Judging Freedom - Russia Ukraine War - Col. Doug Macgregor: What Can Happen Now?

Episode Date: March 22, 2022

Russia Ukraine War - Col. Doug Macgregor: What Can Happen Now?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, March 21st, 2022. My guest is Colonel Douglas McGregor, known to many of you as a West Point graduate, career military combat veteran, PhD from the University of Virginia in International Relations, and well-known iconoclast when it comes to the appropriate use of American military assets. Full disclosure, a friend of mine and at times a confidant on military matters that we haven't actually seen each other in a while. Colonel McGregor, you look great, and welcome to Judging Freedom. Thank you for inviting me. Colonel, what business is it of the American government in this border dispute between Ukraine and Russia, which has now gotten all out of proportion?

Well, the only real business we have, frankly, is in finding a way to avoid the kind of conflict that we're now in. We have a permanent interest in essentially preventing war from breaking out on the European continent. In fact, after 1991-92, NATO really existed in the minds of most of its members to prevent another war in Europe. So from that standpoint, I think we had an interest in that. Obviously, we've done the opposite. We seem to have done everything in our power to bring on conflict, which is tragic. Has the United States, either by the introduction of financial resources or military assets or the imposition of sanctions on Russian industries and banking institutions, made this war worse,

longer, bloodier, more violent, produced more deaths? Oh, I think so. I don't think there's any question about that. And I think that's still the intention. And I had hoped that there would be an interest now in finding some sort of way to arrange a ceasefire and then hammer out details of a larger agreement. But I don't see any evidence for that at all. In fact, I see evidence for the opposite. If you look at the members of both parties, the so-called uniparty, everyone is screaming for blood. And it's not difficult to discern their real interest, which is in regime change in Moscow, which I think is lunacy, and it's also an unattainable objective.

What's the objective of NATO? Not their stated objective, but their real objective. Is that regime change in Moscow? Yeah, I think so. I think you've got to go back to the late 90s. Once the Clinton administration took over and was in full swing, we see people like Madeleine Albright, who are challenging General Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs, to use American military power to achieve goals. She was by no means a long ranger. There's a whole coterie of people from that era, they're still with us now, who concluded that the victory in 1991 over the Iraqis demonstrated that there was really no one else left standing and we could dominate pretty much anybody we wanted to with our military power. And so notwithstanding the

promise of Jim Baker under George H.W. Bush that NATO would never move eastward, Clinton moved it radically eastward to the point where it subsumed former Warsaw Pact members. Well, of course, but to be fair, I'm not sure President Clinton was ever terribly interested. He certainly was not a student of European affairs, didn't understand Europe at all. I'm not sure he knew much about the Soviet Union or Russia for that matter. So I don't think he paid a great deal of attention and essentially turned foreign policy over to this collection of people that we now refer to as globalist elites. People who are interested in open borders, denationalizing Europe, denationalizing the United States. They're in control again.

They really never gave up control completely after George W. Bush was elected. Effectively, the same people came in and continued the policies that had emerged in the late 1990s. So remember that when we became involved in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bosnia-Herzegovina rapidly became about dislodging Milosevic and his government from power. Initially, they were seen as a legacy of communism, not without some judgment that was accurate, but they misjudged the larger picture. It had less to do with communism, more to do with nationalism. So they saw him as a leader they had to remove. And the Kosovo Air Campaign presented itself as yet another opportunity. And the opportunity unfolded in ways that people didn't understand.

They grossly underestimated the Serbs, their staying power. But ultimately, they managed to persuade Yeltsin in Moscow to abandon the Serbs, their staying power, but ultimately they managed to persuade Yeltsin in Moscow to abandon the Serbs. And that sent a whole range of new forces into action that offended the Russians, angered the Russians. The Russians began saying that, you know, who's next on the menu? And, you know, you know the stories about Iraq and Afghanistan. Everything was about toppling the government and then installing something new that was theoretically democratic for the purpose of advancing this so-called globalist agenda, which herded everyone into some global version of the European Union, and increasingly a global version of NATO, all designed to extend the power and the influence

of the United States and its ruling elites. One of those globalists, I think you'll agree with me, is now the Secretary of State of the United States, Antony Blinken. What do you think he's advising President Biden to do? I mean, do they want to drag NATO and thus American troops into this? Do they not see how close they become when they have American military materiel 15 miles into Poland, almost tempting the Russians to attack it? Well, remember, Judge, that over the last several years, I would go back certainly to the early part of this century, we began conducting exercises in the Baltic with U.S. naval and air power and even ground forces only 50 nautical miles from St. Petersburg. This has been going on for some time. We began conducting exercises right on the border of Poland and Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, in close

proximity to Russia. So the Russians have been watching this for some time. That's one of the reasons they seized Crimea was because they didn't want it to become a NATO naval base. And they were confident based on our behavior that that was inevitable if they didn't do something to stop it. I think they thought that that would warn us off. Now we have a government that has taken the position until quite recently that the Russians would never act. They would never dare to attack Ukraine, even though it was patently obvious to those of us that have been watching this business since about 2007, that was inevitable. For instance, the current CIA director, when he was ambassador in Moscow, wrote a memorandum

talking about the Russians actually mean what they're saying. There is a red line, and we'd better not cross it. And his point was at the time, Burns, that we were crossing it, that we were going to make some sort of military action in Ukraine inevitable by our behavior. Well, we've done that. We don't bother to talk about it because that doesn't fit the current narrative that the unprovoked attack by the evil Putin is the source of all the problems in Europe and Ukraine. But, you know, there's a narrative that has been built that is widely embraced by the mainstream media that's been carefully fabricated, designed to justify essentially whatever we want to do.

But they were wrong. The Russians went in when they said they would not. They are wrong now if they believe that we can continue to push over the border into Ukraine, not just military equipment and military assistance, but also U.S. military personnel in any way or NATO personnel in any way without provoking an all-out war with Russia. So you're right. We are much closer to a direct confrontation with the Russian state and its military power than the people in Washington realize. It's back to this thing.

They seem to think Russia is Iraq. That's their theory. They don't understand Russia is not Iraq. What does President Putin want? Well, Putin made very clear from the very beginning what he wants are three things. First, he wanted Ukraine to be non-aligned. In other words, neutral, similar to Austria or Sweden, not part of the NATO alliance, because he said, we will not tolerate NATO forces, specifically U.S. forces and U.S. missiles, similar to the Pershing II that we had back in the 1980s, within essentially minutes of Moscow. We're not going to do that. That's unacceptable to us.

That was what Burns was trying to tell people in his memo. So that's the first thing. Second, that the breakaway republics, which are fundamentally Russian, and in general, Russians living in eastern Ukraine, because the ones in the Donetsk and Luhansk are not the only Russians, they should not be subjected to Ukrainianization. They should not be forced to speak Ukrainian, write Ukrainian, and so forth. In other words, become what they're not, Ukrainians. There really are differences, by the way, that people in the West don't seem to appreciate. He said, that's wrong. All we're asking is that you give them autonomy and you allow them to speak their own language and live as they would. I mean, for instance, in Austria, there is a community of Slovenes living on Austrian soil. Nobody ever talks about it.

They write in Slovenian. They speak Slovenian. They're part of Austria. They're loyal citizens, but they're Slovenes, and nobody has any objections to that, and things are fine. Well, that was the point that Putin was trying to make. And then finally, you know, once you get through those two things, I think then the most important thing for Putin was, you know, whatever comes out of

this will not be a threat to Russia. Very simple. That's really what we want more than anything else. How does Putin justify attacking civilian targets, particularly residential neighborhoods? Russians are not attacking civilian targets. What happens, it happened very recently, they will send some Russian troops into an area, particularly in what we call an urban area, a build-up area where there are apartments or homes, and if the Russians are fired upon and they identify where the fire came from, that then becomes a legitimate target. That's no different from what any army has ever done. If you're trying to avoid inflicting civilian casualties, and the Russians went in there with

specifically that goal in mind, they didn't want to destroy property, they didn't want to kill large numbers of people. They said, we're not going to fire on anything that is civilian unless we take fire and we can identify the source. Well, once you've taken fire, you can identify the source. That's a legitimate target. We've done that in Iraq. We've done it in Afghanistan. And sometimes large numbers of civilians are killed, which is unfortunate. It's called war. We've all been there. We know what that means. We have. What would you advise the American government to do if Joe Biden called you up and asked for your advice? Well, the probability of that happening is about zero.

I think he's going to listen to Tony Blinken and Victoria Nuland, who are obviously in charge of policy as far as Ukraine is concerned. And his policy is to make Ukraine suffer as long as possible on the assumption that this hurts Russia, and that Russia can be bled white, and that ultimately Putin can be made so unpopular that everyone wants to remove him. There's no evidence for that, by the way. I mean, we've had all of these unsubstantiated reports that are all traced back to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, telling us that the Russians are losing, Russian troops are deserting, Russians are being killed in large numbers, everyone wants out, the Russian army is demoralized, and so forth and so on. There's no evidence for that. I haven't been able to find any.

How do you see this ending? Does Zelensky get killed like Sabotarayende with a machine gun in his hand at the last minute? No, I don't think so. In fact, I think the Russians, who have always known where he was from the very're negotiating with him and this small team that he sends to the negotiations in Byelorussia in the hopes that they could end this with the least trouble as possible. Thus far, it hasn't worked. And I think it hasn't worked not because Zelensky is not willing to sign up, because he's given indications that he would. It's because we won't allow it to stop. So the real question is, when are we going to allow this killing to end? When are we going to allow some sort of treaty to emerge or at least a ceasefire that results in a treaty? And that depends on the extent to which we ultimately find out that we failed in our attempt to bleed Ukraine, bleed the Russians and remove Putin. I can't foresee Joe Biden acknowledging failure or stated differently, declaring victory and going home. I mean, his approval ratings keep going up with every tick

of the clock. He's got the hawks in both parties behind him. And if it was up to some of those Republican senators, we'd have troops on the ground. I just don't see the American military industrial complex and diplomatic folks recognizing the error of their ways. Do you? Well, there is something interesting here that merits attention. All of the retired generals who speak publicly all say exactly the same thing. It's really quite striking. The last time I remember this happening was on our way into Iraq in 2003. Everyone spoke with one voice. Everyone read from the same sheet of music. That's what we have right now. And you're right. The so-called Republicans have turned out to be a big disappointment, because they don't reflect the views of their respective constituents. I dare anybody to find anyone in the United States who is gung-ho for going to war outside of Washington. I don't see

any evidence for it. I think Americans are worried about inflation, food prices, gasoline prices. They're worried about their standard of living. They're worried about employment, all of those things. I don't see any evidence that anybody is terribly concerned about going to war to right all the wrongs that allegedly Mr. Putin has caused. So you have this bubble and all of these people are involved in this narrative and they're pushing it very, very hard. Well, obviously they probably think they stand to benefit from this, certainly in terms of income from various donors who want to see conflict, not just your defense organizations. But if you dig a little deeper inside the Department of Defense and you start talking to people who are over there at lower levels, they're all very frightened of the possibility we might have to

fight the Russians because they know we're not prepared to do it. And then there's the nuclear dimension. That's even more lunatic because there are no winners in a nuclear exchange. That's widely understood. All of this is at the top. It's very, very strange. But then again, remember, Judge, we went almost overnight from the existential threat of the global caliphate to no more mention of the global caliph, you know, the existential threat that Russia presents. It is amazing in my judgment. So how do we get out of it? Well, the mainstream media is pretty elastic. They change very rapidly. But the government loves to hate.

You know, for 50 years, or 60 years, we hated the Soviet Union. Then we hated Iran. Then we hated Iraq, then we hated Saddam Hussein, then we hated COVID. Now we're all supposed to be hating Putin. I got to tell you, Colonel, this is one of the most stimulating conversations I've had of the many I've had about Russia and Ukraine. Let me ask you a few more questions. And I know you're on the military side, not the legal side. But did Biden know what the heck he was talking about? And did he understand the ramifications of calling Putin a war criminal? Well, the only

ramifications that he and most people in Washington worry about are the ramifications for their donors. In other words, if you don't make the donor happy, you don't get reelected. And secondarily, they're standing with the public in polls. And if they detect, well, Americans think the Russians are bad, well, then I think the Russians are bad. Well, if Americans aren't interested in Russians, then I'm not interested are bad. Well, if Americans aren't interested in Russians, then I'm not interested in Russians. I mean, you know, when we went to war in 2003 with Iraq, there were lots of members like, or back in fact, in 1991 with Al Gore, it's very famous. He was trying to make up his mind whether or not he wanted to support intervention against Iraq in

1991. And he was actually reading the polling data before he went before the camera and announced what he was going to do. I think there's more of that that goes on than we realize. But Joe Biden really should be careful what he asks for. I mean, to call Vladimir Putin a war criminal, is he forgetting how he championed the invasion of Iraq under the false pretenses that they had weapons of mass destruction? And wouldn't that make George W. Bush a war criminal as well? Well, did it hurt his selection to be vice president under Obama? Did it hurt his reelection to the Senate? And the answer is no. So the only thing these people care about is continuing to enrich

themselves and wield power. So unless something interrupts that process, I think you're going to get more of the same. And this is something, too, that's very, very strong today in Washington. It's always been strong on the left, but the right was always more circumspect about these strident moral positions, because it used to be that conservative Republicans worried a little bit about hypocrisy. You know, hypocrisy is the tribute, vice pays to virtue. And that was the conservative view. Today, that's all gone. Everyone wants the moral high ground, as meaningless as it may turn out to be. Colonel McGregor, I hope you'll come back and chat with us again. You're such a breath of fresh air. I wish that everybody in Washington could hear what you have to say. Thank you so much for joining us, sir. All the best to you. Okay. Thank you, Judge. Judge Napolitano and the great

Colonel Douglas McGregor for judging freedom.