The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | January 11th, 2025: Ukrainian Counter-Offensive & South Korea's Political Crisis

Episode Date: January 11, 2025

In this episode of The PDB Situation Report: We begin with a surprising counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region, targeting critical supply lines and catching Moscow off guard. George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War joins us to break it all down. Then, we turn to the escalating political crisis in South Korea, where the nation’s impeached President has been barricaded in the presidential residence, defying arrest attempts amid allegations of insurrection following a brief declaration of martial law. Retired U.S. Army Colonel John Mills shares his insights into the unfolding situation. To listen to the show ad-free, become a premium member of The President’s Daily Brief by visiting PDBPremium.com. Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of The President's Daily Brief. YouTube: youtube.com/@presidentsdailybrief Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Offer valid April 16th through May 3, 2006. Exclusions apply for licenses. See Home Depot.com slash license numbers. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. All right, let's get briefed. We'll kick things off today with a surprising counter-offensive by Ukrainian forces in Russia's Kursk region, targeting key supply lines and catching Moscow off guard.

George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War, well, he joins us to break it all down. Later in the show, we turn to the escalating political crisis in South Korea, where the nation's impeached president has been barricaded in the presidential residence, defying arrest attempts amid allegations of insurrection following his brief declaration of martial law. If you're confused, well, you're not the only one. but joining us to provide insight into that situation will be retired U.S. Army Colonel John Mills. But first, our situation report spotlight. This past weekend, Ukrainian armed forces launched a surprise counteroffensive in Russia's Kursk region,

advancing up to 1.7 miles beyond the Russian front line on the first day. Utilizing British-Mate Challenger 2 tanks and electronic jamming equipment, Ukrainian troops targeted key supply lines and military installations, disrupting Russian defenses. Now, the operation resulted in significant Russian and North Korean casualties, remember the North Korean troops, with reports indicating that approximately 3,800 North Korean soldiers have been killed or wounded to date, and for those of you keeping count at home, that would be about a third of those that are believed to have been sent by Kim Jong-un to help Putin with his Ukrainian efforts. This development comes after months of reports, suggesting that Ukraine

was losing ground in Kursk, making this counteroffensive a significant reversal, of course, in momentum. Ukrainian military leadership has described the operation as a critical step in regaining control over contested areas and applying pressure on Moscow's assets near the border. Still, we don't know if this represents a serious effort to push deeper into Russia or if it's some type of desperate gamble from Ukraine, which many observers believe is frankly on its heels right now. For more on this, we're joined by a good friend of the show, George Barrows. He's the Russia team lead at the Institute for the Study of War.

George, it's great to see you again. Thank you very much for coming back on the Situation Report. Hey, Mike, thank you so much for having me once again. Happy New Year. And to you, too. Here's to us safe and happy and successful 2025. Let's start at the very top here with this counteroffensive, this offensive, whatever we want to call it.

What do you make of this move by the Ukrainian military? Absolutely. So look, over Sunday on January 5th, the Ukrainians resumed defensive operations in the Kersk salient across the international border within Russia. This is the first time that the Ukrainians have gone on the offensive, really since fall of 2024. For the last several months, it's been Russians going on the offensive and slowly whittling away the Ukrainian gains.

What I want to say so far is that this attack, it's been pretty small. We assess it to be at about a battalion size, maybe we've seen two to three, maybe four Ukrainian companies going in, but it's actually fairly, fairly small. On the first 24 hours of the offensive, the Ukrainians managed to move tactically. They expanded their lines very, very slightly. They got into a village called Birdin. But when the last time this has gone through, it seems like the Russians so far have successfully repelled those attacks. They've reportedly cleared Bairdine and they pushed the Ukrainians back. But it's not quite over yet. Russian forces and sources are reporting that the Ukrainians might actually just be showing us the opening foray of a larger

operation. And Russians are speculating that this could have been a testing run for a larger operation elsewhere in Kursk or even elsewhere in the theater within Ukraine, like in Dynetsk or the southern front line. Whatever happens, I would be really hesitant to call this a massive operation. I mean, it's a tactical, at best, battalion-sized attack. It didn't change the lines a whole lot. It seems like the Russians have pushed back to Ukraine so far from what we're tracking.

And it really leads us to the question of what could the Ukrainian intent be with this operation? Okay, well, yeah, that was going to be my question for you. I mean, based on all your experience and what you're seeing right now, what's your best educated guess as to their reasoning? I don't want to speculate too much and maybe derode Ukraine's operational surprise, but I see a couple patterns that are interesting. The Ukrainians tested out some interesting tactics for this attack. They successfully blanketed the cursed area of operations with electronic warfare interference on the EW spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum. And that degraded Russians' forces ability to use these remotely piloted first-person view

attack drones to engage Ukrainian vehicles. We saw the Ukrainians moving in these little tiny mechanized platoons with maybe five to six vehicles, a couple of tanks here and there. And they managed to be able to get across the fields that these FPB drones are typically pretty capable at reconnoitering and destroying. We also saw is combined efforts to include Ukrainian high mars and long-range strikes to interdict Russian rear areas to prevent redeployments to take out Russian command posts while the Ukrainians were also conducting the DW interference and the ground attack. So it looked sort of like a combined operation or a combined attack where we had multiple different service branches. supporting a ground maneuver and for what it swore that seemed to move. That's interesting because we know that the Ukrainian larger counter-offensives of the past,

particularly the summer 2023 counter-offensive in the South and Zaporisia, were unsuccessful because those Ukrainians weren't able to breach a well-to-prepared defensive line in part because the Russians had really strong defenses, they had the ability to use drones. And so the requirement for how to restore maneuver to the battlefield is actually, how do you get the ground forces, the guys of the, you know, riding in the infantry, personnel carriers to actually interact with the electronic defense guys to take out the Russian drones but not your friendly drones and then how do you integrate the long-range strike capabilities into that as well.

And it seems that the Ukrainians might be experimenting with how to achieve a surprise and move tactically by combining some of these complementary effects together. But we'll see. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that and I realize again, it's carrier you got to be careful not to speculate. here at this point. But what do you make of their position right now in eastern Ukraine?

Again, you kind of pointed to that as saying any large-scale offensive may take place there, but give us the state of play in eastern Ukraine currently. Absolutely. State of play. The Russians have the initiative across the entirety of eastern Ukraine. The Russians have been attacking, and they've conducted very intense attacks throughout the last quarter. of late 2024. But the Russian advances, really, they picked up in September and October. The Russians, for example, across the theater, they used to be taking about an average 30,000 casualties killed or wounded per month.

But in October, November, December, that kicked up to about 40 to 45,000 casualties. So they really were trying to push hard. In December, however, the rate of Russian advance in eastern Ukraine slowed down. It was already fairly slow to begin with. I mean, we're talking about the Russians taking a year to cross about 50 kilometers of fields and losing five Arbor divisions in the process of doing so. But it's been slowing down. And I'm not yet prepared to say that the Russian great defensive eastern Ukraine that's been going on for the last year has culminated. But they're getting closer to it.

The Russians have not notably seized the operationally significant town of Pukrovsk. The defenses there have held up so far. so good. Over the course of the year, the Ukrainians have managed to also hold the other technically important town of Chatsyviar, which is defending the flank of the operationally important town of Constantinievcom. And Russian forces have been losing a tremendous amount of combat power at rates that are just not sustainable. I mean, if you look at these rates and you think about Russia's ability to continue at this tempo of operations to push forward for other six months, 12 months, 18 months, particularly with the vehicle law.

losses, which are very hard to replace. It makes us think that, look, Putin really is kind of on a nice edge because if we continue to sustain the Ukrainians in this fight, the Russian tank is just going to run out of gas eventually. What do you make of currently of estimates for Russian casualty losses on a daily basis? I think our current running assessment based off of Ukrainian figures estimates that in 2024, the Russians lost a little bit north of 400,000 killed and wounded casualties. And when you aggregate that across the amount of square kilometers, also a little bit north of 4,000 square kilometers that the Russians gained, that net average is about 103 casualties

per square kilometer gained, which is pretty, pretty horrific and pretty terrible. Now, I often at times will hear this narrative that the Russians have 140 million people, it doesn't matter how many people you kill, the Russians will just send. and even more. And that's just simply a myth. That's not true. People are a finite resource. And what we see now in Russia is actually Putin is sacrificing the help of the economy

in order to sustain his force generation within Ukraine. Look, Russian people, you can either serve in uniform in Ukraine or you can work at home of the domestic economy producing GDP for your nation. But you can't do both simultaneously that you're killed or wounded. You also can't do either. The Russians currently have a labor deficit of about a million people. Those are people that are able to work. And look, as long as they continue to lose 30 to 40,000 people a month, that's even fewer

workers to be able to go and support the Russian economy and let alone sustain, you know, killed and wounded veterans families. And those numbers, that 30 to 40,000 monthly, that is, as you just pointed out just now, That's a combination of fatalities and wounded, right? Killed a wounded combination. You typically would expect three to one casualty or wounded to kill ratio, but together, that's the total cash to count. And look, he's probably going to have to call mobilization at some point.

I think it's a question of time. But even if he calls mobilization, it's not a perfect solution because you're just going to be robbing Peter to pay Paul. You're going to have to tape people from the factories, from civil services, from a variety of things within Russia that will not be able to contribute to the Russian economy. And the Russian economy is doing really poorly right now. Not to mention just how unpopular a large-scale mobilization would be within the Russian population. Absolutely.

I mean, Vladimir Putin can scapegoat and shirk responsibility for a lot of his political decisions by blaming on a minister or a governor or a general. He cannot do that for mobilization. I mean, there are a lot of things he can shirk, but as president of the Russian federal collaboration, calling mobilization is uniquely his, and it's actually the reason why he is uniquely unwilling to make that decision. It's sort of the decision of last resort. But I view it as an inevitability in a question of time at the current tempo.

We've got a number of other things to cover here, George. I mean, including I want to dip into what you just referenced, which I suppose you could categorize as, you know, what is the Russian population's thought process right now? What's their morale? do they think of Putin's war? And then, of course, then, of course, there's the North Koreans. But if you stay right where you go, don't go anywhere, don't leave, don't just stay right where you are. And we'll be right back after a quick break. Welcome back to the Situation Report. Joining me once again is George Barros of the Institute for the Study of War. George, thank you very

much for sticking around. We've got a lot of other things to cover here when we're talking about the Russia-Ukraine conflict. But let's talk a bit. And I know that this is, I suppose, a soft science trying to interpret the mood of the Russian population, but what's your assessment there? Look, there's basically two good polling agencies within Russia that are independent, and the polling data suggests that the Russian people are increasingly less willing to support Putin's war. They will, of course, continue to do so because they live in a deeply authoritarian state, and

the average Russian does not really have the ability to challenge the authorities. They're looking for a way out. You know, hundreds of thousands of Russians have been killed or wounded. There is widespread shortages of basic commodities. I mean, the price for butter is up by 25%. There are widespread egg shortages. Russians have a lot of cash. This is actually part of the problem.

The Russians are flush with cash because everyone has these handouts from the government for going to go fight in Ukraine. We got a new record now. The oblast of Samara will give you four. million rubles, about 36,000 US dollars just as a one-time sign-on bonus. That's almost four times the average Russian annual salary just in one sign-on bonus. And this causes problems. So you have a lot of cash.

That causes the prices ago, that caused inflation ago. It erodes your actual national wealth. The Russian sovereign wealth fund has been systematically chipped into to keep supporting and funding the Russian-Depends industrial base. And so really, you know, the Russians, they're feeling the brunt of this war economically with their people, with their demographics. And I would argue, especially for the incoming Trump administration, look, if we're going to cut a deal, we shouldn't try to cut a deal on day one or maybe within the first couple

months, because the longer we protract this conflict and the longer we erode Russia's national wealth, we erode their demographic situation, we erode their Soviet-era tanks that they're burning through, the more likely you'll get a breakthrough. On the battlefield tactically, with breaking the back of the Russian economy, or in the diplomatic arena as Putin really wants to evade the nexus of these interconnected problems related to sustaining a long war. Yeah, I mean, it's a bit reminiscent of the end of the Cold War, right? I mean, that was what essentially broke the back of Russia then at that point of the Soviet Union. The way, it was being outspent, right? They couldn't afford to keep up with essentially

the arms race. So, I mean, it's a fascinating point, but, I mean, how are they, how are they affording that. If you're talking about somewhere they reached of $36,000 for assigning bonus for their soldiers, how is the Russian economy, even at this point? I mean, what's propping them up? They're eating into their sovereign wealth. So the Russians have a sovereign wealth fund. Putin built it up in the 2000s when oil prices were high. Russia was really cashing me out by selling a lot of crude oil. And the liquidity portion of Russia's sovereign Wealth Fund. It was about $122 billion in 2022 before the war. It's now down at $56 billion to liquidity portion. And the Russian federal budget deficit for 2024, I believe, was slated to take

about 60 percent about liquidity. And so, really, they're burning through that money. I mean, all the wealth that Russia created for the first two decades of the 21st century, and that's largely what's been funding this war. Of course, they have fiat printing as well, And they're able to print money as well, but that just caused the inflation to go up. And the Russian Central Bank, they currently have a overnight lending rate up 21%. Can you imagine having 21%? I mean, that's crazy. Yeah.

Yeah. To what degree do you think at China, the Chinese regime under Xi Jinping, to what degree have they played a role in sustaining Russia's economy? They've played a huge role. I mean, Russia has been purchasing dual-use components from the Chinese. Basically, all first-person drones of both the Russia that the Chinese use come from China, tactical de gear, I-Fact kits, body armor. Chinese are also buying Russian gas without China and Chinese economic and political support,

even though they're not yet sending, at least a weakensene open sources, unenquivocal military support. It's been a key ally. All of Russia's allies supporting their effort have been key enablers. The Iranians with the Shahed drones has been a huge deal. The North Korean sending 10,000 troops and also now now confirmed are heavy artillery self-propelled guns for the first time, now reaching the front lines of Ukraine confirmed as of today. I mean, without these foreign partners, Russia would have probably gone from broke earlier. Yeah, let's talk about the North Korean situation. How effective in your assessment have been the North Korean troops that have been sent up that way.

We see North Korean Special Forces of North Korea airport infantry being used as tactical dismounts. So they are operated without vehicle support. They are typically sent in storms and, you know, maybe platoon-sized groups to go run across fields and just anchor down and storm stuff. And the Ukrainians kill them and droves, but they also managed to use their mass to be able to, achieve tactical objectives, capture villages, capture fields. And, you know, that is a tactible success. but it's a perhaps a period success.

So, you know, they're not being used in any sort of special forces, operations, raids, or any sort of complex combined attacks or vehicle support, anything like that. But it's just more mass for the machine. And look, if the Russians can get 10,000 North Koreans on a regular basis, I mean, that can offset up to a third of their monthly casualties. And I think it's my assessment that Putin doesn't want the one-time delivery of just 10,000 North Koreans. He would like to make this a regular, a regular casualties.

regular contribution to his overall resources. Yeah, you would have to assume that Kim Jong-un is not going to get any pushback from his population over this development, over sending additional troops to Russia. Have you heard anything in terms of, because they're not doing it, it's not pro bono, right? It's not because Kim Jong-un is doing it out of the goodness of his heart. What is he getting out of this, do you think? He's any money. He's also getting technologies that are sensitive.

He's getting support with spaceborne technologies, with satellite sensors. He's probably getting ballistic missile and advanced missile technology support. There's also been speculation that he might be getting submarine technology support as well. And so what the Russians are doing here is they're giving cash and they're giving technology exchanges to really help the North Koreans achieve what North Korean military would like to achieve in their theater. It's a really interesting point. Going back to something you said earlier, in terms of advice for the incoming administration

in the U.S. to not be too quick to rush. to the settlement table, right? I mean, because right now it appears, and correct me, please, if I'm wrong, which has happened on occasion, that, you know, Putin seems to feel as if still he's in the driver's seat, his conditions that he's thrown out there for perhaps a negotiated settlement are unacceptable from Ukraine's point of view. And so you could argue that, you know, Ukraine needs to change the current dynamic in order to negotiate from a position of strength.

So I take your point, which is, you know, if you rush into a settlement right now, it could be a very bad deal. Absolutely. I mean, because Putin is on a collision course with having to call another mobilization, with them running out of their Soviet-era tanks and armored personnel carriers by close to the end of this year, with Russian inflation and the erosion of their wealth becoming worse. And so what I would tell the future president is, look, Putin has offered zero concessions. Like, if you actually look at what he's still demanding, he wants the original set of demands

that he had when Russian troops were on the doorsteps of Kiev back in March 22. And I'm sorry, Mike, but look at the modern map of the battlefield and look at where the Russian military is now. He's in no position to be making those sort of high, lofty demands. In fact, if we're going to broker a deal, it should be a deal that benefits American interests. And actually, it should be not us making preemptive concessions to just get to the table, But it should be Putin making concessions to get to a deal. And in fact, I would argue that if Putin is going to continue to put up this front and

be an aggressive negotiator as is right as he should, I understand why he does it, then the president should simply say, okay, that's great, I see we don't really have the terms for a deal. Let's see how you're doing in six months and then return after another, you know, 120,000 Russians are killed or wounded. wealth is that much more degraded, their inflation gets that much worse, and they come closer to running predictably low on their Soviet-era tanks. I mean, I think, yeah, it's a really important point because you have to imagine, you know,

what is it that Putin fears? Well, obviously, he fears what every despot or dictator fears, which is losing power, losing control of the population. So if the economy continues to head south and, you know, he does have to do immobilization, all those things, you know, continue. to degrade public support. Now, again, to your point, you know, what can the population do? It's not like they're going to rise up and start holding daily protests in a large-scale manner, but, you know, that alone, that sear of losing control of the public, you know, could be the

one thing that forces Putin to the table with what would be considered appropriate terms. Absolutely. I mean, the imperfect analogy is sort of looking at like a, a, late 80s, like an 18, 1989 scenario where the Soviet Union looks like this incredible menace. I mean, you had recently had a war in Afghanistan and the funding insurgent groups in South America and Africa and elsewhere. But really, if you look at all the indicators for how is the Soviet economy performing at home, how are people doing at home? Is the Russian defense industrial base actually sustainable?

And then all of a sudden, when you do the post-modem, when it suddenly breaks down and a sort of dramatic and unpredictable way, you realize that all of the indicators one could collect about Soviet life, about Soviet economy, about how the internal organs were functioning, it was quite poor. And I see parallels similarly that actually, despite the messages that Putin puts out there launching these international, or pardon me, intermediate range ballistic missiles in Ukraine recently and all this stuff, you know, having to go to the North Koreans and the Chinese and the Iranians and the Houthis for basic support. I mean, this is, this is actually is an indication of weakness and we got to keep them, yeah, we got to keep the steep to the fire.

Yeah, yeah, no, very, very interesting. George, listen, you are a wealth of information on this critically important subject and I know that we're, plus you know a lot of big words too. So, I know we're going to have you back if you're willing. George Barros, Russia team leader at the Institute for the study of war, as always. Thank you for joining us here on the Situation Report. Thank you, for having me, Mike. Always a pleasure. All right, coming up next, South Korea, speaking of other complex situations,

South Korea's political crisis takes a dramatic turn as officials, attempt to detain the nation's impeached president who remains at the center of a standoff at the presidential compound. Retired U.S. Army Colonel John Mills, well, he's joining us to give his thoughts on this unfolding crisis. Stick around. Hey, you, feeling hungry? Run the Denny's 4. The new Etonia Everyday Value Slam!

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South Korea is in the midst of a political crisis as impeached President Yun-Sukyol remains barricaded in his sole residence, yes, barricaded, defying arrest attempts following his briefs declaration of martial law back in December. Now, authorities, including the Corruption Investigation Office for high-ranking officials, yes, they have one, have faced significant resistance from Union's security detail during efforts to detain him on insurrection charges. Now, acting president Choi Song Mok has urged law enforcement to execute the arrest warrant while minimizing violence, expressing his concerns over potential clashes between police and the presidential security forces. Meanwhile, public opinion is divided, with protests both supporting and opposing Yun outside his compound amid freezing temperatures.

As the situation unfolds, concerns about potential violence and its impact on South Korea's political stability continue to grow. For more on this, we're joined by retired U.S. Army Colonel John Mills. Colonel, thanks very much for coming on the Situation Report. We appreciate it. Oh, thank you, Mike. Always an honor to be on the show with you. I appreciate that. And that makes me question your judgment. But let's start with this South Korean hoo-ha. Tell me about this.

The president refuses to, who's been impeached, refuses to come out of the presidential compound. Well, this is an absolute lie what's being told on legacy media. So he's part of the People's Power Party, People Power Party. they have 100 of the 300 seats in the National Assembly. Now, he declared martial law. Everybody goes, the classic lie here is, oh, Marshall Law, he was bad. And he Marshall Law has a bad history in Korea or Taiwan, but this is not that. And this is where most people, it's a total lie and they get it wrong.

And his actually, the polling of the PPP has actually gone up and has gone up. and has gone up significantly. It's about to surpass the Democrat Party, which is the opposition party. Sound familiar? Now, he declared martial law, which is actually in the Constitution. He can do that so that he could raid the National Election Commission, which makes fault, though, the National Election Commission in Korea makes Bolton County, Georgia election board look fair and clean. So this is a total lie. The whole reason the Democrat Party has 200 of the 300 seats in the assemblies because they stole them. And so he declared martial law like he has authority to in the Constitution. Now, he got outvoted and it was voted down, but he had enough evidence already from the

National Election Commission. So it is a total lie. This is a communist-inspired coup. Now, Lee, the leader of the Democrat Party, they're not telling the truth on him. He just got convicted in November for election malfeasance, and there's two other charges pending, which means he potentially can't run in 2027. He's trying to conduct a coup so that he could become the president now, and the Democrat party, again, sound familiar because they're charging you with, what's the word, insurrection? Where did they get that word from? Hmm, interesting.

So it is a lie with most legacy media, it's a total lie. They have no clues to what's going on. Brunson, the General Brunson, who commands U.S. forces Korea, Ambassador Goldberg, they were cut out because they didn't want another CIA coup like we pulled on Bolsonaro in Brazil. Because they know they can't trust the Biden team. It's a total lie. So you bet this is a proxy conflict.

And Lee of the Democrats, he's a constant. I mean, it is? But let me, let me ask you this, why is it, I mean, in your assessment, why is the legacy media getting it so wrong then? Are they, are they ignorant or, or is it, is it not in line with their agenda perhaps? I mean, what's the reasoning by it? It doesn't fit the narrative. I mean, they're grossly ignorant. Everybody goes, oh yeah, martial law, yeah, Korea. Oh, yeah, like what happened in 1983. Yeah, that, that, this is not that, okay? Total lie. And, and what shows you is even though we have 28,000 military there, Goldberg, the ambassador, and Brunson, the Army 4-star, are totally cut out of the loop.

Just because we have a large military presence doesn't mean we really know what's going on there. Why? Because they don't trust the Biden team. They don't trust the Biden team. I don't blame him after what happened to Bolsonaro in Brazil. So this is a total lie. He's got to wait. I mean, we got to show support. I was on the war room. We made the front page news, Steve Banner and I, reporting on what's really happening. And it really has emboldened the PPP.

They showed up en masse to block the arrest. Now, they're calling it an insurrection. This is not an insurrection. And they're using the corrupt, the corrupt corruption police to make it arrest. The corruption police have no authority over something called, if you want to call it an insurrection, they don't have any authority over that, okay? They're the corruption police. So where does it go, John? I mean, because I don't see, I mean, it's not a good optic for the White House, regardless of who's sitting in there, to suddenly throw their support behind someone who, I mean, again, I understand what you're saying, and I agree, but I'm just, the optic of the White House saying, well, we're now support.

the guy who declared martial law and also, by the way, who's barricaded himself in the presidential compound, I don't know that you get the White House to do that. So where does this go? Oh, well, we wait until January 20th, and we actually have a functioning president in office, and that's what you is doing. I mean, that's the PPP and their polling numbers are going up, and the Democrat Party are going down in Korea. It's alive. What is the, is being told and fed to people. Lee calls the U.S. an occupation force. Those are fighting words in South Korea.

You don't use that expression in South Korea. There are too many. They have great respect for the Americans who died and the South Koreans died, keeping the country free from the communists. Lee actively, and they've been flying in Chinese, the reports of Chinese nationals being involved in the pro-impeachment,

pro-impeachment rallies, they're off the chart. So this is a total lie what's going on. That would be right in line with the Chinese regime's practices and behavior is to be providing a variety of types of support to those protests that we're taking place. Now, is there any media inside South Korea that is covering this from your point of view in an appropriate manner? Or are they all just all in on the standard narrative? Yeah, there's several newspapers, and I could get to the list of them that are covering this appropriately.

There's a real problem, you know, just like we have a legacy media that has dominated the narrative for years. Same over there. And the Democrats over there, again, they are called the Democrat Party. And if you look at the history of them, a lot of the Democrats, they, boy, it almost sounds like Hillary Clinton or Bill Clinton or Obama growing up with their really Marxist training and inclination and background. This is a proxy conflict. China is trying to take out, if you look at facing China from our perspective, South Korea is the right flank, okay? That's the right flank. They also are extremely, I know from World War II, there's a lot of hard feelings toward the Japanese, but what Yuen has been trying to do, because he sees the greater threat as being the communist and the communist insurgency, North Korea, but China.

And he's been developing close. I know for years, and I was involved in a lot of these. It was really hard to have the Japanese and the South Koreans in the same room. A lot of hard feelings from World War II. I get it. I understand it. But Yule has really tried to really build a solid alliance with the Japanese and the Americans at the same time. And that's why the Chinese are making their move.

And that's why they're trying because number one thing that Lee of the Democrats want is he wants the American thad missiles out. Why? Because that's the number one thing that Chinese want. They want the thad missiles. The strengthening alliance between Japan, South Korea, and the U.S., it clearly has pissed off the Chinese regime, Shishing Ping. Oh, absolutely. You can see that there are responses in a variety of ways now to that. So what is Yuan's plan here?

Is it simply to sit tight, stay in there barricaded until the inauguration in the U.S.? Absolutely. That's what you were seeing so many American and South Korean flags over there. That's why you're seeing the red mega hat. this is a proxy conflict in so many ways. And they're charging them with, again, with what? Same thing. They said they were charging the J-6ers with insurrection,

which they actually didn't charge them with, but they kept on using the word insurrection. So this is a proxy con. This mirrors what we're going through and have gone through until we were able to beat down the globalists inside of America. So this is exactly what's going on. And so as soon as Trump comes on board, he can Trudeau, Lee, and all the communists over there.

So that's exactly what's going to happen. I'm sorry, did you just patent a new phrase involving Trisos? Trudeau. You've turned it into a verb now. It is a verb. It is a verb. Yeah. This is, the situation report is educational on so many levels.

Colonel, if you'll stay right where you are, don't move. We've got to take a quick break, and then we'll be right back with Colonel John Mills. Wireless can feel like a world of traps, but not with Visible. It's one-line wireless with unlimited data and hotspot, powered by Verizon for $25 a month, taxes and fees included. Plus, for a limited time, new members pay just $20 a month for one year on the Visible plan, using the code Fresh Start. refresh your wireless with Visible.

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Joining me once again is Colonel John Mills. Colonel, let's move from South Korea over to, I don't know, let's go to Panama. At what point are we going to take back to Panama Canal? I mean, it was a very interesting press conference that the president-elect Trump gave not that long ago, talking about the importance of the Panama Canal and the importance of ensuring that we have control over it in some fashion. and tell me what you think is going on there. Why suddenly is he bringing up the Panama Canal? Well, let's get things first straight.

Raul Molino, the new president who was sworn in on July 1st in Panama. Let's get things straight here. The guy is actually a populist, and the guy is actually kind of pro-US. He's just having to deal with an absolute horrendous U.S. State Department that has ignored Panama for 25 years. Do you know how many times, and you know what Panama's number one needs are? They're bridges, their roads, and there's railways. And do you know how many times a U.S. civil engineering firm since the handover in 2001

has responded to a request for proposal from Panama that's put them out many times since 2008? You know how many times a U.S. civil engineering firm has responded to bid? Zero. I go with zero. See? Zero. I knew it. I knew it.

Now, no, no, the Panama was on the, uh, what, one of the big deterrence for a U.S. civil engineering firm to even respond was for so many years,

Panama was blacklisted as corrupt. They're off that list. They came off that list. But that, it's kind of a two-edged sword. Okay, they're corrupt. And therefore we're not going to let any Americans go down there.

Well, what happens? The Chinese move in. After a while, the panama, you go, hold it. You know,

what you guys, Zero. Zippo, Nata, Siltzio, did an American firm respond to a single request for proposal. Well, no wonder the Chinese have moved, and we created a vacuum. And then, you know, Aponte, the U.S. ambassador, what is their number one priority? Transgenderism. So we go to all these darn conferences. We lecture them on transgenderism.

And the Chinese come in and, you know, they built kind of crappy roads and bridges. and they haven't delivered on everything. But. Yeah, but they've been there. Roots. Yeah. They need bridges. They need infrastructure.

And we've been a ghost in Panama since the handover. And the enduring treaty that took effect after they hand over, three elements, three elements where the United States was supposed to be involved and essentially seated, surrendered, and walked away. one is the operation the proper operations of the canal okay the security of the canal and the neutrality of the canal and again we walked away we walked away so let's we got to get this straight here what happened we're digging out of a 25 year hole of nothingness we did we did nothing okay now well i mean john you could argue that um look that's been the pattern of activity

in South America, Central America for decades, right? We've had a tendency, a variety of administrations, to ignore or act as if it's just not important to put our top resources in that region. And then we get what we get, right? Which typically is governments coming in that are hostile to the U.S. interests. Or, as you pointed out, the Chinese regime coming in,

which they've been doing now for years, not just there, but also an African-Ele. elsewhere, doing just that, increasing their presence, building infrastructure, whether it's crappy or not, and locking down permits for a variety of rare earth and critical minerals. So, I think Panama is just one more example of that. Yeah, we got to participate. This is ridiculous.

If I had $10 for every time a State Department employee when I was in a bilat or a multilat with Central or South America, the number of times of, well, you know, they don't like us. They have all these bad memories of death squads. And we're just, we're just going to kind of sit here and listen to them. We're not actually because, you know, I literally, the number of times that happened in different things, and I just about wanted to choke out some of these State Department dwebs who would say stupid things like that. I mean, it was like, well, that wouldn't go, that wouldn't go over well in the meeting. That would not go over well in the meeting. And I I also like how you said, if I had $10 for every time, which is really inflationary.

Yeah, inflationary. Yeah, yeah. So we'd have enough for a good meal together, Mike. I mean, it's ridiculous. They have this bizarre world of view that why even have a State Department? Why even have a State Department? If they're going to, we're going to, you know, when I went down to Panama, you know, one of the dwebes from the, I was down there with Ann Van der Steele and Michael Jan. And somebody from the embassy came out because they wanted to talk to us.

And I said, okay, here's the deal. We'll be happy to talk, but it's all going to be on the record, okay? We're going to be on the record, and we're going to be able to talk about it. And the guy goes, well, I got to get approval on that. And he wants to go to his back. He was, oh, no, no, no, that's okay. Okay. Luser. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to, yeah, I'm going to, yeah, that's going to take 12 layers of bureaucracy, Colonel to get that approval.

But, yeah, look, that's, I mean, that's. I mean, if we look at what Trump is doing, and I think this is a classic example, though, in terms of what the immediate reaction from the media, of course, to his comments about, not just Ben Amal Canal, but Greenland, you know, was the typical pearl clutching that you get from the media because they take everything he says literally, right, rather than understanding the personality of the person who's now going to be stepping back into the White House and thinking, well, maybe these are negotiating tactics. So maybe he's talking about these things for a specific, reason, and you shouldn't perhaps just take everything he says literally.

Mike, I don't know about you. I took negotiation classes both as a special operations officer as a U.S. government civilian. I took a number of professional negotiation classes. A good friend of mine who was a career of Foreign Service officer, we were talking about this. I said, well, how many times did you take a negotiation class because you were responsible for all this complex negotiation?

You know what his answer was? I'm going to go with zero. Zero. See? I could. See, we're at the same track. This is the typical Harvard Belfer Center, imperious attitude. What do I need?

I need a professional class of negotiation. I bought a car. I bought a house. I know how to negotiate. No, that's a loser. No, this is, how can we put people in charge of complex negotiations that have never actually been trained on negotiations? I mean, this is ridiculous.

Yeah. Let's move if we could because there's just so much going out of the world. And look, we're only a few days into 2025. So I think that you and I are going to be sitting down talking on the situation we're born and elsewhere numerous times during the course of this year. But let's move to another development, another issue. And that would be the vulnerability of undersea cables critical to infrastructure globally. but recent damage done to subsea cables near Taiwan.

What do you make of that? Well, the Sunsing 39, that is actually a ship's name. It's about a 5,000-ton crappy little coastal freighter that off a Key Long Harbor, you know, that's only about 300 feet of water. They've had plenty of experience in the Baltic busting up the Chinese ships like the new, new polar bear. I mean, who in the bloody world is in charge? ship naming in the Chinese communist.

New polar bears sounds like a Seinfeld episode. Hey, come on out. Who doesn't love a polar bear? Come on. Everybody wants polar bears. Especially like Lee Wu polar. When I was in Taiwan in September, and I met with several of the professors at the, kind of their version of Miter, I mean, you know, the send of their version of Miter or

Rand or the Aerospace Corporation, I met with their think, time. They said, John, we're going to get quarantine within six months, and their first move is going to be, they're going to cut the undersea cables. Sure enough, what did they do? They, they, it was the PTE, the Pacific Telegraph Express, not telegraph, it's the PTE cable, which is a multi, you know, most undersea cables. It's a consortium that own them. It's not one company, but it went north and they drug that and they snapped the cable. And the telecom provider knew right away something was going on. And it immediately did what?

This is what they learned in the Baltic. This is what they learned in the Baltic. It immediately went AIS silent, so you couldn't track it. This last known signal was Friday morning. I checked it out. And it went dark. And then where did it go? It went to Busan, South Korea.

Hmm. Isn't that interesting? So this is a bad ship and that was intentional and this was the first step toward an actual quarantine. And they know the legal difference of the word quarantine versus blockade. Are they trying to say, I guess what I'm saying, are they trying to send a message or are they testing? Are they looking for response, the extent of potential damage and disruption? I mean, because it would seem odd if they're just doing this as a slow buildup to, quarantine.

Now this is, it's all of the above. And, you know, the classic, and I can't remember if it was the Soviets or if it was Mao or Trotsky who said, you know, you use your bayonet and you push. And if you feel softness, you keep pushing, you feel hard, you stop. And the same thing what they're doing. But this was, they took the Baltic experience. They've been busting up since December 23 in the Baltic. and hey, it's, it works.

It's only about 300 feet of water. That isn't much. And this is not deep water. And you're going to catch a cable. It's kind of a Luddite approach, but it works. And you just drag your cable. You're going to snap it. It's not the first incident either, I mean, of this.

And the same methodology used to damage these cables. It's the first major, because there was a smaller cable trunk line. that went to one of the you had Kinman and then Matsu up north. It was up to Matt Sue, one of the coastal islands of one of the coastal islands that's like within a bit, it's within mortar range

of the mainland. They cut that cable. I'm not sure that one was a totally intentional one or just a bunch of podunk fishermen just messing around. But this was definitely intentional. And it went AIS silent and then disappeared up towards South Korea. Well, I tell you what, I don't know that we've solved any problems here today, John,

but I think we've certainly highlighted a number of problems. And like I said, I think 2025 is going to present us with a number of opportunities to have these conversations because I don't think things are going to suddenly turn calm and peaceful. Colonel John Mills, as always, Thank you very much for your insight, for your willingness to join us here on the Situation Report, and I hope to see you again very soon. Oh, absolutely, Mike. Thank you so much. Take care.

Well, that is all the time we have for the PDB Situation Report. If you have any questions or comments or humorous anecdotes, just reach out to us at pdb at thefirsttv.com, because you know what we do with your comments and your questions. We take them, and eventually, once a month or so, we throw them into an episode that we call Ask Me Anything. And don't forget, when you send in your question and comments early in this new year, also send along what your New Year's resolutions are.

To listen to the podcast of this show ad-free, and you can do that if you were so inclined, become a premium member of the president's daily brief by simply visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker. And until next time, well, you do know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe.

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