Scott Horton Show - Just the Interviews - 9/5/24 Daniel Davis on Ukraine’s Reckless Incursion into Russia

Episode Date: September 10, 2024

Scott brings Daniel Davis on for a short discussion about the Ukrainian incursion in the Kursk region of Russia. They use Davis’s recent interview with Colonel Douglas Macgregor to jump into the strategic and tactical ineptitude that Ukraine’s military leaders have demonstrated with this operation. Discussed on the show: Davis’ interview with Douglas Macgregor Daniel Davis did multiple tours in Iraq and Afghanistan during his time in the army. He is a Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities and is the author of the reports “Dereliction of Duty II: Senior Military Leaders’ Loss of Integrity Wounds Afghan War Effort” and “Go Big or Go Deep: An Analysis of Strategy Options on Afghanistan.” Find him on Twitter @DanielLDavis1and subscribe to his YouTube Channel. This episode of the Scott Horton Show is sponsored by: Roberts and Robers Brokerage Incorporated; Tom Woods’ Liberty Classroom; Libertas Bella; ExpandDesigns.com/Scott. Get Scott’s interviews before anyone else! Subscribe to the Substack. Shop Libertarian Institute merch or donate to the show through Patreon, PayPal or Bitcoin: 1DZBZNJrxUhQhEzgDh7k8JXHXRjY Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

All right, y'all, welcome to the Scott Horton Show. I'm the director of the Libertarian Institute, editorial director of anti-war.com, author of the book, Fool's Aaron, Time to End the War in Afghanistan, and The Brand New, Enough Already, Time to End the War on Terrorism. And I've recorded more than 5,500 interviews since 2004. almost all on foreign policy and all available for you at scothorton dot for you can sign up the podcast feed there and the full interview archive is also available at youtube.com slash scott horton's show all right you guys on the line i've got danny davis of course he is the lieutenant colonel in the u.s army and was in iraq war one iraq war two in afghanistan the great whistleblower of afghanistan of 2012 read all about it and he hosts danny david Davis deep dive on YouTube, which is such a great interview show. And with all of the very best experts and on essentially almost always Ukraine and the Gaza War and a little bit of China stuff in there too. And you'll really love it. I was just watching Danny you talking with Doug McGregor, who was your boss in Iraq War I in the big tank battle of 72 Easting, right? Is that the right tank battle? 7-3 Easting. 7-3. What the hell do I know about history?

7-1, 7-2, whatever. It's one of them. Something like that. Anyway, blew up them Iraqis real good. But so, great conversation there about, you know, just from a military kind of nerd point of view, and

you guys are way nerdier than me, but it's very interesting this war, right? In a way that, like, the Iran-Iraq war was interesting as far as um just all the different facets at play and the trenches and the tank battles and and naval battles and all that well not really battles but some missile strikes anyway listening you guys talk about it is fascinating because you're both military professionals so obviously

you care a lot about what's going on but you're also like really detailed about uh you know what it all means and the way that you weigh the importance of different facts and all it's really just fascinating to watch you guys uh talk about the stuff so obviously the big issue is the um well there's a few but the the biggest one is the invasion of russia by ukrainian forces we last spoke one month ago and we both agreed that boy that's foolish but then i also think we both agreed that there's no way this is going to last a month so what is really going on there i think i read in the uh it might have been in the post or something who knows but i think i read danny that it's not even the real really the military maybe the air force but otherwise it's not even really the russian

military fighting the ukrainians in kursk it's just the fsb and the military is still right where they were in ukraine making advances in the same places right what we've seen uh scott in my in my view is that the russians made a calculated decision to say okay this has no hope of doing anything it's in an area of no strategic value at all. Obviously any Russian territory is emotionally important, but it doesn't have any strategic important, i.e., you know, there's no oil pipelines, there's no military constructed, there's no road networks that Russia needs to do this or that, et cetera. It's just basically a bunch of little hamlets and villages. And so Ukraine is inside this. Now, because they

have made this incursion, which I think is about 18 miles at its furthest point, something to that effect. The Ukraine side continues to just pourian men and material just to hold on to what they have. They are trying to nibble at the edges and go a little bit further in a couple of directions, but all the rest of them have pretty much solidified since about 10 days in. And so there hadn't been hardly any movement since then, although Russia is also nibbling at the flanks and the left and right flanks to kind of push some of that back. What they have used is not just the FSB, but they have use basically their conscript forces because they have about a quarter of a million defenders in Russia in that region, but conscripts are prohibited by Russian law from going

abroad in fighting, at least as it currently stands. So they're using those guys to contain the incursion. In fact, Putin said that overnight in a speech that used that same word. He said, we have it contained. Well, what that means is for Ukraine to hold on to it, they have to continually send in more material, ammunition, food, supplies, et cetera, just to maintain what they've got. Meanwhile, Russia basically have this kind of this arc around them, and they're just pummeling them with artillery, with drones, with missile strikes, and some limited ground incursions. And so Ukraine is suffering enormous losses just to hang on to this. Losses that they cannot afford losses of equipment somewhere between five to seven hundred different kinds of

military vehicles have been destroyed that they don't now no longer have to use anywhere else Putin appears to have said you know what you guys want to come in here cool go ahead I'll let you stay there for a while meanwhile I'll just start snapping you from the distance but really the meanwhile is he was he refused to take any of the troops from the eastern front especially in the Pukrovsk area the Vuglodar area the Torezi area, and he has been accelerating his movement to the west in those areas because the Ukraine actually had to withdraw some of their fighters from those areas in order to make this offensive push.

So now then you have the worst of all worlds for the Ukraine side that they can't maintain this incursion. Zelensky said a couple of days ago that, well, we're not going to really hold this stuff. Well, we are kind of for now. It was actually kind of a bizarre interview with NBC News where he said, yeah, we don't need this and we'll eventually leave, but we're going to hold it indefinitely. And I won't tell you how long we're going to hold it until I talked to Biden later this month. Who knows what that actually means? But now that he's continuing, he's accelerating his loss in the east, and it's all but doomed

in the north because he just doesn't have the capacity to push further. So all he can do is keep sacrificing men to hold what he's got. And in time, at some point, Russia will start moving in maneuver forces and to purge this, but not until it suits their benefit to do. do so. Putin is willing to be patient and is thinking long-term and everybody else is in the West and in Ukraine is thinking what's in the next 24-hour media cycle and that's it. Well, I mean, media, nothing. I would, just for myself, I would think that Putin would want to push them out as soon as possible. But I can see now how in the near term future, Danny, there's going to be all conspiracy theories about this, that the end.

FSB had infiltrated Zelensky's cabinet and tricked him into doing this, or at least that they, when they were demining the border area, it wasn't in preparation for further invasion from Russia, that they were actually luring the Ukrainians in here. I mean, it looks to me, and this is the way I already wrote it up so far in my book, is that it looks like they set a trap for themselves and walked right into it. As you're saying, they're surrounded, just by the fact of their invasion at all in one place, they're surrounded on three sides. Yeah, there's some justification for that view. And I'll tell you, I had on my show, a British person who said that he was contacted by a Russian asset a full month before this happened, specifically said what units of the Russian side were involved that they saw that they found out, whether it was a duped or not is a different question. But it appears that the Russian intelligence identified and figured out what was coming. So instead of stopping it and reinforcing the border, they said, hey, let's let them come. Let's make it easy for them. Do draw them in for the very purpose of here, which completely makes sense when you see now that Putin hasn't been in a hurry to get rid of it. I'm sorry, Danny. Tell me again, what was the source for that? The source is, it was a British fell, actually Alex Mercurius. He's been on my show. And he said that he was contacted a full

month before, was told what units were involved, and those are the units that were eventually involved on the Russian side, especially. And he said he didn't think much of it at the time, didn't say anything on any of his shows, but he said that subsequently it was too much to, you know, it can't be a coincidence when someone tells you what's coming, where it's coming, and what units are going to fight, and then that's exactly where it happens. And that's in your most recent interview of him? It is, yeah. Oh, okay.

I have your YouTube page here, so I'll find it. Very interesting. I mean, I can see it. You know, it's, you know, on the Occam's Razor level, it's not necessary, but it certainly fits. And then I guess this is something that I didn't know that you're. teaching me here is that the Ukrainians have been continuing to pour in reinforcements into this small area. Is that correct? That is correct. And it can't be any other way because when you're taking these kind of casualties and you're holding 500 square kilometers, I mean, it's not a small

area. It's 18 miles. That's straight line distance. But then it also goes broad. And then you're talking that's a lot of area where you have to reinforce your troops. So it's something that you have to either continue to go forward, continue to put reinforcements in. in or you have to withdraw. You can't just stay static. Well, you shouldn't just try to stay static because then that means you're literally just pissing away your manpower and your equipment and your supplies for something that will provide no value to you whatsoever, which is the current case. Yeah. Okay, so now you and Colonel McGregor talked about the Battle of the Bulge comparison here, and I guess this is something that the Hawks are saying

I don't know who's who's making that comparison, but you guys were pointing out that even though it didn't work, Hitler had a goal, which was seizing an important port and cutting off American supplies, right? And so, but here there's no port. I guess there's

a nuclear power plant. Maybe this would have been the strategic objective to seize the power plant, and then that would look really ugly, though, to say, aha, we've got your power plant. Now you have to negotiate, but maybe. Well, we'll set off a dirty nuclear bomb yeah that i've heard that that suggestion and that's speculation who knows what it really was

yeah that would yeah that would be about as weird as it gets which of course means it wouldn't be surprising yeah i mean they wouldn't have to necessarily threaten a meltdown or a dirty bomb but they could just say well we're going to take it from you and cut off any you know electrical power you're getting from it and you know maybe hold it hostage threatened to damage it or something you know i don't know but it seems like an act of desperation but now so i want to get back to something that You said there about Zelensky because I missed the NBC thing, but I did see where you showed McGregor a clip of him at a press conference, I guess, standing on a stage explaining about, you know, what was going on here.

And he is basically saying, I guess, trust me, in a few weeks I'm going to meet with Biden. And I'm going to tell him my secret plan to resolve all of this in our favor. We'll see whether Biden goes along with it or not. what can you tell us about the context of that yeah i can tell you because the the NBC news yesterday had it in a long piece i actually did a show expressly on that what is zalinski's victory plan according to zalinski and and he actually said it and it made absolutely no sense even on face value because he says this is our victory plan we're going to win and then he says in the context of the same interview well we're going to actually just keep fighting we just want to continue to

fight. And then he says, then he wants to force, the reason he wants to talk to Biden is because he wants to get more ammunition and weapons and more support so that he can convince Putin that continued resistance is basically futile, and he should have a negotiated settlement. And it's like, okay, hang on, are you going for victory? Are you going for negotiated settlement? Are you just going for a continued fighting? What are you trying to do? And the answer is he says all three. But those are mutually exclusive. They can't all simultaneous be true. And then, of course, there's just the rational look on the map.

And you can see there's no path forward here for the Ukraine side. It's insane to suggest that a small country after two and a half years of war with hundreds of thousands of casualties is going to send whatever the number is, 12 to 15,000 troops into Russia, the country of Russia, with 1.4 something million active forces. And you're going to succeed with that. I mean, it's irrational to the highest degree. But even what he claims, you know, even trying to paint the picture to make it sound good is irrational. And it's contradictory to itself. So that just really shows you really the state of what's going on in Zelensky. And then, of course, he fires all these cabinet ministers at the same time.

He just fired his Air Force commander a week or so ago. And you have nothing but complete chaos on the Ukraine side. Yeah. Hey, you guys, coming up this October 7th through the 11th, join Miguel Thorup, host of the expat money podcast, the heroic Ron Paul, the great Tom Woods, Doug Casey, Mark Faber, Tom Luongo, myself, and many other great speakers for the online expat money summit, 2004. My presentation will be on the subject of my new book, Provoked, how Washington started the new Cold War with Russia and the catastrophe in Ukraine, which is not quite out yet. and learn how you can reclaim your freedom by moving abroad, legally reduce your tax bill, and protect your assets. More than 8,000 people attended last year, and it's free.

My guy's Kyle Anzlone and Dave DeCamp from the Institute and Anti-War.com will be joining a panel discussion as well. Just go to 2024.xpatmoneysummit.com for all the info. That's 224.xpatmoney summit.com. Well, I guess it was just a matter of time. I drank so much coffee I turned into some. Hey guys, check out the Scott Horton Show's special blend at Moondoseartisan coffee.com. It's a blend of organically grown Ethiopian and Sumatran coffee beans.

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It's the Scott Horton show blend from Moondose Artisan Coffee. Hey guys, I had some wasps in my house. So I shot them to death with my trusty bug assault 3.0 model with the improved salt reservoir and bar safety. I don't have a deal with them, but the show does earn a kickback every time you get a bug of salt

or anything else you buy from Amazon.com by way of the link in the right-hand margin on the front page at Scott Horton.org. So keep that in mind. And don't worry about the mess. Your wife will clean it up. Well, folks, sad to say, they lied us into war. All of them.

World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq War I, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq War II, Libya, Syria, Yemen, all of them. But now you can get the e-book, All the War Lies, by me, for free. Just sign up for the email list at the bottom of the page at Scott Horton.org, or go to Scott Horton.org slash subscribe. Get all the war lies by me for free. And then you'll never have to believe them again. Okay, so two things there. First of all, what about they're trying to get within range of the weapons that we have

given them so far to be able to hit Moscow? And then secondly, what's going on with the purge in Kiev? Yeah, both things in order. So first of all, yes, that's one of the key things that Zelensky is. is just hammering on. He wants more long-range weapons and he wants no limits on him. He wants to be able to strike anything.

So he can, quote, bring the war to the Russian side and make them realize that this is actually a war. And look, wait a minute, what about, I'm sorry, but my question was, and it's my fault for not stating it clearly,

but what about just the weapons that we've already given them that they can, you know, with this new chunk of Russia that they've taken, if they can get to the very, northern point of that. Does that bring them near Moscow range? Or is that what they're trying to achieve?

I mean, like I said, the total is like 18 miles. So it's inconsequential. It won't make any difference at all. It'll just be a slight advancement in their range, but not enough to make any difference at all. Do you think that that might be his plan that if we could only take another hundred miles, then we could hit Moscow from there with the high Mars they have or the attackums they have. I mean, that would be the hot, the foolishest to think that you're going to be able to get 100 miles into Russia. So I don't know that that was his plan. I haven't heard him say anything to that effect, but that would be really weird if it was. Well, but I mean, because what you're telling me is he didn't have a plan. He's just saying we're going to keep doing what we're doing.

There's no plan. I'm making up plans because I'm like, well, what might he have in mind? because it doesn't sound like he has anything in mind. Well, yeah. Well, that's part of my frustration because what he has said is that he just wants to, quote, bring the war in Russia and make Putin believe that he can't win and make him understand. That was the phrase he used. Make him understand that continued resistance is not going to work. And so he'll have a negotiated settlement at the benefit of the Ukraine side.

So, again, it's as irrational he's going to get. But even he, I don't think Zelensky in his state of mind would have any fantasies that they could penetrate a hundred miles into Russia. I mean, you can't even keep 100 miles of supply lines open, much less penetrate that far into Russian territory without some major, major, you know, responses from the Russian side. So I doubt that he even fantasized about that. Yeah. Well, man, so it's funny, though, it is, in a sense, it's like the fall of 22, right, when they got this major gain in Archive. And that was when the, you know, General Millie told them, you guys should negotiate now. That was their last big win.

They had this huge failed offensive in 23. I know 18 miles is not that far, but as you say, they seem to have gotten the Russians on the back foot. here in a way. I understand what you're saying about, you know, the possible trap because it obviously isn't going to work out in their favor, but it makes them look strong, at least to Washington Post readers, I guess, you know, something. Like there's a PR kind of effect there that might help them in Washington. But then my question is, what's really going on in Donetska right now?

You referred to it a little bit, but I've been reading that they're making major changes on the ground now. There are. And even, let's for the moment of, for the sake of argument, let's say that there was no plan on the Russian side. They didn't know what was coming. They didn't lure them in. It just happened that the Ukraine side caught Russia by surprise that they made this penetration in, this 18, you know, mild penetration, etc. You can see how unconcerned Russia is and how focused they are on their primary objective, which also Putin said overnight. He reiterated this in public as well. He said, priority is in capturing the Donbos area in its entirety. And so you see when he had the opportunity to withdraw some of the combat troops from there, some of the seasoned experienced fighting troops, which could have removed that abscess into the Korsk area had he chosen to do that, he chose not to. He chose not to move any of them.

In fact, he's used some of his least experienced troops, combat experience, to handle the securing that penetration. Meanwhile, he's increasing the pressure on the Dombos because that's his objective. And so he's not, he's willing to take the risk of what's going on up there and take the media hit, if you will. And certainly he doesn't seem to be concerned at all about what the Washington Post readers think, et cetera. He's worried about reality on the ground. And the reality on the ground is that the Russians continue to methodically move towards, especially Pukrovsk, also Vuglodar, also Toretsk, and especially the Pokrovsk area. If he takes that city or even invests it so that these seven rail and road lines that run out of it can no longer be used effectively by the Ukraine side, they are in serious, serious trouble because that is basically the last of the long-term defensive lines that they've built since 2014 on the Ukraine side.

If you penetrate through that, then all you have is hasty stuff. And now then, for the first time since 2022, Russia has the possibility of going on operational, what's so-called big arrow movements where they could make big moves into it because Ukraine simply doesn't have the defensive capacity to hold. Yeah. Now, so in the Discord leak that came out at the beginning of 23, which was relatively current, I guess, when it came out, they were saying that they're going to run out of anti-aircraft missiles of all descriptions. And I know we've been replenishing them some, but I've also read about the Russians overpowering the Patriot batteries with these glide bombs where they just shoot enough in a row that the truck can't defend itself and is gone. I don't know how many they lost or how many more they've sent or what, but, you know, to the question of air superiority and all that. because the Russians have really been fighting from behind the lines, fire and missiles and glide bombs from inside Russia, mostly, right? Yeah, that's right, yeah, because the Ukraine side doesn't have the ability to reach that far out

to put at risk the Russian aircraft. So they can fly, I think, as far as 40 miles away from their target, and the Ukraine side doesn't have the ability to reach more than 40 miles from the line in order to put those planes at risk. So they're basically just operating freely in the air. And it's funny because a lot in the West like to mock Russia and say, oh, this so-called air superiority of the Russian Air Force, and yet they're afraid to even fly into the front areas. Well, no, because they're not stupid. Now, why would you want to fly in an area where the other side does have some air defense capacity and could shoot your airplanes down or fly them from a safe distance where you can't even reach them?

And the Ukraine side is powerless to do anything about the glide bombs that fall. So it's a pretty smart idea, but we just love to mock. Russia, so I guess we'll just keep doing it, even though the Ukraine side and our side that we support keeps losing ground by the day. Yeah. All right. So last question here, and we talked about this before, but this came up in discussion with McGregor on your show, too, is don't worry. They're going to jerry-rig a new weapon, and that's going to change everything. Remember the ladies from the Council on Foreign Relations and Atlantic Council said that to you and Mearsheimer in your debate. They said, don't worry

Danny Davis. I know that you know stuff about armored infantry and war and stuff like that. But trust me, the Ukrainians, they're going to jerry rig something. That was what the lady said. She said like three or four times. Somebody's going to snap their fingers,

make a magic wish. A new wonder weapon will appear, and then that'll solve our problems. And McGregor said, no, there's really only one wonder weapon, and we already invented it. It's the A bomb. And Otherwise, well, I don't want to speak for the guy. He basically said to you that, like, it doesn't matter, you know, whatever it is that you bring to bear, what really matters is men, right?

That's what he's telling you. If you bring this kind of tank or this kind of rocket or this kind of drone or whatever it is, they have their countermeasure. And ultimately, it's just a matter of there being more Russians than Ukrainians at the end of the day. Is that basically the argument? Yeah. I mean, I've been really preaching that gospel from the beginning. It's men, not machines, not money. You have to have machines.

You have to have money. But without the manpower, and I'm talking trained to manpower in sufficient numbers and a pipeline in order to train them, to bring them into the front lines and to be able to have others training in the process so that when these guys die or when they get worn out and they have to be withdrawn from the line, you've got new ones to come in. unless you have a system like that, then you cannot ever win a major war that's basically turned into a nutritional fight, which is where we are at this point. Russia has, well, not unlimited,

but millions, many millions more men of military age from which to draw than the Ukraine side does. And of course, their industrial capacity and their alliances with Iran and North Korea with military equipment just blows away anything, the entire cumulative. West can produce. And in the foreseeable future, we'll never change that imbalance. It's just not going to happen for very practical reasons. So everything in the world shows that Russia is going to continue this grind, or they may accelerate it with a big arrow push. We don't know whether they're going to do that or not. They have the capacity, but whether they want to take that risk of trying something big remains to be seen. But there is no path. There is no possibility that

the Ukraine side militarily can reverse this situation. Okay. One last thing real quick is there's a big missile volley hit Leviv in far western Ukraine and the Poles scrambled their jets. How alarmed are you at that? You know, I mean, they've been doing that kind of stuff for a while. They've been making lots of comments that, you know, they're going to start shooting down Russian missiles from the Polish side.

And, you know, it's a lot of threats so far. But I think that at least up to this point, Poland has said, all right, well, we're not going to take action that's going to draw a Russian response because the Russians have said, hey, if we get something fired on our stuff from the NATO country, we will respond wherever that threat came from. And that includes airfields in Poland, Romania, wherever. You know, and that's who's going to basically call somebody on that? Is Russia bluffing? Is Poland bluffing? I don't know. But I do find it very troubling that both sides keep saying these kinds of things

and keep threatening this because the day that one of them makes good on it, then you could have the war escalate and expand beyond the Ukraine. And then you've got all kinds of Article 5, ergo nuclear possibilities that come to the surface. And God help us all if we get there. All right, you guys. That's the great Danny Davis. Thanks very much, Danny. Appreciate you. Hey, you bet. Always my pleasure. The Scott Horton Show, Anti-War Radio, can be heard on KPFK, 90.7 FM in L.A. APSRadio.com, anti-war.com, Scotthorton.org, and Libertarian Institute.org.