Hey twenty nine on a Tuesday. Regular listeners know it's even appointment listening time. You can also find the podcast at five Caresee dot com. Welcome back my retired lieutenant colonel friend Daniel Davis for the Daniel Davis Deep Dive. Good to talk to you today, sir, as always.
Always a pleasure to be here. Look forward to this every week, and so do I.
And interesting times with Trump negotiating with Putin over a resolution of this war, and it seems to me for some reason it's got the left all bent out of shape. And I don't know why, because in addition to negotiating with Putin on some sort of resolution, he's also trying to open up economic cooperation for the benefit of both countries. And what I observe here if you put down this whole idea that Vladimir Putin is the same thing as
the Soviet Union. And I know he doesn't have clean hands, but we work and trade with a lot of countries who don't have clean hands, right, I mean, we're picking and choosing who is good and who's bad. And I point to the Chinese gum in the Chinese Communist Party. We trade with them all the time, and they are
our outstanding number one enemy in the world. So putting that aside, though, if we could negotiate some sort of economic cooperation along with this and along with resolving the conflict, and I know you want to talk about that, but that would, I would argue, have the result of benefiting both countries economically. We can stop worrying about getting into a shooting war with the Solviet or with the Russians.
Here I slipped with the Russians. You know, NATO wouldn't have to concern itself with being invaded by Vladimir Putin, and it might tear the getting cozier relationship between Russia and China away, so we got all focus on the real enemy, which is China. I don't know, I'm just I know, I'm kind of sort of on a stream of consciousness on this, but I don't see this discussion as a bad thing in any way. Your reactions, sir, well.
My initial reaction, Brian is, I don't know how much you like your job, but if you wanted to quit and go work as a deputy, say secretary of state, I would endorse you're a person to go and do that, because man, I would love that kind of view up at the Secretary of State, because you're absolutely nailing all the things that are important to the United States. I mean, that's what Trump ran on. He ran on wanted to
be the America First. He actually signed that into an executive order that his foreign policy would be America First. And he's doing exactly what he said he was going to do, and so far, all of those things you
mentioned are good for the United States. And I guess to answer your question about you know why this is and why there's so much reticence and resistance from the Europeans especially, Yeah, it's because we've tied all of this action over the last three years to our credibility as an alliance and even to the essence of who we are.
We said, and I actually did this on my show yesterday a little bit kind of running through the history of the last three years and in just a few minutes, but basically we said that Russia had to lose, Ukraine had to win at the outset of the war, and then everything to that extent was said throughout the rest of it.
And many still say to this.
Day they cannot conceive of not winning, even if it comes to the expense of benefits to our country, as you pointed out, and so far it looks like Trump is willing to just blow off all that pressure to do what makes sense.
Well, the alliance that we're talking about here was built on a post World War two Europe that needed to be rebuilt, but also then immediately began to be fearful of the Soviet Union and their communist ways. I mean, FDR sold out all those Eastern European countries at Yalta. They became a part of the Iron Curtain. Their lives became miserable. Postfall of the Soviet Union, many of them
became more prosperous. I mean Ukraine, for example, breadbasket of Europe at least at one point until this war showed up, so they were in a better position. I just don't know understand why again, this animosity and this fear that we have over Russia now them invading.
I'll tell you though, on.
That point there, it's important because there's another benefit that happened prior to February twenty fourth, twenty twenty two, and that was that Europe was significantly benefiting from Russian oil and gas because it was coming in at a very low price, which benefited all of Europe and all of their economy, and everything was predicated on low inputs, low cost of inputs, so that they could have cost of outputs, they could have higher profits and all that kind of thing.
We have absolutely shot ourselves in the foot and maybe even one knee by keeping these sanctions on Russia because it's harmed us a lot more than it has them. And listen, all of this, all of this, one hundred percent came from our absolute overt insistence on putting NATO into Ukraine, something that would never keep anybody in Europe safer. All that would do is exactly what it did is raise the tensions, increase the chance of something bad happening where we could end up in a war, and it
didn't do anything but destroy Ukraine. That is I think going to be one of the biggest blights on the West, on the previous administration that history can put on us.
Yeah, country filled with land mines in a post war situation. It's just just a terrible thought when you come when it comes down to it, and.
I drew a parallel.
I just kind of bounced this off your head. Earlier in the program I said, you know, if you look like Crimea, for example, the vast majority of folks there were pro Russia. They didn't have any problem with the Russians taking them over. I said, you know, it's a lot like those multiple counties in Illinois that want to become part of Indiana or half of the state of California that wants to break off and separate itself from the insane leftists that currently run the country. You know,
we're not going to get Crimea back. And if you ask the Crimeans, they probably would say, we don't want to go back.
Ohred percent they and it's not just that they're pro Russian, they're ethnic Russian. I mean they they are historically Russian. And in fact, I may get the year wrong in this. I think it was something about nineteen fifty. They were part of Russia, they were part of the Soviet Union, et cetera.
And then I think it was the ship. Don't hold me to that.
It was one of the one of the Soviet premiers just designated it to Ukraine, which didn't really cause much of us stir at the time because it was all within the USSR. But the historically they have been Russian and they ethnically are still Russian and they voted. You don't even have to ask them because they told you
what their own voice. With this plea to decide that they overwhelmed the I think ninety five percent voted to be in Russian and all of them Russians and Ukrainian Crimeans consider themselves to be Russians today, so that's never coming back. And that's the case with the majority of the area that is under Russia control today in terms of ethnic Russians that are in there, and it's even on the other side of the line up to the
Danepa River, still significant portions are ethnic Russians. When that outcome is kind of what a lot of people are wondering where these negotiations are going, because a great many of those people want to go to Russia as well.
Well.
Trump talking directly with Putin to the exclusion of Lensky, that seems to have rubbed them the wrong way. He's also though, negotiating with the President of Ukraine's Lensky to deal with economic relationships with them, because they have stuff that we would like to buy, and if we buy it, then that benefits them economically. So there seems to be an air of positivity associated with it in a post war environment, how do you think Trump is dealing with
the war component? He can talk with Peutin all day long about economic relationships, but settling the war, how do you think he's going to approach that and what announcement do you think is going to come from that if any?
Yeah, that's going to be the really difficult part, which is kind of shrouded in mystery so far. I'm sure that's intentional because I'm sure there's lots of discussions about.
Where the line is going to be.
Is it going to be on the current line of contact between the two Is it going to be on the administrative borders of the for oblasted Russia annexed in twenty twenty two, because right now a subsiizable portion of all three of the southern provinces are still under Ukrainian control, and for that to be the line, which Russians is their minimum standard, Ukraine would have to withdraw from there and abandon those areas through negotiations, not being forced out by war.
That's what I advocate.
I think that's the best thing that could happen, because the alternative is that Russia doesn't agree to the current line of contact, and they continue marching forward with their armed forces until they seize territory by force of RUMs, which means more Ukrainians would die. The line's going to be over there, in my view, one way or the other, either by negotiations where a lot of Ukraines have to suffer the embarrassment but are alive to withdraw out, or
they'll take it and those people will be dead. And so I think that it's that stark of an option right now, and it's unknown right now what Trump's going to agree to.
Do you think there's an economic component that would benefit Ukraine in that type of resolution, like, hey, okay, we're willing to concede the territory, but Russia, you got to do something for us, maybe providing energy or other resources. Again, if you have free trade between those two countries after you resolve your differences, it can only benefit both countries. Is there a dangling carrot in there for Ukraine that can make a concession.
You would have to.
Have Russia make a concession from a position of strength that they don't have to make. They don't have to offer almost anything because Russia is willing to pay the price of losing more their soldiers, extending the war, and the cost to go along with that, in order to secure this what they view as their minimum security requirements on their border. That's the real crux of all this is that Putin is not looking at the getting the
war over with. He's looking at the long term security on his western border and why they went to war in the first place. If he thinks the current line of contact won't provide him that long term security, he won't agree to it, and he doesn't have to. And if Trump doesn't, Russia will just keep fighting. And that's the problem is that Russia has leverage that we don't have.
But to your question about the economics, Ukraine, whatever is going to be left of it will one hundred percent benefit economically because Europe is standing by already and that was in Trump's meeting with MACRONI yesterday. They're standing boy to have all kinds of post war development and you know, taking care of things that were destroyed, etc. So there's a lot of benefit for the Ukraine's not the least of which nobody else would have to die.
Now if this treaty, if a treaty resolution land concessions that Russia gets what they want. There's all this talk about peacekeeping forces being kept in Ukraine. Do you think there's really a necessary element of a peacekeeping force? If Russia ultimately gets back or gets its Russian components out of Ukraine, a new line is drawn. Is there any further risk of Russia saying that's screw it, We're going to go for the whole thing. I mean, if they want to do that, they already have the force in
place right now, and they can just do it. There's reports out this morning that in the Russian media and the Russian military media that what Zelensky had said last week was one hundred and fifty thousand formation of Russian forces is actually closer to two hundred thousand in contact.
It's in addition to everything that's about seven hundred thousand on the line of contact right now Russian forces, there's another two hundred thousand, which by the way, is bigger, probably by a factor of two, than the one that invaded Ukraine in the first place.
That's the size we're talking about.
It's not engaged anywhere, it is positioned to where it can go into a number of different places. If negotiations apparently break down so they can do it right now. But I think that they want to get things done diplomatically as long as they can get what they think is their security going forward. And that's really what it all comes down to, all.
Right, As we've parted coming to today, Daniel Davis, I just always thoroughly enjoyed these conversations. Do you see this a negotiated resolution happening in the near term, you know, like weeks as opposed to six months or another year.
Well, Trump yesterday at his press conference said out loud that he thinks that Zelensky could be here either this week or next week to sign a deal for the mineral right, and then he said the war itself could be wrapped up within a few weeks. He had his National security advisor earlier that morning yesterday said he could be done.
As quickly as a week or two.
So he's definitely thinking that this is in the end game right now. And then the question is going to be, is Zelenski you gonna accept it? Because I'm thinking that Trump is getting to the position to where he's not going to say to Zelenski, you either accept this deal or good luck to you, and you're up trying to figure it out on your own because we're coming to an end.
I think that's what Trump's setting up.
Fair enough. This has been another Daniel Davis deep dive. I've always looked forward to it. I'm already looking forward to another one next Tuesday. Daniel. Have a wonderful week, sir, and thanks for spending time with my listeners. In me.
Same to you. I love you guys, to see you next time.
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