The President's Daily Brief - PDB Situation Report | July 6, 2024: Patriot Missiles to Ukraine & the U.S.-Taliban Alliance?

Episode Date: July 6, 2024

In this episode of the PDB Situation Report: We start things off by taking a look at U.S. efforts to bolster Ukraine's air defenses amid ongoing Russian invasion, potentially with help from Israel. We'll be joined by intelligence analysis Ryan McBeth for insight into that story.  Plus, we're starting to see some of the real-world fallout from the US's disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, as new reports suggest that the White House may be turning to the Taliban to help combat ISIS. Lieutenant Colonel Tony Shaffer stops by to give his take on that. 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.  Email: [e-mail]. Ryan McBeth: https://ryanmcbeth.substack.com/ ☕ Blackout Coffee: https://www.blackoutcoffee.com/PDB Code: PDB 🏅 Patriot Gold: https://www.patriotgoldgroup.com Say Mike Baker sent you 💵 Tax Network: https://www.tnusa.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the PDB Situation Report. I'm Mike Baker, your eyes and ears on the world stage. Let's get briefed. We'll start things off by taking a look at U.S. efforts to bolster Ukraine's air defenses amid the ongoing Russian invasion. Potentially, and this is interesting, with help from Israel, will be joined by intelligence analyst Ryan McBeth for insight into that story. A little later, we're starting to see some of the real world fallout from the U.S.'s

disastrous withdrawal from Massachusetts. Afghanistan. You remember that. As new reports suggest that the White House, get this, maybe turning to the Taliban to help combat ISIS. Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer stops by to give us take on that. But first, the Situation Report Spotlight. One of the biggest problems that Ukraine has faced since the Russian invasion is defending its airspace against Russian missiles and aircraft. We've talked about that on the BDB. But it may be on the verge of getting a major. a major boost in the coming weeks, potentially with the help from Israel. According to an exclusive Financial Times report, the U.S. and Israel are discussing sending up to eight Patriot Air Defense systems currently on loan to Israel to Ukraine.

Now, this move could triple Kyiv's air defense arsenal. Israel has had these Patriot batteries for roughly 30 years and announced in April that they would be retiring them in favor of advanced technology. U.S. officials saw an opportunity and initiated talks to transfer the batteries to Ukraine. Now, Kiev has been pleading for more air defense systems to defend against Russia's relentless aerial bombardments. Currently, Ukraine has only four Patriot batteries, and two of those are on loan from European allies. Patriot systems are scarce and costly, with each battery priced at around roughly $1 billion. That's where the B, depending on if you get the same. the luxury package, the car mats, and the cup holders, and missiles at $4 million each.

Now, if Ukraine acquires the eight retired batteries from Israel, it would significantly enhance the air defense capabilities, dealing potentially a major blow to the Russian military and helping protect Ukrainian cities and infrastructure from the aerial attacks. Of course, as you might imagine, Putin and Russia, well, they're not too happy with the development, and they're now warning Israel of political consequences should the transfer of these systems be realized. For more insight into this story and Ukraine's efforts to defend its skies,

I want to bring in Ryan Macbeth. He's a cybersecurity expert and software engineer who works in the field of intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance. And you can find his work on Substack at ryanmicbeth.com. Ryan, thanks very much for joining us here on the PDB Situation Report. Thank you so much for inviting me. I can't wait to talk to you about air defense. You'll think differently once you start talking to me. But let's start at the 30,000 foot level since we're talking air defenses. You see what

I did there. Discuss if you could, again, sort of top line, the importance of the defense systems and particularly the Patriot system for Keeve, not just going forward, but, you know, what has been the status coming up to this point in time? As of right now, Ukraine is under tremendous pressure from Russia, especially in the realm of glide bombs, which are essentially what they sound like. They're bombs that are dropped from over Russia that glide, usually to the city of Kharkiv, and explode there causing massive, massive damage. There just aren't enough...

What sort of, if I could interrupt, right, I'm sorry, I have a bad habit of doing that. But the glide bombs for our listeners, what sort of range do they have? And who makes them? So they're made by Russia. The specific company actually slips my mind for right now. But there's traditional Fab 500 bombs. These bombs are equipped with a wing package. And they're launched from a fighter, really bombers like the Sue 34.

and they can glide roughly about 60 miles or so. It's kind of limited by physics. Okay. So in terms of what they've been able to do so far, in terms of protecting their air from the Russian attacks, how important have the Patriot systems, the four systems they've got, how important have they been? And to what degree do you expect them to be able to,

as we talked about at the opening, triple essentially their defenses? Well, that could certainly be a positive boon to their air defense. These systems, these Patriot systems, the ones they have now are capable of firing a type of missile called a PAC-3 missile. These are the most modern missiles that the U.S. has. They're designed to shoot down enemy planes, incoming warheads. And Ukraine has proven that they have been able to do this. They have been able to intercept incoming ballistic missiles.

Now, the version that Israel has, it's called the Pact II Gem T. Now, don't get too wrapped around the axle about that. The Pact 2 is still a very good missile, and it is designed to intercept incoming ballistic missiles, and it could theoretically hit one of these glide bombs. So going from four batteries to essentially what would be 12 batteries, that would be a major increase in capability. and Ukraine would be able to defend more of their airspace, specifically from these glide bombs, which have been deadly.

Was I somewhat in the ballpark when I mentioned the price tag per Patriot battery system? Roughly, yes. The pack three missiles cost about $4 million each. Gem 2 might be a little bit different based on how many you're ordering, and the gem 2 is still in production. The only issue with Ukraine receiving these launchers from Israel is that they might not be able to fire the Pact 3 missile, which is fine. It's not great. They can get upgrades.

To fire the Pact 3, you need a hardware upgrade, several hardware upgrades and some software upgrades. It's doable. But just getting the PACT 2 GEMT to Ukraine would be a fantastic improvement for their security situation of their own. airspace. You've got a tremendous amount of knowledge about weapon systems. And so I don't want to keep it just limited to the Patriots. But since the start of this war, I know this may be a very sort of simplistic question, but since the start of Putin's invasion over two years ago, what has been the most important

weapons system within the Ukrainian arsenal? What has given Putin's military the most difficulty? That would probably be the high Mars rocket system. This system has given Putin an incredible amount of Ajita. With this system, Ukraine is able to fire up to six missiles. These missiles are guided via GPS toward a target. They can fire at separate targets, and then they can move almost within about two, three minutes of firing.

They can go to another place where there's already a pod of missiles set up, drop the the other pod, the drop of pod that was just fired, load the new pod in and shoot again. It has been an incredible weapon system and it has proven the concept of High Mars and by extension, the tracked version, which is the multiple launch rocket system. For the High Mars, what is the range on that? I believe the range of the, I think it was the M61 that we gave them. I want to say that's about 60 or so miles roughly. they have different versions.

We actually gave them a version that can't go as far as our most modern as our most modern high Mars missiles. And that was done because we didn't want them shooting into Russia. However, of course, that might change since we've allowed Russia to use attack cams missiles, which is another feature.

The High Mars launcher can take one of those high Mars pods, drop that off and load an attack cams pod and that gives them an incredible amount of range with either a unitary warhead, meaning one single big warhead or a cluster munition warhead, which is great for things like radar or airfields or other kinds of soft targets like troops. Okay. What would you, how would you describe the logistics, you know, in terms of efficiency, in terms of delivery of weapons to the Ukrainian military, really, again, going back to the beginning

of the invasion. there's a lot there on the playing field to talk about. But I'm curious to get your perception about how the U.S. and how the EU, how NATO has done in terms of supplying Ukraine with what they need in a timely fashion. So we started out pretty good, being able to give Ukraine whatever they wanted for the most part. Javelin missiles. The javelin essentially helped save Ukraine. Russians they invaded in through Belarus they slammed right into the javelin missile which is a smart weapon that once that soldier puts that crosshair on that tank that thing fires and it goes and hits that tank it doesn't care how small you are

doesn't care if you fire off smoke doesn't care if you try to hide that missile will go after you so from a logistic standpoint we did great and then during this summer or last summer I should say, we had a lull because there were some problems in Congress. And eventually the right side prevailed, and we managed to convince Congress that not only is this good for Ukraine, this is good for the United States. You know, missiles expire. Whenever we fire a patriot, we're actually firing patriots that are near the end of their service light because the fuel inside those missiles will actually expire. We have to send it back to Raytheon. and they have to cut it open and demil it in its hazardous waste.

Well, now we can just send those things over to Ukraine. Ukraine can fire those older Patriot missiles, those older high Mars rockets. We're saved on the disposal cost, and we get to use our money to purchase new weapons, which we're going to do anyway. So this is actually a win for everybody except the Russians, which is the whole idea. Now, that's a really interesting point when you talk about sort of aging out of material. We've talked about on the PDB. We've talked about how Putin is trying to restock his warehouses with munitions.

And obviously, North Korea has been playing a role in that. Could you talk a little bit about the reliability, the dependability of munitions coming from North Korea? What have we been seeing on the battlefield in terms of what they've been providing to Putin? So I've actually taken a look at this. Russian soldiers have cut open some of the shell casings, at least for the, 122 millimeter howitzers. And the explosives are not packed correctly. They're supposed to be in very tight bundles.

That way they all explode uniformly, which gives that good gas pressure to push that shell outside the barrel. However, what we're seeing from some of the munitions coming from North Korea is you have stuff that's packed incorrectly. You have explosive charges in those shells that are missing. a couple of strands of explosive, and that could do a couple of things. The first thing I could do is it could blow up your barrel,

and that would be bad. Now, the second thing that could do is when you fire... Okay, just for... If I could interrupt, just for our listeners, then blowing up the barrel, that's considered bad. I just wanted to make sure our listeners caught that. Okay. That would be bad.

That would be a suboptimal outcome for shooting a piece of artillery. It's supposed to explode on the other end. Now, when it comes to a second problem is you could have what's called a short round. And if you've ever been in the military, the term short round, it is absolutely terrifying. That is when someone didn't put enough propellant inside the breach of a weapon system or an artillery system before they fired it. So you might have six rounds going to one place correctly where they're supposed to go and one round falling a little bit short and it could fall on your own soldiers.

So some of these systems that are, some of the ammunition, I should say, that's coming from North Korea isn't packed correctly and it's short the amount of propellant it needs to actually get those shells to uniform distance. So it's certainly possible that when Russians fire these things, some could end up falling on their own people, which is not a desired outcome. Right. Ryan, I could spend the rest of the day talking to you about this. And I want you to come back. We're going to take a quick break. So stay right there if you could. Just a very quick break.

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Welcome back to the PDB situation report. We're again joined by Ryan Macbeth. You can check them out on Substack at Ryan Macbeth.substack.com. Ryan, thank you for sticking around. Really appreciate it. We were just talking about the reliability of munitions coming from North Korea to stock Putin's warehouses for his adventurism. What could you tell us about the condition of the Russian military production infrastructure?

I mean, are they racing to stay ahead? Are they keeping up with their demands? are the warehouses empty? Do they have the ability to build more infrastructure as this goes on? Because we're not seeing any indication from Putin anyway that he's getting out of this engagement. So we are certainly seeing increased Russian production. Now, one of the issues with production,

it's sort of like playing that game, Axis and Allies. You have to kind of figure out where you're going to put your production costs. Do you want tanks? Do you want planes? Do you want artillery? and you have a limited amount of funding. If you want to kind of get technical, Russia has plenty of funding, but they have a limited amount of machine tools.

And machine tools will eventually break. Now, a lot of Russian oil infrastructure is Western infrastructure. And there really is no Russian machine tool. There's really no Russian machine tool industry to create new machine tools when these old machine tools wear out and break. So now Russia is in this, dilemma. You know, a problem has one or more solutions.

A dilemma has two or more solutions, each of which are equally bad. And when you look at machine tools, you have to say, well, do I want to devote machine tools to trying to fix my oil infrastructure because I need to keep that running? Or do I devote machine tools to increase in production? Now, Russia has increased production. They're running more ships. They have enough workers to manufacture munitions. But as for creating new production lines, that's really going to be difficult because those new

production lines need to be stocked with machine tools. And now Russia has to make a choice. Let's talk about if we could just pivot just slightly, staying in the same battle space. But let's talk about drones. How important has drone technology been to both sides, both to Putin and to Zelensky and the Ukrainian military? Drones are probably the major reason why both sides have trouble. moving. The initiative was first given to Ukraine. Ukraine created a lot of drones, mainly because it needed to find a weapon system that it could use against Russia from a safe distance.

For about one year, 18 months or so, Russia really didn't rely on drones, and now they're realizing how important they are. They've set up some of their own drone factories. They've also purchased some drones from other countries. Iran is one example. The Shahed drone It's really more like a cruise missile, but Russia is using drones to a greater effect than they did at the start of the war. Now, one interesting thing is that because both sides have such incredible ISR, or intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, it's really difficult for either side, Ukraine or Russia to mask anything more than a company. because once you mass that company, you have an incredible visual, thermal, and signal, meaning radio signature. So it is very difficult to mass enough troops for a breakthrough because once you get over a company,

which would be roughly 110 soldiers or perhaps 12 to 14 armored vehicles, you have this signature that can be spotted by a drone. And now artillery and rockets can be called in from the other side. So it's really hard for either side to make any kind of advance, and that's mainly due to drones. Do the Russians, do they have their own drone manufacturing capability, or are they relying almost exclusively on Iran and outside providers? So they have their own manufacturing capability. Orlon 10 is a Russian drone. Russia also has some loiter munitions they've developed in-house, and they have their own Shahed drone factory,

which was created with a license from Iran. So they do have their own drone making capabilities. Okay. Early on, we talked about the Patriot battery systems. Let's look on the other side, go to the offensive, and talk about the delivery of F-16s to the Ukrainian military. Where are we in that process? And to what degree do you imagine that to be, I don't know if we want to use the term game changer, but how would you describe it?

So the F-16 gives Ukraine four advanced capabilities that they really don't currently have. Now, as to where we are in the process, I know just last month, U.S. graduated, I believe, 12 graduates from an Air National Guard fighter school in Arizona. These guys ready to go. They're just waiting on the equipment. And that equipment should be transferred perhaps in the summer. Now, the addition of these F-16s and these four capabilities are very, very important. Right now, Ukraine has maybe 78 or so combat-capable aircraft, and none of them have the range to counter Russia's anti-aircraft missiles. Russia flies combat air patrols with their fighters,

and they have a special missile called the R-37, which has a range of about 120 miles estimated, although Russia says it's more. Of course, they're going to say it has greater range. So right now, when a Ukrainian plane takes off, Russia just needs to light them up and fire a missile, and that plane has to head home. It has to go to ground because it will get shot out of the sky.

However, with the addition of the F-16, capability one is the Amram missile. This is a long-range air-to-air missile. It doesn't have the same exact range as the Russian R-37, but it closes that gap. It's either 60 miles or 110 miles depending on the version of the Amram that we send to Ukraine. So that evens the playing field a little bit. It will force Russia to pull back even more. The second capability is that the F-16 has integrated capability with the harm anti-radiation missile.

And an anti-radiation missile goes after radar the way a pig goes after truffles. So the F-16 can fly, and if it gets lit up by a surface-to-air missile radar from Russia, it can turn and it can fire that harm or high-speed anti-radiation missile right down the beam of that Russian radar. And even if Russia turns that beam off, the missile remembers where it is. And that will force Russia to move its surface-to-air missiles back even further. The third capability is the J-DAN-E-R, which is a glide bomb, kind of like those Russian glide bombs I've just been talking about.

Now what's kind of neat about these bombs is that they are GPS guided. One of the huge problems we've had with Russia is that they have GPS jammers which degrade the capability of these glide bombs, these J-DAM-E-R glide bombs. But one thing the harm can do is track, there's home on jam. So if you have a GPS jammer that is giving out a signal, you can fire a harm missile right down that jammer, and they have to turn it off or risk that thing being destroyed. And again, it remembers where you are.

So once we start hitting those jammers, we'll be able to use the J-DAN ER to destroy Russian troop concentrations, command and control center, supply dumps, and even assistant close air support on the front line. And the fourth thing is the harpoon anti-ship missile, which will help destroy some of the cruise missile launching platforms that still remain in the Black Sea. Yeah, I guess a follow-on question, and I'm going to try to avoid the politics of it all.

We try to stay focused on developments around the world, crisis, et cetera, here on the PDB. But sometimes, you know, you have to stray a little bit into what any particular administration is doing. Now, the Biden administration spent quite a bit of time trying to decide whether U.S. provided weapons could be used outside of Ukraine to, target structures, facilities, activities inside Russia that are involved in this invasion. With the F-16s, have you heard anything about what are the parameters for use with a weapon like this? I have not heard of any specific parameters per use, but don't forget, these weapons are technically coming from countries like Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark.

I mean, the U.S. can say whatever they want, but Ukraine is going to use these weapons systems how they see fit. I would not be surprised if the use of the F-16 is restricted to targets within Ukraine, within occupied Ukraine, or perhaps directly on the border with Russia. I do not envision a deep strike straight to Moscow. That would be, number one, extremely difficult. And number two, not really have much of a tactical advantage and you're risking losing your. your platforms. And again, this is a bit of a soft science question. We're straying a little bit off the specifics of weapons systems and advantages for one

side or the other. In terms of where this is going, I'm not going to put you on the spot to ask for your prediction. Oh wait, yes I am. If you had to look down the road and say about six months from now, where do you see this conflict based on what you're seeing in terms of the, again, the, again, the, you're again, the weapons, the munitions, the availability of resources for both sides, kind of focusing on that, not necessarily looking at the politics of it from the EU, the NATO, from the U.S.

administration, but just looking at the resources available to both sides, where do you think we are in about six months' time? In roughly six months' time, what I can see is Russia attritted even more. They might have trouble recruiting soldiers. They might have trouble getting soldiers to the front lines. So I don't really see the lines changing all that much, but this is not a six-month out problem. This is a two, three-year out problem. Russia has enough old Soviet-era equipment to last maybe another one and a half to two and a half years roughly. So they can still keep throwing steel at the problem, and they're just going to run right into the meat grinder. Either way, the area inside Ukraine, the demilitarized zone inside Ukraine is full of landmines.

And trying to breach through a field of landmines while simultaneously dodging anti-tank and machine gun fire, that is a recipe for disaster. We saw that when Ukraine tried to counterattack Russia. So I don't really see these lines changing. I believe Ukraine's strategy is to wear out Russia to the point where they start to collect. locally and then we might see some actually Ukrainian gains, but I don't see that happening in the next six months. No, I, you know, I think you're pretty much spot on. I do worry that the notion of Ukraine wearing out Russian military and Putin's motivation, you're kind of in our foot race also with the West, in terms of the West,

possibly getting distracted or losing interest or being tired of this. We know that that does tend to happen. Ryan McBeth, this has been terrific. You know, I would like to, you know, see if you can come back. We've got plenty of other things to talk about here. I've got a ton of questions to talk to you about North Korea and their involvement and their relationship with Putin in terms of resources and provision of munitions. Cybersecurity, intelligence, weapons systems expert, Ryan Macbeth.

You can check him out on Substack at Ryan Macbeth. com. He's all over YouTube. He's got about, I don't know, 20 million followers. on YouTube. It's insane. And that's only justified because this has been a great conversation. We really appreciate your expertise, Ryan. Thank you so much for inviting me on, Mike. This has been a fantastic time. Excellent. Thank you. I'll see you again, hopefully very soon. All right. The Biden administration, well, they're revealing plans to get this, potentially collaborate with the Taliban

regime in Afghanistan. And that would be to counter the rising threat of ISIS-K. It's complex. And I know what you're saying. You're saying, really, the Taliban, ISIS-K, they're at odds with each other? Well, yes, they are. This unprecedented move could see the U.S. and the Taliban sharing intelligence to combat a common enemy. Now, is it a common enemy? That implies that we've got common objectives and common concerns.

I'm not quite sure that's the case. And for that reason, we have invited. my good friend, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer, he'll be on here to talk about this very disturbing issue. Are you overwhelmed with back taxes or unfiled returns? Look, with 88,000 newly hired agents, that's 88,000 of them, the IRS has increased enforcement issuing millions of pay-up notices in 2024. How pleasant does that sound a pay-up notice?

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friend. It is an old saying. Some, some attributed to Socrates. Some people say Churchill came up with it. You know, I'm going to take credit for it. I think I just made it up. So the Biden administration appears to be embracing that axiom, revealing this week that they're considering working with the Taliban regime in Afghanistan to combat the growing terror threat posed by ISIS K. Now, the Taliban has no love for the group, which has wreaked havoc on the militant regime ever since they took control of Afghanistan following the disastrous U.S. withdrawal. You remember that in the summer of 2021. The U.S. is reportedly considering a cooperative agreement with the Taliban, where the U.S.

would share intelligence regarding ISIS K and the Taliban, would feed us real-time intelligence about their regional operations. That's according to a report from NBC News. Now, ever since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, coupled with our waning influence in Africa, you like that word waning? The U.S. has struggled to gather comprehensive intelligence about ISIS-K and other offshoots of the Islamic State, so much for the vaunted over-the-horizon capability.

You remember that? The Biden administration talked about that incessantly during the withdrawal. without a clear picture of their activities, U.S. options are limited regarding an intelligence partner in the region. That's to say the least. For more on this, I want to bring in my very good friend, the retired senior military intelligence officer,

the esteemed, the one and only, I can't think of anything else to say about him, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer. Tony, thanks very much for joining us, man. And I got a shirt on the day, too, so there you go. It's a bonus episode. I know. I mean, for those who are wondering about the inside baseball,

Tony was gracious enough to join the Situation Report, I don't know, a couple of weeks ago. Seems like just yesterday, Tony. And he showed up wearing a T-shirt, which, you know, so now I'm wearing a T-shirt because I thought, well, we'd look like, you know, members of the same boy band. And he comes on wearing a shirt. So, anyway. And a short-sleeve shirt at that. That's a bold move right there.

That's bold. All right, let's get talking Taliban. Let's talk ISIS-K. What do you think about this report, Tony? just anywhere you want to go with that conversation. So, Mike, we had recognized before we left that ISIS K was actually successful in taking over several provinces. This was when we were still on the ground there. By my count, there was about five provinces they had taken over.

And there was a conflict between the Taliban. My belief was, since we were there, let the Taliban and ISIS K just fight each other. And I think that would have been fine to keep them kind of at bay. And for the record, I was not for our law. leaving. I think we should have kept an intelligence and special operations force at Bogram to strike. This over the horizon stuff, Mike, it never works, especially in a country that's landlike, like Afghanistan. You have to have a presence. And I don't believe for the blood and treasure we invested, we should have ever left. We didn't leave Germany. We didn't leave South Korea. We didn't

leave Japan. So I don't know why we decided this. But with that said, it's very clear at this point. there's a conflict between those two radical elements. But my belief is it's not our job to jump in the middle of that. I'm going to say a word, you may not like it, and that word is Pakistan. The Pakistanis have been very close to the issue because they live there. We don't. And I have worked with the Pakistani ISI. I'm not always fond of them.

I've had some pretty harsh words for them. But I think whatever we do, we have to do in conjunction with the Talibanis and understanding what their interests are. they're the ones we've worked with as a proxy. Heck, your former organization used to work very closely with them. So I'm not one saying we should try something different than what's worked in the past. And the past, we've worked with the ISI and the Pakistanis quite effectively. Yeah, yeah, I think I would caveat that with, you know, my feeling that you always have to be careful with ISI.

Oh, I know. In terms of how they're playing, yeah, how they're playing the game. But I guess I'm of two minds here, Tony. I think if we were to approach it pragmatically, right, which typically the U.S. government doesn't, they approach it in sort of a fanciful way. And I know they're going to get tripped up over saying, well, you know, we're going to have this cooperation with the Taliban. And in exchange, they're going to guarantee women's rights and they're going to do,

and civil liberties. We can't help ourselves sometimes as a government. If we just went out at it pragmatically, right, and said, all right, it's an intelligence collection operation. I don't care. I don't trust the Taliban as far as you could throw them out the, you know, the top of of a 30-story tower. But if you say they've got some intelligence that we could use to degrade ISIS K and other

elements of ISIS perhaps without this fanciful concept that somehow we're getting into a relationship where suddenly our enemy becomes our friend, then I guess I don't have a problem with that. I just don't know that the U.S. government is capable of approaching it in that fashion, being very, very mercenary because, you know, that's how the Taliban will approach this. Right. Well, we did use that approach for the initial entry. Remember, we sided and worked with closely the Northern Alliance.

It's in a book called 12 Strong. The movie's 12 Strong. Poor Soldiers is the name of the same book by Doug Stanton. And I know Doug. Doug's a great guy. He did a great job of researching that book. And yeah, we were very mercenary, if I can use that word, to work directly with tribes who were friendly to us.

I'm not against us engaging tribes, Mike. I mean, when I was there running operations, we were using tribes. It's in my book, Operation Darkhart. We talk about how we were using the tribes both as ground guides to get our combat forces against Hickmottier and others that we were going after, as well as working with them, via them, to secure the provinces.

So I don't think it's a bad idea. I'm just not sure if the Taliban is the right tribe. I mean, there are other tribes out there. And again, I mentioned the Northern Alliance. They were very close to us. They were very upset, really upset, when we withdrew and they were the last province to fall by the way Mike if you remember the the when we left when the Taliban went after everybody they were the last ones to fall they tried to

hold out so I'm not sure if they'd be willing to talk to us but I'm all for the idea of working with tribes on the ground to get that real-time direct intelligence that we need to make assessments yeah and I do agree with one of your earlier statements about the the effectiveness of over the horizon capabilities. That became sort of a narrative, a talking point, kind of a little bit of theater for, you know, the Pentagon. I mean, God bless the Pentagon, right, but particularly for the White House and trying to justify their complete withdrawal saying, no, this will be fine. This will be fine. We're going to have this over-the-horizon capability, and that will allow us to be strategic in future potential operational strikes. Talk to me a little bit about that,

if you could. So I think this is, I'm going to say something I think we will agree on. Without human intelligence without clandestine boots on the ground. People like you and I running assets on the ground, you're not going to get the granularity you need to be effective and over the horizon. I'm not a fan of ISR, this whole thing of drones and satellites. I was told by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs in a meeting I had with them, we've increased our ISR over the past 10 years by something like 2,000 percent with only a 2 percent increase in actual intelligence. Think about the investment we've made in Mike, and people like you and me are trained to go out. We do those hard things of recruiting people. So my point is that unless you bring some level of us case officers back into it, able to go and

recruit people to do things on the ground like we did during, you know, we actually did this during when we were going after the Soviets back during the day when, you know, some of your your colleagues, your seniors were out there doing all sorts of things like that. So I think that's the first thing we have to look at realistically. How can we reestablish effective clandestine human networks on the ground that will provide us that information? So again, I think right now we're only talking platitudes and talking points, but someone like you and me should be at your former agency and my former agency, DOD, sitting down and trying to hash through how do we reestablish this and make it effective so that we can actually do something if we have to. And I don't think that

conversation's happening right now. Yeah, again, I think that, you know, oh, and by the way, as it turns out it was possibly a mistake to hand out shoulder fired missiles in the long run to to try to get the Soviets out of there. Yeah. I agree with you. Yeah, I was in an helicopter. Yeah, we had one of those got shot at us. So I agree. Yeah. I know. And then we had to go back and try to buy some of them back. So that was that's a whole book right. or a movie. You know, that's what we should do. We should write that movie. But I think with the, with the, you know, I'm afraid that if we did that, then like Danny DeVita would play my character and I'd be heartbroken. Oh, no, they'd have. So they'd get, they'd get probably, who's that guy that's trying to divorce from Jailo right now?

They could get him to do it because he's going to be divorced and he's looking for a movie role. Ben Affleck. Oh, yeah, yeah, Ben Affleck. Jennifer, Ben Affleck, yeah. Well, I think we're disappearing down a rabbit hole here, Tony. With what we're talking about, with the potential for cooperation, I keep hating to use that word in terms of the Taliban. But look, they run the country. I mean, they've obviously are having some territorial issues with ISIS-K.

And so there's this complex situation on the ground. I think a lot of people in hearing us talk about this would be surprised to hear that somehow the Taliban are at odds with ISIS K. To what degree can you talk about what that relationship is, why they're crosswise with each other? Well, ISIS K is essentially another form of Al-Qaeda. And even during the time that al-Qaeda was there before 9-11, Mike, there were problems. There's a fundamental difference between the Taliban who really are a regional terrorist threat.

I tend not to agree with official positions, but in this case, the State Department labeled them as essentially a regional terrorist organization. They are not expeditionary. ISIS K has this larger global caliphate goal. They actually, their goals are strategic versus a Taliban basically wanting to run Afghanistan. So their overall objectives are significantly different. And the Taliban, as you've noticed,

even though they're now in charge, have not actually done much to come after us. That is to say, for the most part, they've gone about trying to secure the country, to reestablish governance. And so I think that's what I'm what we're going to I think that's why there's talk of this cooperation, because while I don't agree with the Taliban, I don't agree with them subjugating women,

I don't agree with them reverting to essentially using Sharia law as the law of the land, they're there and ISIS K poses a threat because ISIS K believes that they're not radical enough. So that's why you have this conflict and I think you're going to see it get worse in that ISIS K as it obtains more resource. By the way, Pakistan,

doesn't like ISIS K any more than the Taliban. That's why I brought up Pakistan, the ISI. And again, I don't trust the ISI, but I do trust their motives when it comes to what they need to do. That is the ISI and the Taliban regarding governance of that region. So I kind of understand why the Biden administration would float this. I don't necessarily think we can trust everything that would happen. But ISISK, I think, is a more prominent, more potentially,

effective threat against us and our interests than the Taliban are. Yeah, I agree with you on that one. Listen, we, Tony, stay right there. We've got to take a quick break, just long enough for you to mix up another cocktail. We'll be back with more with Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer. Just stay put. If you've been paying attention to the financial news, experts are beginning to express concern that the U.S. dollar may lose its status as the world standard.

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the U.S. really is. In times of uncertainty, gold is security. Gold remains a core asset to hold ahead of the U.S. election. Call the proud Americans of the Patriot Gold Group today before it's too late. Mention PDB, and you'll always get best in class service from Patriots protecting Patriots. Patriot Gold Group has the No-Fee-For-Life IRA, where your IRA or 401K can be in physical gold and silver, and you may be eligible for the No-Fee-For-Life IRA on qualifying rollovers. Call 1-88-8-8-7-1-7-1-7-4-1-7.

5457 for a free investor guide. Patriot Gold Group is Consumer Affairs top-rated gold IRA dealer for seven years in a row. That's a lot of years in a row. Call 1-888-8-870-5457. Welcome back to the PDB Situation Report. Let me bring back my good friend, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer. We've been talking Taliban, ISIS-K. Tony, thanks very much for sticking around.

Sure. Really appreciate it. Let's bring it closer to home. We're talking about the threat that ISIS K presents. To what degree can you talk about their potential for a terrorist event here in the U.S.? So I do believe, going back to our previous conversation a couple seconds ago, that ISIS does legitimately hold a threat to the homeland. The Taliban, except for one instance, has not sought to actually hit the homeland.

ISIS has. And I think the more we see ISIS resurging right now, and I, look, I was part of the team that advised Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Joe Dunford with the by with and through strategy to go right into Iraq and go into Syria to eliminate them. I don't think we being paying attention sufficiently to what ISIS, ISIS K and other elements of ISIS are doing. So I think with the Southwest border being wide open, the chances are very good that they already have operatives here. They're doing intelligence collection and looking for a target, you know, they're doing all the things that, that any organization that wants to strike the homeland would do, and they're just waiting for the right time to do something. So again, I think ISIS poses much more of a significant and real threat than the Taliban. Yeah, and it's, it is interesting, right? I mean, I know you know this better than just about anybody, but when during the height of sort of the war on terror, right? Our approach oftentimes was prepare for an attack that looked like the previous attack.

Right, exactly. So back in the old days, yeah, we had truck bombs, right? So suddenly everything was, was, was, barriers and bollards and, you know, and so everything was kind of predicated on what happened previously. And I think what we've seen over time is that the next attack, and there will be one, right? It's like the pandemic. There will be another pandemic. It's just the way things work, unfortunately. But the next attack doesn't have to look like 9-11. It's not going to, it doesn't have to be as, if you want to use the word, sophisticated or as complex. We've seen from, you know, the Moscow attack.

of ISIS K on the Music Center, just how simple something can be and still wreak incredible havoc. Well, I go back to the World Trade Center bombing, the first one, not the airplanes. I mean, people on the ground with vehicles or, you know, I'm afraid actually of a bunch of folks with basic weapons going into a Home Depot and just killing people. That would be horrific. And obviously that would create a stir. I don't know, Mike, I don't know if you were in D.C. when they had the two assassins were going around shooting people at gas stations back about 2003. Yeah, that, that, that nearly shut down. The two dudes in the vehicle, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Two guys with a gun randomly killing people nearly shut down Washington, D.C. So to your point, and Christopher Ray has said this, that all the lights are blinking red. I take him in his word, and I think you're right. I think we should be looking at a different vector of attack regarding what they may do this next time. Yeah, so I started to fade off, Tony, when you said the magical words shut down Washington, D.C. Well, there's a solution that could fix a lot of ills.

No, but you're right. Yeah, that was actually a great analogy because that was a fellow and a kid, basically, using a vehicle and paralyzing the entire region, not just Washington, D.C., Maryland, Virginia. That just brought it to a halt. It was, but so I think, and again, with the music center and with other incidents that we've seen, it doesn't have to be sophisticated. And the problem that we've talked about here on the PDB before is, and you've already just alluded to it, was the poorest southern border. If you don't know who's crossing the border and nobody should imagine somehow that the vetting process is solid. But if we don't know who's crossing the border, yeah, you can't guarantee national security.

No, you can't. Look, I've said, I used to do what we call red teaming. I would put myself in the shoes or boots or sandals of a terrorist and try to figure out if I were the bad guy, how would I do something? And I've said this on the record. I could shut down Congress with 10 guys with box cutters. If you just understand the centers of gravity and how to do things. And Mike, I'm not encouraging that.

Please don't say this as I'm threatening. I'm just saying that I've looked at how certain facilities, certain organizations within our country are, fundamentally vulnerable. And that's what worries me is that they're going to do that reconnaissance that we're talking about. And they're going to hit us in a way that we may not fully anticipate. And that's what I'm worried about. Let's circle back to where we started with this idea that somehow the U.S. may start a cooperative agreement with the Taliban.

Under the concept that we've got somewhat similar objectives, we'd like to see the destruction of ISIS-K. What would that look like in terms of command and control? who would make that decision, I mean, outside of the White House, obviously it would have to be signed off on. But who would then have control of that? Is that more of a military or is that more of an Intel community exercise? Title 10 or Title 50, Mike? I don't know. If it's Title 50, it'll be you all. The CIA would take the primacy in that. They would figure out a way to create liaison probably either directly through Qatar or we've had a relationship with the Taliban or again with the ISI. I really see this at this point as much more of your problem, CIA's than our problem,

because that's really where it's going to have to go at this point. Just saying. That's where we are in this world today. It used to be everybody was clamoring to take control of something. Now everybody's trying to push it off on somebody else. How about you guys over at the agency take that one? Wow. Hey, listen, Tony, Lieutenant Colonel Tony Schaefer,

thanks very much, man, for joining us today. I know we're going to have you back. and I can only hope that you dress better the next time. I'm working on it, Mike. Thanks for having me. It's always fun. Thank you. Okay.

Talk to you soon, man. Take care. Well, that is all the time that we have for the PDB situation report. Listen, if you have any questions or comments or humorous anecdotes or jokes, just please reach out to me at PDB at thefirsttv.com. We sincerely love hearing from you. And you've got some great questions and comments that we field. And then periodically every month we put them on.

on what we call the Ask Me Anything episode, which is on PDB Premium. And to listen to the podcast of this show, ad-free, now that I've just mentioned, pdbpremium.com, become a premium member of the president's daily brief. And this is simple by visiting pdbpremium.com. I'm Mike Baker. Until next time, you know the drill. Stay informed. Stay safe.

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