Mike Lyons Talks to Armstrong & Getty

And I'm actually going to be a fellow at the Modern War Institute at West Point this coming so I'm really excited about that that hopefully help them with some social media and get into the weeds. My son was making fun of me, he said, there's no chance you'd ever get I'm a retail military analyst, right, I mean,

that's really my gig. You know there's guys out there that, um, you know, retired four stars at thirty five years in that, you know, I just get up every day and and and study the military and talk to people and and just kind of chip away at and try to help educate. And I want to go in your show. I feel why my Twitter feed I can I can educate people on what's kind of going out there, what they should be focused and I think and then and then you know,

have a debate on something. Anyway, Yeah, I'm looking forward to working with West Point. Well, for folks who are hip to the on air Armstrong and Getty show, you know that Mike Clients has been a an esteemed guest, a military analyst among other things for years. But whether it's the length of our segments or the fact that you have other stations you need to jump on or whatever, we always have to cut things short and and we always feel like we'd love to continue talking to you.

So this is gonna be fun. That's great, perfect Well, and with your permission, we wanted to depart from the usual thing, which is talking about geopolitics, especially as it pertains to the military. We'll do some of that, but um, we just wanted to talk about the realities of the American military and American military families for a little while.

And why don't we start with a very broad question, Uh, what do you think is the state of the American military family in the year Well, I think the American military family is is held together, you know, day to day, week to week, months to month, and it's based on

the deployments of the soldiers that are out there. The military family, more than most you know, hangs on what a president says, no matter who the president is, because of that person is the commander in chief is more cognizant of global affairs, recognizes places in the world where their loved one can be deployed too. And I think that, um, you know, it creates a tremendous hardship on the family.

I used to always say that if we keep this pace up that we're going at right now, which we have been going up, you're either as a soldier you're gonna lose your mind or your family. And unfortunately, there's been a lot of families broken up because of the stress that's putting on it. And I think that, uh, and while the army in particular is trying to do what it can, the mission is such that the that the soldier is just so stretched out doing so many

different things. It hasn't broken yet, um, but I think in the future we could possibly see, you know, a real crisis. Yeah, I wonder about that too. I mean, whether it's the v A situation where you know you could you could uh have served your country and even enjoyed your mill military experience UM, and then you get treated bad by the v A and you tell your kids, now, don't do it. They lie to you, they don't, they don't follow through their promises. Or I wonder about my

my brothers who was UM. He's been in long enough to retire, but he's he's been in all kinds of deployments in the Middle East over the years, and his kids and UH have not seen him for long periods of time. That's what they grew up with. I don't know if they're going to think their kids ought to get into it. I just wonder if you know we'll

continue to have generations of military families. I think that one of the unfortunate aspects of UM the military, especially in the last twenty years and the last generation, let's say, has been this, it's become the family business, and that's just not necessarily the way to go UM. From a nepotistic perspective, I think you know, given the fact that you know how it's gonna linger within the families and how things will will go, I don't think you get

the turnover. You don't get others in society contributing to the military. You know, the military should reflect the civilian society and all ways shapes, forms and sizes, and it's sometimes it doesn't. The demographics aren't such that it doesn't do that there as well. But but in particular, um, you know, and during the hardship is something that military families have to go through. And um, you know, you you do that over time, and you're gonna miss a

lot of things. You're gonna miss a lot of kids baseball games, you're gonna miss You're gonna be away for a lot of birthday parties. And you kind of hope that it works out. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Well, well, let's stay micro for a minute. Then I want to talk about the macro issue of the way you know, America had chooses and pays and the rest of it.

It's military. But you talked about wearing soldiers out, Um, the multiple deployments, how is that different from generations past? What's changed? Just the number alone, um and and the duration of these deployments. Uh, you know, you'd go, you know, prior to two thousand and three, prior to the situation of these endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, you could go potentially twenty years and not have any deployment at all. You look back from you nineteen seventy five through Desert Storm,

there weren't soldiers deployed all around the world. They were stationed in certain places. A hardship tour back then was considered a thirteen month tour unaccompanied without your family to go to Korea, and that was it. Uh And now that that's completely changed, and you can deploy for six months in Afghanistan, come home to rest for twelve to eighteen months, and rear right back and then in Afghanistan.

So people are doing multiple deployments. Go back to um the reserve units even in particular that you know they shifted so much of the combat power into reserve units after the Vietnam War, given what happened, you know those there was a time when you would join a reserve

unit to go pay for college. There was almost virtually no expectation you're going to deploy if you're in a reserve unit within the military right now, the Army in particular, you're going down range at some point, you're going for

a long period of time. It's going to take you out of your job, it's going to take you away from your family well, and put you in in the way of serious danger and stress and the rest of it, which you know is it is a change, as you're saying, And I think what we require these soldiers to do nowadays is another impossible mission, and that's flip this switch from being a war fighter to a peacekeeper. You know, you go to certain areas and in this block, I'm

a war fighter. I've got a fight and defend what's going on. But then the next block, I'm a peacekeeper trying to keep two sides within a civilian population from killing each other. And I had an argument with a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of all Things that a social event wants that I just think it's impossible to expect our soldiers, and in particular our marines, who

are killers. Marines don't join up to be peacekeepers. They're not They're not joining up any place to you know, hand out flowers and m R. E s two people. And I just think it's impossible, no matter how discipline that unit is, to flip a switch between being a war fighter and a peacekeeper, and I think that's one of the other challenges I never had to deal with. I was I trained to basically, you know, fight as

immatry when required, fight artillery, fighting, combat fighting, wars. And this whole issue about Phase five peacekeeping is another thing that the military has taken on because it needs the budget money. But it's really now an important mission. It's it's a critical mission. Well, on a similar topic, and I say this not to tute our own horns. In fact,

just the opposite. We've been honored and privileged to uh be part of some pretty major fundraising efforts for various causes that include uh, you know, soldiers, sailors, marines, military families, etcetera.

Veterans UM and at some of the gatherings we have talked to guys who are recently back from Afghanistan Iraq and what they've told us about the rules of engagement UM have left me enraged, I mean actually red faced and vibrating with anger that they have to wait until they are certain they are in mortal danger UM before they return fire or before they fire, which in many cases ends up with dead marines, dead American boards UM.

And I wish the public knew a little more about that, but that factors directly or that flows directly from what you were saying. The idea that they're there to be ambassador is of goodwill when they're not killing machines. Yeah, I mean because all the rules of engagement and combat and warfare are totally been blurred in this age of of fighting terrorism. You know, in the old days, the enemy were a uniform, they were across a certain border. Uh, you know, it was somewhat of a fight with honor.

There was you know, rules of war that were well defined. At today's look at the green on blue attack. You have an Afghanistan. There's just the it's the picture is so cloudy that that's called asymmetrical warfare. Three sixty degrees all around. We just expect our soldiers, marine sailors, everybody to have this three and sixty degree awareness. I mean, I try to teach my kids to think six inches past their nose, let alone, now to try to think

three d sixty degrees around them. Uh. In order for a threat to come, even in places where you're supposed to be safe and secure and go back to those rules of engagement, you might not even be able to engage once once the shooting starts. So it is a challenge. And I again, I just don't think you can flip a switch. Human nature comes in and takes over on things that that don't always count. And how about switching the flipping the switch back off once you come home

and get out. Uh. You know, we hear a lot about homelessness, suicide rates, all that sort of stuff. Is it even realistic to expect people to, especially in the maybe if you're you know, in your late teens early twenties, really forming your your brain and the way your body reacts to life. Um, then to go back to to to normal life. Is that even get a reasonable expectation? No? I agree, And I think from my perspective, I prepared my whole adult life to go to combat, and I

went to the military academy. I studied the history of war, I studied the military art. I read you know, books about portoon leaders. I read about what men and and did uh at Christmas time, for example in Best Stone and how they you know, how they held it together. And knowing that when I spent Christmas in a combat zone, I felt almost privileged, the fact that I had almost been there before in some kind of weird way. So

I think it gets back to preparation. And so I felt when I came home it was just, you know, there's clearly nothing like a war zone. There's nothing like a combat zone in terms of the morality and the norms that exist there. But I think we've just sent too many people into that area without that pre preparation. They sign up for different reasons, you know, they sign up to actually go to war. You don't want, actually,

those kinds of people someway around you. They're gonna get everybody killed if they're out there just just to kill anybody. You need smart people. We've we've unfortunately dropped some of those standards in the past here as well. So it all gets back to being prepared to go to war before you get there, and then that that will help

you on the adjustment coming back well. And it seems to me that any people with a conscience would understand the difficulty of that adjustment coming back and would have pretty well developed programs to deal with that. You know, I'm thinking about the fact. Have you had a chance to get to read the Sebastian Younger's Fabulous book Tribe I've not read that when I've read the other book, the one on Kuragall and what took place there. I saw that the documentary and I thought, if this is

in Vietnam, I don't know what is. I mean just just I didn't like the lack of discipline in that unit, you know, just got all cars on the table. And I met him and I talked to him about it, and uh, you know, because that's not what the military, the Army of particular needs and wants. Is this other kind of Vietnam situation where it's almost survival of the fittest. I didn't like, Um, you know, I don't think the officers were treated in a manner that they should have been.

It was not a very good snapshot. I thought of what's what should a unit look like? Right? But the book Tribe is all about the way we tend to band together as Homo sapiens and the things and and how strong that need is. And he talks a great deal about folks in the military and coming back home and how um, a young man or a woman will have an experience where they have a life and death trust with a fairly small group of people, and that is so incredibly satisfying to the human soul and and

it's also so necessary in war zone. Um. But then one of the aspects of PTSD or or difficulty adjusting back, is you get back to the stupid, heavy, slow paced real world quote unquote, and that's it's really hard for guys. Um. And you know, the famous contrast is that at the end of w W two it took months for these guys to get back home in you know, the in country centers, than weeks on a cruise ship, than being mustred out, etcetera, etcetera. And now it's it's literally a

NonStop plane flight and near you are back in Omaha. Yeah. And on top of that, while you've been in combat, you've been facetiming with your family and you know, communication is instant. In some ways, you've got a lot, you've got a lot more exposure to the outside world. And um, I do agree that when you do come home, I mean, look, the reality of combat is it provides this adrenaline rush that it's really pretty hard to to replicate. You know, I'm a sports guy, like a lot of sports analogies,

but it's still nothing close, especially if you're successful. I mean our our units were in desert storm, for example, we're just so successful. You just it was no match, and your level of invincibility just was sent to a whole different level that when you do things in the future you kind of compare and contrast to that how

you felt about that. So you're right, it's hard to find that feeling again, especially when you run up to against civilians were I've run up to civilians in the job force that have literally and we're asking about getting people in, And I said, why don't we recruit some veterans I know, so a couple of guys too, we can go after and and and literally I had senior people telling me we really want to do that. Those guys are real damage. We don't want to do that.

And I said, well, am I damage? And why how do I look? I mean, am I coming off in it in a way that's damaged? So UMA investment is a challenge and it's there. Yeah. Um, it's just popped into my head. How good is our military? I remember hearing I think it was John McCain one time he was asked the question about how good is our military? You know, as Americans, we get a great charge out of I know, I have my whole life. If we have the best military in the world, right, um, we

could beat anybody, and we take pride in that. But John mckaine talking about it, and they said, have you ever faced any soldiers that are are no of any soldiers were as good as you know the US And he said the North Vietnamese regulars were as good. And what's what's your experience with that? Are we better than everybody else who out there compares to us? We are

for a couple of different reasons. Number One, we have the best technology that you can imagine, um, and when we get into a combat situation and a combat zone, all that technology comes to play. I can tell you when I was in a combat zone, all things showed up that I've never even seen before, and we were successful in implementing it quickly to you know, in our operations and systems. So that's number one. Number two, we have that not only the technology, but the equipment in

and above itself. Are our equipment, It depends on survivability. We we build tanks and a pc s and armored personnel carriers and equipment and planes that that survives um combat and in order for the soldier to feel confident in it. I looked at the Soviet tanks, and I've looked at Soviet armored personnel carriers and they're just tin cans, They're just f traps. So our protection of the force

is something that's very important to the soldier. But then the third thing is, at the end of the day, our military is superb because it trains in a combined arms way, and we truly fight like the Germans did in the Second World War with this you know, we call it AirLand battle. Uh. You know, they they were, you know, combining tanks and combining airplanes and infantry on the ground. Uh in in that in that blitz creeg.

It's the same thing. Come fighting the way we fight when we put all our things together, when we wind this big fist up and we take the time and wind it all up. Uh, there's no one, there's nothing on the planet that can defeat the U. S. Military when it decides to put it's it's it's a mind is something that's interesting. A great coach doesn't roll around pleasuring himself over his team's strengths. He talks about he did they go after what the team isn't doing well.

What's wrong with the U. S. Military? What's week or what's wrong with the Pentagon specifically? What could be better? The Pentagon is such a bureaucracy that can't adjust to the civilians and the political environment. And I think that

that is the biggest challenge right now. And and while it's trying to adjust, you know that the Pentagon has got to work off intent so many, so many ways, and it moves down you know, the highway I saw, you know, so as it's trying to acquire weapons, there's people in the Pentagon that are looking twenty thirty years down the road on technology that the military has to buy right now. And there's there's things that the Pentagon is to do now that affect that down the road.

But politicians are just worried about getting reelected in the next two to four years and whether or not those projects get funded or not. So the Pentagon, you know, has to do ten or fifteen things and and do a lot of make work stuff for things that end up not happening go sit on a shelf, stum place um. Because they can't adjust to the the political environment. Once in combat though once once you unleash the Pentagon and unleash the power of the military. Again, the resources go

and tenants followed. Look, there's no other organization aside from the military. They can get to e Bowl and and fight a pandemic that exists there. I mean, Napoleon would never send his army into that kind of environment. The military can get to Haiti, the military and get anywherese in the world. The Navy, and once it cranks it up, it can do it. But um, but sometimes it gets caught up in the bureauxcy of politics. And I think that's its big That's interesting that the last two questions

and answers go together. So the Pentagon with its you know, having to think here's in the future, and the politics hold them back and all this, Yet we still are ahead of all these authoritarian countries where they can make decisions on a dime, one person can make that decision. How do we stay ahead of all these people? It's money. I mean, you look at the budget that was just approved,

over seven hundred billion dollars. We have a budget that's you know, ten times the next uh, the next competitor that's out there and so and and the military industrial complex is a tremendous jobs programming. Let's face it, we we we make things that we don't even use in some levels. And so I think that you know, you bring all all that together, the fact that we invest what we invest in military, and you combine that with the technology, and it gets back to from now, the

world is so much shorter, you know, it's smaller. If you're our enemy right now, that's the thing. You're enemy right now. You're not even gonna try to fight the United States conventionally. I mean, h R McMaster said that recently. It'd be stupid for you to do something like that. The next battle is happening in cyber The next battle is happening in that fifth do Main possibly even space.

I mean, Trump's got it right here with this space force. Um, somebody goes and takes out all our satellites, takes out a lot of technology and space, we could be blinded. That's a real problem. So the next battle is not going to happen conventionally on the ground, even though we're still preparing for that. A couple more pentagonst questions. I keep hearing that we have a shortage of spare parts for our aircraft. Is that true? More or less it is, But I will tell you this, the Air Force doesn't

do a great job of managing that. I mean in all cards on the table, because the air Force is pretty smart. The air Force funds its people programs first. It funds its golf courses, and it's housing projects and and things and make sure all that happens. And so when the Air Force runs out of money, they go and claim, look, our spare parts aren't here, and it's their way of trying to get money from extra money from Congress that didn't budget for other service branches don't

do that. The Army is so big it has a challenge do that. So so they've they've done this before. That's what's what that's what their m O is. So for them to say that they don't have spare parts, that is their fault, their responsibility. And again you're not anti, I won't hear it. Yeah, somebody should be fired over that.

It's a similar The bottom line is this um you know, work for General Officer who said if I give you all the resources you ask for and say and I give you all those things, I expect you to get the job done well. The Congress allocates the Air Force all the resources it needs to get the job done. If they're gonna want to come because they misallocated something on their side, that's on them, all right, One more

question of that sort. I remember Bob Gates, the former Secretary Defense, talking about his frustration trying to get the the M wraps, the more advanced armored vehicles to the guys who are getting killed over and over over again by I E. D. S. And that even he is the secret Terry Defense, found it incredibly frustrating to deal with the bureaucracy of the Pentagon. That troubled me a lot. Yeah, and I think, UM, a lot of that just has to do with um. There was no anticipation of that

as a requirement. It took. It took a lot longer. From an acquisition cycle perspective, there was nothing commercially available on the shelf that called cots. There's nothing that they could have, you know, picked out of a Ford factory or or you know a Crisis or a GM factory that that could that could have modified it because of of kind of the purple squirrel that gets made every time you know, a military equipment is is ordered. Um,

no one kind of thought dot dot dot through. We ended up not having, you know, going to war in a manner that we had gone in the past. For Desert Storm, we waited six months. We we kind of wound that big fist up and then when we let when we unleashed it, it it was it was pretty pretty violent and brutal. This time here, we kind of did a just in time war with Rumsfeld, and we didn't bring everything to the battle that we needed to bring in.

And once when we even said to himself, you know, you go to war with the equipment you have, so we just didn't kind of think it through. Interesting, what was that purple squirrel metaphor? Yeah, so the military often wants a purple squirrel in order to accomplish a certain mission. So you've got to you can't get something commercially available off the shelf. That's got to be redesigned from the

from the ground up. And no one anticipated the level of I E. D s, which are nothing more than you know, land mines, but no one anticipated that they would have to do that. So the military, you know, wanted a purple squirrel. There was none. There was none available commercially that had to redesign them. So from an acquisition perspective, it took them a while they got them down range. Interesting. I'll use that the rest of my life.

So you you've been studying the military whole life. I have two is a guy who never served, and I just I don't. I always thought i'd joined the military, and then I didn't. For some reason, I got into radio. But I've read so many books and you know, firsthand accounts of being in the in this war, that war, and all that sort of stuff. I've been fascinated a couple of articles in the last year or so about how, um one of the reason ways Hitler pulled off the

whole blitz Creek thing was everybody was messed up. Isn't that interesting? Everybody was all hopped up on meth. And that's how the Churchill was wondering, how do they do this? How do they march that far in that many days? How do they pull them off? And they're just using meth? I know, when we fight in Somalia, the is a is a product. They're called cat that the soldiers on the other side of the terrorists and whatever you want to call him, the warlord, soldiers whatever, that they're all

hopped up on that. When when we fought them and go back to Mogadishu in in ninety three the battle there, I talked to one of the the Delta commander on the grounds of classmate of minds, A good friend of mine is actually gonna take over Afghanistan, Scottie Miller, and I asked him about what it was like to fight against those guys, and he says, they're just they just keep coming at you because of this drug that they're on, this narcotic drug that just gives them no fear, and

they just they just don't stop. Um doesn't surprise me, and and again it contin knows that's how the people compete athletically. They do something different to their body, because there's no question combat in the military. Can you can wear it on your body if you're not if you're not careful, that's interesting. One of the reasons I bring it up. I don't know if you've ever read Keegan's

classic Faces of Battle. I think it is where he takes on three different battles throughout his three D eighteen hundreds. I think if I remember correctly and just what the battles was like. But one thing they all had in common was they got boozed up. A lot of them got boozed up before they fought. It was just you know, I know, I know, I feel tougher and more invincible when I get a little boozed up. Do do do

we do that? Or have we done that in the past? Now, not in the military I've seen, um, not not in my in my time in or experience in the last i'd say thirty thirty five years now. Again, I got in just after the Vietnam era and when we had some challenges for sure with soldiers back um, you know, late seventies, you know, early eighties with that, with them coming from Vietnam, but from for going into battle. I

wouldn't say we have any anything close to that. Hey, speaking of Vietnam, what do you think of the idea of a draft and or compulsory service of the Israeli model? Yeah, I just think it's too hard, um for our country to try to pull something like that off. A draft, um, I don't think. And the army doesn't want it, I know, in particular, because you want people that are gonna volunteer, they're gonna wan be there. They don't want this kind

of turnover. All these countries that have that the compulsory military model in some cases is because they have to defend their land. Switzerland's got a fourteen year compulsory um model. Um. The Israelis get up every day wondering if um, you know, if the Arabs of of Math at the border and they gotta go defend their country. I mean today compared to again twenty thirty years ago, that's probably not gonna be a high probability, or the missiles will come from

Iran or someplace else. But you know, I think it's it's great and in sound and I think, but from a logistical perspective, it's just too hard to manage, and you don't pay attention at who can't get there from here? At least people would pay attention to all of a sudden, I find it hard to believe we'd still be in Afghanistan kind of mucking around, not with a clear goal after all these years. If if everybody either was on

the way or their kid was on their way. I know, and I look at Afghanistan and it's it's more like Vietnam to me. But we we can't lose it because we won't have the same level of losses. But there's probably an undercurrent the Pentagon that likes the fact that we've got troops down range, that we could use it as a test bed for laboratory, and it keeps us

engaged in combat, you know. And and with the with the um unspoken word of you know this president, no president wants to be the one that gets us out of Afghanistan and has this you know visual of the helicopter landing on the embassy and we have to get out of there. But um, you know, if we wanted to get out Afghanistan, we could Look Barack Obama did it. We got us out of a rock, just said this is what we're doing, you know, put a stake in

the ground. Twelve thirty one, two thousand eleven. Goodbye, good luck, gots be at all travelers. And obviously what happened was a lot worse. But if we wanted to get out, we could get out. We had a long conversation recently with your colleague Lara Logan, and she from her reporting and talking to sources and all, it was pretty confident that, look, we are there and going to remain there. Number one.

So Afghanistan doesn't descend into complete lawlessness also as a counterbalance to the Pakistani's and the Iranians in the in the region, and that we are going to have a couple of massive basis and it's it's going to be more like a limited occupation than a quote unquote war for a very long time. Yeah, and that that doesn't surprise me. Like the South Korean model, the biggest thing that I felt about leaving Iraq was, Um, we were gonna just lose out on that opportunity to have a

big base there. If you had the first armored division in Iraq and if it's stayed in Iraq at the end of that conflict, Um, you wouldn't have had ices. You would have had a completely different um scenario. Now you still might have had, you know, the Shia and Sunni um you know, challenges there, but Iran as differently. Everything acts differently when you know three four main battle tanks can drive due north and in twelve hours being

either Damascus in Syria or in Tehran and Iran. So I'm so we we gave up a big, um, you know, a big leg in the game when we gave up Iraq and the PENTAGONSA is not gonna let that mistake happen again. We're gonna We're gonna build stuff inside of Afghanistan. We're going nowhere, and I think we're gonna end up having twenty thoud troops there. At some point there will be combat troops. So this is a big dumb question,

but it's intended to get us to something that's not dumb. Um. The oft repeated question, are we going to be the policeman of the world? Um? You know, to some extent, yes, we are, because American presence ensures the free flow of commerce and and the preservation of human rights, etcetera, etcetera, all over the world in a way that benefits the hell out of the American people. Sometimes I wonder if

the president appreciates that, the current guy. Um. But obviously we cannot be in every hell hole where human rights are being denied or or or injustice is being done right, And we pick our places mostly based on economics. And right now we project power mostly with our navy, with our you know, eleven air carrier navy that in Pacific and Atlantic fleet have can keep them from bumping into each other. Um. I think I think that though um where.

What we've done there in the military is we've built this standoff military and our technology with cruise missiles and you know, hit something, you know, five hundred miles away. That's changed that whole thing about I think policeman because in the past we interpreted that world policeman and having you know, troops on the ground. I won't say boots on the ground because that's insulting, but troops actually there again during the hardship, marines, army that are actually doing things.

Our our answer right now everything is still cruise missiles and drones and five two miles away and you know, watching on a screen someplace in Missouri and you know, taking people down that way. Well, it's interesting how that plays politically too, because Barack Obama did many more drone strikes than George Bush ever did. For some reason, the public is okay with us atomizing people from above, uh, you know, with with with no trial and and sometimes

I don't even hear about it. It just politically it works a lot better to be a policeman that way. Yeah, And and the ratio is literally something like five eight. You know, the Obama administration launched cruise missiles and drone strikes versus eight Bush did it wasn't even us so and you know there's a lot of whoops, is that happened there? We've hit things that we shouldn't have hit. Um, it's probably been friendly fire on our side and and so, but it's it's it's antiseptic. You can kind of go

to wash your hands, you can. You know, I'm not that I've never been guy where the and the I know Air Force guys can do this. They could literally, you know, get in a plane in Germany, fly a combat mission over a rock or someplace in the Middle East and then go back and have dinner with their with their family, you know. So that's but that's what we're at right now. There's not a lot of people that are that are downrange that are during the hearts

of accept you know, the Army and the Marines. So uh, as long as we're in the Middle East, let's talk a little specific geopolitics. Um, what did Barack Obama get right and wrong about Syria? And and how has it left us where we are now? What did he get

right on Syria? Let's see, I mean, for instance, just if you share this opinion, I often said Barack Obama did nothing, and he did it poorly, um, because maybe nothing was all that could be done, you know, in that mess, right the Barack Obama I think allowed Hillary Clinton and others to dictate what was going to be important Libya for example, and how that became a high priority for the administration and look and look what happened there.

I think by the time Syria comes around, he is completely disinterested in what's going on there, um because yeah, he he doesn't have any really kind of stake in the game, doesn't doesn't have an economic interest, but not seeing the geopolitical issue of the Iranians getting involved, not recognizing what the impact has been on Iraq, and completely oblivious to the Kurds and their plate that they have

uh with no, with no kind of vision. Barack Obama's entire presidency from a foreign policy perspective, was to get to his last day in office. And you've got to look at good presidents I think that look well over the horizons, set things up for things to happen when they of office. Barack Obama then focus so much on the Iranian um nuclear deal, and all that was about was making sure that the Iranians didn't get nukes while he was in office because they're gonna have him ten

years down the road based in that deal. So he got a lot wrong the whole. The biggest, the biggest mistake he made was allowing the Russians back in, giving them the keys to take control of their chemical weapons, which obviously was not well defined because um, they might have gotten rid of some of their serin gas and some of their their persistent nerve agent, but they still had a lot of other things to kill civilians with. Yeah,

that's interesting. Ben Rhodes from the Obama administrations written a book recently and he talks about during that period of time when they're trying to decide what to do with Syrian and uh and it it was it was short term, you know, on what you just said to trying to get to the end of his office. That's really interesting because it was, um, maybe a little self centator us centered, short term thinking of what will be good for individual soldiers or I hate to be so crashed to just

say politically, but all short term thinking. Um, you know, it didn't look like getting involved in Libya did any good. Remember, we went in because I think Barack Obama made this announcement that the word was on the street that Kadafi was going to go door to door and starts slaughtering people, and we weren't gonna stand by and let that happen. Well, we we certainly let that happen a lot in Syria, but Barack Obama felt like, whether we get involved or not,

that's going to happen. So why would we be involved. Yeah, and there's you know, nobody to drone. He draw, he drew a red line, didn't do anything about it. I think that was a real problem as well. Um. And and he just wasn't interested, um and not recognizing the guys in the Pentagon were though the guy's in the Pentagon recognized as the Kurds. We're going to have to have a home at some point, and they were looking to have that as the as the eastern part of Syria.

And you look well over the horizon and you say Syria, around North Korea, China, Russia. That's a pretty formidable alliance of those countries. And if we don't do something to disrupt that, we're gonna have a problem in the future. Well, Liz Sly, who we also talked to not long ago, wrote a great piece. I think it was a year and a half two years ago. Ten potential wars that could erupt from Syria slash of Rock, and she's just

nailed it one after the other. Um, the the ugly ain't it ain't even begun in that region potentially speaking. What's what's the big flash point? You mentioned the Kurds. They're obviously gonna be one of them, but what do you anticipate. I think that's what it is. A thirty million people that consider themselves part of something called Kurdistan, that don't have an indigenous country, and yet have all the capabilities to have a country, natural resources that exists

where they live. You carve out a piece of Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Iraq, and you can clearly get a country out of that that defend itself, that could participate in the modern world. And UM, they're gonna likely have to fight a war to do it, and UM NATO is gonna have to get involved at some point to stop it, because the Turks are going to prevent it on some level. And we've already seen some of the human suffering has taken place. Our country has historically supported this and now

we're kind of backing down off it. I don't think Donald Trump. Donald Trump doesn't get it yet. The previous you know, George Bush got it and and and maybe Bill Clinton got it a little bit. Barack Obama had nothing, wanted nothing to do with it. Curds are pretty good fighters, too, right they are. And they fight with literally sticks and rocks. They fight with weapons from the nineteen forties and fifties.

But what they They're smarter and they're committed, and it's just kind of a classic you know, they've got something to fight for. Um, they get up every day and realize that if they don't, if they don't defend this area, if they don't you know, fight, that they're not going to survive. The families not going to survive, So that they have it ingrained in their in their culture. Boy,

and we're talking about all this different stuff. And the the original reason we went into Afghanistan obviously was to not have another nine eleven. How much of this has an effect on terrorism in the United States, which was the whole point of all of this at one point, right, And I think, but if we don't go into a rock,

that's where the world changed. The going into Afghanistan was for the right reasons, and if we had focused our efforts on that and done that in a manner that that at least set up the Afghan government move that forward, it would have worked. But the Bush administrations they're gonna go down in history is making the biggest mistake, and obviously in the twenty one century when it comes to this selective war going into Iraq and what's what's happened

since then? That's that's been the tipping point from my perspective. Who the world has changed since that? That that what March Day when we decided to start bombing inside and taking down the Iraqi government. That that that's been the problem. We we've up set the apple cart now to the point where we can't even predict what's going to happen. That that's really interesting. It'll be hard to explain in future generations how did how did the United States end

up in a rock? I mean, it will be it'll take some doing. Well, not only that, but then to try to explain how that questioned my idea was implemented, I mean, the actual implementation of the plans, the decisions made.

The El Paul Bremer chapter of the thing that dismissing the entire Bathist regime, it's just in retrospective, it's just nightmarishly mishandled right and taking four hundred thousand troops in the Iraqi Army and unemploying automatically and and trying to use some model that they thought was from World War Two about the Denzification, depathification, whatever they were calling it. Um. You know, this is where and frankly the civilian think

tanks also have some blame. You look at the neo cons that are you know, on the Democrats side now, because they're all never trumpers, they have much, they have a lot of responsibility. They got the fingerprints on this as well. So it was a you know, poor strategy and even executed poorly when the time came. So here's my new thing, Mike, I think we're under emphasizing our

own hemisphere. Do you spend any time much time thinking about Central and South America and the incredibly unstable politics and potential violence there. No, I don't. Um. I know the Pentagon does, and I know that the Pentagon back in the eighties did get involved with a lot of um, the drug cartels. But that's all waned away, and um, you know, we don't. We don't focus on South America, what's going on there and the fact that these drugs are coming through the border, and we don't focus on

what's going on in Mexico for what of a reason? Um, I think again, we're still fighting the last war and we're concerned about a world war in Europe that could possibly take place. But um, you know, there's a tremendous amount of resources we could focus here. And you know, so go back to Barack Obama again. If Barack Obama decided to say, you know when, I'm going to focus on that right now, I'm going to really focus efforts towards Central and South America, that would have been fine.

But but they didn't. They didn't do anything. They did just basically kind of ran the clock out. Um. But I know, from a military perspective, Um, we're doing what we can on intel collection. But but knowing full well that we still have to be careful because we've never really sent troops anywhere with within our own hemisphere. We've always sent them overseas to fight. Right. Yeah, I'm thinking more in terms of foreign policy than military actions specifically.

But I think we in the United States ought to be putting political correctness aside. Good luck with that, and studying the hell out of the refugee crisis in Europe and the stresses that that's causing. Because if the instability grows in Venezuela and else, Salvador and Honduras and the rest of them, I mean, we could be looking at a hell of a refugee crisis and we already have societal strains um based on you know, call it an invasion, call it a migration, call it a flood of refugees.

I one thing we have to our advantage though, is space. Um. The refugees in Europe, you know, kind of get there in boats, and there's whole you know, kind of businesses that are set up there. And you look at what happened in Germany, for example, Germany. I went to Germany a couple of years ago. It's completely different, and and they're gonna what you know, Trump said, They're gonna lose

their culture. You know. I think what he means is not only are people coming there, but it's not assimilating. It's the challenge I think we have in our country too as well. I Mean, we want people to assimilate and be the Americans. It's it's okay to come here, you gotta come legally, but you have to assimilate. But I think it's a lot harder for people in those countries in South America still to still get here because there's really not a mechanism to to get them here.

And unless they go by land through you know, what are some pretty tough, tough conditions. Yeah, if you've never looked at a man, it's easy to forget that Africa and Europe are Like how long would it take in a decent power boat to get from Libya to Italy? I mean, like you're some power boating expert. It not long, is the answer. No, not long, right exactly, And that people have been doing it since, you know, for for

five hundred years. I mean, and what goes on there, and there's lots of commerce and things that can can travel that can it can take people and make them get into that spot. And once they get there, then they just declare and then from there they can move

through Europe freely because of the European Union. So how about the what the Obama administration was attempting to do was shift away from Middle Eastern problems being dominating our lives to China as the up and coming is threat the right word is China a threat or they just going to overtake us as an economy at some point.

Well they that's supposedly they would in size. But um, you know the pivot of the Pacific that never has happened again from the administration, that aministration's perspective, and then from the military's perspective, a lot of it was based on, believe it or not, global warming because we thought some of those islands that exist there in the South Pacific, we're going to be fifty feet and more underwater. They were going to displace billions of people were going to

have to do. You know, we were pouring all this money into again something that just hasn't happened yet. That was kind of their vision of it. Um, China. That was I was not aware of that. That's what drove the pivot to China was global warming and worry about

the islands going underwater. Yeah, that's right, and what the pressure that would do to the navy, that our navy would have to they would be rescuing a million um people are immigrants, are are a million refugees on a yearly basis or more as the shores would rise and people would be you know, losing their homes and so again, I don't know why we assumed that mission, but that was that was the basis of a lot of what

that Pivots of the Pacific was about. Meanwhile, China has taken a generation's long view of things and building those little islands that of course they will not militarize till the mom want they militarize it ten minutes later. Um, how much does that concern you? The idea that China maybe uh maneuvering itself into a position where it can

choke off commercial sea lanes and free navigation. Well, as long as we fund our navy and continue to have a presence there, I just don't think that will happen. Because if they want to have a military um fight there, it's gonna be no match because we won't fight it on the ground, you know, we don't. We couldn't manufacture a billion bullets to kill the Chinese that we'd have

to kill. Um, it would come from space, it would come from c and uh, eventually we would have you know, all of the wherewithal in order to to to do something there. If they decided to do that, I don't think they're they're dumb enough to do that, and they

do take that long in the tooth approach. I mean, you can argue that because of China's population, eventually they should be able to win every event in the Olympics, you right, you know, the billion people that should find everybody that's seventh at tall, like when every basketball game. So from a military from military perspective, you look at them and say, but they still can't hold and keep ground that they want to have. And just like us,

we wouldn't fight. We wouldn't have that fight. Where where would we want to fight China from the army's perspective, So it happens in the sea lanes, that will happen in cyber I think that's what we've got to be concerned about. You know, I always throw this in when people are talking about ascendant China. They have amazing demographic problems coming down the road, which you know, keep an eye on that. It'll be more like Japan now than Japan in the eighties, which everybody said was going to

take over and rule the world, etcetera. Etcetera. I want to get to everything before we wear you out and you finally hang up on us. But we haven't talked to anything about you know, you're talking about various threats around the world. Isn't the still the greatest threat out there for really for all of mankind. It's amazing nobody would have predicted this, that nobody has set off a nuke in anger since the forties. At some point that's

going to happen, isn't it. Well, it it's down to accountability of nuclear weapons number one, um and the strict you just keep it. Make that you've got to be an industrialized nation to have its only eight countries that or even have this nuclear capability to enrich it um and it can't be shrunk. I was you know, the new Mission Impossible movie talks about how they're gonna have

some suitcase nuclear weapon. It's just just doesn't make That's not something that someone can make right now without the accountability that that that that goes with having a nuclear weapon. But just the fact that there hasn't been an accident. Now, there's been a couple of accidents. In fact, there's some in the eighties. Some of the guy some guy dropped a wrench down a missile silo there and that almost blew half of Arkansas away. Um, but there have been challenges.

But to your point, statistically, you would think something would have happened, and when, if, and when it ever does. As this nuclear arsenal ages and metal rusts and the equipment to maintain it goes offline and floppy disks that are no longer used to launch it get changed, there's a real possibility that that that could happen. Wow, so

you're more concerned. Well, I won't speak for you, but are you more concerned about decay and the irresponsibility than say Pakistan in India getting into a bee for North Korea selling their technology to isis that sort of thing? No, I'm concerned about North Korea and the proliferation of their technology because they're not going to unlearn what they have.

But but whether or not other countries can get the material to do it as another question, and we can control that to some degree, so that that is an issue.

There's no question I think I am concerned about our nuclear arsenal because I mean, I hate to talk about the Air Force again, but the bottom line is the air Force works it, and the Air Force doesn't care about it because the Air Force wants to fly off sixteens and they want to fly and do all the sexy stuff, and the guys that do the nuclear mission don't get promoted. They're all disgruntled us to the drug problems we've had in a couple of silos, and to me,

it's a real lack of leadership. And someone better be paying attention to make sure that that equipment there is not eroding or is still functional, because we still might have to use it, God forbid at some point. Yeah, back to North Korea, just briefly. I grew up in Chicago, Land, and if I was on the West side of Chicago right now and I've got a really really good, expensive gun and i am absolutely desperate for cash, it's not

difficult to imagine what I'm going to do. And so yeah, North Korea, my God, the idea of them proliferating is it's got to be front and center all the time, not only their nuclear capability but their missile technology because North Korea has a quasi space program, um you know, good, not great, And in order to have this i CBM capability, you have to really have a space program, which is why anytime they've launched these missiles in the past, they

don't you don't know what they're hitting and they just go into the water. You know, for them to say they could hit the West Coast remains to be seen. But you've got to have in most cases, you do have to have this space program in missiles in order to ensure that you can hit the other side of it. But if North Korea propagates that technology to Iran with more of what's going on on the nuclear side, then the Iranians come up ten years so now this nuclear power.

The Israelitis will stand for that for about maybe five to ten minutes and then all you know, the f A teams get deployed from from there and then that war starts because the the Asraelitis are not going to put up with the Iranians having any kind of nuclear capability. It's just it's just amazing that if you sit around and have a conversation with a you know, a smart person like you, or maybe it's dumb guys in a bar or whatever, and you're discussing, you know, military things,

what could happen? You always end up back in the Middle East. You always end up back in religious arguments that are several thousand years old, driving what's going to blow up the world. It's just incredible. Speaking of which one more geopolitical hotspot, if we may, it's it's a pivot point between Europe and Asia, between the Muslim world the Christian world. Turkey has got to be you know, unless North Korea, the cells, the missiles as you're describing, etcetera, etcetera.

Turkey to me is is going to be the center of all that is truly dangerous in the next five years. And that is a that's a regime that's teetering, it's it's a it's a fairly powerful military. You've got the Curtis thing, they're all tied into Turkey. The second largest military after the U S and NATO is Turkey. And this regime is not good for the United States and the United States in trists and in the past, Turkey had been the the way we communicated with the Iranians,

go back to the eighties and the nineties. Um when you know, on the outset it looked like we were never doing anything with with Iran Well, we we were able to communicate with them through Turkey. So they've they've always been a conduit and always been a really close ally. But what's going on there now is really scary. And again they have nuclear weapons. Are nuclear weapons inside of Turkey at Insilic Air based and some of these locations.

They claim that they're not there. I mean they're not I C B M S. But but the bottom line is they've got them in their possession. And um, this that that leader there is you know, off the wall. He's on hinge for for for no question and and and I think that from the United States's perspective, we need to be watching that a lot closely. And the Trump administration putting sanctions on them and we released as political prisoners were not off to a good start there

right now. Did you just say Turkey has the second biggest army behind the United States and NATO. Yeah, I believe that's what they do in terms of what they spent in NATO itself, they're bigger than UK, Canada those other ones in terms of what they spend. Absolutely, well, that's interesting. I didn't know that. So listen, final question for me unless I come up with another one. Um, a good buddy of mine who is no longer with us,

God rest the soul. He was a marine. UM. He was one of my best childhood friends, and he would occasionally refer to me as a silly vilion, which um, which I actually appreciated because I like a good insult and I loved him. UM. What should or could the civilian folks who are listening to this podcast do or remember or donate? How do civilians support America's military? How

should we? I I just say this that anybody is in the military came from the civilian world, and there were a reflection of the civilian world and their values. And if you were you know, squared away and if you were smart and you were you know, a good citizen and you loved your country before you win the military, you did that when you come out of the military.

The kind of the dirty little secret is. And for eternately, there are some people that we're crazy when they got in, they got the military let them in, and then they're crazy than they're out and they get painted with this broad brush. Um as the military made that happen. The military caused that to happen. But I just I'm always trying to pick that that out before whether or not someone was crazy based on whether they you know, they

were before the military after the most right. But but the bottom line is this, most veterans, I would say, and just don't necessarily have to be thanked for their service. That's something that when I am, I say, ellis and I volunteer, and I appreciate and thanks for paying your taxes and the whole thing. But most people don't want to project that Veterans want to project that value back that other people have to do it or insist upon

doing it. So I think that, um, you know, the break that the civilians would want to say is just you know, they asked them what what can I and they had you to help you kind of assimilar or you're doing something right now? What's what's kind of going going on? Because just like everybody, we all were all carrying a burden to something and um, you know, if

you're a veteran or not a veteran, you're you're carrying something. Um, So to just just be a be a citizen of the United States and support and support your government and support you know, your your town and your city, and and have to make sure they make that contribution. Sometimes support them by being critical of them too. I mean, obviously I know you know that, um from my brother at various times when he was in a rack for the longest period of time, come over and Molway's lawn.

Uh a, kids were little and his wife was busy. Yeah, I remember the sacrifices military families are making. I'd suggest to you. Know, We've long believed. I've I've always said that. The one thing that bothers me sometimes about maybe even a worshipfulness of military folks, is that I believe everybody should serve their country. And I say that as a small government libertarian type of skeptic of government. From top

to bottom. Um, our country is us. It's it's the constitution, and it's the people, and we all need to be serving the country if we wanted to be healthy and strong. And sometimes I worry people look to the military and tell him, you do it. Me I'm gonna chase money and do whatever I want, right. I feel that way sometimes, but but then I look at statistics about of the youth of America can't even meet the military minimum of height weight standards, or they've been popped out on a

drug test or something like that. You know, if you want to If you know you want to be a support your country, then then get in shape, support your country, go vote. Um. Don't commit crimes, don't take drugs, don't contribute to those kinds of things that that are really bad for society. That's what's concerned to me. The military shouldn't be this, you know, fat farm, shouldn't be this

place where people get their life straight. You know, the judge give you the order between jail or the military. Those are kind of the old days because the military is a profession that like anything else is, and we want people that are highly competent, highly committed. Um, and that's what's gonna matter. It's just just as matters in the civilian world as well. My clients. Hey, Mike, we can't thank you enough for the time. Really really interesting and we know the folks love it when you stop

by some thanks. Thanks guys. It's a privileg is to be on with you guys. When I am, I really really appreciate it. You're too kind, all right, thanks Mike, great to talk. That actually is too kind. We don't deserve that. We don't know that. It is not a privilege to be on our show. It's just you know. I mean, it's nice for him to say I have so much guilt or so many things. Let me roll around in that from moments where I am in life.

On it, I know where I am in life. You know, you've talked a little bit about the fact that you wanted for a long time in childhood to be in the military. I was planning on that cleared through through my senior year in high school, military marine recruiters at our house. I was filling out paperwork, the whole thing. Wow, you got that fallow? Yeah? Yeah? And was it because you have to poop out in the open that freak

you out? Or what? In the Marines? I remember when I made reference to a good friend of mine who's no longer with us. But when Scott told me that, um, yeah, that's what happens, I thought, Oh my god, I don't want to do that, which is ridiculous. You know, several several of my friends I was riding motorcycles with that, you know that uh, summer before senior year, that sort of thing. I mean, we're riding motorcycles. God all my long, sometimes,

honest to God, all night long. They'd come honk outside my parents house and I'd hear him and I'd go down, get get dressed, and run downstairs. Before school's gonna start, We'll be riding around motorcycles at three o'clock in the morning. Rural Kansas where you could actually I remember one time on a hot night, stopping on the highway and we took a little nap on the highway, laying down in the highway because there's no car in the lanes because

because of the warmth was still on. The were cold and there were still warmth on the highway from the asshole. There's no people out, no cars. But anyway, Um, they were going in the Marines, and they did go in the Marines. And I don't, for the life of me, remember why I didn't. I really don't. I became aware of the radio program, and you know, the way you are when a kid, you're just like this way and that way. I think I became aware of this radio program,

and I just that was the end of that. Yeah, I was told that you can't get in if you'd ever smoked pot. And I'm afraid I had crossed that line. Um, that was just not having This was in the eighties. Keep in mind, which um the need for guys was a little different than you know, for instance, the Vietnam era or the ever never ending Middle East conflict era. UM, that could be picky. In the eighties, I didn't have that problem, but I I I'm happy with the way

my life turned off. So you don't want to change things if you could go back in a time machine, because maybe it wouldn't turn out good. I hear you, but I wish i'd done it in some levels, I'd like to have seen, you know, because you do that sort of thing to see if you could do it. Yeah. Yeah, and you get to be a marine for the rest

of your life, yeah, which is very very cool. I don't know, you know how much we want to go into this, and I know both of us have stuff that we really probably shouldn't talk about with our families, but we didn't even mention during our chat with my clients. Well, you mentioned your brother's active duty Army and minus active duty Navy, UM, and that definitely has an influence on our perspective. Do you ever talk to your brother about, just in a macro way, how he feels about his

military career. He does not talk much. He does not talk much period, which is a product of his uh military and war experience and combat experience. He's one of those guys that does not talk about he he he is a big regular. People don't get it. Yeah, I can't talk to them. I can understand the military guy. I can understandtand that to the extent that I understand it. It's very frustrating, but I can certainly understand it. Yeah, you know, my dad, it's funny. He just popped into

my head. My dad was an officer in the Air Force that got the rough side of Mike Lions tongue, didn't it the chair Force anyway, No disrespect to Air Force guys. That's an old joke anyway. Um, But my dad was an Air Force officer and he did not encourage me to get into the military. Um. He talked a little bit about how some of his commanding officers were arbitrary and and and he just felt like there

was a real lack of justice in it. And it felt like a gamble because you'd come across some sort of a bit you didn't like you and he put a black market and your rector and all it takes is one black mark. I'm aware of that. My brothers had those experiences definitely. Well, what's funny is I the black sheep of the family. The older brother decided that wasn't for me. Plus there was a whole pot thing.

Um uh. But my little brother is going to retire after a twenty year plus military career and has done great and and somehow avoided the black mark, probably because he got the good jeans. I got the rotten jeans. Um. But he's had a mostly really positive experience being in the military. On the other hand, you know, he's a he's a navy guy, he's a submariner, and and that's a very very different experience than being an infantry in

the early century. Um. I remember my brother and my dad talking about this one time because my dad, my dad asked my brother, he said, could they punch you in basic training? My brother said no. He said, when I wasn't basic training, they could punch you, but they had to ask you first. The dad said, My dad said that. He said they had changed that because they used to be able to just punch you, so they could just is walk up and punch in the face. Then there is some sort of changes we got soft

apparently in the late fifties, early sixties. They had to ask you. Of course you had to say yes because you're, you know, primate armstrong man. Punch you in the face and get punished if you did, sir. You know they can't punch you at all, you know. We That's another thing we could have talked to Mike about was military discipline, how it's changed. He made mention of the fat farm thing, um, so obviously it has changed. That's something. Anyway. I hope

you enjoyed the conversation I did. You're here