Judging Freedom - U.S. investment in Ukraine - Smart for Peace_

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

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My guest today is a fan favorite of sorts, Jack Devine, career CIA, tells it as he sees it, whether we agree with him or not. Jack, belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you. And welcome back to the show. Same here, Judge.

And my resolution is to try and Same here, Jajan. My resolution is to try and win over more of your supporters. Okay. Keep trying. How do you see the war in Ukraine going now, early January 2023? I would say I don't see anything positive from the Russian side. If you're looking at what's going on, they're firing missiles, right? Hitting civilian installations. Death here, death there.

Every death is terrible. But, you know, they lost 67 troops the other day in Donbass. I mean, they got a serious hit there. So, you know, I think both sides are getting ready for the spring. And we're going to find out just how much better the Russian army is and how six months has improved their fitness, their equipment, their organization, logistics. And we're going to find out just how much the Ukrainians have put in place and how much they have prepared for the likely attempt. So I think nothing dramatic is going to happen.

Both sides talked about peace. They both basically said we'll accept this complete surrender on each side. So nothing is going to happen on the peace front. So I'm expecting in spring to see some real definition, and if Putin is thinking he has a cakewalk in front of him, I think he's going to be a terribly surprised guy.

It's a really hard fought battle. Is President Putin's strategy to break the will of the Ukrainian people by visiting a horrifically cold, dark, waterless, heatless winter upon them. He's picked the wrong folks to pick a fight like that. This is a tough people. And I think

they are historically, if you read history the ukrainians have been in battle after battles century after century with everybody trying to some warn them these are it's the same gene pool we're looking at it they are tough and they believe in your craniness and they're going to defend it to the last person when i was out there in 2018 they told me it and i accepted it but like a good intelligence operative i asked myself will they really do that i am now convinced of fighting to the last person and so are the russians ready to fight to the same extent take the losses i i think they've they've reached an immovable object. That's my take on it. But we need to be behind them. I mean, they're not going to be able to withstand without

armaments and so on. But do they have the will as a people to suffer and fight? He really picked a bad enemy. How about the will on the other side, the will of the Russians to follow their leader, this is his argument, in acquiring back what historically had been Russian? State it differently. Do the people still support President Putin? Yeah, well, you know, if you're victorious, you have a lot of support. If you're losing, I don't care what country, take your pick, you lose support.

So if he takes the types of losses that I think are going to happen, if he doesn't perform at a much higher level, you know, with all their knocking down the communication from the West into their country, you know, their people will eventually figure out that they are not prevailing, and it's costing them a great deal. So I predict it in both, you know, my op-eds and when I wrote Spymaster Prism two years ago. You know, the Russian people will decide whether they're going to keep Putin or not. And if he does not prevail, the clock will begin in the spring, how long his reign will last. And if he doesn't Here's what President Putin said to the Russian people on New Year's Day. ожидали полного разрушения нашей промышленности, финансов, транспорта. Этого не произошло.

Запад врал о мире, а готовился к агрессии. И сегодня признается в этом уже не стесняясь, в открытую. А Украину и ее народ они цинично используют для ослабления и раскола России. Мы никогда и никому не позволяли и не позволим этого сделать. destroy them. I mean, it's laughable. But, you know, I don't want to diminish it. He has following because there are Russian loyalists as well that love their country. And he has this line of fake history. It's a laughable presentation unless when you stand back,

it's amazing how many people buy into false if you remember gerbils or the nazis i mean you tell a lie enough people begin to believe it maybe well why would he make statements like that is this political support waning? Is he trying to encourage the morale of the troops? Why is he standing in front of maybe a dozen youthful, relatively attractive, uninjured, uniformed Russian soldiers, one or two of whom are female? You don't think they were particularly selected for it, although I didn't know. Well, don't think they were particularly selected for it, although I didn't know. Well, I'm sure they were selected, but my question is,

I'm asking the spymaster himself, why were they selected? What is he trying to convey? Well, I think he knows he's on the back of his heels. This is every assessment I've seen. He was not anticipating what he encountered he was misled by his intelligence or ignored it he would he was caught by surprise everything i read that you know i would respect uh says that he this is not what he was expecting so he's back on his heels so he's not going to get out there in front of his people so listen i got you know i got beat up in the

first round you know he's not going to say that so what is he going to say oh they did it to me they picked on me they invaded russia i mean really so it doesn't question credibility and it doesn't i don't care what audience if you just stand back i mean this is hackney soviet type propaganda that's you know but it's the best line he has. We're going to see what his army is like. If his army is as hackneyed as this, he's going to suffer the same criticism. Doesn't he have about 300,000 called up, uniformed, now trained reservists about to enter the theater of war? And if he does, and I think he does,

maybe your sources tell you otherwise, if he does, wouldn't that overwhelm the Ukrainian forces? He had 180,000 in the last round. I mean, that's not chicken feed, right? And you looked at it. They weren't armed properly. Where did they get the new arms? Where did they get the training? How did they get so battle ready in six months you're looking at ukrainians have been fighting for almost a year now they're as tough as nails their strategy they're planning you're going to send a lot of rookies in and what have you your trucks have wheels now do they have gas they have logistics uh 300 000 if um let's see let's see how they do um they're gonna just march in they're gonna abuse air power i mean yesterday every drone was shot down that's a message something's going on on the counter drone area right so do they want to fight? The problem, sorry about that.

So do they want to fight? We know what wars are like when people, they went into Afghanistan. My goodness. I mean, full-blown Russian army went in and was driven off by sheep herders. Why? Because, and I'll tell you firsthand, theussian soldiers did not want to fight in afghanistan are they really going to fight in ukraine i mean it's like you're almost like a civil war and it's unprovoked we'll see how what a fighting army i know there's people out there you mentioned

a couple of them last time to see oh yeah look at the iraqi army how many troops are in the iraqi army judge 300 000 armed by the united states where did they go they went home so size isn't the story let's see but let's see what they've got under there let me let me switch gears a little bit jack uh suppose um uh jake sullivan calls you tonight and says the President wants to talk to you in the Oval Office tomorrow about strategy for Ukraine. And you accept the invitation. What do you tell him? I would say keep pursuing your strategy and up the ante as much as you can. In other words, I think we, when I say this, I'm talking about the Western allies. I think there was at the beginning, you know, no one realized how tough the Ukrainians, how weak the Russians

were. Right now, I think the Ukrainians are giving, I mean, there's not a lot that I would critique the Ukrainians in terms of their fighting prowess. And yes, I would give them more. I'd give them the air support, the air defenses they need. Early on, we were wringing our hands about javelins and stingers. And remember the 23 makes in Poland? If that issue came up today, they'd just fly them across the border. In other words, I think right now, my suspicion, because I hope they're not telling everybody what they're doing, I'm assuming that the allies are helping as much as they can to help the Ukrainians get ready for Putin's onslaught. And is he going to come up with some new strategy?

I'd like to see someone define it. Oh, we're going to take it to Crimea? All right. You're in the Oval Office and the President says, what are your views about what we should do if it looks like Russia is going to overtake Ukraine? Should the 101st Airborne, 40,000 of them, move along with 90,000 Polish troops. No. Jack Devine's standing position is we support, and this is what happened in the Afghan war against the Russians in my time, if the people are prepared to fight and you have a common objective, you support them.

You do not put the American troops on because it falters. In other words, if it's not doable, you can't force feed these things. Yeah, but your goal. We keep learning Afghanistan, Vietnam, we keep learning the same. I agree with you on that. Your goal, Jack, your goal is to remove President Putin from power, is it not? No. If a few thousand American troops could do that,

why don't you bring them in? Your audience needs to read what I've written. And what I'm saying is the Russian people have to get rid of Putin. They have to decide. We should not be meddling internally in Russia. It will backfire and we won't be good at it, right? But we should put up the fight and defend the Ukrainians as much as possible. I do believe there is no end game until Putin goes. And I think he will go. I said that March last year. What is the end game for the United States, Jack, to chase the Russian troops out of Ukraine? I think our goal is to fight the Ukrainians until the Russians say uncle, and then let the Russian people say what they want to do to Putin.

But what does uncle mean? Does it mean Ukraine gets Crimea back, Jack? I hope so. I certainly hope so. It doesn't belong to them. I know, but, well, I know you believe that, but that's not realistic that Crimea. I think it is realistic. I think they're going to get the Crimea. Let me just put one footnote that's really important, Judge. I do

not think that the Russians are going to overrun them. I do not think that's what's going to happen. I think they're going to put up such a vicious fight. This is not going to be easy. And if they're pushed up into the hills, they're going to be fighting again in the hills. This is not, I'm telling them, Putin should be listening, not the president. This is not a cakewalk. This is not a cakewalk. You better be, this is in it. You're in it for the long haul. We should be defending this against the Russians. And it will never come to peace until Putin goes. But I'm not suggesting we move against Putin and we do covert action, all that nonsense. It'll happen because this was a tragic and ill-footed decision by Putin to do this.

He bit off more than he can chew this time. American intel, which is obviously on the ground in Ukraine, are they fighting or just spying? I'd see no indication that they are on the ground or that they're fighting. Not a single American that I know of, American intelligence officer there, I think it'd be... Wait a minute. You're telling me the CIA is not physically present in Ukraine? No, I don't think I said that.

I think I said they're not fighting. Okay. They're physically there, but they're doing what they do, spycraft. Well, remember who I am. You're the spycraft. I'm never going to say that there's anybody that's undercover anywhere. Right? So, I mean, you're fighting a losing battle here, Judd.

So, I hope, I hope that we're doing everything we can to support them with intelligence. But let me, I'm not kidding on this point. The fighting has to be Ukrainians. They have to want it. We cannot, because it might fit some bigger strategic view, support them because it leads to something else. The Ukrainians must generally want it, or this will fail.

We will fail. And I believe, I've believed it since I wrote the book two years ago, that Ukrainians are determined to retain their sovereignty and their independence and not be bullied by Putin. And I think he's shown himself to be weaker. I give him more credit. When I do the addendum to the paperback, I'm going to say I gave him too much credit.

You know, he is not as good as I thought he was. All right. I'm looking at the emails and I know the opinions. Am I making progress over 2022? Yes, you are. I want everybody to know what they see over Jack's left shoulder, which is a poster for the Spymaster's Prism. These are his memoirs, but everything he did

and some stuff he doesn't want us to know about for his years in the CIA. The book is coming out in paperback in the spring. Yeah. I said the addendum because I was pretty hard on him. But I mean, the, and I called Kiv the New Berlin. I mean, that's how I was looking at it back then. Now, I mean, it's far exceeds what I was expecting. So it's really quite interesting. But I do provide the build up to it. And I do tell them how

to fight to the last man. Jack, will you come back in a couple of weeks, no matter what the state of affairs is with the troops? I will be back whenever you invite me. And, you know, the reason is, A, I find our exchanges interesting, but they're enjoyable in a way in which we're able to talk about things in a candid and frank way. And I hope the audience appreciates that. So win, lose, or draw, I'm coming back to call it the way I see it,

and you will always ask me the questions that challenge that. So I'm in this for the long haul with you, Judge. Jack Devine, the book is The Spymaster's Prism. My dear friend and colleague, thank you very much for joining us. And thank you, and happy New Year. May this be a better year for all of us. Thank you, Jack, and to all of my wonderful fans, Happy New Year. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.