Possible Ground Troops in Iran, Trump Speech Preview and The Slow-Motion Destruction of NATO

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Possible Ground Troops in Iran, Trump Speech Preview, and the Slow-Motion Destruction of NATO

Podcast: Bulwark Takes
Date: April 1, 2026
Hosts: Ben Parker & Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Mark Hertling
Episode Context: The Bulwark team convenes for a live “Command Post” edition to preview President Trump’s major address concerning Iran and NATO, analyze recent military developments, and discuss the wider implications for U.S. alliances and global standing.

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Episode Overview

The episode centers on the recent escalation in U.S.-Iran tensions, speculation about potential U.S. ground troop deployments in Iran, the preview of President Trump’s upcoming speech, and the broader consequences for NATO and America’s international alliances. Hosts Ben Parker and Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling break down the military, political, and diplomatic missteps leading the administration to this precarious moment.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why a Major Presidential Address Now?

• Background: The administration has been fluctuating between aggressive military posturing toward Iran and ambiguous end goals in the conflict.
• Live Timing Reason: A major speech was called for suddenly, prompting the Bulwark team to record a same-day live episode.

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2. The Feasibility and Logic of Ground Troops in Iran

• Military Commitments Overview

  • Deployment includes two Marine Expeditionary Units (~2,500 Marines each), carrier-based aircraft, helicopters, and a reinforced brigade from the 82nd Airborne Division.
  • Hertling’s analysis: These numbers are grossly insufficient for meaningful operations inside a country as large and complex as Iran.

• Mark Hertling:

  “Even that brigade level force... would not have been enough forces to conduct multiple operations. Even though... they can do a lot of missions. They can, but they can only do one at a time. This is not a large force.” [03:01]

  • Comparison to Iraq (2003): Nearly 200,000 troops invaded Iraq, a country a third the size of Iran, with much less complex terrain.
  • Iranian objectives on the U.S. wish list (opening the Strait of Hormuz, seizing islands, dismantling nuclear infrastructure, regime change) are far beyond what current U.S. deployments can achieve.

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3. Floundering Administration & Strategic Confusion

• Unclear Goals & Lack of Coordination:

  • The U.S. administration, says Parker, is “flailing”—toggling between hawkish strikes and talk of ceasefire or withdrawals without clear linkage to strategic outcomes.
  • Lack of consultation and coordination with Israeli and European allies.
  • Iranian regime’s resilience and willingness to absorb economic pain is underestimated.
  • The closure of the Strait of Hormuz remains unresolved, with only selective ship passage allowed via Iranian bribes.

• Ben Parker:

  “They thought they could bomb their way into regime change... Not exactly clear what they thought was going to happen. It doesn't look to me like they actually coordinated on strategy that closely with the Israelis...” [06:25]

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4. Historical Parallels to Strategic Miscalculation

• Rumsfeld vs. Shinseki & the Iraq Invasion:

  • Civilian optimism about “transformational” military led to underestimating force requirements and under-planning for post-war chaos.
  • General Shinseki warned about inadequate troop numbers, lack of civil affairs, and police/engineering support—a warning ignored to long-term detriment.

• Mark Hertling:

  “We went in as liberators and were soon found to be the enemy, the occupiers...” [13:54]

• Russian Failure in Ukraine (2022):

  • Russia’s overconfidence and underestimation of Ukrainian will and Western-trained capability serve as a warning for U.S. planners.

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5. Preview of Trump’s Speech & NATO Concerns

• Trump is expected to use the address to declare some form of “victory,” blame allies, and potentially amplify threats to withdraw the United States from NATO.

• Media interviews preview a hostile posture toward NATO:

  • Trump to the Telegraph:

    “I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they... were a paper tiger. And Putin knows that too, by the way...” [19:14]

  • With Reuters:

    “My disgust with NATO...” and “absolutely considering withdrawing the United States.”

• Legal & Practical Realities:

  • Actual withdrawal from NATO may require Congressional consent—precedent and legality are ambiguous.
  • Nevertheless, ongoing rhetoric already damages trust and stability among allies.

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6. Alliance Damage & Public Perception

• Erosion of Trust:

  • Trump’s shifting involvement with allies—demanding help after excluding them from planning, then blaming them for failures—is further weakening cooperation.
  • European sentiment is rapidly souring; a diplomat says,

  “Xi [Jinping] is more popular now than the United States.” [19:14]

• Deepening Structural Harm:

  • Hertling posits:

    “He has technically already violated the North Atlantic Treaty. One of the things it says is the allies will not threaten the use of force against each other. And how many times has Trump threatened the use of force—against Canada, against Denmark...?" [19:14]

• European Perspective on U.S. Leadership:

  • Europeans are shifting from blaming Trump to blaming the American people, a significant and unsettling evolution in U.S.-Europe relations.
    • “Now... we’re blaming the American people because you are the ones that are standing behind this guy. Why haven’t you done something about this?” [27:29]

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7. Is There Hope for the Transatlantic Alliance?

• Reasons for Enduring Connections:

  • Deep economic ties, cultural affinities, and shared values still bind the U.S. and Europe, even if damaged for now.
    • “At the working level, the relationships between American diplomats, their American security officials and their European counterparts are still very productive... The Americans... have no idea what's going on at the top.” [25:34]

• Need for Humility and Rebuilding Trust:

  • Recovery will require “a whole lot more humble” approach and more respect for partners.
    • “Americans are going to have to be a whole lot more humble, and they're going to have to be more respectful of others...” [31:50]

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8. The "Pyrrhic Victory" in Iran

• Strategic Cost of (Superficial) Success:

  • Even if the U.S. “wins” (degrades Iran for 5–10 years), the economic and alliance cost may leave America globally weaker in the contests that matter most (Russia, especially China).
    • “A Pyrrhic victory is where you win and you end up much weaker for it.” [32:58]

• Why Alliances Matter:

  • American security depends on global partnerships, especially in Europe and Asia.
  • Destabilizing these alliances for a partial win in Iran is self-defeating.

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9. Predictions for Trump’s Address

• Trump could either (a) announce a new major operation or (b) declare “victory” and start blaming others for lack of support.

• Likely outcomes: venting anger, blaming allies, attempting to shore up base support, and making contradictory policy announcements.

• Mark Hertling:

  “I personally think he's going to take the Roy Cohn approach that he's used so often, where he just said, we win, we won. Here's what we did. … We've destroyed all these things. We've won. We're pulling out. … I think... he's really going to use this speech to drive a much bigger wedge with our allies in Europe..." [38:01]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On troop deployments and mission ambiguity:

  “You can't name all the missions in one long list that the President and Secretary Rubio and Hegseth and others have talked about... Of those one or two missions, what kind of effect would it have?...” —Mark Hertling [05:10]

• On U.S. strategic incoherence:

  “Their idea of using violence... is completely unconnected from a theory of what they're actually trying to accomplish.” —Ben Parker [07:23]

• European shift in blame:

  “Now we're starting to blame the American people because you are the ones that are standing behind this guy.” —Anonymous Nordic Diplomat via Mark Hertling [27:29]

• On the future of alliances:

  “In order to take it back to where we used to be, it's going to have to be a little bit different. Americans are going to have to be a whole lot more humble…” —Mark Hertling [31:50]

• On what’s at stake:

  “When things go wrong politically and there are big wars or instability in Europe and East Asia, we've learned... the oceans are not moats that protect us, they are highways, and those problems come here.” —Ben Parker [33:26]

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Key Timestamps for Important Segments

| Timestamp | Segment | |-----------|---------------------------------------------------------------------| | 01:14 | Opening: Why this live episode? What’s the urgency? | | 03:01 | Hertling analyzes ground troop deployments, feasibility, purpose | | 06:02 | Parker details administration’s “flailing,” strategic confusion | | 13:54 | Hertling’s Pentagon/Iraq war comparison and troop-to-task failures | | 17:19 | Iran's regime resilience—can oil sanctions work? | | 18:56 | Preview of Trump’s expected speech and NATO withdrawal hints | | 19:14 | Trump’s public threats to NATO and European reactions | | 25:34 | U.S.-Europe working-level relations still functional | | 27:29 | European blame shifting—now blaming American people | | 32:17 | Nature of a “pyrrhic victory” in Iran: strategic losses | | 38:01 | Hertling and Parker’s predictions for Trump’s speech |

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Summary Takeaways

• The U.S. military build-up in the Gulf is insufficient for the goals publicly discussed and indicates a lack of clear strategy.
• Administration’s lack of coordination with allies is undermining both military and diplomatic objectives.
• Trump’s anticipated speech is expected to further strain alliances by blaming others for failures of coordination, with potential threats to NATO membership.
• The U.S. faces real reputational and structural damage in its alliances, with potential long-term consequences for American influence.
• There is deep concern among both hosts for the future of American alliances—but also hope that foundational ties and shared values could, with effort and humility, lead to repair over time.

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For more, visit the Bulwark and consider Bulwark+ membership for deeper analysis and reporting.

Transcript

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[Ben Parker]

Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwark.

[Mark Hertling]

And hi, I'm Mark Hertling, retired Lieutenant General, also from the Bulwark. And we're here with Command Post this morning, a special edition live.

[Ben Parker]

A special edition live. We were originally going to record this and put it out tomorrow, but then the President decided that he's making a major address tonight. And, and it's seems like it's going to be about some combination of Iran and NATO. So we thought we better preview that and talk through first the context of why he might be making a major address today and then what it all means because things are looking a little sporty, aren't they? General?

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, that's the word I would use as I've used so many other times before. It is a bit sporty the because I think it's fascinating how we went through the weekend with a lot of projections about what might happen in terms of combat come Monday morning. And what actually occurred was sort of a drawback and I'm hoping against hope that some of the advisors finally persuaded him that any kind of combat operations that was so rapidly and hastily planned for an invasion of a country that is so complex and so large, with a relatively small number of US Forces, ground forces, and not a whole lot of emphasis on preliminary planning and what comes next hopefully had dissuaded him from actually entering the Iranian sovereign territory.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah, you had a great article about this at the Bulwark. People can go see it@the bulwark.com Ground forces in Iran for what? And, and you talked through what's been reported in terms of American forces flowing into the region and trying to work through what the goal could be and why and what those forces could accomplish. So tell us a little bit more about the units that have been ordered there and what possible purpose they could serve.

[Mark Hertling]

Well, we looked at what we know, and granted we don't know everything, but when we're talking about the potential for two Marine Expeditionary Units, which have about 2,500 Marines, along with carrier aircraft and helicopters, and they can do some good things, but on a limited scale, they can seize territory, they can conduct amphibious landings, they can make sure that they have a specific target in mind. The BRIGADE from the 82nd Airborne Division out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina has somewhere between three and five thousand soldiers. And the reason I say that is because we don't know their reinforcements. A brigade normally has about 300, 3500 or so, but they would have been reinforced with more intelligence, more air defense, those kind of things whenever you go into a tactical mission like this. But even that brigade level force, along with the 82nd Airborne Tactical Command post from the division, would not have been enough forces to conduct multiple operations. Even though what we heard in the Secretary of Defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs press conference yesterday, they basically said, hey, they can do a lot of missions. They can, but they can only do one at a time. I mean, this is not a large force. When you consider there were close to 200,000 U.S. military, Marines and army that conducted the ground assault into Iran in 2003, into Iraq, into Iraq in 2003, putting a relatively small number into a country like Iran, which is three times as big as Iraq, with more complex terrain, would have been, in my view, from a military planning perspective, disastrous. And you can, even if you have a rudimentary knowledge of the kinds of things you would have to do with those forces, there are so many tasks that they would have to accomplish to, depending on the mission, open up the Straits of Hormuz, seize Kharg island, take other island chains that prevent ships from going in and out of the region, capture nuclear fissile material or bring it out of the country, maintain the potential for an eventual regime. I mean, you can't name all the missions in one long list that the President and Secretary Rubio and Hegseth and others have talked about over the last 30 days. So the question is, what are they going to do? And of the choices, you can only do one or two with the forces you have. And of those one or two missions, what kind of effect would it have from a campaign plan to reach a strategic objective that we still don't know about? So that's a very long explanation of why you consider. How do you use military forces in a way that achieves national ends.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah. And, you know, to zoom out and look at why this might be happening in the context of the war as it's been going on for well over a month now. I guess just over a month now. The administration is. My word, not yours, flailing. They thought they could.

[Mark Hertling]

I'll pick up on that word, too.

[Ben Parker]

Okay, great. They're failing.

[Mark Hertling]

Okay.

[Ben Parker]

They thought they could bomb their way into regime change, regime capture, choosing the next supreme leader. Not exactly clear what they thought was going to happen. It doesn't look to me like they actually coordinated on strategy that closely with the Israelis, who, at least early on were doing most of the bombing and a slight majority of the bombing. So the Israelis were killing all the people that the Trump administration maybe wanted to negotiate with. They did not plan for Iran to be able to close the Strait of Hormuz, even though that was obviously something they were going to try to do, something that Iran has basically been threatening to do for 40 years or more. They have not been able to open the Strait of Hormuz. This is to say the. The American military has not been able to open the Strait of Hormuz to the satisfaction of the oil shipping companies and their insurers. So the straight basically remains closed, except for these specific ships that Iran lets through, because they get paid in. In money.

[Mark Hertling]

Right.

[Ben Parker]

They get. They take bribes, essentially. And so the administration is trying to figure out, well, I don't know, what else can we do? Trump specifically threatened to take Harg island, which is where most of the Iranian oil exports come from. But Harg island is a long way from the Strait of Hormuz. And to reinforce it, you would basically have to go through the Strait of Hormuz, which doesn't make a lot of sense. You could try to open the Strait of Hormuz, but to do that, you'd have to take a bunch of islands, which is tough, and then you'd have to take part of the Iranian mainland, and then we still haven't completely succeeded in preventing the Iranians from firing off missiles and drones. So that problem would have to be solved. Meanwhile, Trump is vacillating back and forth between, maybe we'll do a ceasefire, maybe we'll pull out, we're going to reopen the trade of Hormuz. No, actually, we're not. Maybe we'll just leave it and it'll be up to other people. They have no idea what they're doing, because their idea of using Violence is, as you have written many times, is completely unconnected from a theory of what they're actually trying to accomplish. And so it's Trump is going to make some sort of major announcement tonight. But for the life of me, I can't figure out whether he's going to announce a major new operation with ground troops in Iran or he's going to announce that he's declaring victory and leaving victory right in massive scare quotes. Because like these are both to me equally nonsensical. And I have no idea how you win at this point a war like this because I don't know, I would

[Mark Hertling]

tend to lean toward that as well, Ben, that, that he is going to declare victory tonight and at the same time start insulting other people for not helping him. And we'll get into that in a minute. But, but going back to your comment about, you know, what they were trying to do, I'm 100% convinced that the president was so enamored with, with other operations that he has conducted both in his first term and in this term to include the Venezuela strike, which was a relatively, you know, I don't want to say it was simple because it was a very difficult operation conducted by special operators and air force and shutting down a country. But you know, whenever you plan for a major assault, you always should be doing as a military planner, your action, what the enemy's reaction is going to be, then your counteraction to that reaction and a counter, counter action to the counteraction. You see where this is going. I'm not sure that kind of thing had been planned when we were talking about a major air naval campaign that was designed to bomb Iran into oblivion and take away all their stockpiles of ballistic missiles and perhaps even nuclear capabilities. So when those things were part of the initial planning of this kind of air campaign, I'm not sure if there was an action, reaction, counteraction planning scenario that was conducted. I'm sure the military did it. But the question then becomes, and this is where I have doubts, did those who were doing the planning, the red teaming, the war gaming for this kind of action, were they allowed to present it as dangerous results to the president so that he had a full understanding of what might happen, or was he so convinced of what he's seen in the past that he was ready to literally go for broke in Iran and was he persuaded to do the same thing by the Israeli governments? I think the, there's another factor we've got to consider that late last week, there were a lot of Gulf nations to include Saudi Arabia who were saying, hey, you haven't finished it yet. Keep going, keep going, keep going. And I think you and I have talked about this before because when other nations press you to keep going and you're stuck with holding the baggage afterwards, it becomes diplo, you know, diplomatically unsound. But, but also it's because those other nations don't want to do it, especially nations like Saudi Arabia and even Israel to a lesser degree. I mean, Israel is very happy with destroying a good portion of Iran and preventing any kind of action against them by the Iranians and their proxies. But they don't have to solve the problem of what comes next. And this giant gaping hole that's in the Middle east that has to do with a dysfunctional Iranian government more so now than it was before the war started.

[Ben Parker]

That's exactly right. You made a couple comparisons in your article of the Bulwark and if people want to read that they can go to the bulbourg.com and consider becoming a Bulwark+member. You'd really be supporting us doing all these kinds of things. You know, that's how we get to do this for our living and bringing this kind of coverage. You made a couple of comparisons where people had gotten the troop to task ratio wrong. They had misunderstood the kind of force they needed for an operation. One was the American military in Iraq after 2003 where there was a, there was a disagreement at the top. I remember between, I remember, I mean I read about it between the Secretary of Defense and General Eric Shinseki about how many troops we would actually need to invade Iraq in 2003. So let's talk about that. And then we could talk about a much more recent example. The the Russians in Ukraine in 2022.

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[Mark Hertling]

well what happened in 2003 and I, I happened to be. It was my one time in the Pentagon as a member of the Joint staff and in fact I was the, the J, the Vice J7 and the Acting J7 because my boss at Three Star Marine had left for Turkey for a mission. And I saw this close up and personal and I watched General Shinseki's testimony before Congress and what happened was the Secretary of Defense, the civilian leadership within the department was claiming because of all the transformational efforts we had made in the military, we were so good that we wouldn't have to repeat desert storm with 500,000 forces lined up to go into Iraq like we did in 1991. Unfortunately, when you calculate based on assumptions about how good your force is, you're, you're not really doing the troop to task relationship. What kind of things do we anticipate happening again? It's the action reaction, okay, the government's going to fall. The Iraqi people are going to welcome us into Baghdad with open arms. But then what? Well then you have to re. Establish a government after 30 years of dictatorial reign by Saddam Hussein. You have to include a police force. You have to bring the army of the Iraq's, the Iraqi army on board. None of those things happen because of decisions within the civilian leadership. So truthfully, for the next 15 years or so we were stuck with a tar baby. And it was horrible. I served a couple of tours there. Sons and daughters in law served a couple of tours there. And it was because of early chaos within the population and the government. We went in as liberators and were soon found to be the enemy, the occupiers because of some of the things we did. You look at the same thing and it was because General Shinseki said you don't have the civil affairs forces, you don't have the military police, you don't have the engineers to rebuild some of the things you just have a fighting force. And Secretary Rumsfeld's answer to that was, well, we'll be sweeping in and we'll be out in six weeks or so. Sound familiar? Same thing with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. There was a haughty 190 million, or, excuse me, 190,000 forces, Russian forces surrounding Ukraine in 2022. And everybody in the world thought, oh, my gosh, they're going to overwhelm the Ukrainian army. The problem is you have to consider will and you have to consider the capability of each force. The Ukrainian force had been trained in Western methods over the last couple of years, and the Russian force was deteriorating and was built on corruption. And they failed. They have failed miserably. And in fact, there's a great article on the Bulwark this morning about how it was a great week for the Ukrainians because they have succeeded beyond any expectation. And the last month has been even better. So we're seeing the potential for will to overcome resources. And I think that's what the Iranians would have. They would have an awful lot of will because they are experiencing the potential for an existential threat to their society and to their. And to their country.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah, I think that's certainly true of the regime. They, this is sort of the big one that they've been waiting for. And they really, you know, they're willing to. I think this is. Gets it. You know, Trump is threatening Hog Island. Right. I'll cut, I'll cut you off from your oil and your revenue. I'm not sure that's really hitting this regime where it hurts. They've been willing to starve and deprive the Iranian people for generations to do things like build a nuclear weapons program and finance international terrorism. I don't think they really care that much about revenue as long as they can stay afloat. Financially.

[Mark Hertling]

If I could a war story on that, because in my last tour In Iraq, in 2007 and 8, I was in northern Iraq, and we were responsible for, and I use that term loosely over watching both the Kurdish oil fields and helping them produce oil, but also the Beijing oil refinery, which was in the middle, Iraq's biggest oil refinery, which was in the middle of my area of operation. We bombed it to smithereens as the US forces back in 2003 during the early invasion to cut off oil supplies. It was still faltering. There were still problems there, but the Iraqi government was trying to build it up. And what was interesting is Al Qaeda terrorists decided that was probably a good means to get money, too. So they were fighting us tooth and nail to take charge of the oil facilities in Beijing right outside of Chikri. So these are the kind of things that, again, going back to the action reaction drill, that you have to consider whenever you conduct military operations inside of A country.

[Ben Parker]

So we should get to previewing Trump's speech tonight because it seems like it's not really going to be about Iran all that much. So it's hard to predict. But it's not going to be about these tough questions you and I have been talking about. It's going to be about lashing out at our friends and allies who, after being, Let me see if I can get this straight, first invited to participate in the attack on Iran after it was already starting, but not consulted beforehand, were then told by the administration or by Trump specifically, no, actually, we don't want your help. And now are being castigated again by Trump for not helping. Let's see if we can pull up. Well, we see. Let's see if we can pull up the, the, the Telegraph article. Can we do that, Matt? So this is an interview Trump had with the Telegraph this morning, saying he's strongly considering pulling the United States out of NATO. He says this consider he's considering it, but it's beyond reconsideration. This is the real just oh my God. Quote, I was never swayed by NATO. I always knew they, they interesting were a paper tire. And Putin knows that too, by the way, which I think gives away a lot of where he's getting his ideas about NATO. And if we could pull up the Reuters bit too. Now this is an interview with Reuters. Trump says his speech tonight will express, quote, my disgust with NATO. He is absolutely considering withdrawing the new United States from NATO. If I can just monologue for a second here, I had a quick hit in our Morning Shots newsletter this morning. You can subscribe again@the bullwork.com it's not entirely clear Trump can legally withdraw from NATO unilaterally. And they there was a law a couple years ago drafted by Marco Rubio, fun fact. That prevents the administration from withdrawing from NATO without approval of the Senate or an act of Congress. It's not entirely clear that's constitutional. The Constitution says what's required to get into a treaty. It doesn't specify what's required to get out of a treaty. So at the very least, that would be a question the courts have to decide. But I think the bigger point here is that Trump doesn't need to formally leave NATO to destroy NATO. He has technically already violated the North Atlantic Treaty. One of the things it says is the allies will not threaten the use of force against each other. And how many times has Trump threatened the use of force, I mean against Canada, against Denmark, by threatening to take Greenland. It's he has already violated the North Atlantic Treaty. Just by saying he might pull out, he is weakening the trust on which that alliance is based. And, you know, I was, I was speaking to a European diplomat from what had formerly been a very pro American country in general. And I, you know, I'd seen some of the polls about how support for the United States has really collapsed in Europe. And I said, you know, how, how deep is that? How enduring is that? Are people just angry at Trump or is really a reevaluation of the United States? And the diplomat said, Xi, as in Xi Jinping, is more popular now than the United States. That's how much things have changed. So this is bad. I mean, this is really, really bad. We, we called it Trump's slow motion destruction of NATO in the, in, in the video description, but it's actually kind of fast, right? He came back to office just over a year ago, and already North Atlantic Treaty Organization is not what it was and probably never quite will be again.

[Mark Hertling]

But what I'd say, and you know me, Ben, you know that I'm not a conspiracy, conspiracy theorist, but I'm even thinking that there's a small percentage chance that this might be a diabolical plot connecting between, well, I won't even say it between our president and the president of Russia, because I remember back to February of 22, when Russia invaded Ukraine. And one of the things I was asked to do when I was working for CNN was to give the military campaign plan of what the Russians were doing. In order to do that, you have to first understand what the political end states are of that other country. For the most part, that happens with Russia for people who actually have political end states. But what I determined was that there were five strategic objectives from Mr. Putin. The first four, which I won't go into, had to do with what he was trying to do in Ukraine. The last one was to continue to divide NATO and the United States in terms of their thoughts about supporting anything that's going on in Europe. Mr. Putin has been radically successful in that, and he's been more successful in the last year than any at any other time as we've withdrawn support for Ukraine, as there's been a constant dynamic involved of supporting Russia as opposed to Ukraine in peace talks. And this one is probably the best example of that yet, because suggesting that we would withdraw from NATO provides Mr. Putin just an unbelievable advantage in terms of what he might do next with Russian forces. Now, that's all in the future. But the very fact that we're saying something like that, and that no one in Congress is standing up to the President by saying Europe is key to not only our economic dynamics but also our political and military dynamics is just beyond me. And for the president to do that when he didn't include any NATO nations as he conceived, planned and executed the operation in Iran, he did it in a vacuum, without the approval of Congress or the American people and with consulting allies. And, and then suddenly, within days of the operations starting to flail, using your words, he started asking for the kinds of things that NATO forces provide, minesweepers, special operations forces, the Marine, the kinds of things that an alliance pulls together to build in coordination with one another. And when they didn't deliver because they hadn't been let in on the plan, he started the campaign of disrespect. And I think we're going to see that come to a head tonight, which is really, really unfortunate.

[Ben Parker]

You know, I think some of those things that you mentioned are reasons not entirely to despair of the transatlantic alliance. Also, you know, I'm sure you could, I know you could speak to this. We've talked about it on command post before. But one of the things this European diplomat said to me is that at the working level, the relationships between American diplomats, their American security officials and their European counterparts are still very productive, very professional, cordial even. It's just that the Americans at the working level have no idea what's going on at the top. There's just no connection between what the administration is doing, or rather I should say what Trump and his circle are doing and what the rest of the government is doing. They just don't know.

[Bretzky]

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[Ben Parker]

Which makes this relationship very difficult.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, I had a very interesting. You had a conversation with someone from Europe, too. And I didn't share this with you before, but I had one the other day as well. And in this particular conversation with someone from the Nordic countries, you know, we were talking about a lack of information about this entire operation and what the president was asking NATO members to do. And this individual said, you know, for the last year and for the first administration, we were. We as Europeans, or at least his circle of friends, were blaming it on the president and the administration. But he then said. And it was something that shocked me. Now we're starting to blame the American people because you are the ones that are standing behind this guy. Why haven't you done something about this? He said, when we have problems with people like Berlusconi or some of the other European leaders like Orban that were trying to say this guy is out of control, the people normally do something about it. Now they're seeing the smattering of no kings protest and all that. But they. There are many Europeans right now that have become of the opinion that he is us. And we've breached that transition point between being someone we've elected that's doing crazy things versus well, that's just the way the Americans are. So I'm concerned about our reputation as a citizenry now.

[Ben Parker]

I'm tremendously concerned about that. And I want to get back to the future of the transatlantic alliance. This is a big part of it, you know, partially. I think I can't blame them. We elected this guy twice. We nearly elected him, you know, in 2020. Again, if, maybe. If not for Covid, he would have gotten reelected. On the one hand, you just can't blame them for thinking that we made this choice as a people. On the other hand, he never got a majority of the popular vote. He has never really been popular. Sort of net. Net. He's not a popular president. The no kings protests have been, by some counts, the biggest protests in American history. And things could change dramatically after the midterms. The problem is right now we've got a. A Congress that sees itself more as just a staple for cable news than as an actual, I would say, the preeminent governing branch, right, the one that comes first in the Constitution and has most of the power. That could change after the midterms. I hope it does. But the other reasons I think there are reasons to be a little bit maybe not optimistic, but not to despair about the transatlantic alliance is that you mentioned some of the other things that make American alliance with Europe sort of natural or as IR scholars might say, structural, which is they are huge trading partners of ours, which really makes a difference. Not to say, you know, people don't. People can have adversarial relationships with their trading partners. Just look at us in China. But they're, they're. They're very close trading partners with Us, which does just make those links a little bit closer, makes sort of just general friendship a little bit likelier. There are a lot of cultural links, and of course, a lot of that, you know, can change and whatever cultures can diverge and converge. But it actually does matter that a lot of Americans trace their ancestry back to Europe in one way or another. That that kind of thing just matters does. And it matters that a lot of Americans travel to Europe. The number of Europeans traveling to America has declined a huge amount, year or so. But, you know, when Americans want to go on vacation and see interesting parts of the world, London, Paris and Rome are right at the top of the list. Again, that could change, but I think that those things do make a difference, but it'll never be the same like it was.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, I'm gonna. I'm gonna brag a little bit when, during my 12 years in Europe, you know, I had a chance. There are 49 different countries in Europe. During my last job as the commander of US Army Europe, I traveled to about 38 of them, many of them on multiple occasions to enter to. To exchange, engage with those nations military leaders, and primarily to help provide support for ISAF in Afghanistan, because the majority of nations that were providing forces to the international security forces came out of Europe. And what I'll tell you is, yeah, there are not only those things you mentioned, but a shared sense of values. And even though the cultures are different in every single country and they're all phenomenal to investigate and travel with and eat and drink for your country in some of those countries, truthfully, they are phenomenal people. And they think, much like we do, about different things. The rule of law, freedom of people, the individual rights of human beings, and respect for one another for the most part. So we share all those things with them as well, much like we do with many of our Asian partners on the other coast, truthfully. So these are all the things that I think we should consider. We can go back, Ben. And I've been thinking about this a lot, but in order to take it back to where we used to be, it's going to have to be a little bit different. Americans are going to have to be a whole lot more humble, and they're going to have to be more respectful of others as we try and recover from some of the things we've seen over the last couple of years.

[Ben Parker]

Well, I think that is a. That gets right into the last point I wanted to make, which is, I think the best case scenario for the war in Iran is a pyrrhic victory. And here's what I mean by that. I'm defining victory here as just. We severely degraded the potential of a. Of a country that has caused a lot of pain and hardship in the world. And to us specifically to do that for at least a while. And if you want to count that as a victory to say Iran is a big problem and now for five to 10 years, it won't be as big a problem. Great. You can count that as victory if you want. But one of the things we love to do on command post is zoom out and take a global view. And a Pyrrhic victory is where you win and you end up much weaker for it.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah.

[Ben Parker]

And if you want to know why America has special alliance relationships in two parts of the world, in Western Europe and in East Asia, it's because a, those are the parts of the world that are right across the ocean from us. It's because those are the most productive economic parts of the world outside the United States. That's where most of our trade comes from. It's where a lot of our people come from. And if you look at the history of American foreign policy, where Americans come from has a huge influence on the kind of foreign policy we have, you know, immigrant groups, but also, you know, many generations later, just cultural affinities. When things go wrong politically and there are big wars or instability in Europe and East Asia, we have learned through hard and bitter experience that it doesn't stay on the other side of the ocean, that the oceans are not moats that protect us, they are highways, and that those problems come here. So we have very special alliance relationships with Japan, South Korea, Australia, the Philippines, Thailand, and on the other side with. With our NATO allies in Europe. And.

[Mark Hertling]

And if I could add one, Vietnam, yes, is a very special relationship right now, too. A country we were fighting in my youth.

[Ben Parker]

That's right.

[Mark Hertling]

Go ahead. I'm sorry. No.

[Ben Parker]

And it's for exactly this reason that John McCain of all people, championed our relationship with Vietnam. Because it's very important for us to be able to maintain stability and good relations with these specific parts of the world in the future. When my grandkids are my age, or maybe even sooner, it might be that that's more Southeast Asia and Africa, where all the population growth is going to be. That doesn't have to be the case in Europe and East Asia forever, but it is now. And the fact that we are throwing so much energy and so much military force, which we are expending in terms of munitions and so much political capital into dealing just with Iran in a way that's going to make us weaker because of the damage it's doing not only to our economy but to our alliance relationships. When we want to deal with bigger problems like Russia and especially China, it is a Pyrrhic victory. Sure, we can degrade Iran, and that's great. And I am not going to send, not going to shed a single tear for the Iranian regime. But overall, it's making us weaker. And Trump is helping because if we, he does what we expect tonight and he complains that, you know, the war he started on a whim is not going well and it's all the fault of our friends and allies, man.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, we, we have then created chasms between not just Iran and the US but also most of the people in the Middle east because they are all turning against us because we're not finishing the job and we're leaving them with a mess to. We are going to insult Europe and even the Asian nations are experiencing some economic hardships beyond the pale that aren't being reported in the US Media just yet. I'm sure Katherine Rampel is going to jump all over that pretty soon. But, Ben, let's end this by. You're one of the smartest guys I know. Let me ask you a question. What do you see happening tonight? What's the outline of the speech tonight?

[Ben Parker]

You know, I really, it's impossible to

[Mark Hertling]

predict Trump really, let's say with a 50% probability. I'll give you an out if it doesn't happen.

[Ben Parker]

Okay, let me, let me tell you this. I would say what Trump says tonight really matters. When the president of the United States, whoever it is, speaks to the country from the White House, from the Oval Office, especially about matters of foreign policy. And the entire world is listening to every word that really matters. But also, it doesn't mean in this case, it's actual policy. Trump may really want just to vent his frustration and they might have figured, ok, we'll let him. But we know this administration and he could say, I hate NATO and they're the worst and they've been free riding on us for years. And I'm pulling out. You can make this big announcement today and it's possible we could never hear anything else about it. It's possible. Marco Rubio then goes to Brussels a month from now and gives another speech that everyone applauds. And the Europeans keep on sort of pretending that they still want to be in alliance with us while figuring out ways not to be, which is Sort of what I see happening. You know, I would say the 50% probability is that what Trump says tonight actually bears on the real policy of his administration. Because I'm not, I'm really just not sure I know how the President feels. But I also know that he is uniquely incapable, I'd say, of carrying forward some of his ideas when he kind of just gets distracted or doesn't want to.

[Mark Hertling]

Yeah, I, I personally think he's going to take the Roy Cohn approach that he's used so often, where he just said, we win, we won. Here's what we did. Here are the statistics my chairman of the Joint Chiefs are giving us. We've destroyed all these things. We've won. We're pulling out. I think he'll repeat the mantra of nations just going in on their own accord and taking oil that they need because we're okay. We've got our, our oil supplies that we can use. So you guys got to figure it out. And I think that's going to cause a little bit more chaos in the markets, which is something he relies on to judge his popularity. But I think the third thing is he is going to be, in my view, 50% chance, or maybe better, that he is really going to use this speech to drive a much bigger wedge with our allies in Europe and perhaps even some in the Middle East. And it's going to contribute to his national security strategy and the national defense strategy of reframing things for the Western Hemisphere, and that we did our job by knocking some of their weaponry out, and that's all we needed to do. Now we're out of there. The question is going to be, what are you going to do with the military? I don't think he'll address the military force that's there right now, other than to say, like he always does, they're coming home in two weeks. And two weeks will turn into two months and longer. But I'm trying to calculate what is in this speech tonight, what will appeal to not only his base to shore up what the base that he's losing, but perhaps can gain people back that will support him. And right now, I think it's pretty far gone in terms of support from the nation for this kind of operation. So I'm not sure what he's going to say, but I think there's going to be a lot of vented anger tonight.

[Ben Parker]

I think that's right. I think you can always bet on Trump venting some anger. That seems to be his one constant. You know, I, we, we didn't specify that we were answering a bunch of audience questions, but I saw some coming in as we're doing this and some came in over email that I think we answered. Brian specifically, I think we answered your question. I know we got one. Live from Kel D67 I think we answered some questions. You can send your questions to command post@the bulbourg.com we will try to answer them even if some of us forget to specify that we're answering your questions during the course of the live stream. But please send them and we will try to address them. The the news moves so fast sometimes it's hard to but general, thanks so much for doing this.

[Mark Hertling]

Thank you Ben. It's appreciate it. And we'll see you probably later today.

[Ben Parker]

Yeah. See you tonight. Okay.

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