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Daniel Davis Deep Dive · Brian Thomas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fifty five krs deep talk station, Hey twenty nine and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: a Tuesday. I always look forward to this time a
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: week being back from vacation. I certainly missed this time
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: of a week when I was off. It is that
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  Speaker 1: time of week we do the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.
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  Speaker 1: You can find that podcast where you get your podcast
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  Speaker 1: Retire with tenor Colonel Daniel Davis offering his thoughtful and
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: insightful analysis of all things war. Of course, talk a
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: lot about Iran and I want to pivot over first
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  Speaker 1: and welcome back Daniel Davis. It's always a pleasure to
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: have you on the program, Sir.
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  Speaker 2: I missed you, man, I missed you.
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  Speaker 1: Glad to be back. I enjoy these conversations. I mean,
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  Speaker 1: you give us great food for thought. Quite often, you know,
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  Speaker 1: we tend to gravitate towards something we want to hear
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  Speaker 1: that appeals to our natural you know, desires about how
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  Speaker 1: effective we are, how great America's military is, whatever it
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  Speaker 1: happens to be. But quite often you bring some dose
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  Speaker 1: of reality, and I think it's a painfully needed dose
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  Speaker 1: of reality. Look where we are in connection with this conflict.
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  Speaker 1: It was supposed to be over early on what do
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  Speaker 1: they say a matter of weeks or maybe a month
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  Speaker 1: or two, and this thing keeps dragging on. Memorandum of
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  Speaker 1: understanding breach two days after the Iranians enter into it.
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  Speaker 1: What's that supposed to mean? Donald Trump announced it just
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  Speaker 1: the other day. We paused Iranian strikes as negotiations resume.
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  Speaker 1: But then you pivot over and you read what the
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  Speaker 1: Iranian foreign minister said just yesterday that no, we're not
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  Speaker 1: negotiating with them, we have no interest in negotiating with
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  Speaker 1: the United States, which he compared to a mafia gang
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  Speaker 1: that adheres to no rules or laws. So I get
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the impression. And here's kind of where I wanted to start.
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  Speaker 1: They overthrew the shaw. It was a Western esque country.
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  Speaker 1: Women had rights, they could drive, they could get jobs.
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  Speaker 1: I had a woman used to cut my hair that
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  Speaker 1: came from Iran, a post revolution. She got out because
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  Speaker 1: she saw what was happening there. They don't like Western anything.
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  Speaker 1: They're not interested in adopting or embracing or working peacefully
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  Speaker 1: with a bunch of Satanic in their mind, Western countries
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  Speaker 1: who would undermine their faith and their values, which are
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  Speaker 1: completely inconsistent with Western values. I get the impression. They
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  Speaker 1: don't want to do anything with us. Don't keep inviting
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  Speaker 1: us to play nicely in your sandbox. We don't want
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  Speaker 1: to have anything to do with your sandbox.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, well, you know, I think it's a little
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  Speaker 2: more complicated than that, and we've helped complicate it some
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  Speaker 2: of it, because it's not just that we don't lack
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  Speaker 2: their system of government or vice versa. It's that we
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  Speaker 2: have suppoint We've started two wars with them in a
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  Speaker 2: span of eight months, and we assassinated their senior leader,
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  Speaker 2: we assassinated people in their presidential inauguration, et cetera. They're scientists.
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  Speaker 2: We killed people by hitting their apartment buildings and taken
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: out their entire families along with them, etc. So there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of reason for animosity for them not to
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  Speaker 2: want just However, even with all of that said, there
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  Speaker 2: still has been a distinct I don't know if we
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  Speaker 2: would call them moderates or a Western leaning element within
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  Speaker 2: I run, but it's more like pragmatists. They're saying, listen,
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  Speaker 2: this is the world that we have, whether we like
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  Speaker 2: it or not. America is the powerful country. Israel is
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  Speaker 2: a powerful country. We've got to learn to live along
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  Speaker 2: with them somehow, even if we hate them.
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  Speaker 1: Then there's the other side.
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  Speaker 2: There's the you know what we call the hardliners, which
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  Speaker 2: are the ones that said there's no point in talking
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  Speaker 2: to them. All they'll do is, you know, according to them,
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  Speaker 2: all they'll do is promise things and then they'll not
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  Speaker 2: keep it, add to our harm. So let's just keep
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  Speaker 2: going with the war, et cetera. So what they're doing
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  Speaker 2: right now we talked about foreign mister Arasi. At the
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  Speaker 2: state level, at the direct level, they are not talking
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  Speaker 2: with us, that is accurate. But at the Omani and
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  Speaker 2: Katari moderator level, there are still good talks going back
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  Speaker 2: and forth. Because for Iran, if they can get back
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  Speaker 2: to a situation to the MoU all the terms that
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: go along with it, and that means all of them,
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  Speaker 2: they're still willing to discuss if and this is the
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  Speaker 2: huge issue here, if they can get some things up
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  Speaker 2: front that they didn't get before because they don't have.
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  Speaker 1: Any trust in US.
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  Speaker 2: And this whole issue about the straight of horror moves
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  Speaker 2: is probably point number one, well along with the literal
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  Speaker 2: point number one about Lebanon. More on that minute, I guess.
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  Speaker 2: But the real issue was the straight of hormone. And
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  Speaker 2: the only thing in paragraph five is that Iran would
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  Speaker 2: administer the distrait for sixty days without a toll, and
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  Speaker 2: then Iran and Oman would do the figure out what
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  Speaker 2: was gonna happen after that. We had no role in it.
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  Speaker 2: But then four days in we said, here's a new
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  Speaker 2: southern corridor and the Omani waters and we're going to
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  Speaker 2: control that. And of course that led to the confusion
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  Speaker 2: and the dispute that Iran fired on some of the
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  Speaker 2: ships that didn't didn't do what they said we fired
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  Speaker 2: on Iran, and you know what happened after that, And
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  Speaker 2: so now then we've got to try to get back
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  Speaker 2: to that.
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  Speaker 1: And US is.
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  Speaker 2: Thinking, and maybe you want to go here too. With
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  Speaker 2: benjaminette Yaho's showing up today. He wants to go back
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  Speaker 2: to full scale war and finish the job, as Jack
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Jack Keen and several others say, But her generals are
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  Speaker 2: telling General Keith Kane in particular, we don't have the
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  Speaker 2: missiles to go back to a full scale war or
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  Speaker 2: we're gonna run out. So we're in a real big bind.
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  Speaker 1: I'll just tell you well that I'm glad you brought
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  Speaker 1: that up, because there's an interesting ernal piece and op
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  Speaker 1: ed piece from the editorial board, the White House missiles
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  Speaker 1: shortage excuse a journal expressing they were actually the journal
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  Speaker 1: I will describe as pissed off that someone actually said
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  Speaker 1: that out loud, that we are short on missiles, like
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  Speaker 1: there was some sort of valuable state secret that's been
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  Speaker 1: revealed to the world and the ir Audians now know it.
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  Speaker 1: Is it a true statement from your intel and your
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  Speaker 1: resources that we've got a problem with munitions?
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  Speaker 2: I can tell you from every source I have that
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  Speaker 2: that is absolutely I'm talking at the highst level in
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  Speaker 2: the White House. That is absolutely true. And you don't
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  Speaker 2: even have to have the White House. You don't have
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  Speaker 2: to have any sources there. The open source information we
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  Speaker 2: have is self evident. For example, all you've got to
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  Speaker 2: do is go back and a friend of mine has
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  Speaker 2: done this analysis. All you got to do is go
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  Speaker 2: back to when we started allocating money for different kinds
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  Speaker 2: of missile systems, going back many many years, and you
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  Speaker 2: see how much the unit cost is, how many were made,
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  Speaker 2: and then you see how many we've expended, and you're like, oh, snap,
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  Speaker 2: we've used a bunch of them, a huge percentage of them,
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  Speaker 2: and listen, there's a reason why we stopped after forty days.
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  Speaker 2: It's not because we wanted to give space to negotiations.
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  Speaker 2: It was because we can see it wouldn't run, it
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  Speaker 2: wasn't working. We could not force compliance from Iran, we
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  Speaker 2: could not take control of the straight of horn moves
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  Speaker 2: with the missiles, and if we kept going, we would
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  Speaker 2: just run out and still fail.
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  Speaker 1: That's where we still are today. Well, that's a troubling
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  Speaker 1: and disturbing reality considering all the challenges we currently and
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  Speaker 1: may face down the road. So what of statements, what
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  Speaker 1: of Donald Trump statements saying, listen to you, we're negotiating.
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  Speaker 1: We're trying to negotiate. Otherwise we're ready to go back
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  Speaker 1: to strong military action. You can't go back to strong
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  Speaker 1: military action unless you have the weapons to back it up.
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  Speaker 2: That's true, but that's again told from somebody who has
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  Speaker 2: quite high access. He is still thinking about it, and
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  Speaker 2: he's told that it will not work, just like just
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  Speaker 2: like they told him at the end of the forty
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  Speaker 2: days or why it ended it forty days because it
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  Speaker 2: wouldn't work. There's nothing has changed because you can't manufacture
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  Speaker 2: these missiles in anything less than years and I'm talking
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  Speaker 2: individual missiles.
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  Speaker 1: Basically.
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  Speaker 2: You may not know this, but most, almost all of
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  Speaker 2: our advanced missiles are handmade. It's not like a factory
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  Speaker 2: where you have a cars going down they keep putting
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  Speaker 2: the same piece of assembly line. These almost have to
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  Speaker 2: all be made handmade. So that's why it takes two
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  Speaker 2: to five years for a missile to be done, along
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  Speaker 2: with a lot of other reasons. So we haven't added
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  Speaker 2: any to our inventory since then, other than a handful
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  Speaker 2: here and there and to go back. But here's the
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  Speaker 2: key thing. Even if you could, those missiles don't penetrate
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  Speaker 2: granite mountains. Yeah, that those missile cities are the number
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  Speaker 2: one asset that Iran has. We just can't blow up
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  Speaker 2: all these things we did in this thirteen day many
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  Speaker 2: strike that we did. You know, for a while, we
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  Speaker 2: blow up a bunch of stuff on the surface and
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  Speaker 2: it hurt. I've done an analysis of that too, and
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  Speaker 2: it did hurt them. Took out radars, took out the
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  Speaker 2: control systems for maritime traffic, killed the number of military personnel,
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  Speaker 2: et cetera. But that does nothing to the thing that
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  Speaker 2: they used to control the straight It just didn't help
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  Speaker 2: at all, and it just pushes down the road and
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  Speaker 2: the strait is still mainly closed and that's harmon our economy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that seems to me. I don't know if
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  Speaker 1: this was a surprising development, but if you stop and
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  Speaker 1: look at things right now, at least based upon my
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  Speaker 1: recollection of history, and you're gonna be better at this
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  Speaker 1: than me. Iran didn't have control the Straight of Horror
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  Speaker 1: moves before we started this campaign. It was considered international waters.
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  Speaker 1: Ships were free to flow back and forth, the global
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  Speaker 1: economy wasn't interrupted on a regular basis because the Iranians
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  Speaker 1: were blown up boats. They seem to have gained an
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  Speaker 1: upper hand that perhaps just they became aware of in
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  Speaker 1: this bombing campaign or exercise an option that they otherwise
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  Speaker 1: hadn't done before, which is shutting down the Straight of Hormons.
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  Speaker 1: Where are we on that?
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  Speaker 2: That's the key issue. They Everyone had always known that
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  Speaker 2: was a possibility. It's been talking about for literally decades
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  Speaker 2: that they could do this. But Iran would never take
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  Speaker 2: that step by themselves because then that would bring international
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  Speaker 2: condent nation and they knew that would prompt a war
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  Speaker 2: against them that they couldn't win, but that it would
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  Speaker 2: cause them significant damage. So they would only do that
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  Speaker 2: when it was forced on them, and that's the only
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  Speaker 2: leverage they had left, and then they had no reason
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  Speaker 2: not to. So they had a plan to do this
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  Speaker 2: all along, and we had a plan to try and
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  Speaker 2: diminish it. But because of these missile cities, that neutralized
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  Speaker 2: all of the plans that we had done in the
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  Speaker 2: decades prior, because now we can't reach them. And by
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  Speaker 2: the way, there's another issue here when you're talking about
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  Speaker 2: running out of Tomahawk cruise missiles and JAZZM long range
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: cruise missiles, especially our two premier types of weapons. If
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: you run out of those, or if you get so few,
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  Speaker 2: you can't risk getting into your your Pacific or your
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: European war stocks, which is now a big risk. They
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: do have other things like jadams and small diameter bombs
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  Speaker 2: and a couple of other categories of things, but the
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  Speaker 2: problem with those is they have to be air launched,
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  Speaker 2: and the ranges are a lot shorter, which means now
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  Speaker 2: that you have to use a lot more aircraft to
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  Speaker 2: get closer into the target, and you will wear them out.
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  Speaker 2: And by the way, they're not going to be any
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  Speaker 2: more effective, but that target sit than these would, so
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  Speaker 2: even though we may have plenty of jadams and sdbs,
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  Speaker 2: we don't have the airframes and the pilots that we
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  Speaker 2: would wear them out and still not succeed.
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  Speaker 1: That's what everybody needs to understand. Well, can any of
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  Speaker 1: the other Middle Eastern countries that are now the regular
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  Speaker 1: subject of the attacks by the Iranians we blow something?
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  Speaker 1: When the blow something up in Iran, the immediately attack
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  Speaker 1: you know, Kuwaid or other oil producing countries there. Some
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  Speaker 1: of them I think have been starting to launch their
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  Speaker 1: own retaliatory strikes. But do they have effective enough militaries
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  Speaker 1: or effective enough quantities of arms that they could And
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  Speaker 1: I've passed this theory passed you in the past, and
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: you've rejected it as a concept that finally they say,
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  Speaker 1: no Moss. This is it. We've got to do something
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  Speaker 1: about Iran. Let's all collectively get together and start beating
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: up on Iran together, and maybe we can accomplish something
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  Speaker 1: along those lines, Daniel.
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  Speaker 2: They love to say no Moss, like on the second
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  Speaker 2: or third day of the wharf. They could have, but
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  Speaker 2: they don't because they have basically farmed out the security
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: to the United States. That's what all these bases were
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: supposed to do was to supposed to basically be our
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: protection of them. And that's you know, all the quid
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  Speaker 2: pro cloths, the economic deals they did, et cetera. Gave
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  Speaker 2: us access and all that, but this is the cost
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  Speaker 2: that they themselves have a just basically a national guard
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  Speaker 2: top and a very weak one at that. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: you're right, I think UAE and I want to say
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  Speaker 2: it was Kuwait I have had some token strucks, but
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  Speaker 2: they're nothing. I mean, they're literally nothing because they don't
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  Speaker 2: have the capability we do and we couldn't do it.
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  Speaker 1: They sure can't.
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  Speaker 2: Saudi Arabia tried for almost a decade to bring the
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Houthis under control and just you know, right off their coast.
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  Speaker 2: They never succeeded there either, just with the Hoothies. So
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  Speaker 2: they just don't have the military capacity as the bottom line.
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  Speaker 1: Can a parallel be drawn between that situation and NATO
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  Speaker 1: countries who also didn't bother keeping their military up and
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: arming themselves while relying upon the United States to act
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  Speaker 1: as the stabilizing force there as that's kind of a.
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  Speaker 2: It's not quite as bad in Europe, but the categorically
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: it is very very similar. There's no question about it.
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  Speaker 2: It's not just a matter of how much GDP they spent.
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  Speaker 2: Like Germany was below one percent for so many years
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: up until very recently, but nobody was ever since the
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: end of the Cold War.
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  Speaker 1: Everybody went way.
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  Speaker 2: Down because they're like, hey, man, USA all the way,
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: you guys got it. And so they spent money on
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: their own domestic stuff, and you know, spent the bare
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: minimum on their national security so that we would and
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: we did up until Trump came into office.
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  Speaker 1: Anyway, shouldering the burden. Oh look at our national debt, Daniel, Anyway,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: real quick here, I have to pivot over. After I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: saw this article, like ye, I got to ask about
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: the situation with Russia and Ukraine. North Korea deploying thirty
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: thousand troops to Russia to help fight this conflict. I
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: know we've read articles and heard reports of North Korean
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: soldiers helping the Russians out. Is this a reflection of
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: the limited number of soldiers Russia has left? Is this
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: just relying on the the sacrificial lambs that the North
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: Koreans are now sending over to fight the battle on
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: their behalf. Where are we with that one, Daniel Davis?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely not a problem with Russian soldiers. As
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: a matter of fact, Putin himself has indicated that this
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: September so coming up soon, they may mobilize another half
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: million soldiers on top of everything they have, and they
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: have somewhere around one point five million active at the moment.
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: So there's no shortage of troops.
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: What that does imply is that Russia is making serious
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: considerations to significantly ramping up this war and possibly having
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: an offensive in one of the weak points on the
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: Eastern Front that the Ukraine side, even with drones, can't overcome,
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: and they may do it with masts. So I think
• 13:44
  Speaker 2: that is more an indication that Russia is going to
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: take whatever allies they can get because they're going to
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: make a big push, and I think that there's a
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: real risk of that.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: I was hoping we can make better news out of
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that deployment of North Korean soldiers to the Russians. Sadly,
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: you see there's that dose of cold water reality from
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Daniel Davis. Fine where you get your podcast Daniel Davis
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Deep Dive and tune in every Tuesday at eight thirty
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