A Proper Application of Leverage. Mike Lyons Talks to A&G

Summary

Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: "A Proper Application of Leverage. Mike Lyons Talks to A&G"

Date: June 24, 2026
Host: Jeff Armstrong
Guest: Major Mike Lyons

Episode Overview

This episode features a detailed conversation between host Jeff Armstrong and military analyst Major Mike Lyons. The main focus is on the current military and political situation regarding the Iranian conflict, examining what constitutes "winning" a war, the strategic and operational realities of the recent U.S.–Iran confrontation, and the shifting face of warfare as highlighted by the proliferation of inexpensive drones. The duo also reflects on U.S. leverage (or lack thereof), dual-use threats of emerging military technology, and the psychological and practical dangers drones pose both on the battlefield and domestically.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining "Victory" in Modern War

• Metrics for Victory:
  • Armstrong asks about the definition of winning and losing wars, referencing commentary that claims the U.S. "lost" the latest conflict with Iran ([01:15]).
  • Lyons' View: War is an extension of foreign policy. Tactical military successes don't equate to strategic victories if political leverage is lost.

    “The operational success, the military success was clear on the ground...the question is whether or not the military did [give] the President the leverage. I think we did...But it doesn't look like that's the outcome.”
    — Major Mike Lyons ([01:46])

  • Historical Context: Draws a parallel to Vietnam—never lost tactically, but still lost strategically.

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2. Geopolitical Realities and the Strait of Hormuz

• Constraints on Military Action:
  • Armstrong probes whether it was feasible for the U.S. to force open the Strait of Hormuz given today’s constraints ([02:46]).
  • Lyons recalls Operation Earnest Will from the 1980s; notes that while possible in the past, the current U.S. Navy lacks the fleet strength it once had ([03:23]).
  • Geography as Leverage:

    "While you can defeat the Iranians militarily...they still have geography on their side. And that geography is the straits."
    — Major Mike Lyons ([03:23])

  • Iran’s ability to leverage the geography (straits, mines, small boats) for asymmetric warfare remains undiminished.

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3. The Ongoing Missile and Nuclear Threat

• Iran's Ballistic Missile Capability:
  • Armstrong expresses concern about Iran retaining a large percentage of its missile arsenal, potentially overwhelming Israel's defenses ([04:28]).
  • Lyons clarifies:

    "Their ballistic missile capability is offensive...they're not used for deterrence, [they’re] used to reign terror on their enemies. And so I'm really concerned with that."
    — Major Mike Lyons ([04:49])

  • He emphasizes the critical threat of combining missile delivery systems with nuclear warheads.
• Global Ramifications of a Nuclear Iran:
  • Armstrong and Lyons discuss how an Iranian nuclear test or declaration would mark a world-historic turning point ([05:49]).

    "Yeah, for sure. Because of their capability to deliver it. And you know, it's one thing..."
    — Major Mike Lyons ([06:07])

  • Contrast drawn with North Korea: Iran's more aggressive intentions and rhetoric amplify the risk.

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4. Drone Warfare: A Paradigm Shift

• Ukraine as a Case Study:
  • The conversation shifts to Ukraine's use of drones against Russia and their increasing successes and challenges ([07:01], [07:36]).
  • Economic & Tactical Disruption:

    "We got a little bit of a wake up call with that Apache getting shot down with a drone...a $20,000 drone and hit a $30 million helicopter. But then...a drone ends up rescuing [the pilots]. So we're in a whole new state of warfare right now."
    — Major Mike Lyons ([07:36])

• Asymmetric Cost Curve:

  "The economics of this doesn't work...We're going to have to be faster, procure better, and develop systems that are going to take out these autonomous threats..."
  — Major Mike Lyons ([09:33])

  • The prohibitive cost disparity of using million-dollar defense systems to stop cheap, mass-produced drones is unsustainable.
• Domestic Security Threats:
  • Lyons urges adaptation not just for soldiers, but for civilian protection.

    “...we need to develop things to protect stadiums from drone swarms because that's, that's the next threat.”
    — Major Mike Lyons ([09:33])

  • Armstrong adds that the psychological terror of being hunted by drones is a disturbing new factor ([10:46]).

    “There's something psychologically more terrifying about that than if it was a guy chasing you with a gun.”
    — Jeff Armstrong ([10:46])

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5. Military Morale and Political Leverage

• Lingering Questions Among the Military:
  • Armstrong inquires about morale—whether analysts and soldiers feel despair at the lack of clear victory ([12:05]).
  • Lyons:

    “I think… the military is just concerned that we think that we gave the President more better leverage than he's probably applied...There's no real visual sign of victory, so I think that translates into defeat.”
    — Major Mike Lyons ([12:18])

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Notable Quotes & Moments by Timestamp

• Defining Victory

  "If you look at war as an extension of foreign policy...did [our success] give the President, did the country the leverage to negotiate what were considered to be favorable terms for us? Right now, it is looking like that's just not the case.”
  — Major Mike Lyons ([01:46])

• On Geography's Role

  “They still have geography on their side. And that geography is the straits...they can use asymmetric warfare to threaten it.”
  — Major Mike Lyons ([03:23])

• On Drone Warfare Cost Imbalance

  "A $20,000 drone and hit a $30 million helicopter...The economics of this doesn't work."
  — Major Mike Lyons ([07:36] and [09:33])

• On Domestic Drone Risks

  "We need to develop things to protect stadiums from drone swarms because that's, that's the next threat. That's what's coming here."
  — Major Mike Lyons ([09:33])

• The Psychological Impact of Drones

  “There's something psychologically more terrifying about that than if it was a guy chasing you with a gun.”
  — Jeff Armstrong ([10:46])

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Important Timestamps

• [01:15] – Start of military/strategic discussion with Mike Lyons
• [03:23] – Geographic and asymmetric advantages of Iran
• [04:49] – Concern over Iran’s ballistic missile capability
• [07:36] – Case study of Ukraine/Russia and drone warfare; Apache helicopter incident
• [09:33] – The economics of drone vs. traditional defense spending
• [10:46] – Psychological impacts of drone warfare
• [12:18] – Military morale and the absence of a clear victory
• [13:10] – Episode wrap-up and mention of Lyons’ Real Clear Defense piece

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Final Thoughts

Major Mike Lyons underscores a critical theme throughout: the modern battlefield is not just about tactical victories but strategic outcomes shaped by politics, technology, and perception. The accelerating drone revolution is forcing militaries—and civilian defense planners—to adapt rapidly. Without clear narratives or visible triumphs, the public and policy-makers struggle to measure "success," leaving deep concerns about vulnerability at home and abroad.

Transcript

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Goodbye.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Welcome, Mike Lyons, to the Armstrong and Getty Show.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Hey, Jack, thanks for having me.

[Jeff Armstrong]

I do want to talk about your piece in Real Clear defense about the $20,000 drone that should wake up the Pentagon, because that sounds really, really interesting. But before we get to that, I was just reading at least one piece in the Wall Street Journal where they were comfortable declaring that we lost this war, that the Iranians feel like they want it. Is there a way there that at West Point or those of you in college classes who'd study war determine a win versus a loss? And at what point do you determine that?

[Major Mike Lyons]

Well, if you look at war as an extension of foreign policy, the warfare, the operational success that we have here, did that give the president, did the country the leverage to negotiate what were considered to be favorable terms for us? Right now, it is looking like that that's just not the case. The operational success, the military success was clear on the ground, given what's been destroyed of the Iranian navy, their capability to manufacture war, fighting capability. Going forward, however, what's the political outcome of this? The best comparison is Vietnam. We've never really lost a battle on the ground in Vietnam. However, we end up losing that from a strategic perspective. So the story's not out there yet. It hasn't been told, but I think the can's been kicked down the road right now and the question is whether or not the military did gave the President the leverage. I think we did gave the President the leverage he needed to negotiate harder. But it doesn't look like that's the outcome.

[Jeff Armstrong]

So it seems to me most people left, right and center don't like this deal. But we've had a few people who say, and this might be where Trump is, you gotta live in the real world, where we are today with a possible worldwide recession if we keep the strait closed and what it's doing to the price of oil and this and that, and what it would take for the military to get to our objectives at this point. Is this the smart thing to do now? So looking at that, would it have been possible for us to force open the straight o Hormuz? What would that have looked like if we had decided to go that far?

[Major Mike Lyons]

Well, it would have looked like what it did back in the 80s when we ran that mission with regard to opening up the straight and keeping it open then. It's not that it was impossible then what was that Earnest will that mission was called? We had over 250 tankers that went through that environment with navy escorts. And maybe perhaps we don't have those assets there right now. We really don't have the destroyers there. We don't have the same level of navy that we had. But that would have been possible. I mean, this is a good example of while you can defeat the Iranians, militarily, sink their navy, destroy their capability, take away their nuclear future, the bottom line is they still have geography on their side. And that geography is the straits. And with coastal batteries and mines and fast moving boats, they live in the crevices and they can use asymmetric warfare to threaten it. I like that expression of it. Yeah, I want to live in the real world too. But to all of a sudden just decide when it's not going to play anymore after starting this seems like it's a little unfinished as well. And again just really kicks the can down the road with regard to solving this problem.

[Jeff Armstrong]

How troubled are you by leaving their rocket making capability and some of their rockets? I don't know. I remember the big journalistic piece that came out that said they still had, whatever it was, 70% of their rocket capability. Are you okay with leaving them with that and the threat that they may someday overwhelm the Iron Dome system there in Israel?

[Major Mike Lyons]

Well, I'm not sure it's that high. They have it on their mobile tracks. But let's be clear, their ballistic missile capability is offensive. You Know, when the president made that comment, it's like, oh, it's okay for them to have some offensive ballistic missiles? Absolutely not. Those are, you're not, you know, if they were had Patriot missiles or air defense systems, which is what the market's going to boom for, especially with what we see in Europe and Ukraine and Russia right now, there's going to be, you know, if you invest in air defense stocks because Anduril and these companies that make those missiles are going through the roof, they're not going to be able to manufacture them. But again, the missiles that the Iranians have are offensive. They're not designed to protect them. They're not used for deterrence use to reign terror on their enemies. And so I'm really concerned with that. Mike Pompeo has been talking about that since he was Secretary of State in the first Trump administration. This whole thing, it's all tied together, the ballistic missiles with the nuclear capability, because you have one thing to have a nuke, nothing to deliver it. And those ballistic missiles allow them to do both.

[Jeff Armstrong]

I know some of this stuff is getting into kind of philosophical stuff as opposed to just strict military strategy stuff that you're an expert with. But like Joe and I have been saying for a while, if Iran announced they have a nuclear bomb and they have one, that would be one of the biggest days in world history, wouldn't it?

[Major Mike Lyons]

Yeah, for sure. Because of their capability to deliver it. And you know, it's one thing.

[Jeff Armstrong]

And their intention.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Yeah, exactly. And how they could deliver it. And you know, they're not putting it on the back of a Toyota pickup truck and pushing it across the border. They're going to launch it at Israel is what they would do. They would do it without recourse. You know, we, as I said a few months ago, the Iranians never thought we would do what we did. They never thought we would do epic fury. They never thought we would do that. Well, now it looks like we're not going to finish it. And I think that's to their advantage. We've reverted back to self deterrence again. And I think that's an issue. But it's sure the North Koreans have a nuclear capability. We watched that happen and we all put our hands on our hip and said, boy, look at that. Many presidents just let that go as well. They didn't do anything about it. China at least keeps them in a box, but there's no country that's going to keep the Iranians in a box.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Right. And while I really hate that North Korea has a weapon. He doesn't every day have, you know, his people in the street chanting death to, you know, whatever little country nearby him in the way that the Iranians do. Their intention and their ability coming together would be horrifying. A way to get to your drone piece today maybe would be to look at where Russia and Ukraine are right now. I just, I'm not following it as closely as I used to. And I just keep seeing headlines that Ukraine's on the front foot.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Yeah, they are. As you know, we all saw that video, was it last week of hitting an oil refinery and blowing the top off it. I mean, that's 10 miles outside of Moscow. And that battle has become much more closer to home there. But they're gaining some ground in the Donbass in that region there, which is now virtually destroyed anyway. If you'll see videos of the drone tethers and the like and the landmines that have been, that have been buried there and the like, it's a heroic victory at this point because the ground is virtually untenable. But drone warfare is now the name of the game. And my piece that's going to be published tomorrow on Rio Core Defense just talks about we got a little bit of a wake up call with that Apache getting shot down with a drone from the Iranians who can still swarm them. They can still take a $20,000 drone and hit a $30 million helicopter by just swarming at it and just loitering until it finds a target. But then the second component to that is the fact that it was picked. A drone ends up rescuing autonomous vehicle, ends up rescuing the pilots in the water as well. So we're in a whole new state of warfare right now. But we need to get the economics again straight with regard to where Iran assists right now with their military capabilities, like in between what I'll call the bubbles, and that's this. There's nothing on that Apache that could have seen that drone coming because we were too busy trying to. Apache was designed to take out tanks in eastern Western Europe. So we've got to gain more capability to make sure that these autonomous systems don't live inside the wire. Autonomously and asymmetrically take out our capability.

[Jeff Armstrong]

So as you wrote in your piece, the 20,000 drone, that should wake up the Pentagon when that Apache went down, that's a roughly $20,000 drone taking down a roughly $30 million helicopter. Yeah, obviously you can't keep that up very long.

[Major Mike Lyons]

No. And it was the same argument that was made months ago. When our Patriot missiles were taking out the ballistic missiles coming from Iran, and same thing with Ukraine and Russia. The $100,000 ballistic missile taken out by a 4 to 5 to $6 million Patriot missile. In some cases the Navy Air defense systems, those AC3s, they are 30 and $40 million rockets, one at a time at one shot because they're designed to protect the carrier. They're not necessarily designed to take out one missile at a time. So again, the economics of this doesn't work. And we're going to have to be faster, procure better, and develop systems that are going to take out these autonomous threats that are going to do nothing more than increase. And I'm more concerned about them even here in the United States. Look at that situation last week with the UFC fight. Right. Like a drone swarm. Here I look at the stadium. You know, we have to develop not only things for the military. I was at West Point working with a bunch of cadets, and they're, they're developing these projects that'll help protect their platoons for drones. I look at them and says, we need to develop things to protect stadiums from drone swarms because that's, that's the next threat. That's what's coming here.

[Jeff Armstrong]

It's going to happen whether it's a terrorist attack or some, you know, militia group on the left or the right or whatever is going to pull off some sort of drone hit that's gonna really horrify people. There's something psychologically I, I've watched a lot of these videos where these. The Russians are out in a field and they hear the drones coming and they start running and the drones catch up to them. You hear the. There's something psychologically more terrifying about that than if it was a guy chasing you with a gun.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Yeah. You know, because you know it's gonna hit, you know it's not gonna stop. You know, that's the. It's just. Your time is up. I mean, it's really. It, you know, I guess in combat, the way to go is just, you know, that single bullet hoot. You know, Patton, about getting killed in combat. But that's not the case anymore. You're going to see something loiter around and mess with your head before it finally decides to take you out.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Well, I'm glad to hear that you and the military circles who think and talk about these things are talking about it as just like domestic protection also, because that is clearly the future.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Yeah. Dual use, I think, is what's happening here. And, you know, I'm working a lot more with innovative startup companies now to see not only help protect soldiers on the battlefield, but what's that capability going to do to protect our stadiums and protect crowds? And I think that's the next threat, whether we're going to live with it or not. It's like everything else. It's where the future is.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Before I let you go, is there a mood among you guys who text and tweet and talk to each other of a little bit of despair for losing a war or where are you on this?

[Major Mike Lyons]

No, I think it's the same. I don't want to call it cognitive dissonance. I won't go that far as to say that we're not real about it, but the military is just concerned that we think that we gave the President more better leverage than he's probably applied and maybe one more strike and a couple of different things. Look, you know, to say we were going to regime change from air power alone was never probably the case. But I don't mind. Keep going down a few more layers and we see how strong the irgc, their control is over the Iranians and over that country. And at 47 years, it's calcified at this point. And so. But if this gets strung along and we just lose our patience or JD Vance says, you know what, I've just had enough. I'm going home and we're just going to end it here. Trump didn't get his visual sign of victory, and I think that's what most concerns me. There's no real visual sign of victory, so I think that translates into defeat.

[Jeff Armstrong]

Major Mike Lyons, that's how you follow him on Twitter. Anytime anything big military breaks, I always go there to see what he's going to say about it and his op ed tomorrow in real clear defense. Mike Lyons, thanks for your time today.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Thanks, Jeff. Thanks for having me.

[Jeff Armstrong]

And the future of this whole drone thing is so fascinating, but like we were talking about with that group of numb nuts who wanted to attack Trump's UFC fight there in the White House lawn. At some point, whether it's isis, Al Qaeda or some homegrown terrorist nut job, somebody's going to pull off a drone attack and that's going to change everything. All of a sudden we're going to spend be spending money all over the place protecting things from drones. It's inevitable, really.

[Major Mike Lyons]

Armstrong and Getty.

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