Judging Freedom - Ukraine Russia war UPDATE - Col. Douglas Macgregor

Episode Date: May 24, 2022

#Ukraine #Putin #BidenSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Good morning, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, May 24, 2022. It's about 11 o'clock in the morning here on the east coast of the United States. My guest is a man I admire a great deal, Colonel Douglas McGregor, retired United States Army and of the Pentagon during the Trump administration. Colonel McGregor, it's a pleasure. Welcome back to Judging Freedom. Thanks, Judge. So there's a lot for us to talk about, and you crystallized a great deal of it in your article yesterday called 30 years with no strategy brought us to war in ukraine tell us what you wrote sir well it's really it's not so much as

there's no strategy because i think people argue that yes we have had a strategy that's gotten us into a lot of trouble and the strategy is to essentially be the indispensable nation and go everywhere all the time to involve ourselves in matters that frankly are not relevant to us and I think that's the number one problem the second part is that now in Ukraine it's pretty clear that the Ukrainians are being crushed I never thought anything differently from the very beginning but we have artificially sustained this conflict. We've urged the Ukrainians to die in great numbers. We've told their government that we will back them. And ultimately, we've sent them enormous assistance, and we've discouraged them from negotiating with the Russians.

So now they're faced with total Armageddon in eastern Ukraine. Now there are talks about turning western Ukraine into, quote-unquote, Ukrainistan, to try and build an endless war that will go on and, quote-unquote, bleed Russia, which I see not happening, frankly. I don't think the Europeans will put up with it. Let me stop you. What do you mean by Ukrainistan? Well, the idea that's being hatched over in the Pentagon and in the White House is, well, we'll just turn Western Ukraine into some version of Afghanistan for the Russians so that they'll end up in this endless guerrilla war.

Well, the problem with that, Judge, is that Western Ukraine is not Afghanistan. It's relatively open, rolling terrain. There are no mountains, there are no caves, there are no places to hide. And the Russians can sweep that entire area with missile fire, rocket fire, and essentially devastate anybody moving west of the Epper River as they see fit. So it's not a practical solution. So the globalists in the State Department and their colleagues in Western Europe somehow think that by NATO and America arming the Ukrainians, as you have said, to fight to the last living Ukrainian, will degrade Russia or diminish Putin. Yeah, you've summed it up nicely. And there's no evidence that that's going to work,

just as there's no evidence for some sort of coup building inside Russia to remove Vladimir Putin. Putin is more popular now than he has ever been. Anybody who attempted to remove him would be committing suicide in Russia. The population is 100% with him. I think the official polls are about 85 plus percent, but you're not going to find anybody over there that doesn't think that it's time to defend Russia. And remember, from the very beginning, all of this was viewed as defending Russia, eliminating the threat in eastern Ukraine.

For them, it was similar once again to the Cuban Missile Crisis. We're not going to allow eastern Ukraine to be a platform for attack against Russia. How dangerous is the American welcoming reception for Finland and Sweden into NATO? You know, I don't think it's dangerous for us. I think the problem is twofold. First of all, even the Finnish president, when he announced he was doing this and was asked directly about a Russian attack, he said, no, I don't see any evidence for a Russian attack on Finland. He said, no, that's not really why we're doing this. We're doing this because, quote, unquote, Russia attacked a sovereign nation. That was his argument. Well, he knows, and I'm sure like everybody else in Europe knows, that we goaded the Russians into this war, and we tried

to use Ukraine as an instrument with which we could beat Russia over the head. But he's done that. Ostensibly, there must be some benefits to Finland that we're not aware of, monetary or otherwise, to entice him to do this. Sweden's another matter. Of course, you know, the funny thing about the Swedes is the ambassador here in Washington was asked about it. You know, what about Sweden's joining, you know, NATO? What are the benefits to Sweden? She said, well, you know, we can reduce our investment in defense. We're spending about 4% of gross national product. If we join NATO, we can go down to 2%. So in other words, we can become a military dependency of the United States

like everybody else on the continent. Isn't that great? That's exactly what Donald Trump warned against and said he would try to undo. Of course, he didn't succeed, but he certainly tried. We paying everybody else's defense bills. Well, look at the bills we're paying in Ukraine. Fifty three billion dollars by the time all that equipment is released. That's more than the Defense Department. That's one of the defense budget for Russia. And it's more than the Defense Department. That's more than the defense budget for Russia. And it's more than the entire budget for Ukraine.

That's exactly right. I mean, the Ukrainians can't possibly absorb that. So the question is, especially at this point in time, you have a few people trained, but very few left. The so-called regular army of Ukraine is almost annihilated. There's practically no one left. A report came in this morning, several brigades asking Zelensky to stop ordering them to do things they can't possibly do. They're down to perhaps 30, 40% strength. They've lost thousands of people. They said, stop ordering us to die. Literally, they've asked him, stop ordering us to die. So what is this going to do? I don't think it's going to do much for Ukraine, but I'd like to know where the money goes

from the American treasury to pay for all of this. And obviously, a lot of it's going to the industrial complex, as you say. How much longer is this likely to go on? You told us and a lot of people listening to you that the Russian victory was inevitable. Our friend Scott Ritter has said the same thing. Our friend Phil Giraldi has said the same thing. Voices crying in the wilderness accept that it now appears to be correct. Oh, yes. It's just taken much longer than I think most of us thought, but there were a couple of things that we didn't anticipate. I think any normally balanced thinker anywhere in the world would have looked at this event in the first week or two and expected the President of the United States to intervene and say, we must have a

ceasefire. Let us negotiate, understanding that if we didn't negotiate, we risked the destruction of eastern Ukraine. Well, that's happened. We now have, what, eight to 10 million Ukrainian refugees, but that did not happen. That was the first surprise, that we would not try to stop this terrible, bloody conflict. Secondly, the Russians told the people in eastern Ukraine, who are overwhelmingly Russian, that they were coming in exclusively to destroy Ukrainian forces, after which they would leave. Well, the average Russian in eastern Ukraine concluded, well, if you're not coming to stay and liberate us, we're not going to help you, because once you

leave, the Ukrainian secret police will show up and shoot all of us in the head, including our families. So they stood aside and tried to get out of the way as opposed to helping and assisting for the most part the Russians. And then finally, I think we did not believe that the Ukrainians would move into the centers of cities and essentially hunker down. We thought they would actually try to maneuver against the enemy. That never happened. And so you had them in these big cities and they're isolated and largely strategically irrelevant as a result. So there are two rumors going around D.C. and they've even made their way up here into the

hinterlands in the northeast where I live. And one is that there might be, the president might order either directly or indirectly, a mobilization of some sort, National Guard or something this summer. And the other is that he might station special forces of some sort, ostensibly as embassy guards in Kyiv. Can you comment on either of those? Have you heard these rumors? Yes, I have. We don't know about the first one, but there is a lot of talk about reserve mobilization. That's not just the Guard, but the Army Reserves and potentially Air Force Reserves that might be mobilized in July in connection with what's happening in Ukraine. Perhaps this is part of the unwillingness of the administration and its subordinate media to admit that the war in eastern Ukraine is lost and still unwilling to back any sort of negotiated settlement. So we'll mobilize. I don't know. I think it's a very dumb idea. I don't think it's

going to go down well with the American people. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't think it will. So that's the first one. The second one, you know, special operations forces from time to time are on embassy staffs, but we've never had an occasion to announce publicly that we're going to guard an embassy with special operations forces. That's unprecedented. I think it's a very stupid thing to say publicly. And special operations forces are not bodyguards. No, no, no. They're the most terrific, effective, lethal, offensive units we have. Am I right? Well, yeah, I think they are, but they're also very narrowly defined. The missions they get are to go in, find a target or targets, destroy them, and then get out. So they're not really trained

as security guards either. So the question is, why would you send them in? And I assume that this is in addition to the Marines that are already stationed at the embassy. So this is a very odd statement to make. Do your contacts at the Pentagon indicate, and obviously don't tell me what you can't tell me, indicate whether or not there's a plan B or C or D, whatever you want to call it, which would involve the deployment of American troops on the ground in Ukraine? Well, the first part of the answer is no, I just don't know. I would assume that someone's done some planning somewhere, but I would expect that all of it is normally defensive. In other words, if you're looking at deploying additional troops for any reason, it would be to defend NATO's eastern border,

as opposed to offensive operations into western Ukraine. That I think is unlikely. The reason I think it's unlikely is because we don't have the logistical infrastructure or the force structure in place to conduct offensive operations east of NATO's border. The second thing is that there's no support for that inside the NATO alliance. Now, we've ignored what most people in the NATO alliance want in the past. I suppose we could ignore that in the future. And of course, I'm sure you've probably also heard, as I have, that supposedly two Polish battalions are now somewhere in Ukraine trying to help the Ukrainians under some sort of agreement between Kiev and Warsaw that these soldiers would become part of the Ukrainian army. That's another disaster potentially in my judgment. But this tells you how desperate the situation is in eastern Ukraine.

And that's why the humanitarian thing is to intervene and say, stop, let's have a good negotiation. We have spoken to at least one, and he purports to represent many others, civilian, ex-military civilian on the ground in Kiev running a group called Sons of Liberty International, which he says helps train Ukrainian military and Ukrainian civilians in using American equipment. They're risking their lives because they believe in this. Are there American military that we don't know about on the ground anywhere in Ukraine? I'm not talking about the Marines guarding the embassy. There may be. And the reason I say that is because while President Trump was in office, we discovered that we had forces in far larger numbers on the ground in places like Syria

and in parts of Africa than had been reported. In other words, the Department of Defense had not been truthful with us about what was really on the ground. That may well be the case now. That could just as easily happen to President Biden as it did to President Trump. How much longer do you think this goes on, the war? I think as we move through the summer and reach the fall, we are going to have crises here at home that will be very severe. Those will involve financial matters as well as food shortages, fuel prices. I think we're going to watch our economy gradually implode. A number of potential bubbles are going to start bursting. As that occurs, there'll be less and less interest

in what's going on overseas. I just don't think we can focus on what's happening in Ukraine at the expense of what's going to happen here inside the United States. I could be wrong, but that's what I think. How tempting is it for Vladimir Putin to destroy the enormous cache of U.S. military equipment being stored in Poland? If he does that, does he bring NATO troops into this? Obviously, if he struck targets right now in Poland, that would potentially bring on a war with NATO. And thus far, what we've seen from the Russians is a very systematic effort to avoid that at all costs. So no, I think he's going to be very focused on consolidating what's being won

in eastern Ukraine. I think we're going to see most of it either annexed directly to Russia or perhaps declared as a new Russian-Ukrainian republic allied with Moscow. Anything is possible, but I think that's where he's going to focus. In the meantime, he is supplying huge quantities of grain, other foodstuffs, as well as, of course, precious metals and energy to China, because China has its own problems right now, and they're very concerned about potential food shortages. So his number one priority, other than Ukraine, is going to be to assist the Chinese who have stood with him throughout this crisis. All right. I was going to say thank you and end the show, but now you're tantalizing me. What the heck was the president talking about two days ago in Japan

when he was asked at a press conference, would American military troops actively defend Taiwan if the Chinese government sought to use military to control Taiwan? And he answered with one word, yes. You know what he was talking about, or is this some message to President Xi? Well, of course, you know that shortly after he made that statement, I think Secretary of Defense Austin and I think the National Security Advisor, Mr. Bryan, I'm not sure if he was the one, spoke immediately. Jake Sullivan.

Jake Sullivan, right. I'm sorry. It's hard to tell the difference, frankly. Ultimately said, look, this was a mistake. He misspoke. There's no change in our policy, because our policy has been to essentially stay out of the affair between Taiwan and China, provided there was no, you know, direct threat. And frankly, I can tell you from my own experience with people from Taiwan, from the Ministry of Defense there over the last several years off and on, they don't fear an attack by China. The problem is that now we have been so bellicose in our attitudes towards China that I think this statement by the president has sent a message to the Chinese that they're going to have to be prepared to act against us in the Strait of Taiwan. So, you know, at least my contacts in Northeast Asia with our allies are

telling me this was a terrible statement to make because it confirms the worst fears in Beijing about us. So they begin to think more and more there's no alternative to an eventual war with the United States. And naturally, this drives Russia and China that much closer together. They see themselves as one another's partners for eternity to survive the onslaught of the United States. I'm not the man's psychoanalyst. I can't explain why he would say that. But will a statement like he made two days ago animate the Chinese military? Yes, without question, not just the military, but the leadership period in Beijing. Everyone is going to look at that and say, oh my God, these people have lost their minds. We've got to prepare for the worst.

We need to understand something about Taiwan and China very briefly. During the last several crises, whenever there's been the threat of any kind of any conflict in the region, the banks in Taiwan have tended to store all their wealth in China. Think about that. Does that sound to you as though these are adversaries and opponents? I mean, from the standpoint of the Chinese, Taiwan was Imperial Japan's unsinkable aircraft carrier. That's their fear. In other words, it can be the staging point for invasion and destruction of China.

Therefore, they don't want any foreign forces in Taiwan, just as Putin did not want foreign forces, specifically U.S. and NATO, in eastern Ukraine. Just as JFK didn't want Russian forces in Havana. Exactly, exactly. And this is something that we've known for a long time, and it's been made very clear that as long as the United States doesn't put forces on Taiwan, the Japanese don't put forces on Taiwan. There's nothing likely to happen. Then here's the final point. There are two parties in Taiwan. One is pro-Japanese,

based on Japan's long control of the island, and the other is pro-Beijing. Right now, the pro-Japanese party is in power, but it only won election by a few votes the last time. That could change, and you could end up with, quote-unquote election by a few votes the last time. That could change, and you could end up with, quote unquote, the pro-Beijing Party. The pro-Beijing Party in Taiwan wants reunification with greater China. Now, under those circumstances, why are we trying to create a conflict when there really is none. You have a huge segment of the population that thinks, so we reunify with China, we can do business with China. People don't understand that the goal in Beijing and the goal on Taiwan are the same. They both want to live in something like

Singapore. That's what the Chinese want, all of them. They don't particularly care about the government as long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to make money and enrich themselves. Their value orientation is not the same as ours. Although I should interject that that clearly is the value orientation in Washington, D.C. and the swamp. But for most Americans, we don't think exclusively in those terms, but they do. Colonel McGregor, you are of inestimable value to us. The emails are popping up all over the place, and I know everybody watching deeply and profoundly appreciates your insight.

We hope you'll come back again soon. Sure. Thank you, Judge. Pleasure, sir. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.