Judging Freedom - Will Biden Gamble on a Ukraine Coalition_

Episode Date: November 3, 2022

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Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, November 3rd, 2022. It's about three o'clock in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States. My guest, as you can see, needs no introduction to all of you. He is our regular military consultant, Colonel Douglas McGregor. Colonel, always a pleasure. I want to start out the way I always do. Can Russia lose this military conflagration? Can Russia lose this military conflagration in Ukraine? No, absolutely not. And I think your viewers will see that becomes more and more obvious over the next couple of months. And everyone forgets that the Russian military never committed more than 20% of its ground force to use in Ukraine. And

even then only in southern Ukraine. So keep that in mind as we go forward. I want our people to be very concerned and very aware about the warnings that you have given, many of which you and I have repeated many times, and some of our colleagues in this business have repeated them as well, Scott Ritter, Tucker Carlson, et cetera, about the dangers of American involvement. So yesterday, a couple of websites, not the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post or even the Wall Street Journal, but a couple of websites reported that the United States now acknowledges that it has troops on the ground in Ukraine, says they are not in a military mode, that they are advisors and inspectors. Sounds dangerously like Vietnam circa 1963,

1964. But what I want to ask you about is, is the introduction of American troops on the ground instigated publicly by your former colleague? I see that little smile on my face, General Petraeus. Is this the beginning of something big and dangerous? You know, it's hard to tell. I don't think he's necessarily instigated anything, but I think he's telling people what's happening behind the scenes. You know, Judge, that we have a long history of incrementalism because our politicians don't like to shock the American people. Our political leaders all want to be a little bit pregnant. So the way you induce us to act militarily is that you get a little bit pregnant. You bring in forces on an

incremental basis. Now, we've had lots of special forces trainers on the ground over there helping the Ukrainians to build this enormous army that was designed to attack Russia. Now we're being told that these few hundred soldiers under a brigadier general, and there are others there who are also senior officers, they're just not visible, is there to track weapons, you know, to find, essentially impose some measure of accountability. Well, we've been at this for, what, eight months? Over $65 billion lost on this fiasco, and all of a sudden now we want to inspect and ensure accountability. I'm very suspicious of the whole thing. It's hard to believe that anybody would take that seriously when Senator Rand Paul, full disclosure, a friend of yours and mine, attempted to amend the various increments of

funds that add up to the $63 billion by requiring American inspectors on the ground, either civilian or military, that motion was soundly defeated by Republicans and Democrats in the Senate. It's almost inconceivable that the president will put the military to that use or that he would say and expect people to believe that that's what they're there for. Does the military give a damn about accountability for American equipment on the ground in Ukraine? Does the president? Well, historically, we haven't been very good at it. And that also goes all the way back to Vietnam. And we saw plenty of evidence for that when we departed Afghanistan. And there is still money being

filtered into Afghanistan. And no one cares to tell us where that's going or how much is involved. So it's not a good picture. I think it's important, though, to get people interested. Somebody said to me the other day, well, Doug, you know, over the last two years, over 200,000 American citizens have died as a result of fentanyl poisoning. You've argued that we need troops on the border. Absolutely. I would much prefer to see those forces that are sitting in Poland on the border with Mexico, Arizona, New Mexico, and California. However, most Americans aren't paying very much attention to that. And there's no one on the Hill, I shouldn't say no one,

because you have good men like Chip Roy and Senator Rand Paul, who periodically raise this. But the truth is, Americans don't seem to understand that the people they voted for in the House and the Senate, as well as the White House, don't seem to be very concerned about 200,000 American dead over two years. Those kinds of losses are what you expect in a war. Well, we have a war. It's down in Mexico, and it's on our border, and it's inside the United States. It seems to care.

It's astonishing. People honestly say, Doug, got you on Ukraine, understand, but we have bigger fish to fry here. I agree with them. The problem is that what's going on in Ukraine potentially could drag us into something that could be deadly to our civilization. It could drag us into another Vietnam. And you have written recently, not that Joe Biden and his generals want another Vietnam. And you have written recently, not that Joe Biden and his generals want another Vietnam. No one in their right mind would want that kind of a disaster. 58,000 dead, 450,000 injured. Nobody wants that. But they seem to be ignorant of history because they seem to want to be putting together some sort of a coalition, and you opine or you ask rhetorically, though you do suggest an answer, in a recent great piece that

you wrote, what is the aim of the coalition? So is Joe Biden, are Joe Biden and Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin trying to put together a coalition of military from other countries? And if so, what countries? And if so, what would be the goal of such an absurd coalition? Well, first of all, we don't know with great specificity who's going to make it make up the coalition. But the backbone seems to be primarily U.S. forces. I would estimate 30,000, 40,000 combat troops, in addition to which we would have 30,000 or 40,000 from the Poles, maybe 10,000, 20,000 from the Romanians. How much others, Slovaks, Bulgars, are willing to give us, I don't know. Would we get much from Great Britain? It seems unlikely,

given Britain's terrible circumstances right now. But Britain seems to be very much in the mode of urging war with Russia. Then there's France. Most of the French army is either in North Africa or at home guarding public monuments in Paris and other cities and preventing a war from breaking out internally. So I guess this is probably, for the most part, an East European issue. The thing that concerns me is the majority of Europeans are not interested in a war with Russia, period. That's abundantly clear. We know that from the polls. Secondly, we're listening to Stoltenberg, who continually insists, look, if we lose or quote unquote Ukraine loses in this war with Russia, that's a loss for NATO.

Well, you know, Ukraine's not a member of NATO. I don't know how he figures that out. I don't know how he can say that. But if nothing else, this coalition and the history of coalition warfare is not good, which was the point of the op-ed. I went all the way back to Napoleon and his invasion of Russia, but you can look at the attempt to bring in other nations. It's always been problematic. It hasn't worked very well. Our own during World War II was a very near run thing. So what is the purpose? Is it to achieve a ceasefire? Well, you could do that with

a phone call. I mean, let's be frank. That's something the president of the United States could achieve with a phone call. So that's not going to work. Are we trying to secure territory that's still in Ukrainian hands? In other words, are we shoulder to shoulder with the Ukrainians defending what's left against Russia? Not sure. Or are we simply creating a hook? Is this a device to drag us into a war that under normal circumstances we would never support? So what would happen if American troops on the ground confront Russian troops? I mean, if you're Vladimir Putin or one of his generals, you're going to want to destroy the strongest component of your adversary, which would be the American military. Am I right? Yes, absolutely. And even more important,

Judge, people in this country don't understand that the Russian nation is enraged. It really is. The average Russian is offended and angry. He wants to get us out of Ukraine. He sees us as the clear and present danger. This is not a question of Putin dragging Russia into something. The Russians want blood, and I can tell you that they would like nothing better than to have served up on the platter in western Ukraine thousands of U.S. combat troops,

and they would concentrate every capability at their disposal short of a nuclear weapon to annihilate it. And this is not a time for us to step into something and be beaten and be defeated. There's no gain for us in any of this. It's not necessary. I'm going to put a map on the screen which you helped us create to show the size of the countries compared to the United States. The red, the pink is Ukraine. The blue is Poland. If you look down to where it says Louisiana, that's where Romania is. You have opined that if there is some sort of a coalition, it might include Poland and Romania. You have also told us that Ukraine is roughly the size of Texas. If you can imagine picking up the

pink and moving it to the left, it is just about the size of Texas. And you can imagine picking up the pink and moving it to the left, it is just about the size of Texas. And of course, over where it says South Carolina and Georgia, correct me if I'm wrong, that's where Russia is. Exactly. Absolutely. And because we don't border Ukraine, the danger for us, if we involve ourselves militarily, begins to be one of resupply, sustainment. How do you provide for the forces? How do you replace your losses? How do you bring in more equipment? And that means that you leave from ports from New York all the way down to Corpus Christi and head to Europe. Well, there's a problem with that. It's called the Russian Navy and it's submarine fleet. So we're in a very difficult position. Again, this is back to being a little bit pregnant. We want to be a little bit pregnant. Our politicians want a cheap, easy victory that

they can present to the electorate. Oh, we went in and rescued Ukraine. Maybe they only want to go 100 miles or 200 miles. Well, if you look at that map, you're crossing several states to get anywhere. That's a huge area. All the way across Arkansas, all the way to Tennessee. This is a big area. If you go down from on our map from Poland down to Texas, down to Houston, over to Louisiana. Are there other countries in there before you get to Romania that Tony Blinken and Lloyd Austin could possibly cobble together as some sort of a coalition?

And if they are, what are they? And how big or valuable are their militaries to us? Well, as you move south from Poland, you're looking at Slovakia. And just below Slovakia, of course, is Hungary. And below Hungary is this area that is called Moldova. This is another strange phenomenon that's, how do you put this? It came into existence as part of Romania after World War I. And then when the Soviet state fell apart after World War II, it became semi-independent. This is in the 1990s.

It has some Russians in it in a place called Transnistria, and then you have a small area down near the bottom that you pointed to where it says Louisiana that borders Romania. Gary, put the map up again, please. Go ahead, Carl. Yeah, we're pushing all of the countries. Where it says Louisiana, you're talking about Romania. You go above that and you run into this thing called Moldova

in that sort of curve. Then just above that is Hungary, then Slovakia, and then Poland. We're trying to pull all of forces of different kinds and types from these nations into such a coalition force. Do they have militaries that are worth engaging that would work with us, or are they just going to be sort of ports of landing and back support should American troops actually enter Ukraine? Well, the Hungarians are actually pretty good, but they're not going to join us. They've made that very clear. The president of Hungary says we're not going to be an anvil for the Russian

hammer. That means the Slovaks could produce something, but not very much, maybe a few battalions, maybe two or three. Romanians have a larger force, but then they've got to get somewhere and they've got to work with us. And all the command and control is American. All the intelligence surveillance reconnaissance is American, which means if you're a Russian and we cross that border and they'll know instantly when we do, the first thing you do is destroy our satellite array above. If not destroy it, neutralize it. So then we're blind, and we're trying to command and control this multinational force. And this is a complex operation.

War is always tougher and more complex than everybody thinks. And what we're proposing potentially if we go in there is not a simple thing. It's not a simple mission. The problem is that the politicians are always interested, as I said before, in being a little bit pregnant. And they ask the question, well, General, how far can we go? And the general says, well, sir, how far do you want to go? And he may say, well, 100 miles or only 150 miles. We want to demonstrate our resolve. We want to show that we're serious. The general sits down and says, well, let me help you and see if we could put this together. What you really need is the general to say, you've lost your mind. If we go over there with anything less than 800,000 troops and get into a war, we'll lose. That's what the answer should be. That's not the answer we got in Vietnam. I remember that McNamara called General Lenditzer, who was the Supreme Commander of Europe in 1963.

This is before we got further on down into the road. Actually, I guess it was 64, just before 65. And he said, well, how long do you think it'll take us to get the 101st Air Mobile Division into Vietnam? He said, well, not long. He said, but Mr. Secretary, the real question is, how long is it going to take us to get it out? Right. Well, that was a brilliant way of telling McNamara, you're crazy. Forget it.

It's a dumb idea, unfortunately. How do we tell Lloyd Austin, the Secretary of Defense, and Tony Blinken, the Secretary of State, and Ron Klain, who we believe really runs the White House, that's the President's Chief of Staff, that they're crazy if they think the 101st Airborne should go into Ukraine and that there'd be any sort of a united coalition waging a war against Russia. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, if we have 38,000 troops on the ground, American troops on the ground, and 38,000 backup troops in Poland or Romania or Moldova or wherever, the backup troops are soon going to be on the ground and we need more backup troops, and this will get like Vietnam. Well, I don't think it'll be like Vietnam because you have

a different kind of enemy from the one we faced. The Russians are not going to fool around with us. In other words, if we go in and we will undoubtedly want massive U.S. allied air power, primarily U.S. Air Force and Navy, to fly in support, the Russians are going to immediately target all of the airfields and command and control nodes that we utilize in Europe. Now, somebody said, well, that's pretty tough to do. No, it isn't. Look up the caliber cruise missile that carries an 1100 pound high end conventional warhead, pinpoint accuracy. They have enough caliber missiles to hit everything in the space of about an hour, an hour and a half. They can hit every single airfield or port facility that we use except for the very southern tip of Portugal. Now, how are the Germans going to react when they wake up in the morning

and find out that Ramstein has been rubbled? And by the way, we're running a lot of these operations, command and control-wise, out of Germany, and I'm sure the Russians know that. I'm sure they're aware of where those installations are. So they'll hit them when the casualties start coming in. That's one problem. But when you're dependent on all of these countries to provide you with lines of communication security, when you don't have an integrated air defense, air and missile defense, and we don't

in Europe, you are at risk of watching this coalition evaporate in a few days. The populations are already in the streets, in the Czech Republic, not in Poland, but in Germany, in Hungary, less so in Austria, in Germany, in Paris, because of the energy crisis. What's it going to be like when they look around and they start to see these installations are being destroyed? Can I ask you about the unthinkable? Would American military be aiming at Russian supplies or supply lines or training facilities in Russia in order to decrease their ability to enter Ukraine? Well, I'm sure that if they go in there, they will probably have those targets identified and have weapon systems that can reach them. Whether or not they'll do that

immediately is unclear to me again you have this view I'm pulled again by people on the inside there are people at the top of the U.S military and in the White House who think the Russians would not dare shoot at us ah and if you go back to that Petraeus article and he mentions in there that, oh, Putin is losing. He wants this war to end. He's not going to risk a larger war. Well, that's a lot of nonsense. He hasn't been losing anything. He's exerted tremendous restraint on his forces. He's minimized his commitment in Ukraine. Now things are changing. That's why the 700,000 troop buildup is happening. The restraints are off. This is going to end, as far as he's concerned, in the very near future because he's not going to tolerate it anymore. So who thinks these things? This is crazy. Going in with that kind of assumption is deadly for us. I guess these things are thought by people who still have the crazy illusion that somehow the West can drive Putin from power.

You know that that's been the goal of Lincoln and company. And I guess Lloyd Austin, I shouldn't say I guess, he actually said it. I don't think he meant to criminal enterprises or were accused of it. So this government of exile met on the 21st. I'm told that it still exists. If I were advising someone in Warsaw and Washington, I would say, get rid of that thing immediately, because that is unambiguously hostile. It means you're in a fight to the death with the Russian state. This is insane. That's not something we want. But has anybody spoken up and said no? No. So President Putin, who can be very rational, you sent me a tape the other day and I was riveted by it. He spoke for 40 minutes without any notes. He was far more intelligent and rational than, I'm sorry to say, Joe Biden on the same subject. President Putin will say to the Russian people, the Americans have assembled a government ready to take over mine, and they're only a few

hundred miles from our border. What do you expect me to do? Let them come in? Well, that's right. And he'd probably have, according to you, the support of a massive percentage of the Russian population if he used weaponry to destroy that group, no matter where it is, whether it's in Germany or Poland or Romania. Easily in the mid to high 80s is where his support lies right now. Again, everyone says, well, there are people in Russia that don't like him. There are people in Russia that don't want this. There are people in Russia that don't want this. There are people that don't like Mr. Putin and his government who are now absolutely supporting him because they see themselves and their country in an existential fight.

What do you see before we finish, Colonel? What do you see happening between now and Thanksgiving? So the next three weeks, the bitter cold weather won't be there yet, but it's getting cold. And there's not that much fuel in Europe or in Ukraine, heating fuel. Well, the situation in Ukraine is pretty grim right now. The government has now suggested that many cities in western Ukraine evacuate because there's no power, no light, no heat. Of course, where are these people going to go? I presume they're going to march west. And the question is, are the Europeans of the West prepared to take all of these people in? You know, this is a disaster. This needs to

stop. This is not something that we should try to capitalize on, which I think foolish people are involved with. This is going to get much worse for us. How about militarily in the next couple of weeks as winter approaches? Well, you know, Judge, we don't have the schedule published by the Stavka in Moscow, but I suspect that they're pretty close to being ready. Everything is loaded. And remember, they've also got stockpiles of ammunition for this and rockets and weapons. And somebody reminded me the other day, I guess it was the Institute of War that has repeatedly told us that the Russians are running out of rockets and missiles and ammunition since April. That doesn't seem to turn out to be the case. We know they spent six years stockpiling for this particular operation.

They didn't want to execute it. They hoped they could negotiate their way out of it with Minsk and other things. So I don't think there's any danger on their side. They've got plenty of fuel, plenty of heat. I only see one outcome, which is disaster for Ukraine. And they're going to attack. And when they attack, it's not going to be what you saw back in February and March and April. This is not some sort of a slow, careful, cautious approach designed to minimize damaged infrastructure and avoid unnecessary loss of life. This is going to be

the death knell for Ukraine and this regime in Kyiv. That's why I wish, instead of waiting for this hammer to fall, we'd get involved and stop it. Colonel Doug McGregor, always a pleasure, no matter what we talk about. Your insight is so valuable and so much appreciated. Thank you very much. Sure, Judge. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.