This is a question that became something of a joke. My answer is direct. We are not getting prepared. We are not working on a dirty bomb. With protests gripping the country's universities and high schools, and strike action by teachers, business owners, factory workers, even oil refinery workers the backbone of Iran's economy, the call for a form and for regime change is only growing louder. So what you first heard there was a spokesman for somebody in the government
with Ukraine scene, We're not building a dirty bomb. That's ridiculous. And then there is some belief from some people involved in the Russian military that Putin is never going to use nuclear weapons, which I hope is true. I really really hope it's true. We welcome to the program, Miclines. He's a military analyst we'd like to have on all the time. I served with various military organizations in both
the United States and Europe throughout his career. UM I went to West Point, all kinds of really cool stuff that make you a regular guest to CNN. I see you there all the time. I look for your your shots on CNN. Mic Lines. Uh, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate it, ob Jack, thanks so much for having me back. Yeah, I'm following this story closely, but I feel like there's been a dead spot in coverage for the last week or so over what's going on with Kirsan and that
region with Can you fill us in on what's happening? Sure, So, the tactical military guys, right, the generals and the people that like to see the moving tanks on the ground are noticing that the Ukraine military is doing very well.
They're winning battles in this area there, and they're taking advantage of the Nepro River, which is a natural boundary between um, let's say, Kersan and kind of the rest of that occupied region within Ukraine that Russia has been instance and um if if um, Ukraine can push Russia out of Kirsan back across that river, and then the question gets through Ukraine is how do they cross the river if they want to keep this attack going. But then also if you go a little bit further east
there there's a separation that could take place. They could they could basically cut off the Russian military from its supply chain that would come from from the east, and you could have ten to twenty Russian soldiers surrounded and
potentially surrender. They're gonna get cold to the winner's coming, right, So they're gonna get cold here in December and January, and and so I think from the tactical perspective, from the battleship space perspective, the military guys were looking at this saying, we have a real opportunity to really put
Russia in a binding. However, Russia is still fighting the strategic battle and they're coming back with drones, they're hitting Kiev, they've got swarms, they've got all other kinds of things, and so Ukraine has got to also worry about air defenses. So there's multidimensional military chess taking place right now. And um, you know, if the Ukraine military on the ground, in the chaotic face of the battle can force Russia to large area surrenders, they might bring them to the negotiations table.
Who knows. There is a pretty consequential battle perhaps being lined up right now. Yeah, that's why I see it. And it's not only for Carson, it's for that whole southern region because now it threatens crime and which I think is their alimo. Um that is non negotiable from Russia's perspective. They have to have that warm water port, and they've had it for the last hundred plus years. They've had a an agreement with the Ukraine government to
have it. You see Elon Musk, you know, in his tweets about trying to make peace, saying that you know, Russia gets it. I mean, it's almost like a fate to complete um. You know that that is something that without that, Russia does not project power in in the Middle East, doesn't project power in the Mediterranean or in the Atlantic. It creates a significant problem for the Black Fleet.
Where does the Black Fleet go at that point? So, so that's there, that's their Alimo, and that might be this place where they do use those tactical nukes to to to create a boundary between them and Ukraine as they as they try to formulably try to retake it. Well, I want to ask you about that, but before we get to that, you know, Zelinski says it it's non negotiable from him stand point to that you're staying in Crimea.
Of course that could be a negotiating position. Yeah, I mean it's gonna be hard, difficult for the Ukraine people and him in particular to you know, actually any territory. I think back to Russia, even though they've occupied a lot of those reasons. Since they've they've had influence over
at the very least, and they've influenced their Congress. It's part of the reason why the Ukraine government was in such turmoil for the past few years because they so many of the politicians in that part of Ukraine were on Russia's side. And um, you know, it's hard again today's world, all of a sudden cutting up this country
and then having its slice to Russia. But that might be the likely scenario espectly, you know, they could start building a wall, you know, get back to the nineteen fifties technology here, and they start building up wall between those two areas, and then it becomes, you know, really a pretty large demarcation line. I want to talk about
the nuke thing before I get to that. I was going to read from a piece later in the program from Day but French and the Dispatch, who continues to make the argument that this is the most consequential story in the world, is what happens with Ukraine and Russia, and making the argument for why we need to continue to support the Ukrainians etter, etcetera. Would you agree that
it is the most consequential thing going on right now? Um, for now, I say it's no. It's it's a regional conflict and it has more impact on what happens in Europe. And for those people who are globalists, they might think that's the case. But really, at the end of the day, this is a regional conflict. It does not. You know, it's important for the United States from a from a national security perspective, but it's not. It's not the most important.
We've got to keep our eye clearly on our main threat, and that's China, and that's what could happen in the Pacific. I think we can do what we can as an infrastructure to support the Ukraine military. I mean what's happening is, for example, of year defense platforms that we ordered the the army order fifty of them. Let's say I think that's what the number was fifty from raytheon and I think we've bumped that number down to allow twenty of them to be built for Ukraine. They won't get there
till the spraying, and it might not even matter. So those are the kind of things we're doing in our country. To try to help this, but from our national security perspective, it's not you know, up in troops there, it's not it's not enough to start World War three, that's for sure. Well I'm glad to ask you. So you don't think if this went the wrong way in Russia gets to keep a big chunk of Ukraine, that that destabilizes the world so much that it's the most important story out there.
I don't. And it all comes down to back to what these European countries do when that potentially happens. If they you know, everybody wants the world to go back to February twenty three, right, they all want they want, they want the oil, they want, you know, they want to happen. But that that won't happen. So look at the Germans. The Germans have decided to go ahead and sell China a quarter of one of their major ports
in Hamburg. I mean, like no one's learning, no one's realizing where the world is going here and how it's getting, you know, kind of divided up. I think that we have to recognize it. You know, when when there's finally peace in Ukraine, at some point, there will be something called Ukraine left over and the and the west to
do what it can to rebuild that country. But but anything to the east of it, we've got to be dealt with, and we've got to recognize we have to cut that off and not have these kind of relationships with that that will allow them to expand their imperialistic motives, because that's what they're trying to do. Great Glad, I asked, Glad, we got that point of view. Now to the nuclear weapon thing. Why is Russia claiming that the Ukrainians are going to use a dirty bomb? What do you think
is going on there? Yeah, it's false flag stuff, you know, the Prutent playbook right, all that, all those things, you know, these guys talk about it. It is. Um it's a scorched earth type uh strategy or tactic. Actually that doesn't do anybody any good. If they decide to destroy the nuclear plant and typ of Reza for example, or um, you know, use some kind of chemical that will have a long term effect. I mean obviously a nuclear type
implosion or something would be a lot worse. Um, the dirty bombs are you know terror type weapons systems that that you know deployed in subway systems for example, designed to you know, kind of killed quickly and terrorize the population. Russia is going to wreck anything that can't keep it's going to wreck, and we have to say that that's what's gonna happen and know that they have the capability to do that, and they're not going to stop. It's
in their DNA. They're not stopping, and they're going to continue to fight this. They're not going to give up the winner. For example, They're gonna do whatever they can as the drones and the and the missile systems they're targeting right now, the infrastructure, energy, infrastructure. They're going right after the heart of Kiev. They're going to try to put as many Ukraine in the cold and the dark as possible they can for for this winter. They're not
gonna They're not gonna give that opportunity up. So you are uniquely qualified to talk about this whole using a tactical nuke, Explain what your background is in that, and then how Russian might Russia might use that to escalate
to de escalate there in Crimea. So I was a tactile nuclear officer in Europe in the in the nineteen eighties when we had those weapons systems, and if we were going to use them, we'd use them in the retreat um as because they fire a certain distance let's say, anywhere from eighteen to twenty miles ahead, and they would render that area, you know, in an inhabitable for a
certain period of time. They they are combat multipliers, and they also kind of fixed conventional forces in play because they can't then come through those areas, and that's likely what they could possibly do in crime if they if they use that as kind of the last ditch effort. Now we would be able to monitor whether they're in theater or not, using satellites, using different technologies to say
um but um. But they're also dangerous and given the fact that they haven't necessarily have fired one, they're like they're most likely delivered by artillery. They could blow up in the twos, they could destroy Russian units that are trying to use them themselves. So there's lots of things that can go wrong still with what's going there when it comes to using a nuclear weapon, which in most cases that's why they'll be used at the at the
episolute very last use. So was our policy. See back when you're dealing with this during the Cold War, if we were getting overrun by you know, the Soviet Union, I'll have decided, you know what, We're gonna try to take more of Europe. If we were getting overrun, we would have used a tactical nuke to to give us ourselves some time to regroup or whatever. Yeah, absolutely, we
had them in our in our battery. We would have we practice taking them on our tactical exercises, and we practice going through the authentication codes of having them released and actually using them. And they were not used in the office. They weren't intensively used in the offense. I mean, I can talk about this now. It's all be classified. The General Defense Plane of Europe's called the thirty three
double A one. I'm shore any of your listeners that were back then, they probably bringing back a good memory of it. But but that's what it was all about. It was using a tactical nuke in order to buy us time to to retreat because we were outnumbered and outguns six to one, ten to one in terms of people back then, and that was the way we were going to defend Western Europe in the mid eighties. Well, that's interesting. So I'm and I'm far from a Putin apologist.
But so it wasn't unthinkable for us to do that if we were getting our asses kicked in retreating, so Russia might do the same. Yeah, that's exactly right, and it's their perception. If they are, you know, not doing well and if their conventional forces aren't aren't doing that that I The thing is, they probably have enough conventional firepower to at least hold that off, and if they if they have to cross it, it's going to again it's likely that last piece in CRIMEA that they would.
They would if they think that that's being threatened. That might be that only time. But what it does, again fixes the conventional forces on the other side, because once you fire tactical nukes across the front, then you're not seeing conventional forces going in that area or anytime soon. It renders that area uninhabitable. Aren't some of these videos amazing? And these fat old men are young kids with buying their own uniforms and no weapons, no food, no water
and everything. It's just incredible. Yeah. The thing is, you know, we don't fight that way obviously, but for every one of those you see, there's nine other Russians that are doing because they know that if they don't do it, you know, if they try to get away, they're gonna get shot in the back or something like that. And um, you know, Russia is trying to buy time. You saw them making a deal with Belarus, for example, to use some kind of joint task force. They need, you know,
twenty troops right now. If they had twenty kind of shock troops that were trained for the last six months that were you know, good at soldiering and good at doing this, it would be very influential on the battle field right now. They just don't have that. So both sides are war atrition taking place on both sides are being treated down and Russia is just peacemealing holes in
the lines here. But if they can, if either side can come up with affordable force, it would influence the tactical battle and and and really you know, win the day for for example. Interesting stuff. That's why I follow Mike Lions on Twitter and perk up whenever I see him on cable News. Thanks for coming on with us today. I appreciate it. Thanks for me