspect that both sides are
Speaker 3: going to use the opportunity to rebuild their strength. So
Speaker 3: to your point, I don't see any evidence this is
Speaker 3: going to be over anytime soon, but at least, thankfully
Speaker 3: for the people of Palestine, the daily killing has at
Speaker 3: least temporarily stopped.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I guess part of you wonders what the
Speaker 1: political reality will be in the stability of the ceasefire
Speaker 1: arrangement if more of the hostages have actually been killed
Speaker 1: and there really aren't that many left remaining, to you know,
Speaker 1: hand back over, that situation sounds like it might be
Speaker 1: a politically volatile in terms of this the relationship being
Speaker 1: lasting or not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the only thing that mitigate against it is everybody's
Speaker 3: very aware that possibly as many as half of the
Speaker 3: remaining hostages that they've identified are probably not alive. So
Speaker 3: it won't shock anyone, but especially for the family members
Speaker 3: they they all most of them are saying they're not well,
Speaker 3: not that they don't care, but that the one way
Speaker 3: or know that they want their person back no matter what,
Speaker 3: whether they were alive or dead, they.
Speaker 2: Just want you know, the proof or so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's still a big issue there. Well, this
Speaker 1: I was unaware that they had done so much rebuilding.
Speaker 1: I find it almost not I'm not questioning your authority
Speaker 1: or what you're saying, but in the midst of this conflict,
Speaker 1: when Israel's presence is fully there, that they had the
Speaker 1: opportunity and the ability to rebuild all those tunnels, and
Speaker 1: with the ceasefire agreement in place, they've got all the
Speaker 1: opportunity of the world to continue rebuilding, which means basically,
Speaker 1: if they go back to fighting each other, it sounds
Speaker 1: like both sides are starting at square one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it does.
Speaker 3: And you know, a lot of this was exposed not
Speaker 3: just by Secretary of blink and saying it out loud,
Speaker 3: but Hamas had a parade, an actual parade following the
Speaker 3: ceasefire when it was announced. A lot of them came
Speaker 3: out of their tunnels and you know, they're in uniform
Speaker 3: and they don't have lots of their equipment, their vehicles,
Speaker 3: their rockets. It shows that they never lost all of
Speaker 3: their capacity, even though the images on the on the
Speaker 3: surface looked literally like a moonscape, shocking the amount of destruction.
Speaker 3: But under the ground, they've weathered that storm. Yeah, and
Speaker 3: I saw a photograph the other day the same thing.
Speaker 3: My just my mouth fell open.
Speaker 1: It's just it, it's I mean, it's completely in hospitality
Speaker 1: to people living there. There are no buildings, they're all
Speaker 1: blown up, and they're in piles and rubble, and I
Speaker 1: just just wonder what kind of rebuilding effort is going
Speaker 1: to go on, And I mean, can they even rebuild?
Speaker 1: And where the resource is going to come to rebuild.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, a lot of people in America don't know it,
Speaker 3: but in the the Korean War, in the latter stages
Speaker 3: of the Korean War, when we were trying to get
Speaker 3: the the armistice signed, the US.
Speaker 2: Air Force almost literally.
Speaker 3: Wiped out every village and town in North Korea, turned
Speaker 3: it entirely into rubble. And the same question was there too.
Speaker 3: But the people will find a way to do it.
Speaker 3: There's already some talk, especially among the Arabs in the
Speaker 3: Middle East, about funding a lot of this Europe is
Speaker 3: to wanting to do some et cetera.
Speaker 2: But it's going to be.
Speaker 3: Decades plural before that stuff gets done. And of course
Speaker 3: it won't even start until there's some kind of political settlement.
Speaker 3: It won't even start until then, So it's a long
Speaker 3: long road.
Speaker 2: To hoe well.
Speaker 1: Of course, pivoting over to the Russia Ukraine situation, at
Speaker 1: least I suppose Ukraine has enough quote unquote resources that
Speaker 1: at least it'll be more financially able to perhaps do
Speaker 1: some rebuilding. They do have the bread basket, they have resources.
Speaker 1: They of course would have some measure of support from
Speaker 1: the NATO countries the European Union given how their proximity,
Speaker 1: whether or not they're let in or not as a
Speaker 1: completely different story, but in order to resolve that conflict,
Speaker 1: as you and I have talked about, and Donald Trump
Speaker 1: wants to settle, that Ukraine's going to have to make
Speaker 1: some major concessions. I mean, seems like Russia has all
Speaker 1: the cards. Well they really do it.
Speaker 3: And and two events over the last since you and
Speaker 3: I were on last have been published that got almost
Speaker 3: no notice here in the West, but that are crucial
Speaker 3: and vital to this especially as Trump has now assumed office,
Speaker 3: and that on the Ukraine side you had their General Sersky,
Speaker 3: their commander in chief of the armed forces, admitted that
Speaker 3: they are not even able to force mobilize enough people
Speaker 3: to offset their losses. So we flatly said, we are
Speaker 3: basically our armed forces are shrinking. We suspected this all along,
Speaker 3: but he has now confirmed it. Even if they go
Speaker 3: to eighteen year old and lower the age down to mobilization,
Speaker 3: there simply aren't enough.
Speaker 2: Men to be able to offset the losses.
Speaker 3: And they're bringing in thousands every month, but they set
Speaker 3: their casualties are more than that every single month. On
Speaker 3: the other side, you have their national security Russian national
Speaker 3: security advisor and one of their other senior members of
Speaker 3: their government have said that they plan to they have
Speaker 3: a plan, a resource plan to win the war by
Speaker 3: twenty twenty five. So they're already thinking we're gonna keep
Speaker 3: We're not. There's not an eminent wind of this, but
Speaker 3: we're going all through twenty twenty five, and we plan
Speaker 3: on taking all four of the territories that they have
Speaker 3: annexe et cetera. Deep notzify the government. However they want
Speaker 3: to define that et cetera. But that's important because they
Speaker 3: are not thinking, hey, we want Trump to come into
Speaker 3: negotiating into this. On the current line of contact, We're
Speaker 3: going to keep going until we have all four of
Speaker 3: those oblasts. And as you just said, they don't have
Speaker 3: to negotiate an into it. They can just keep fighting
Speaker 3: until they seize it by force. But the Ukraine side can't.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's just they don't have the capacity.
Speaker 1: Well, and you know, going back to your comments and
Speaker 1: observations about the North Korean soldiers going to fight in
Speaker 1: that conflict on Russia's side in order to get experience
Speaker 1: and learn how to be effective fighters. If Ukraine is
Speaker 1: basically snatching up every you know, a live male person
Speaker 1: in the country eighteen and up and putting them on
Speaker 1: the front line, so those folks don't have experience, and
Speaker 1: they're more than likely going to be casualties the season fighters,
Speaker 1: the veterans more than likely have been killed already, wouldn't
Speaker 1: you think.
Speaker 2: Oh, one hundred percent, that's absolutely right.
Speaker 3: That's and that's a bigger issue than people who don't
Speaker 3: have military experience may realize, because too many times you think, well,
Speaker 3: you'll just mobilize more people and put another fifty thousand
Speaker 3: in uniform.
Speaker 2: But a uniform doesn't make you a soldier.
Speaker 3: It just means you're a civilian who's wearing a uniform
Speaker 3: and here's a rifle, go fire that direction, and they
Speaker 3: have no idea what they're doing. You can't function as
Speaker 3: a as a coherent fighting force unless you have trained
Speaker 3: people at every single level, all the way up, you know,
Speaker 3: from private up to colonel in general or whatever. The Russians,
Speaker 3: because they have more people, they've had the luxury of
Speaker 3: training a lot of their guys over many months out
Speaker 3: of contact, and then they'll rotate out people who at
Speaker 3: key leader levels into new units here, so they'll bring
Speaker 3: people back in. So when they have this unit that's
Speaker 3: getting beat down, they'll take the unit out, they'll bring
Speaker 3: a new one back in, and then this is already trained.
Speaker 3: But the Ukraine side, they literally throw everybody that they
Speaker 3: get into uniform into the front lines, almost no training,
Speaker 3: and that's just militarily unsustainable. So that gets into this
Speaker 3: calculation for Trump as well.
Speaker 1: Now we got a new Secretary of State unanimous to
Speaker 1: confirmed yesterday, Marco Rubio. And is that in any way,
Speaker 1: shape or form a game changer, A new president who's
Speaker 1: wanting and desirous of settling the conflict. Marco Rubio at
Speaker 1: the helm here at the State, what do you think
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 3: Well, it definitely is a game changer, without question, because
Speaker 3: the outgoing administration just kept saying for as long as
Speaker 3: it takes, and you know, shoveling money out the door
Speaker 3: on their way out of office, with no strategy, no
Speaker 3: plan whatsoever to how this could result in anything positive.
Speaker 3: At least Trump is coming in. Both the Secretary of
Speaker 3: Rubio as well as Trump has continued to say we're
Speaker 3: looking for a negotiated settlement.
Speaker 2: He said. Trump said it again last night.
Speaker 3: Yes, he says, you know, Russia's hurting and you know
Speaker 3: they can't just they can They're grinding it out is
Speaker 3: the term he used. But he also said, but they
Speaker 3: have more people, so he acknowledges that just the math
Speaker 3: is going to be moving in this direction. So the
Speaker 3: President and Secretary of State are both talking about this
Speaker 3: is going to have to be a negotiated settlement.
Speaker 1: Well, and part of the leverage of getting the Ukrainians
Speaker 1: that negotiate and maybe express a more desire to perhaps
Speaker 1: make these concessions if we quit funding them and giving
Speaker 1: them weapons that presents a genuine problem for them, that's
Speaker 1: going to knock them back on value.
Speaker 2: Well, it doesn't. That's one of the other things.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you brought that up, because that's one of
Speaker 3: it was surprising too many to include myself, that Trump
Speaker 3: didn't mention Ukraine at all or Russia at all during
Speaker 3: the entire inauguration speech, but he did give some codes
Speaker 3: in there, and he said, we're going to stop any
Speaker 3: kind of foreign aid if it can't be shown that
Speaker 3: it actually is in America's interest to do so. And
Speaker 3: I think that was a definite shot across the bow
Speaker 3: to the Ukraine that if we can't see how this
Speaker 3: is going to work, it ain't gonna just keep getting
Speaker 3: shoveled into the furnace like the Algony administration did. And
Speaker 3: I think it's pretty clear where the Trump Administration's going. Oh,
Speaker 3: I think most definitely that's what that was directed toward.
Speaker 3: And of course they have folks in Ukraine closely observing
Speaker 3: and listening and parsing out the words. They got the message,
Speaker 3: and they got the message too. I sure you've seen
Speaker 3: you Ukraine and the media this morning. They got that message.
Speaker 1: Yes, they did every Tuesday at eight thirty The Deep
Speaker 1: Dive with Daniel Davis. Find them online to search for
Speaker 1: Daniel Davis Deep Dive and until next Tuesday. My friend,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for your time. Every week I
Speaker 1: look forward to another conversation.
Speaker 2: Always my pleasure. Thanks Bran, See you next time. Forty one.
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