Ay twenty nine, Happy Tuesday. If if you have KCD talk station, it is that time of week. We do a deep Dive with Daniel Davis. Find them online where your podcasts are found, The Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, It's always great having you on my program sir.
And it's always great to be here. All right.
So Europeans finally stepping up and maybe wanting to engage in the process involving the war between Russian and Ukraine. I get this sense that up to this point they sort of kind of been sitting on the sidelines. I know, we have been the dominant resource for Ukrainian military in terms of aid, and you, as I have gone over this many times before, it doesn't seem like it's really stopping Russian incursion and the Ukrainians seem to be losing
the battle. So now that Trump's working directly with Vladimir Putin trying to negotiate some sort of peace resolution, the European Union is now stepping up to the plate in some way. What's the story, backstory or otherwise on this one, Daniel Davis.
Well, you know, I think it's not some that they're stepping up is that they have been very content to let the Body administration in the United States, through the Biden administration, take all of the lead because then Biden
and the European Union were all in lockstep. Everybody agreed that Russia has to lose, that Ukraine has to win, and we're going to just give them all of our stuff, at least in dribs and drabs, just to perpetuate the war, to keep it going, because anything to keep Russia from winning.
Now in here comes Donald Trump, and suddenly the United States is taking about a forty five degree angle course change, and the rest of Europe is still on the previous course, and they don't like it very much at all, and they want to try to pull Trump back onto it. So in one hand, they're taking the lead only because they're trying to go back to where they were before.
They don't want to change.
So you have really some strange comments coming out of uk where you have Kier Starmer, the Prime Minister, saying that they want to put troops into Ukraine as part of any kind of a deal that they want to keep this thing going. You have the the Polish Foreign Minister it's just we cannot stop this war.
We have to keep going, et cetera.
Meanwhile, you have, and this is out just hours ago, you have senior Trump and Putin officials meeting in in Ryod. Right now in Saudi Arabia, you have the you're the Lavrov and some other key Russian leaders are saying the same thing. Trump is saying that this has to be negotiated between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Everybody else can
figure out what's gonna happen later. And they specified that the UK and EU they specified them by name, cannot be part of this because they are wholly bent on preparing for war with Russia. Zelensky can't be a part of it because he won't acknowledge reality.
Only the US and Russia.
And so that's making Ukraine, the European Union and others unhappy. But so far Russia and US seem to be driving the train. Okay, let me just pose a question here. I mean my entire life, Daniel, as I've been watching, you know, conflicts around the world, peace in the Middle East, and how long you've been here for that?
Peace in the Middle East.
Every new administration since my birth has engaged in peace in the Middle East? Now, why is it always the United States' responsibility to endeavor to negotiate peace in war torn areas? Okay, So with that sort of background thought in mind, what would happen if we just said, you know what, we're gonna wash our hands of this European Union. You think you got it right, knock yourselves out. Well, we seem to be moving in that direction.
And in fact, you had at this Munich security conference last week, you had Zelenski himself was point blank ask can the you continue to fight without the support from the United States? What would happen if you lost it? And he said, we'd lose the war. We couldn't fight without it, we couldn't continue on without it. So that tells you right there that there is the cognition on the Ukraine side that hey, without the United States, this is not.
Going to work.
You had Keir Starmer last not tell it, go on a national television between in his country and say that the European Union is ready to step up with troops for to you know, support it, seasfire and all this kind of stuff.
But it can't work, no security.
Guarantees without the United states, it is essential that the US. So it's not even US trying to impose ourself on people now, it's Trump trying to extricate ourselves. And I guess because of all of the decades you're talking about where that's been the case, they don't want to be
able to go it alone. But here's the thing that none of these people in the European Union anyway seem willing to acknowledge that they're not the Ukraine side, and European Union don't have the capacity for Ukraine to do anything except lose more slowly, right, Okay, And I.
Was just gonna say that. I mean, this is shining a light on the lack of preparedness among all the European Union countries are NATO allies. I saw a figure the other day. Germany only has what one hundred and fifty thousand people in its military or something crazy like that.
Yeah, and they have no military hardware equipment anymore.
They can't not only can they I guess, not afford to give away supplies, but even if they embrace the concept of trying to support a militarily, they've got nothing to draw from.
Yeah, and uk is not much different.
I think it's one hundred and eighty six thousand, if I'm not mistaken, the entire active armed forces, that's not just the fighters. I think that there you might can get two combat divisions out of the entire UK military.
Two divisions. That's a drop in the bucket when you're talking about a.
European wide war and they're talking about possibly ten to twenty five thousand UK soldiers to be patrolling this mythical seasfire line, which I don't think Russia will ever agree to, so I think that's a dead on arrival conversation anyway.
But he's talking about signific.
Shifting a significant portion of his combat forces to just be standing in the middle between two fighting forces, which is just really strange to me.
Well, I was thinking about our prior conversations and this veiled threat that, oh my god, if Russia, you know, ends up winning and taking over Ukraine, it's somehow some existential threat to our NATO allies of the European Union. And you and I have talked about this before and said there's no way Russia can wage that kind of war. But with the backdrop of these very paltry, underfunded and small supplied military forces.
I don't know, maybe maybe it is a legitimate Do you think two things are important? Right now?
Russia is signaling that their conditions are and they've reiterated this from the June fourteenth line last summer. They're saying today that it's the four oblosts, the Zepparisia, Luhans, Donsk and Kirshn, the demilitarization of Ukraine, and that has yet to be deciphered. And then and negotiation are a deal signed with a new Ukrainian leader who has passed an election. It is legitimate to be able to author a sign
That's what they're calling for. They're not saying that we want to go somewhere else and we want to attack something else. If Trump is able to agree to that, that's the end of it right there. That leaves the European Union everybody else free to provide their own national security, which, by the way, Secretary of Defense Hexcess said, you guys ought to focus on Article three of the Natal Charter, which says every nation is required to provide its own national security.
Right. So Trump is moving in that direction, and I really applaud that.
Okay, I guess and I half jokingly bring this up because I have a feeling you probably agree with me that the United Nations is probably the most corrupt and incompetent entity on the planet. I may be overstating a little bit, but aren't there you in peacekeeping forces?
And why do they always seem.
To be suspiciously absent in major conflicts? Daniel, Yeah, No, I mean, of course there are no quote you in peacekeepers. I know, they're just soldiers from other countries that wear
a blue helmet. And of course they're powerless because they're only there for peacekeepers, which by definition means that there has been a peace agreement reached and the two sides have agreed that that's what's going to happen, and then they just sit in the middle to try to make it harder for one side or the other to break it.
Obviously, Russia is not even contemplating that. In fact, they said there will be no peacekeepers. That's part of what they define is the demilitarization of Ukraine, not the remilitarization by bringing Western military forces into the conflict.
So they're never going to agree to it. And Russia has said.
If there's troops come in that are that we don't agree to under the EUN auspices. Interestingly enough, then we'll consider them enemy combatants. Now we don't care what nationality are, and we'll fight them. And you had Hexcess say, if y'all do that, Europe, there's no Article five here and there won't be any American troops as well. So that's going to give an appetite suppression to Europe, I think.
But I'll just tell you, Brian, overall, I think that this is just the death throws of the way things have always been in Europe, not realizing that there's you know, a new force in a America coming in, going in a different direction, but they're gonna have to come in line because they don't have the capacity.
To do what they want to do.
Yeah, I just wonder how much of this is being driven by the UH military industrial complex. You know, there's a lot of people with powerful interests and a lot of money feeding the fuel fuel for the fire, and as long as that more continues to rage, then you know who's going to be making money off of it,
Which is a really sorry thing to contemplate. Lots of unpack on that one, Daniel Davis, but I sure appreciate your insight and your thoughts on it, and I'll always say, as I always do, look forward to another discussion with you in another deep dive next Tuesday at eight thirty. Between now and then, best to health, my friend, see you then, looking forward to it. It's a thirty nine to fifty five KRC the talk station. Stick around. We got a little more to talk about and you can call.
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