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Daniel Davis Deep Dive · Brian Thomas

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis what we call the Daniel Davis
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Deep Dive. Welcome back, Daniel Davis. It's always a pleasure
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: to have you on the show. My friend always great.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: Give me here, Brian.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Always encourage my listeners to follow your podcast, Daniel Davis
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Deep Dive wherever you get your podcast, and of course
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: tune in every Tuesday at this time. Uh pivoting back over,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: we're still stuck in ran Daniel Davis. Let's start there now.
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  Speaker 1: From what the way I understand it, currently, the most
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: recent proposal from the Iranians is listen, you guys, open
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: up our ports and let us get our ships in
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  Speaker 1: and out, and we'll open up the straight of horror
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  Speaker 1: moves and we'll table this whole nuclear program discussion and
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  Speaker 1: keep it over by the wayside to get the goods
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  Speaker 1: and services flowing to the benefit of the entire planet,
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  Speaker 1: because we're all facing one hundred and twenty dollars barrow
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  Speaker 1: oil sounds merely. Trump administrations has sort of suggested, no,
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  Speaker 1: that's not going to work. So where does this leave
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  Speaker 1: us today? Recognizing as I saw this morning, Iran is
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: running into a bit of a situation with regard to
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  Speaker 1: pumping its oil. It's running out of space to put
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: the oil that it's pumped out since it's stuck with
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  Speaker 1: it because it can't get it out. And if they
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  Speaker 1: don't continue to pump the oil out of these underperforming wells,
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  Speaker 1: then those wells, once shut off, apparently either are going
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  Speaker 1: to be very difficult to restart, like years, or they
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  Speaker 1: won't continue to pump oil, to the tune of about
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  Speaker 1: fifty percent of Iranian oil production being eliminated. Obviously long
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  Speaker 1: term economic damage, but currently the Iranians are suffering four
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  Speaker 1: hundred million dollars every day in economic damage because they're
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  Speaker 1: stuck with the oil that they pumped out and can't sell.
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  Speaker 1: Is this a battle of attrition that we can outlast them,
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  Speaker 1: or is this idea that they're wrecking their own economy
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  Speaker 1: because of oil issues? I mean, is this maybe am
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  Speaker 1: I reading it wrong? Or is this maybe hope against hope?
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  Speaker 1: Daniel Davis, what's your reaction to that?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I remain puzzled why because I've seen all
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  Speaker 3: those stories, especially over the last forty eight hours or so,
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  Speaker 3: and I'm wondering why that we don't recognize that that's
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: happening throughout the entire Persian Gulf. Five of the six
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  Speaker 3: GCS countries are already in that safe position. So when
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  Speaker 3: you talk about the potential that this blockade has on Iran,
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  Speaker 3: there is that already happening. Some of them have already
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  Speaker 3: shut down. Our allies the Gulf countries have already gotten
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: into that situation. So it's right now we don't know
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  Speaker 3: because this has never happened where we've had a manufactured
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  Speaker 3: shutdown or a desire a political shutdown, not something that
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  Speaker 3: was forced on it. So no one really knows how
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  Speaker 3: the whales are going to perform in either the GCC
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  Speaker 3: or the Uranian side. But on the Uranian side, there's
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  Speaker 3: also additional information out today that they've had a lot
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  Speaker 3: They pulled a lot of tankers out out of storage,
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  Speaker 3: and it looks like that they've probably got another probably
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  Speaker 3: close to a month, and maybe even more than that
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  Speaker 3: if they get creative to be able to push that
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  Speaker 3: day back.
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  Speaker 2: So it's not a near term thing, it can go
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  Speaker 2: a lot longer.
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  Speaker 3: So if we're thinking that's going to pressure Iran, we
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  Speaker 3: have to look at what it's doing to the rest
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  Speaker 3: of our allies because they don't have some of the
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  Speaker 3: assets that the Iranians do. They're not big of a country,
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  Speaker 3: so they don't have as many tankers, they don't have
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  Speaker 3: land facilities, they don't have the trucks that can move
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  Speaker 3: it across other borders, et cetera, all of which Iran has.
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  Speaker 3: So if that's what we're banking on, we're going to
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  Speaker 3: be disappointed.
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  Speaker 1: And some have suggestion again the article doing an analysis
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  Speaker 1: on this one opinion, I know what a sphincter is like,
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  Speaker 1: we've all got one, Daniel Davis, But that this reality
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  Speaker 1: of the shutting of the Strait of Hornemuz is causing
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  Speaker 1: the rest of the Arab nations who are also struggling
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  Speaker 1: with the shutdown to side to sort of move over
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  Speaker 1: to our side and be more willing to see the
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  Speaker 1: United States prevail against the Iranians because they don't want
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  Speaker 1: this kind of thing to happen again. Would the collective
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  Speaker 1: resolve over there to the extent there's optimism that might happen,
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  Speaker 1: Will that happened? And do you believe will they join
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  Speaker 1: in the fight, for example, to get their supplies flowing
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  Speaker 1: through or what's your take? Or they also concerned about
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  Speaker 1: further bombing of the various spaces and infrastructure.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, their big issue is being able to get the
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  Speaker 4: stuff by any means, and I think that they're probably
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  Speaker 4: looking to put as much pressure on us as they
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  Speaker 4: are in Iran, but.
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  Speaker 2: That also needs to be We need to pull a
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  Speaker 2: curtain back on this.
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  Speaker 3: There is no military plan that can force open the
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  Speaker 3: straight You're You're gonna have to have a political decision
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  Speaker 3: made by the two sides.
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  Speaker 2: These dueling blockades.
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  Speaker 3: Are gonna both have to be released for everybody's benefit,
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  Speaker 3: for Iran, for the GCCS, for ours, for the global economy.
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  Speaker 3: There's no path that we can force it militarily. So
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  Speaker 3: if the idea is well let's get them all together
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  Speaker 3: so that we can make Iran do it, you can't.
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  Speaker 3: You can't make Iran do that. That's the takeaway that
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  Speaker 3: we need to all beginning right now. That we've tried
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  Speaker 3: everything that we could militarily. But there's so many different
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  Speaker 3: ways Iran can keep the things shut down that even
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  Speaker 3: if you take some of them out, there's still half
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  Speaker 3: a dozen other ways that they could do it. And
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  Speaker 3: so there's no path And if we try that, if
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  Speaker 3: we decide we're going to go back to bombing, then
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  Speaker 3: Iran will definitely do what they said, and they'll destroy
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  Speaker 3: the facilities in the rest of the Gulf, our allies
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  Speaker 3: inside of Israel, et cetera. And there's nothing we can
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  Speaker 3: do to stop that either. And now that it's not.
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  Speaker 2: A political decision that closes this.
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  Speaker 3: Flow, it's now a physical infrastructure destruction which could take
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  Speaker 3: years to recover from. So that is the worst possible path.
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  Speaker 2: That we can go down.
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  Speaker 1: And that suggests like people who might want to kill
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  Speaker 1: Donald Trump, they're willing to commit suicide in order to
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  Speaker 1: prevent this from happening. I mean that because if they
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  Speaker 1: start bombing the other oil infrastructure of various countries around
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  Speaker 1: in the surrounding Golf region, clearly I would think that
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  Speaker 1: will be an open invitation for US to start bombing
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  Speaker 1: the Iranian facilities on the island or carg Island or
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  Speaker 1: wherever else they might have oil production facilities.
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  Speaker 3: Well, I can tell you that the ire and I've
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  Speaker 3: talked to some academics in Tehran at the University of Tehran,
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  Speaker 3: and I've certainly read a lot of the public stuff
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  Speaker 3: that their leaders have said. They're not going to strike
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  Speaker 3: the US unless the US strikes their energy first. They're
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  Speaker 3: not going to make the first hit on that. We
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  Speaker 3: won't go down that path unless we started, and then
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  Speaker 3: they're gonna definitely go down that path.
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  Speaker 2: So we need to make sure that that doesn't happen.
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  Speaker 1: Now, as far as getting the straight open, ay, I'm
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  Speaker 1: looking at it from a very non technical, simplistic manner
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  Speaker 1: because I don't know anything about the weapons of war
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  Speaker 1: sufficiently to know. But there are, and it's been widely reported,
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  Speaker 1: mine sweepers out there. I think the British have some
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  Speaker 1: really high technical quality mind sweeping apparatus. It just seems, hmm,
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  Speaker 1: we've been looking for mine since minds were invented. Is
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  Speaker 1: it such an overwhelming challenge to sweep an area wide
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  Speaker 1: enough to get ships in and out so at least
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  Speaker 1: you know you're not gonna get blown up by a mine. Now,
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  Speaker 1: recognizing you've brought up this whole mosquito fleet, Donald Trump
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  Speaker 1: can say he destroyed the Iranian navy, but out out
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  Speaker 1: of nowhere, which you've been talking about for weeks, they
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  Speaker 1: got this mosquito fleet of these fast boats and zip
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  Speaker 1: up on top of someone in no time and can
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  Speaker 1: blow them up. So there's multiple components there. I'd like
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  Speaker 1: to think that we could deal with these with the
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  Speaker 1: mosquito fleet. But what of the mines, Daniel Davis out well.
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  Speaker 3: I mean there's so many of these so called mosquito
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  Speaker 3: fleet boats, I mean in the thousands so, and just
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  Speaker 3: by their nature, our navy is predicated on having like
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  Speaker 3: a World War two kind of Battle of Midway kind
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  Speaker 3: of thing against major surface combatants. That's what your offensive
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  Speaker 3: and defensive weapons are made for. They're not made for
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  Speaker 3: these little mosquitos as you call them, because they're a
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  Speaker 3: lot more maneuverable and they can get away from things,
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  Speaker 3: so you can get some. It's not like you can't
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  Speaker 3: hit them, but it's much more difficult than when there's
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  Speaker 3: vot volume and mass. Then they can outnumber your capabilities.
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  Speaker 3: So that's why it's really hard to do. But the mines,
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  Speaker 3: like drones, they also continue to evolve. So when you
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  Speaker 3: figure out how to get one mind taking care of
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  Speaker 3: or identified or knock it out, then they come up
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  Speaker 3: with new technologies. So there's some that are like on
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  Speaker 3: the bottom of the of the of the full floor
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  Speaker 3: of the water, and then when it detects a ship,
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  Speaker 3: then it will rise and then it can come back
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  Speaker 3: down and go or move and then it can maneuver
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  Speaker 3: somewhere else. So there's additional ways that it can try
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  Speaker 3: and deceive you and block your sonar and all that
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  Speaker 3: kind of stuff. So the technology keeps evolving along with
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  Speaker 3: the defensive technology, just like with the drones and everything
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  Speaker 3: else in military affairs. There's always a new way to
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  Speaker 3: try to deceive the old way until they figure that out,
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  Speaker 3: and then there's you find new.
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  Speaker 2: Technology to counter that, et cetera.
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  Speaker 3: So that's where we are, and then it's also a
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  Speaker 3: numbers game, and it's just really hard to do in
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  Speaker 3: this you know, this big water when you're talking about
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  Speaker 3: a small little dot that's trying to be trying to
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  Speaker 3: hide itself, and you know it can move around, so
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  Speaker 3: it's it's just too hard to do.
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  Speaker 2: Well, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Being a realist, I'm a big fan of using Google
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  Speaker 1: Maps and zooming in on a very small piece or
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  Speaker 1: slice of any given region and then slowly zooming out,
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  Speaker 1: and that's when you sort of appreciate the vastness. You know,
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  Speaker 1: someone can say, well, hell, you know it's narrow, it's point,
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  Speaker 1: it's only sixteen miles wide. But when you extrapolate that
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  Speaker 1: and put you know it's it's a lot more territory
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  Speaker 1: than people are quick to acknowledge, and that's why I
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  Speaker 1: wanted you to go through that. But I'm glad you
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  Speaker 1: brought up this whole evolving technology. Some are very worried
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  Speaker 1: that we've exhausted a lot of our hardware, and there
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  Speaker 1: are significant numbers upon this. You know, forty five to
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  Speaker 1: sixty one percent of our patriots are gone. Our thad
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  Speaker 1: missile systems, We've gone through the vast majority of those.
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  Speaker 1: It takes forty two months or fifty three months for
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  Speaker 1: these things to even be manufactured, so we're getting we're
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: exhausting our supplies. And then that's when the concerns come
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  Speaker 1: over to well what about China. Isn't this a golden
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: opportunity for China to invade Taiwan. We're busy over the
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  Speaker 1: Middle East, all of our resources and hardware there, our
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: entire navies there. We don't have enough munitions. So to
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the extent we have an obligation to defend Taiwan. How
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: does China respond to the realities of this modern warfare?
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  Speaker 1: Because if Iran can shut down the Straight of Hormuz
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  Speaker 1: with a mosquito fleet, these are giant ships that have
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  Speaker 1: to transport military troops and battleships that the Chinese have
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  Speaker 1: if they were to invade Taiwan. It's not a short
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  Speaker 1: journey from China's shores to get to Taiwan. Doesn't that
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  Speaker 1: give a modern, a modern equipped army and a great
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: opportunity to easily blow up targets on the seat.
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  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you have to have the means to do it.
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  Speaker 2: That's the problem.
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  Speaker 3: And because China has foreseen this and has man has
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  Speaker 3: built their military industrial complex in its entirety with that
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  Speaker 3: in mind.
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  Speaker 2: They also have numbers, and they have.
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  Speaker 3: A huge fleet of civilian and dual use ships that
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  Speaker 3: they're civilian purposes, but they're expressly designed in manufactured to
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  Speaker 3: military specifics for the purpose of using here so that
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  Speaker 3: they can use mass to overcome that. Meanwhile, they have
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  Speaker 3: done the more important stuff, and they have foreseen the
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: issue of the missile production capacity, and so they have
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  Speaker 3: like seven or eight times actually probably more than that
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  Speaker 3: in terms of their capacity to make missiles.
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  Speaker 2: They can make a vast.
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  Speaker 3: Number more than we can, and they have the industrial
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: capacity to use so they can sustain a long rate
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: of fire where we're running out after forty days. They
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  Speaker 3: wouldn't do that, so they have bigger stockpiles and the
• 11:01
  Speaker 3: ability to make more and they have more volume. Of course,
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  Speaker 3: that means they'll bring more fire to bear on those targets,
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  Speaker 3: on the weapons on the tai Wan side. If they
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: decide to go down that path so that there's not
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  Speaker 3: enough left to shoot at the ships that are going
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: to be coming across, that's their whole objective question.
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  Speaker 1: Then is this the time when China goes ahead and
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  Speaker 1: moves forward with its long known plans to invade Taiwan?
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  Speaker 3: You know, I actually think it's less likely now than
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  Speaker 3: it was before, really, because it's evident on Taiwan side
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  Speaker 3: they now should know that we aren't coming to their rescue,
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  Speaker 3: and even if we tried, we don't have enough weapons
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  Speaker 3: to do it, so we can't defend them. So that
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  Speaker 3: means that you need to be a lot more cooperative
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  Speaker 3: with China than you would have been before, because there's
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: been they've been a movement on the Taiwan side a
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: lot more persnickety, if you will, in talking independent things
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  Speaker 3: kind of like yeah, I got Uncle Sam over my shoulder.
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  Speaker 3: Now all of a sudden you realize, oh snap, I
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: don't have Uncle Sam over my shoulder. We're gonna have
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: to get along here, because China at the end of
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: the day, does not want to conquer Taiwan. They just
• 12:04
  Speaker 3: want to have them not go independent. So they're willing
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: to just continue to let this go for a long
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  Speaker 3: time as long as there's not an independent move because
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: there it would be harmful to China, both their armed
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: forces and in the economic impact. They wanted something to
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: lack Hong Kong or something where they can manage it,
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: give it, you know, autonomy.
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  Speaker 2: They didn't take.
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  Speaker 3: Over Taiwan in terms of, you know, conquering it, but
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: you know they benefit from it a lot.
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  Speaker 2: They want the same kind of thing here.
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  Speaker 1: Fair enough on that, and we haven't talked. And I know,
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: just a moment of time, more of your earlier time.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: This morning over at Ukraine, I saw this headline. Immediately
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: thought of you because I immediately discounted it because if
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: you read it on the internet, of course, it's true, right,
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: Vladimir Putin's starving troops are eating each other on battlefield
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: with sick cannibals munching on comrades.
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  Speaker 2: Did you see that?
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It's just you know, I know, I know, I know,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: I know, but I wanted to use this as a
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: pivot to get just sort of analysis of where what
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: is the situation right now? Because that reality has has
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: stop the Russians from being able to use their navy
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: in the Black Sea. They're in the ports because the
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: Ukrainians have had some success going after their navy. But
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: battlefield wise, where are we there? Daniel Davis, Yeah.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: There has been a significant reduction in the amount of
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: movement by the Russian side. There had been like several
• 13:18
  Speaker 3: hundred square kilometers they had taken a territory since like
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: twenty twenty three until February and March, and I think
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: it was it may be in February they actually went
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: back thirty seven square kilometers they lost to the Ukraine side.
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: Ukraine has done a number a couple of different operational
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: level counter attacks in recent days that did push Russia back,
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: but like all of these, because they don't have the
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: manpower to sustain it, the Russians are taking it back again.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: So now then they're back on the move again, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: there's the likelihood of a summer offense of a big
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: one coming back up to get try to move back.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: On the positive side, the Kasui rates continue to pile
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: up on both sides. It's a war of attrition and
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: after kind of a lull, I think it's about to
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: kick back in.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: And no gleams of light in so far as the
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: resolution of the conflict, I haven't read anything lately that
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: they've been into.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: The only thing is that there's going to have to
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: be some recognition on the Western slash Ukraine side that
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: you can forget about it. There's no more patriots coming
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: from the United States. I don't care if you buy
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: them or give them or whatever. We don't have them,
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: as you just pointed out about the Iran War. So
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: that's going to be a big problem, is that you're
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: going to have diminishing military capacity on the Ukraine side,
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: and that can't help but move the ball further in
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: Russia's favor into the summer.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It's a wake up call to a lot of countries
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: that should have their own militaries and not rely on
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: the protection of the United States of America. Daniel Davis
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: My thoughts anyway. Daniel Davis Deep Dive find them online
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: where you get your podcast. Tuned in every Tuesday at
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: eight thirty for the Daniel Davis Deep Dive here on
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the morning show