Judging Freedom - Ukraine Russia War - Update with Jack Devine

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Ukraine Russia War - Update with Jack Devine, former CIA.#Ukraine #Biden #Russia #nuclearSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 6, 2022. It's about 2 o'clock in the afternoon on the east coast of the United States. My guest today is a Judging Freedom regular, Jack Devine. Jack spent his entire career in the Central Intelligence Agency and knows a great deal about Russian influence in the United States and what our intelligence community knows about what the Russians are up to, and he's written books about it. His great book is called The Spymaster's Prism. Once you start the book, you can't put it down. Jack, it's always a pleasure. Thanks. And welcome back to Judging Freedom. Well, thanks for having me back on, Judge. I always enjoy it.

Thank you. So you and I have spoken several times during the course of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And each time you are of the view that the Russians will win. And of course, you can't always tell how it's going at the time we talk. But what's your view today about 102, 103 days into the war? Well, I actually, I didn't think they were going to win in the sense of occupying. And what I wasn't sure of is on the eve of when they invaded, just how vigorously the Ukrainians would fight. But I called a very good friend of mine who's well wired there. And he said, Jack, we're going to fight. So I actually

believe they're going to fight. That they would be as successful as they have been is a real surprise. And that the Russians have been so feckless on the ground in terms of having an army and logistics. I mean, that first 70 days was pretty abysmal. And I think it was a shock to the world, including those that watch it closely in the intelligence world. So I've actually been thinking for a long time that you end up with a stalemate, maybe not a ceasefire, but the Russians will, they haven't done it yet. There's a point where, you know, they moved everything out of Kiev, and now they're down in the eastern corner. They're going to push as hard as they can,

and the Ukrainians are going to push back as hard as they can. And I think once they get to that point, they can't the Ukrainians are going to push back as hard as they can. And I think once they get to that point, they can't go any further and the Ukrainians can't push them back anymore, then I think you end up with a stalemate. I don't think at this point it will be a negotiated settlement because I don't think either party can negotiate. But you can tone down without a treaty. In other words, you just stop firing as many rounds and you get off the air a little bit.

So I don't think we're too far. The only thing I would say to finish that off, I don't think we're too far out. I think before Thanksgiving, if not before Labor Day, I think they're going to be near stalemate. You can see certain things falling into place. There's a limit to how far the Russians can go and how far the Ukrainians can go. What does President Putin need in order credibly, credibly to claim victory? By credibly, I mean so that enough people in his own government believe him that he'll still be the president of Russia a year from now. I don't think he can. In order to do that, I think the Kiev

government would have to fall, and he would have to take the capital and most of the country. And there's no indication whatsoever that he has that capability. So I think he'll declare a victory that he has the eastern corner of the two provinces there. But that's as far as it goes. And, frankly, he had unofficially sort of claimed that earlier. So I don't see us within grasp anymore. And I think your point about a year, I wrote this op-ed that we talked about on March 2nd, saying his days were numbered.

I didn't mean literally the next five days, but his days. And he's over. I mean, mean literally the next five days, but his days, and he's over. I mean, he cannot come back as a powerhouse in this country, around the world, and it's just a question of time. It'll be his own people that bring him down. So a year is not a bad bet. I wouldn't take that. I mean, that's not unrealistic for where.

Is he forever going to be an outcast in the European community? Or will he at some point come back into their good graces? How can he come back after the atrocities? In other words, if there was a war in which it was fought traditionally and it was

evenly balanced, you could say, well, we could work his way back. After the atrocities and the vicious bombing, you can't work him out. Who's going to have their picture taken? I mean, in his own country, I think he's going to have a hard time

developing the stature. Before he went in, it was his high point. That was my thesis. It remains my thesis. Is it normal in uh in a limited war like this by limited i mean limited to one country versus another this isn't world war uh two for one side to lose 11 generals is is that a coincidence or are the ukraines perhaps with assistance from the West targeting the Russian

senior military leadership well 11 is a significant number and there's no question about it but they have a different structure their structure doesn't give the captain the major and the lieutenant colonel audit a lot of authority so if you don't pass down the authority, then their general has to get closer to where the action is. And I think that distinguishes their model from our model. The second thing is, and I'm not professing, I have inside information,

but clearly the Ukrainians have been training. And actually in the book, I go into this, and that was 18, 2018. They are not the Army of 2014. They've learned some lessons. But, you know, they may not have received all the sophisticated weapons and the amount, but they clearly have been trained to fight this kind of war, where I think the Russians were still fighting, you know,

going through the bulge type of war strategy. So I think that a lot of their techniques, I don't think the Russians were ready for it, frankly. There's no indication that they had any idea of what they were going to do. At some point we should talk about the Stinger just because of its, I want to make a point about what modern weapons changed the battlefield. Okay. I do want to talk about those weapons changed the battlefield. Okay.

I do want to talk about those weapons in this context. Putin has warned the West that he may do something if we, and he's obviously saying this for consumption in the United States, continue to arm the Ukrainians. What is this threat and what could he possibly do? What he could do is talk loud and he will get reception from people in the West and the East that are prone and fearful. Let me put it this way. I told you last time, I think I made a mistake because I sort of went along with the idea that, well, maybe we shouldn't put those nigs in. And the weather was disgusted.

Paul, wait a minute. Why not? What's he going to do? He's going to invade Ukraine. He's going to invade Poland. But after what he just showed, I mean, I think it's a lot of a lot of bluster. Now he'll fire off rockets and do damage and blow up buildings, but he doesn't – he has no pushback.

He can't make progress in Ukraine. How's he going to make it in Germany and Poland? And so what is he going to do? I mean, I think we have to be careful because he threw out the word nuclear weapons, right? Everybody is panicking. Really? You're going to fire one off?

What do you think is going to fire one off? What do you think is going to be left of the Kremlin? It would be the end of my civilization as we know it. So I think we have to take the stress. He is a good propagandist, given that. And disinformation, the Russians have been working at it much more effectively. We really don't engage very much. Americans, they don't like this information. Jack, what have we gained by $56 billion in cash and in military equipment sent over to Ukraine? Well, I think I would reverse the issue in the sense of what would have happened if we hadn't provided either the training or weapons.

The war would have been over in a month. Right. And we would be looking at the thing that people really need to study is just how important Ukraine is in the history of Russia. Every Russian leader has lusted after Ukraine because it's the breadbasket of many ways of Europe, but it's also, you know, industrial power. It had nuclear weapons not too long ago. But a point that I would make is Russia, again, its GDP is like Spain or France.

With the Ukraine, and if Ukraine were fully developed, you know, you would have a much stronger, it would, the Germans would have a hard time with it. In other words, in terms of, that would be a much more formidable threat in Europe. And the big thing that has emerged from this, Judge, is I don't think Putin, as bad as I viewed him as a danger, he's worse than I thought. I'm sure he didn't like Spymaster's prison because it was pretty tough on him,

but he has shown himself to be ruthless, an imperialist in real old-fashioned style. So I wouldn't want to be sitting in Hungary, Estonia, Poland. In fact, I think he'd be aggressive in Latin America and maybe even in our own backyard. What is the American intelligence community telling the president and the people around him about Putin today? His mental stability, his physical health, his stability in office? I don't know what exactly they're saying,

but I would be surprised if they, and they are not far apart, in our assessment of, A, the danger he represented, danger he still represents, and his mindset. And I think probably they and me have probably sharpened our concerns about his ability or willingness to take life in large numbers and seem not to care too much about that. So I think on that score, about him and his stability, my guess is they're going to come out the same way, which is he's over. When it all crumbles, who knows, but he is shrunk.

He is shrunken as a threat to the world. I mean, in the sense of, you know, his bluster. I mean, who's going to be afraid of him after you see how his army acted in the neighboring country? And he still couldn't get it done, let alone trying to transport it somewhere else. I mean, amazing. So my assessment isn't too far apart. I hope it isn't. Do we have boots on the ground in Ukraine?

Well, I will say this. We do not have any uniformed American troops on the ground. That would be my guess. But that you have really smart advisors that are Americans, I'll bet you do. So how do you... I would hope that we would live your way for the LEND support. Look, I'm a big advocate.

Book one, book two, I talk about covert action. And that is those types of things you do without putting boots on the ground and armies. And that's what I did in Afghanistan with many of my colleagues who, I mean, I don't mean me, but a generation of people from the agency. But no, you're better fighting wars covertly, right? Where you have the local people want to fight, they have an adversary, you support it to

the maximum, and you don't put troops on the ground. So I'm not a big fan of what we did in Iraq. And I didn't like the way it turned out in Afghanistan because I think we went in too early with real armies. So if there's folks on the ground, it's sort of my vision of how you do things without getting toe-to-toe in the shooting, kinetic war against the Russians. You and I have talked about this. Somebody on the president's team either intentionally or let it slip

that special forces, American special forces, were sent to Kiev to protect the embassy. Now, that's a joke. Special forces don't guard buildings. Special forces are offensive in nature. So if they're there, are we not risking the slow, gradual Vietnamization of this war? I could be wrong.

I don't think there's a single American enlisted man or officer that's firing any weapons at the Russians, okay, that you would, you better have tightened up your military presence. I mean, if you have a, you know, I don't know how many guards you, Marine guards you had there, but who've always served their country bravely. But once he invaded and you still had people there, you better fortify it because your embassy can be overrun, as we saw in Vietnam and other places. So that we would send in, and, you know, people talk loosely about he's a member of CIA when they actually mean he's in DEA or DIA.

When they say special forces, was he, were they really special forces? I don't know. But what they really should have done is tighten up the embassy, and I bet they'd burn a lot of documents and prepare for the worst. Remember, the US government was, at least as I read it, was offering Kalinske a free plane ride out of Ukraine, but fortunately he saw the situation quite differently and stayed, thank God for all of us. But there was pessimism about the ability to hold Kiev. I'd like to know what Joe Biden's real thoughts are. I don't know that you can tell me this because that $56 billion is going to be gone pretty soon. You mentioned Stingers. Have we sent them weapons that are powerful enough

that they can reach into Russia? And does that terrify Vladimir Putin? And if it does, what's he going to do about it? The reason I mentioned the Stingers, Judge, is, you know, we were running a war for about eight years before the Stingers went in, right? And if you go back and read the press in 1985, it was the Russians were winning, the Mujahideen was running out of steam. If you talk to the political elite in Washington, they would have told you the same thing immediately. What happened is the Reagan administration decided they were going to make one big push.

I happened to be chief of the task force at the time for Toto's sleep. But what happened? That one weapons system went in and the first three helicopters, I remember going to see Judge, not Judge, Director Casey and shot him the photos of the shoot downs. And their strategy came. They started flying way above the range and then they were ineffective on the battlefield. And that's when the Russians started to plan to leave. Now, that was the first time Stingers were introduced. When they were, what happened in this war, you don't hear as much about air power as you did in New York City. Why?

Because the Stinger, you know, takes out helicopters. And so they were there. We put the Stingers in and we put the Javelin, which is anti-tank. And when I was in the Afghan program, it was we were looking for the Milan missile to take out tanks so those things were terribly terribly important and that's why I think I don't think the Ukrainians would have been able to fight on without those two weapon systems your question is okay now we're 100 days into it and artillery is now the key and the range of it so the Russians can sit there and fire

artillery and the ukrainians can't fire back because they don't have the range everything is said publicly by uh by the president and the the administration is the those weapons are on their way to them and you know I wouldn't play I don't blame gluten for jumping up and down. So don't you dare do that. But I am glad that the administration sees it for what it is. And that is Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Why don't you back off? Why don't you pull up on these stuff? You know, slaughtering these people? Why don't you back off and then you wouldn't have to worry about

whether we put them in or not. All right. We'll have you back soon, Jack. You said maybe Labor Day, maybe Thanksgiving, but over by Christmas? The stalemate between both the Russians, that would be my bet. By Christmas, you know, everyone's going to be exhausted. I mean, the support among the allies is, you know, it's going to be tenuous. Here in the United States, if we run into some of the economic headwinds, it's going to be tenuous. But remember, Putin is looking in the mirror, and he's not going to get any stronger. His economy

is not going to get any better. Fewer deaths on this battlefield are not going to happen. He's not going to really regain much territory. So I think at a certain point, you're in a stalemate. And is there a brilliant statesman who would come in and cut a deal? Maybe. I haven't seen him. But that's possible. I'm more inclined to think it just sort of dries up little by little.

And then once the fighting's over, then everyone in Russia looks at him and including his own leadership. And there's a lot of division in Moscow, quiet as it may be about what a mistake this was. Well, once the fighting's over, they're going to have to contend with the guerrilla warfare, the likes of which they've never seen. Well, that's the point. How far down can you turn it?

I mean, that's going to be a really good question. And you don't have the guerrilla warfare unless you think you're going to gain something, right? I wouldn't be, in other words, if Russia dials down, you have to be careful about forcing them to dial up. So will there be guerrilla warfare? I think all along they've had very good tactics. So I hope the Ukrainians, at some point, we recognize, it's like,

Judge, you know this, it's settling a case. There's a line. And you know when both parties will agree, right? You know it. And if someone misses it, it gets really messy for a long time. So I think we're looking for that type of settlement where, yeah, it's not going to get better. It's only going to cost us more. But he's slow, Putin's slow at it, and the Ukrainians have every reason to be angry and wanting to perturb their integrity of their territory. Jack Devine, always a pleasure.

You're always welcome here. Thanks very much, my friend. Thank you. Always a pleasure. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.