About KRCD talk station. It's Tuesday regular listeners. No, it's appointment listening because we're doing a Daniel Davis deep die with the retired lieutenant colonel, talking wars, talking ceasefire agreements, and of course a new sheriff in town, Donald Trump making some bold, bold, bold promises to get that Russia Ukraine war settled. Welcome back, Daniel David's always a pleasure to have you on my program. It's always a pleasure to be here, Brian, thanks for having me. Well, let's
start with the Israel Palestinian prisoner exchange. They entered into a ceasefire agreement. Some of the hostages have been released. I guess I kind of been wondering in the back of my head. The status of the hostages is largely unknown. We do know that some of many of them have died, but do we have a head count on how many remain alive and how soon will they all be released? And I guess a more broad question because I have no faith that this ceasefire agreement has going to remain.
I just think the AMAS is going to just tank it. But what's your take on where we stand on that one?
Daniel?
Yeah, we don't know to your question, their head count. We don't know who's live, who's not, how many are there. The Humasaid has intentionally kept that vague to continue to give themselves leverage.
One of the things they're afraid of.
Is if they just gave all the hostages back in one big, you know, passage, then all their leverage is gone and there's nothing to stop Israel from returning to the fight. And that's one of the things they continue to be very worried about. So that's why they've kind of spread it out over a long period of time that I think the plan is three hostages every seven
days until it's six weeks. Then all the rest of the hostages are supposed to be released and there'll be a big whatever is left after that, they will be in a big push into Phase two allegedly if the thing gets that far. It's been a bit of a problem because this cease far has really shown how Hezbolay has really weathered this storm much better even than I thought that they would. In their tunnel systems, they have
rebuilt a lot of the tunnel system ms. You actually had a secretary blinking on the way out admit that Hamas had almost completely rebuilt its strength.
So it is really a stunning.
Development that Israel is no closer to success today than they were before then. And I think that in many ways the Israeli side needed this ceasefire more than the Hamas side did. But I suspect that both sides are going to use the opportunity to rebuild their strength. So to your point, I don't see any evidence this is going to be over anytime soon, but at least, thankfully for the people of Palestine, the daily killing has at least temporarily stopped.
Yeah, And I guess part of you wonders what the political reality will be in the stability of the ceasefire arrangement if more of the hostages have actually been killed and there really aren't that many left remaining, to you know, hand back over, that situation sounds like it might be a politically volatile in terms of this the relationship being lasting or not.
Yeah, the only thing that mitigate against it is everybody's very aware that possibly as many as half of the remaining hostages that they've identified are probably not alive. So it won't shock anyone, but especially for the family members they they all most of them are saying they're not well, not that they don't care, but that the one way or know that they want their person back no matter what, whether they were alive or dead, they.
Just want you know, the proof or so.
Yeah, so it's still a big issue there. Well, this I was unaware that they had done so much rebuilding.
I find it almost not I'm not questioning your authority or what you're saying, but in the midst of this conflict, when Israel's presence is fully there, that they had the opportunity and the ability to rebuild all those tunnels, and with the ceasefire agreement in place, they've got all the opportunity of the world to continue rebuilding, which means basically, if they go back to fighting each other, it sounds like both sides are starting at square one.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it does.
And you know, a lot of this was exposed not just by Secretary of blink and saying it out loud, but Hamas had a parade, an actual parade following the ceasefire when it was announced. A lot of them came out of their tunnels and you know, they're in uniform and they don't have lots of their equipment, their vehicles, their rockets. It shows that they never lost all of their capacity, even though the images on the on the surface looked literally like a moonscape, shocking the amount of destruction.
But under the ground, they've weathered that storm. Yeah, and I saw a photograph the other day the same thing. My just my mouth fell open.
It's just it, it's I mean, it's completely in hospitality to people living there. There are no buildings, they're all blown up, and they're in piles and rubble, and I just just wonder what kind of rebuilding effort is going to go on, And I mean, can they even rebuild? And where the resource is going to come to rebuild.
Yeah.
You know, a lot of people in America don't know it, but in the the Korean War, in the latter stages of the Korean War, when we were trying to get the the armistice signed, the US.
Air Force almost literally.
Wiped out every village and town in North Korea, turned it entirely into rubble. And the same question was there too. But the people will find a way to do it. There's already some talk, especially among the Arabs in the Middle East, about funding a lot of this Europe is to wanting to do some et cetera.
But it's going to be.
Decades plural before that stuff gets done. And of course it won't even start until there's some kind of political settlement. It won't even start until then, So it's a long long road.
To hoe well.
Of course, pivoting over to the Russia Ukraine situation, at least I suppose Ukraine has enough quote unquote resources that at least it'll be more financially able to perhaps do some rebuilding. They do have the bread basket, they have resources.
They of course would have some measure of support from the NATO countries the European Union given how their proximity, whether or not they're let in or not as a completely different story, but in order to resolve that conflict, as you and I have talked about, and Donald Trump wants to settle, that Ukraine's going to have to make some major concessions. I mean, seems like Russia has all the cards. Well they really do it.
And and two events over the last since you and I were on last have been published that got almost no notice here in the West, but that are crucial and vital to this especially as Trump has now assumed office, and that on the Ukraine side you had their General Sersky, their commander in chief of the armed forces, admitted that they are not even able to force mobilize enough people to offset their losses. So we flatly said, we are
basically our armed forces are shrinking. We suspected this all along, but he has now confirmed it. Even if they go to eighteen year old and lower the age down to mobilization, there simply aren't enough.
Men to be able to offset the losses.
And they're bringing in thousands every month, but they set their casualties are more than that every single month. On the other side, you have their national security Russian national security advisor and one of their other senior members of their government have said that they plan to they have a plan, a resource plan to win the war by twenty twenty five. So they're already thinking we're gonna keep
We're not. There's not an eminent wind of this, but we're going all through twenty twenty five, and we plan on taking all four of the territories that they have annexe et cetera. Deep notzify the government. However they want to define that et cetera. But that's important because they are not thinking, hey, we want Trump to come into negotiating into this. On the current line of contact, We're going to keep going until we have all four of those oblasts. And as you just said, they don't have
to negotiate an into it. They can just keep fighting until they seize it by force. But the Ukraine side can't. I mean, it's just they don't have the capacity.
Well, and you know, going back to your comments and observations about the North Korean soldiers going to fight in that conflict on Russia's side in order to get experience
and learn how to be effective fighters. If Ukraine is basically snatching up every you know, a live male person in the country eighteen and up and putting them on the front line, so those folks don't have experience, and they're more than likely going to be casualties the season fighters, the veterans more than likely have been killed already, wouldn't you think.
Oh, one hundred percent, that's absolutely right.
That's and that's a bigger issue than people who don't have military experience may realize, because too many times you think, well, you'll just mobilize more people and put another fifty thousand in uniform.
But a uniform doesn't make you a soldier.
It just means you're a civilian who's wearing a uniform and here's a rifle, go fire that direction, and they have no idea what they're doing. You can't function as a as a coherent fighting force unless you have trained people at every single level, all the way up, you know,
from private up to colonel in general or whatever. The Russians, because they have more people, they've had the luxury of training a lot of their guys over many months out of contact, and then they'll rotate out people who at key leader levels into new units here, so they'll bring people back in. So when they have this unit that's getting beat down, they'll take the unit out, they'll bring a new one back in, and then this is already trained.
But the Ukraine side, they literally throw everybody that they get into uniform into the front lines, almost no training, and that's just militarily unsustainable. So that gets into this calculation for Trump as well.
Now we got a new Secretary of State unanimous to confirmed yesterday, Marco Rubio. And is that in any way, shape or form a game changer, A new president who's wanting and desirous of settling the conflict. Marco Rubio at the helm here at the State, what do you think about that?
Well, it definitely is a game changer, without question, because the outgoing administration just kept saying for as long as it takes, and you know, shoveling money out the door on their way out of office, with no strategy, no plan whatsoever to how this could result in anything positive. At least Trump is coming in. Both the Secretary of Rubio as well as Trump has continued to say we're looking for a negotiated settlement.
He said. Trump said it again last night.
Yes, he says, you know, Russia's hurting and you know they can't just they can They're grinding it out is the term he used. But he also said, but they have more people, so he acknowledges that just the math is going to be moving in this direction. So the President and Secretary of State are both talking about this is going to have to be a negotiated settlement.
Well, and part of the leverage of getting the Ukrainians that negotiate and maybe express a more desire to perhaps make these concessions if we quit funding them and giving them weapons that presents a genuine problem for them, that's going to knock them back on value.
Well, it doesn't. That's one of the other things.
I'm glad you brought that up, because that's one of it was surprising too many to include myself, that Trump didn't mention Ukraine at all or Russia at all during the entire inauguration speech, but he did give some codes in there, and he said, we're going to stop any kind of foreign aid if it can't be shown that
it actually is in America's interest to do so. And I think that was a definite shot across the bow to the Ukraine that if we can't see how this is going to work, it ain't gonna just keep getting shoveled into the furnace like the Algony administration did. And I think it's pretty clear where the Trump Administration's going. Oh, I think most definitely that's what that was directed toward. And of course they have folks in Ukraine closely observing
and listening and parsing out the words. They got the message, and they got the message too. I sure you've seen you Ukraine and the media this morning. They got that message.
Yes, they did every Tuesday at eight thirty The Deep Dive with Daniel Davis. Find them online to search for Daniel Davis Deep Dive and until next Tuesday. My friend, thank you so much for your time. Every week I look forward to another conversation.
Always my pleasure. Thanks Bran, See you next time. Forty one.
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