The official name of that defensive umbrella is Operation Prosperity Guardian. It's a coalition of more than twenty nations that includes the United Kingdom, but most of the ships, aircraft, and firepower are coming from America. When was the last time that the US Navy operated in this place for a couple of months?
I think you'd have to go back to World War Two where you have ships who are engaged in combat. When I say engagement, combat where they're getting shot at, we're getting shot at and we're shooting back.
You'd have to go back to World War II. Since the Navy's been engaged in that sort of thing sustained period of time.
Sounds like combat to me.
Let's discuss the developments in the Gulf, in the region around the world with CNN military analyst Mike Lyons, who joins us.
Mike, thanks great to talk to.
You, Hey one, guys, great to be back with you.
So does that sound accurate to you? That's the most engagement our Navy's had since World War Two.
Probably from a naval perspective. If you take out the naval air assets that have been participating in combat, you know, really in every conflict for the past twenty twenty five years. This is you know, combat towards the ships, you know, the destroyers, the aircraft careers were always safe, you know, naval tactics or protect carry at all costs. Well, now they've got to be concerned about that. The fact that our enemy is targeting actual naval assets in the water
is somewhat new. And this new thing is this underwater drone. Doing some research on that coming from irun it loiters. It's kind of like a loitering torpedo is kind of the best way to describe it. And the fact that they were able to shoot that out before it got close to it. Things are getting dicey. No question for the naval operators in the Red Cina.
Just a quick tangential question, Mike.
I think a lot about the navy for various reasons, both personal and patriotic. I'm troubled by our lack of capacity for shipbuilding as China's navy grows.
By leaves and bounds.
At the same time, though, with the growings of shistication of missiles, both ours and the Chinese in particular, I wonder how long a big manned surface fleet is going to have the significance it has now.
Well from a principle of war perspective, it provides mass on that domain. So I think that's always going to be there. I'm turned about it as well. I do think we need to increase our enable capacity, both what we have in the water and the sea as well as underwater. We're talking about submarines there as well. So I do believe that as the Chinese are going to, you know, kind of rely on the old school gunboat diplomacy and what's happening in the Pacific, we've got to
match that with similar assets. Now we use our technology to gain the advantage. But right now that's being flipped on its head. You saw that sixty minutesry for Norah O'Donnell talking about you know, we're taking million dollar cruise missiles and knocking out ten and fifty thousand dollars drones. Let's say with it, because we have to protect our shifts. So from an economic perspective, we're not on the right side of that. We have to you know, kind of
figure that as well. We can we get away with that because we're prosperous country. We can afford it, but we might not be able to afford that in the future, especially as these countries change their taxes. I'm concerned about swarming technology for example, that's going to impact the battlefield on the sea.
Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I mentioned a couple of different times. They're not exactly sure what they're up to, Like what's their goal? Picking a fight with the biggest, baddest bull in the barn and what you know is an attrition like you guys were just talking about her.
Yeah, I don't know what the Huthi's goal is, just just besides from a purely religious perspective, to go meet their maker there. It doesn't make sense. And that's why, you know, the rational negotiation with these terrorists don't. It doesn't go go anywhere because they don't have the same you know, kind of value sets we do. So they're going to continue to until until where they've been deterred
or either out of ammunition. They're going to continue to do exactly that, and the Ron's going to use them. I think it's a laboratory. And again, the submarine rones and the surface drones and the things that they're doing, these unmanned the things, they're easy to they're easy to get there, and they're easy to deploy.
I saw your tweets about Russia and Ukraine. Ukraine lost a major city over the weekend to Russia. But you seem to say Russia is not quite on the verge of winning. What's going on there?
No, I don't think so. I think that. You know, for the last four months, they've expended about forty thousand soldiers that have been lost on their side and all kinds of battle damage assessment from thirty square kilometers. You know, there's not this immediacy with regard to Russia breaking through on an offensive operation. Ukraine's got to go into a defensive mode now and and stop any kind of counteroffensive.
And what Russia's doing is taking back some of those areas that they lost during that counter offensive in the past nine months. But Russia is learning, they recognize that they've they ask forces in certain areas they'll be successful. That this area Aft Difcas in the middle of this very long front, and you know, you look at it from a strategic perspective, it looks like a divide and conquer, but they just still don't have the resources to do that.
Now.
Eventually they might if they Ukraine government doesn't get resupplied the military, I think't resupplied in the next let's sake, thirty sixty ninety days. They're running out of ammunition, no question about that. Artillery. We saw Denmark decide to give all of its artillery inventory to Ukraine. That's a that's a nice gesture. But they need the fifty or sixty billion dollars of aid that's that would come from the from the West in order to have this fight to
be sustained for the next couple of years. And what we'll do is take stock things out of our stocks, send them to Ukraine, and rebuild them here in the United States. So it's kind of a win win from a political perspective. But I guess right now neither side wants to give the other side any kind of political victory, which is it's going to hurt the Ukraine military.
It's interesting to watch the arguments.
Listen to the arguments here domestically, particular on the right side of the aisle between those who are staunchly in favor of helping Ukraine and those who seem to think it's a bad idea for a variety of reasons. But there doesn't seem to be a lot of disagreement in Europe. The EU is remarkably united in thinking Putin's a hell of a threat.
Right, yeah, and look what he's done to Nivaldi now. And he does this because it's getting closer to the election. He picks and chooses when he wants to assassinate people. And you know, these kind of bloody leaders, they exist because they take their they take their opponents out before they you know, they get close to becoming more powerful.
But yeah, over the weekend you saw the foreign minister of Latvia and Lithuania make comments about the threat as they are close to Putin, They're close to what's going on in Russia there. We've got to get you know, the Germans and the French and know others involved and start spending more money. Only seven countries in NATO are meeting that two and a half percent goal that they're supposed to be for GDP.
That's just not enough, my clients, CNN Military analyst Mike, it's always great to talk before we let you go on this President's Day. Are there any is there a president or are there a couple that you admire, particularly that you think about a lot read about a lot to maybe use his role models.
There's so many. I've studied them. JFK was inaugurated in the year of my birth. I guess, but I guess my favorite president has got to be Abraham Lincoln. If you go to the Lincoln Memorial and you look above the statue that the great statue that exists in that the monument to him, and there's a quote above it and it says something goes like this. I don't have it exact, but it's like, for who we saved the nation, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined in this temple forever.
And I was with that and said, you know, forever was a long time. You know, I'm sure the Romans put up a lot of statues and said the memory of this guy is going to be here forever. So the soldier I get to the Lincoln Memorial, I look up and there, I said, you know, I would look around here. It's going to be defending this place someplace because the United States said his memory is going to be here forever.
That's a good one.
Yeah, Amen to that, Mike, Thanks very very much, good to talk to you.
Thanks guys, thanks for having me.
Armstrong and Getty