Clearly a Threat. Mike Lyons Talks to Armstrong & Getty

going to resolve this issue with Taiwan. If it has to be by force, it will be by force. And we're not going to pass this problem once in the next generation. Yeah, So, China has been flying a warplanes in the Taiwan's air defense space in the last couple of days. As you heard, there over a hundred military aircraft have flown near Taiwan. That's between Friday and Sunday, including eighty fighter jets, four bombers, five anti subplanes, and

four early warning aircraft. That seems fairly provocative. The question is what is China up to. We have a number of questions and Mike Lions military analysts joins US. Mike served with various military organizations both the United States and Europe throughout his career. Mike, welcome, how are you guys. So great to be back with you. Thank you. Yeah, it's always a pleasure. So I just have a very

basic question. What's an air defense space. I assume that's different than their national airspace, right, it's twelve miles outside the border of where the land hits. And so each country has an area through international law that says they own space twelve miles outside where the land starts. And so when you get outside, you know, inside of that, you're allowed to defend your land space. Um, and so missile systems have got at least go to that place.

And so now once the Chinese violate that, there in theory violating the sovereignty of that country in this state, Taiwan. So it's very much like putting your finger an inch from somebody's nose. You haven't touched them, but the incursion is absolutely intentional, right, And this is different than the kind of the classic Cold War ones where Russia would

do this to the United States. They would you know, kind of come out just to the edge of our of our that space there, and we would see it was designed to see how fast we would have learned and to deploy aircraft to respond. So we looked at that as just them testing us to see how we would respond. Here this is different because you know, when you send a hundred and fifty planes into this area, you're not you can't respond. There's there's you can only do so much. This is about. This is a threat.

There's no question about that. This is clearly a threat to to Taiwan and the Chinese states in response to our naval exercises that are taking place in Oakland now. And that's a couple of you know, island zones up to the north. But again, what's happening here is something we just really haven't seen the Chinese doing a long time. Okay, So I just want to make sure I understand this. So it sounds it seems to me. It sounds to

me like so they got it. They had enough badass aircraft flying close enough to Taiwan that if they have wanted to do something, they have done it and it would have been too late for any US or anybody to stop it. Oh, no question. I mean that we don't have that kind of capability on the island itself. I mean, Taiwan has some basic air defense platforms, surface to air missile systems, but nothing that can take out

what they put over there. I mean, if those the H six bombers, for example, they're nuclear capable, you know, they open their their doors drop bombs on Taiwan, it's uh, it's over. I mean there's in this, you know, and the Chinese are going to do things like use a nuclear tach nuke first. You know, they're going to use

their hypersonic missile systems or cruise missile systems. Um. What we've what we're learning from the Chinese is that they've learned from us from Desert Storm that in order to win these wars, you have to, you know, punch hard first the first time, make it so bloody that the enemy doesn't want to respond. Here, I'm just so surprised. It's so quick. It's happening so fast. Um. In that, you know, the Chinese of traditionally played the long game.

We we expect them. For example, they want to have this let's say blue water world class navy by you know, that's still twenty years from now. They're working towards that takes basically a generation to do that. They have the technology, they have the equipment. Um, to me, it looks like they're speeding up that timeline and this is one good example of it. So what are they after by doing

something disagregious? What's next? Well, it's all about protecting power in the South China, see, and how they anticipate this would go. Um, how they want to be the penultimate power there in that part of the world. Um, they're you know, claiming the responsibility of the United States, Australia, Japan, South Korea, if you know, that's kind of the Allies system right now that's going to have to push back

against the Chinese. Talking to another analysts over the weekend, then we were saying, okay, so let's working this out. What does the war with China look like? You guys and I have talked about that and where it would take place, and we're coming to realize that it likely takes place very similar to what we saw in the Second World War and this island hopping campaign as the Chinese look to gain and hold certain of these islands

that are close to Taiwan. UM. But eventually they would try to unfortunately use kind of amphibious operation to take over the island itself. Now, they'd likely destroy it. There'd be a lot of death and destruction. Um, And I think the Chinese are threatening our allies on ourselves, saying, don't even think up doing anything because the price you're gonna pay will be an aircraft carrier. We're gonna sink

aircraft Carry're gonna sink two aircraft carriers. In fact, if you've got two there in the region right now, we've got a couple of there in the US. I think the Vincent's there and the role Reagan's there right now, a couple of destroyers protecting it as well. Um, they're gonna go right after that, and they're not going to hesitate. It's I don't know how likely it is, but if they wanted to, Um, they could change the balance of

power on the planet, like in a day, right. I mean, they attacked Taiwan, if we don't react, and Japan says, well, the United States didn't come to their defense, so I guess work on out of luck. And then just a whole bunch of people decide, Okay, the United States is not the policeman of the world. Are gonna fix everything everywhere.

So we need to figure out how to deal with China, and things would change like really really fast, wouldn't they Right, And just look at so look at Afghanistan taught our allies that when we don't put America first, when we decide that, you know what, we're not going to really defend you, guys are out of here. Look what happens. And and versus if you're an ally of the Chinese, you know they like the fact that they put China first because that means they know they're always going to

back them up. Well, that's that's what's happening right now, Like, that's that's what this test is to them because they absolutely can. And again, this is a country that would use a low level nuclear capable weapon in the beginning of the fight. It would escalate immediately right to that. Now does it get to, you know, intercontinental blistic missiles. I'm not sure we would do that, we would trade

city for city or anything like that. But but they're gonna do whatever they can to project this level of power given what's you know, given what their plan is, their belt and roads and suspenders, and that that that initiative that is taking place throughout throughout Asia. You know, they want to be the world dominant power. This is their century and this is how they think they have to do it. And um we're sitting there, you know, are they ten feet tall? What they look like? You

know they're they're not. There might be ten feet tall, but there's six feet in the rowing. So we're going to have to deal with this. Um, I think sooner than later. Mike clients military analysts down the line. Mike, you mentioned our aircraft carriers as a friend and relative of various naval and marine personnel and and somebody who's been proud of our amazing aircraft carriers since w W two. Can we defend them anymore? Well, that's a great question.

And given their hypersonic missile capability over surface to land missiles that they have that they built on in those South China, see, I don't know. You know, they're going to change how warfare goes. Um. I just I'm on a conference right now at the Modern War Institute and just sort of very telling comment made by a guy that said, you know we've got we've been a wrong

in predicting the next fight. Well, you know the next fight we know it's going to involve cyber we next we know the next fight is going to involve technology. But I think the next fight involves this swarm technology where drones and the like are just going to be robots are being thrown out our our systems that are manned by people, And you know, you can't defend against two thousand things coming at you no matter what how great the aircraft carror is and how many stroyers you

have around it to protect it. So I think that's what the Chinese are gonna do, and we've got to figure out a way to shut that down, maybe E M P. Other other different weapons systems that that quite frankly we're behind in right now that the Chinese have the leading hypersonic missiles and drone clouds. Good lord, I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight. Yeah well yeah, maybe I guess this is what you know, kind of

we do as the analysts. I We're always looking at what the capabilities are, and we've got to make sure that we have the capability to defend, and we also recognize whether it's a weakness to kind of kind of run it through. Um, the Chinese could make a tremendous mistake if they don't get it right the first time. Here's what the Chinese don't have, whether we like it or not. The US has been you know, bloodied. We

have got experienced military. You know, we've been the war the past twenty years, so we kind of know how to do this. The Chinese haven't shot at anybody since nineteen seventy nine. So the question is if they do get in some kind of land battle or some big conflict. Um, I think I have the guts to pull the trigger,

and I think that's it remains to be saying. So how much does that matter that we have you know, recent actual military experience and they don't we personally, I think it matters a lot um again because when you uh, it's a function of how well they're going to do once the shooting starts. Like like what I found in combat was once our soldiers saw the confidence that they had in their equipment and the fact that it was no match, it created a sense of invincibility around our units.

And I'm sure the pilots feel the same way, and I know the sailors feel the same way. That doesn't matter, We're going to be fine in this situation. The Chinese have yet to prove that out whether or not their their investment is gonna take do that for them from a cultural perspective, and they recognize the culture is an important part of this because again the p l A, the whole the whole army thing is still kind of new for them. They're they're invested money in their officers.

The leader of China, for example, doesn't even trust a lot of his general officers because a lot of that has been brought and paid. So they have the traditional problems of those those armies that kind of getting you know, brought up from the from the root cause. But now they're going to go actually fight. The question is whether they'll actually fight. You know, what, what what are you fight for? I know, I know when we're in our units, you know,

we fight for each other. The question is whether those Chinese p l A and army units will do the same for each other. Well, and I've been told by somebody who studies this thing, in whose opinion I trust, that just culturally and historically, we have a tradition of um, you know the intent of your commander, they tell you what we're trying to accomplish. Then if um, if it turns out we need to improvise and do something different

or in a different way. Our people are empowered to do that, as opposed to a lot of Asian cultures, including Japan, which has struggled with this. It's very very much top down and you dare not dishonored, dishonor your commander. Yeah, I'm not sure that same level of dishonors in the Chinese military, as they've tried to fight against that, and again we won't know until the bullets start flying. I

guess in some level. We definitely saw that in the Japanese military, especially during World War Two, and how they felt UM. I think that they recognize cultures an issue. If you look at their advertisements, if you look at what they're trying to do, they're they're trying to power down UM and focus on n c o s and the the noncommissioned officers that actually run the battles there. Uh. But but it takes it takes generation, and they're going

to have to get you into something. So I wouldn't be surprised if you saw the Chinese deploy certain units into certain places in the world to try to get some combat experience as proxy forces to to their units so they can kind of come back and tell the story and recognize what their shortcomings are going to be and where they're gonna have to overcome if they get into if we get into this great land power mass battle that could take place on those islands within the

South Chines. See so many interesting points. Mike Lion's military analysts Mike, we truly appreciate it, guys, thanks for having me. You can you can't get that perspective from anybody else, so good. The last bit about China, look for them to send their forces as proxies the various regions of the world to get a little combat experience. Well now I know what to look for. So over a hundred military aircraft flew into Taiwan space, eighty fighter jets, four bombers,

five anti subplanes for early warning aircraft. Man, that is provocative, and that thing about you know, we've got experience and they don't. All the sports metaphors that that exists there, you know, they've got experience. The new up starts, can they handle the pressure? Well, sometimes you can't, and the people with experience win. But sometimes the young upstarts who have never been there. They win if they have enough

talent slash firepower in that place. Yeah, yeah, man. It's just I know I've been talking about this for years, but I just I just feel like there's so much of our culture, so much of our population don't doesn't think this is possible. There's no way great powers are going to go to war the same thing they thought in nineteen fourteen before August. Real wars are in history right right. There's no way China would actually use a technical nuke to take Taiwan. They could do that this

afternoon and change world history forever. And we got a giant decision to make on whether or not we fight back or just saying, okay, you have it, We're not going to blow up half the world over this, and then all of a sudden, Japan's got inside. Okay, I guess we gotta deal with China because they control all the commerce in the ocean over here now in the

United States doesn't, we don't, China does. And if we won't even be a country and have anything, oil, food, anything, we gotta deal with China because they're now the big dog over here. In Australia might go along who knows. I mean things. Actually listen to a podcast about this yesterday, but things things to topple. Dominoes topple very quickly. If the world decides, oh to the United States is not going, then Taiwan okay, right, well, and I have a feeling

are babbling. Great Grandpa President would just take it to the U N and hold a debate. That's some interesting stuff. Text line four one, five two nine five k f TC