A thirty on a Tuesday. Here fifty five KC the talk station. That means it is time for a Daniel Davis Deeve Die, Welcome back to lieutenant retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis to give us some warfare analysis. Welcome back, Daniel. Always a pleasure to see you and have you on the program. Jilotti to be here, Brian can't you can't wait? Well, let's hit the ground running. Another update on the latest
with Russian and Ukraine. I did I read correctly that Zelunsky now wants to have a sit down with Vladimir Putin. I thought one of the contingencies for that was a declaration of a ceasefire or something, which I don't know that the Russians were necessarily interested in, considering the advances they're making on the ground in Ukraine. But is there is there progress in that direction?
There is a lot of people talking past one another and listening to no one. This is a complete disaster right now that has almost no chance of anything happening on Thursday. First of all, this started when you had the leaders of France, uk Germany and Poland went to Kiev to meet with the Zelensky, and they came out there and they said, hey, we demand a thirty day unconditional ceasefire. We were telling Putin you it's an ultimatum. You will do it by Monday. This is on Saturday.
You will do it by Monday, or we will hit you with a bunch of sanctions. In response, Putin didn't answer the question. Of course, he's not going to do it unconditional thirty d cas far. They've said so from the beginning. They've never said anything besides that. And why would this stronger power ever submit to a demand by this weaker power.
That's the first point. So Putin didn't answer that.
But then he did say, you know what to tell you what, We're willing to have direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and we'll do it in Istanbul on Thursday. So you wanted to decease far on Friday, We'll offer direct talks on Thursday. No discussion about a ceasefire. We're not interested in that. So then it turns out that we say that Zelenski tried said, oh, okay, I will one up you again. I will go to Istanbul and I will meet you. Vladimir Putin personally, you better be there,
you know, just this mocking kind of thing. And there's no way that Putin is gonna just meet with him in the natal country istaan bull to try and settle this stuff, because they are miles apart on the fundamentals of an end of war negotiation. If you can't even get to a thirty day ceasefire the two sides can agree on, why do you think on Thursday you're gonna solve the war?
Makes no sense at all? Well it doesn't.
But as we have been typically going back to this posturing, you've got to have something to back up your threats. You have to have something that is worthy of exchange at the negotiation table. And as you've been pointing out week after week after week, the Russians keep making gains and advances, and more Ukrainian soldiers die, and they become weaker and weaker and weaker in terms of their bargaining
position every single day that passes. Meaning, I guess if Plutin would show up there and sit down across the table from Zelensky, what would Zelensky have to say? Well, And that's the point exactly.
And I was scouring the headlines and stories before we came on the air here today, and there's all this talking, I mean, and it's all over the place, and all the Western media yea, and the pundits and stuff, and they're all saying, we'll see if Putin's actually serious about this or not, or if it's just a ploy.
And I'm like, it's there's no ploy. They're very open.
About here's our conditions, come and talk about them, and if you don't, we'll simply keep fighting. That's what we aren't listening to on our side. So there's no way that Putin is going to meet with him as a first step. I mean, this is what they have offered. And what is normal is that you have delegations at the appropriate level. That's what Russia said at the beginning
on Thursday, at the appropriate level, we'll meet directly. No one ever offered for Putin to meet with So now they're trying to mock Putin and make it look like he's hiding. Well, look that works in Western media because they're not paying attention anyway. It does nothing on the battlefield or a jove reality. That's the problem, Brian. It won't change reality. Even if we mock him all week long.
Well, going back to France, UK, Poland and Germany making a stance on this and sort of making the same type of demand threatened by sanctions, which I guess is an arrow in their quiver, but doesn't Germany kind of rely on Russia for its natural gas or to keep their country somewhat in running order.
Well, they have significantly reduced I'm not sure if they brought it to zero, but it's significantly reduced with what it used to be, and they've getten it from other sources now.
But that's the problem for Germany. The other sources are.
Substantially higher in per unit cost, so that makes all of their industrial output more expensive, and that's had a dampening effect on their economy.
I mean, I think that they're probably in a recession right now.
We'll wait till the numbers come out here in a little bit, but I think that probably it's been a real problem for them.
But I mean that just puzzles me.
You got these guys, these four guys there, and you know they're all luck in the arms basically and say we're going to sings, did you And I'm like, wait, that's what we said. Lead led by Joe Biden and right when this war started about here where you're going to cripple Russia and all this kind of stuff. Well, now then bricks has expanded, They're expanding economically in places
beyond the West. So I'm like, look, if we didn't cripple them, then what possible logic can these four guys in the leading Western countries think you're going to do to them?
Now? It makes no sense to me at all.
No, And you know, from a global geopolitical standpoint, that did nothing but drive them into the arms of China and cozy up there and formalize and create a better working relationship with Russia and China, which you know together rather for me.
I mean just together. That's good so far you want to double down on that, I don't get it, man, No, And you know, got to.
Go back to the what do there's a combined military force of France, UK Poland and Germany amount to in the grand scheme of things. I mean, if you put all their soldiers on the battlefield together, could they match the military might of Russia? Should push come to shove hopefully not.
Not even close.
I think that cumulative total on paper would be somewhere around seven hundred and fifty thousand something like that. Russia has one point five million, but none of those guys are trained for modern warfare. Russia has three now into the fourth year, a very painful experience learned in all kinds of technological advances, none of which these guys have.
Nobody on our side knows anything about what it's like to get shelled mercilessly, to be not even afraid to look up into the sky because the drones fall in, how to do counter drone operations, the electron we don't know any of that, Brian. So the disparity, forget the numbers on paper, which is about like this, The actual capacity is probably more like this.
That's the reality.
That's harsh reality, but it is what it is, which is suggests, as you've concluded before, and I've reached the conclusion, they're going to have to make some major land concessions in Ukraine to get this thing done with. And that's of course the predicate for Russia is sitting down at the table, we're keeping crime here, We're keeping these areas that are Russian dominant and Russian populated. That's where we're starting from. Or they're just going to keep fighting and
they'll end up at least on the Danepa River. That's my calculation, because I just don't see how the battlefield math works any differently. If you keep with this fiction that we're going right now, instead of having an ugly deal where you could keep most of that stuff from where those four provinces are to the river, you're gonna end up losing it all and the men that goes along with it. It's the worst of all worlds from
our perspective. I guess that minerals deal wouldn't be worth the paper it's written on to come that if that happens, right, Daniel, it would not Oh jeez, hey, real quick before we part coming today. And it's always interesting, maybe a little bit depressing for a lot of folks, but reality Israelate reality, and someone's got to point it out. India Pakistan a lot of people concerned about World War three breaking out, and I know they were swapping shots against each other.
Kashmir has been an issue between the two countries for a long long time. Trump was given some credit for negotiating at least a ceasefire between those two countries. You see an ongoing concern between those two countries. You think they can hammer it out. Yeah, I think they can hammer it out. I mean this has been going on.
The seeds go all the way back to nineteen forty two, and then they really start spreading in nineteen forty seven, and then it's just been kind of on again, off again. There was a clash in twenty sixteen, there was a clash in twenty nineteen, and then now this one too.
And I had John Meersheimer, you know, an international theorist, relations theorist, on our show earlier this week, and he pointed out he said, there are multiple rungs on the escalation ladder before this gets into potential nuclear clash, because neither side wants that. And so he predicted, and it's turned out that way, that they'll sort this out because escalating and going up beyond small hits is bad for
both sides. And he said he thinks you're going to work it out, and he looks like that's what's happened.
Well, and you'd hate to see World War three breakout over a terrorist attack. I mean, you think about Archduke Ferdinand getting killed leading to the World War. Things like that can happen. But fortunately, I guess the leaders realize that cooler heads must prevail when both sides have significant numbers of nuclear weapons.
Right yeah, And if they had one, I mean that's and you would use it. That's that's that's one too many. Uh, and they got both of them have a decent sized stockpile, even even Pakistan. And that's the problem because you and that's what India understands. Conventionally, India dwarfs Pakistan. Obviously you can look at the the size and understand that. But the nuclear threshold, I mean, they could just Pakistan could devastate India. India knows that. So India will press its
advantage as far as it can. But they know that if they push Pakistan too far, if they go too many wrungs up that escalation ladder, then the only thing they would leave Pakistan with is to use their their equalizer, and they don't want to do that. So so far, it looks like that, even though there's a lot of answers between the two sides, there's still is the same thought.
Well, that's somewhat uplifting news. War's bad news, but at least they're not launching nukes. At each other. Daniel Davis Deep dive search for it where you find your podcast, and then tune in next Tuesday for another edition of the program here in fifty five care see the talk Talk Station Daniel. Have a great weekend, my friend. Thanks for much pleasure.
By Francis.
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