← Bulwark Takes
Loading summary
Transcript89 lines
- [00:01]
Mark Hertling
If you're into tech, you'll love this. TikTok is a live lab where users post instant reviews of the latest trends. Download TikTok and check it out.
- [00:16]
Ben Parker
Yes you can.
- [00:17]
Mark Hertling
A five minute quick and easy calorie burning workout. Give it a try.
- [00:22]
Jake Stauch
Come join our sweat sesh on TikTok.
- [00:27]
Ben Parker
Hi, I'm Ben Parker from the Bulwark.
- [00:29]
Mark Hertling
And hi, I'm Mark Hertling from the Bulwark.
- [00:32]
Ben Parker
Welcome back to another episode of Command Post. We're basically to be talking about the same things again today. What's going on in Iran and what's going on in Europe. What's going on in Europe really has not gotten a lot of enough attention both what's happening in Ukraine and also what our own military announcements have been lately. So we're going to talk about that. But first, General, we got to start off with an Iran update. We've had conflicting reports these last two days. The first was a couple days ago it was reported that NATO was going to come to the rescue and they were going to the cavalry was going to ride in over the horizon and open up the Strait of Hormuz. And then this morning, I think we have a screenshot of the producer. Matt can pull it up of the report, Margaret, the Secretary general of NATO saying, no, we're not, we're not going to do that. Yeah.
- [01:19]
Mark Hertling
What I'd say to this, Ben, this is really fascinating to watch because the president, President Trump continue insult NATO for not coming to the rescue and then he changes his tune. But truthfully, you know, one of the talking points he's used is, hey, we've helped NATO for 80 years and we're asking for their help now and they're not going to give it to us. But this is not the kind of thing NATO was built for. And when I say that, you know, Ruda has already clearly signaled that NATO is not preparing a collective naval operation in the, in the Gulf. They, they are designed NATO is designed primarily for collective defense in the Euro Atlantic region, although they have done out of theater operations. But there's also a practical issue. I think Ruta probably understands that the United States Navy, the most capable naval force in the world, is hesitant to escalate its own direct maritime role. Why would he, as the NATO Sec. Gen. Ask European nations to rush into this more dangerous mission, especially given the European armies are already supporting Ukraine, rebuilding their own militaries, improving their gdp, managing Baltic and Arctic security, and dealing with migration and domestic political pressures. So NATO certainly sees the Strait of Hormuz as strategically, critically, strategically critical, rather. But, but that doesn't automatically trigger a NATO mission. A NATO mission is triggered by an attack on one, is an attack on all. This is us, the United States, attacking other countries. Now, NATO may provide intelligence sharing, some maritime surveillance or participation by various nations that sign up to do this, but that's very different from the declaring a formal NATO operation of the 32 different countries.
- [03:23]
Ben Parker
Yeah. Ruta said that there are sort of informal talks among the allies. This is the kind of operation, and we've talked about the complications operating in Strait of Hormuz before. This is the kind of operation that maybe would have made sense if we had done. If we had planned it out beforehand and we had talked to our allies, we said, hey, you know, what might be useful in the Strait of Hormuz is some minesweeping capacity. You know, who has mine sweeping capacity is our allies. Maybe we should talk to them about working together from the start. It doesn't make sense now if the US Navy is only very carefully sort of tiptoeing into the Strait of Hormuz for the NATO nations that do not have the same kind of naval capacity, that don't have the same kind of capacity to operate far from their home ports for extended periods, like we do, to come in now and say, oh, don't worry, we're going to clean up your mess. It's certainly a problem for them, but I just, Look, I'm not a naval expert, but I just don't see how they could do it well.
- [04:16]
Mark Hertling
But it goes beyond the naval piece, Ben. You know, this is a broader issue, that coalition warfare requires consultation and trust, you know, and we've broken trust with NATO. I don't think anyone can debate that. We're going to. I think we're going to talk about that later on.
- [04:34]
Ben Parker
Oh, yeah.
- [04:34]
Mark Hertling
But, you know, from the standpoint of just viewing how the allies have been disrespected by this administration and the stumble into this operation and a lack of strategy and a lack of communication, you just can't surprise allies diplomatically and military and then expect immediate military participation. It just doesn't work that way. And anyone with common sense knows, or anyone that's worked in either the military alliance field or the diplomatic field knows all that. So it's really kind of distressing to watch, you know, not only the fumbling around, but also the continuing insulting of countries that we've been pulling together for the last 80 years.
- [05:20]
Ben Parker
You know, if I could think of the job, the one job in the world that I think I'd least like to have. It's, it would probably be as like a head accountant for a military force, because I'm thinking about it like this. The, the Trump administration is berating our NATO allies, saying, you have to spend 5% of GDP on defense, which, by the way, we don't even do.
- [05:41]
Mark Hertling
Yeah, we don't, we don't spend half of that in Europe. We spend, on average, 3.2%. There are no countries in NATO, even though President Trump keeps saying that they're all reaching 5%. There are no countries reaching 5%. The closest is Poland. And I think we're going to talk about that in a minute, and we're going to talk about that disrespected.
- [06:05]
Ben Parker
So if I, if I, if I am, you know, the head of accounting for some European military force, I'm saying, okay, the Americans really want US to spend 5% of GDP on defense. So, you know, we have our budget projections and we have a certain amount of money allocated to the military. And I want to spend that money on recruitment because that we have more people in the force and training those people. And I want to get some new technologies like drones and counter drones that are really important that we haven't bought enough of. And I want to make sure all the stuff that we have is well maintained and ready to fight. So it's not, you know, flat tires and broken tank treads. And also now President is saying, no, no, no, also send your navy to the state of Hormuz. Well, where is that money coming from? How am I supposed to spend 5% of my GDP on defense for things that, like, are actually a threat to my country? If the President is saying, well, now just, you know, send an extra ship or two to the Strait of Hormuz, parentheses, who knows what's going to happen to it? But also, you have to pay the people on the ship, and there's wear and tear on the ship, and you have to buy fuel, which is now very expensive. I mean, it just, it puts these people in an impossible position. Our allies. It is. It puts our allies in an impossible position.
- [07:18]
Mark Hertling
Well, and I keep going back to the fact that when we're talking about national security, it's very different than from talking about our national security and what we want to do versus imposing the same kind of requirements on other countries who have their own concerns and their own populations to deal with. And in many of the NATO countries, there are some real interesting tensions between the various governmental approaches to what people want to do, between one Party and another in any. Pick any country. And, you know, the politicians in all of those other NATO countries are all walking a fine line between pleasing their population and contributing to a military event which they didn't start. So it just. It just doesn't make sense. And that's the thing that continues to come back and, and haunt us on this.
- [08:13]
Ben Parker
Meanwhile, they have a war going on in their backyard. And what are the Americans been saying? Not our problem. You solve it, Europe. So rebuild your own military so that you're responsible for your own defense, and you're now responsible for Ukraine's defense. But we want you to buy American weapons and help us out in the Strait of Hormuz. Oh, and by the way, we said we were going to talk about this too, so might as well throw it in now. There was just a drone warning over Vilnius. Not super clear what it was, but Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, not that far from Russia, borders Belarus, which militarily is basically an extension of Russia. So, you know, the Europeans are worried about Russian drones. We've had Russian drone incursions in Poland and, and other NATO countries. I think Romania too, at one point, or maybe that was missiles. Moldova, yeah. The Europeans are being pulled in all sorts of directions. They are finally, after years, I mean, after years of American encouragement, decades, really under multiple administrations, they are finally really spending on their defense, partially because they take the threat of Putin and Russia seriously and partially because they can't trust the Americans anymore. And we're saying, oh, now, never mind. We don't want you just to take care of Ukraine and yourselves. We also want you to take care of Hormuz for us. I mean, what are they supposed to do?
- [09:28]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. Can I tell a quick story about Vilnius, if you don't mind?
- [09:31]
Ben Parker
Please do.
- [09:32]
Mark Hertling
I spent as the commander, U.S. army of Europe. I spent a lot of time in the Baltic countries because they were just beginning to form after several decades under the Soviet thumb. Vilnius, especially During January of 1991, while we were engaged in Operation Desert Storm, which sucked all the life out of our media watching us. You know, all three of the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were all pushing against the Russians who were trying to reestablish basically an occupation force in their country. I visited Vilnius one day in 2011, and, you know, after you do your normal embassy stuff and, you know, work with the militaries, they usually treat a commander like me at the time to a cultural exchange. So they had this young woman kind of touring me around the capital of Vilnius, a capital city of about 800,000 people, which, by the way, the entire population of Vilnius is I think around two and a half million or so. 2.8 million.
- [10:43]
Ben Parker
The entire population, Lithuania?
- [10:44]
Mark Hertling
Yeah, yeah, I'm sorry, Lithuania. But vilnius is about 800,000. So that's a sizable part of the country that lives in the capital. Anyway, this young woman was telling me and I asked the question, so what makes Lithuanians different? And she said, we're highly religious, we're very patriotic, and we won't let anybody push us around after the 1991 revolution. And I said, what are you talking about? Because I wasn't aware of it. I hadn't been spun up as much as I should have been. She told me a story about her father in the middle of the town square of Vilnius when the Russian tanks came in and his foot was run over by a tank. His buddies carried him back to his house. He was recovering for a couple of hours. And then, you know, this woman who was telling me this said she was about 8 years old at the time. And she said suddenly he popped up and said, okay, let's go back. His wife grabbed him and said, what are you doing? You had three children, you almost died out there. You have to, you have to consider your family. And he said, it's because I'm considering my family. I have to go out and face the Russians. And they pushed him out, as did the other two Baltic states. So this is a country that understands the Russian threat and they've seen cyber threats, GPS jamming, sabotage, airspace incursion. We have a Baltic air policing force out of NATO that makes sure Russian aircraft don't fly over the country. Uninhibited and intimidation. And now they're getting, no kidding, drones flying over. So this is not a theoretical conflict for any of these people in the Baltic states or for that matter, all of Europe.
- [12:30]
Ben Parker
Yeah, absolutely not. And you know, I'll just add, when I was in grad school, I, for one of the classes I was taking, I did sort of a little mock up study of what a potential battle between Russia and NATO in the Baltic Sea would look like. Because this is right as Sweden and Finland were joining NATO. And you know, as much, you can't, you can't predict anything, but you can, you know, add up what, you know, everyone has and, you know, figure out, you know, and the answer is, I said, okay, assume that the big NATO navies, starting with the Americans, but also the French and British, are occupied somewhere else, like Strait of Hormuz, for example. I didn't say that, but, you know, for example.
- [13:10]
Mark Hertling
Yeah.
- [13:11]
Ben Parker
What would a battle between NATO and the Russian Black Sea fleet, sorry, Baltic Sea fleet look like? And of course is not possible to predict. But basically what I found is NATO has a very sizable advantage. The addition of Sweden and Finland was huge. Sweden has a, by NATO standards, a pretty impressive submarine fleet, which matters a lot. The. That, that is the kind of thing that the NATO navies are prepared for and have been preparing for and are designed for to sail the Swedish submarines all the way to the Strait of Hormuz. I mean, that's not what they're preparing for. Their focus on the Russian threat, which is exactly what the administration said they should be doing. You take care of European security. That's not our problem anymore. But like, it's like they want Europe to be the superpower, but also they want to antagonize them. Right. They want Europe in charge of Europe and the Middle east and Ukraine, and they don't want to be friends with them. Like, how does that make any sense?
- [14:06]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. Well, I'll add one more thing to that, that, you know, having been a cold warrior for about 20 years of my career and then turned into, you know, theater Secur security cooperation guy on the western flank of Lithuania and why Vilnius is so important is a little place called Kaliningrad. That is where the Russian Baltic Sea Fleet, an air command and Marine command from the Russian military forces live, close to 500,000 of them. They're on the western side of NATO. And that little thing you were talking about is called the Suwalki Gap. And it's, it is replaced the Fulda Gap as the place most NATO members feel that if Russia attacks and tries to split the alliance, it will be from Belarus through the Suwalki Gap, which is about 30 miles long, into Lithuania. And, and again, that's what you just said. That's their problem right now. They're looking at defensive measures against their own, against Russia when they're trying to attack their own country, which they plan on doing. And Russia has had this on the books for a long time.
- [15:21]
Ben Parker
So believe it or not, this was supposed to be the Iran segment of the show. Being who we are, we started immediately talking about Europe, which we're going to do more in the second half of the show. But we shouldn't, we shouldn't move on before we address this story. That I think is just yet another example of the differences between having good tactics and good operational art and real strategy, which is that the, this is reported, I think, by the New York Times that the Israelis, in the beginning of this Iran war, originally planned to install Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the Iranian leader to succeed Khamenei and the others that the Israelis killed. If you remember Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it may be because he was almost a comically evil figure when he was president of Iran in the sort of late 2000, early 20 teens. My clearest memory of him, apart from being vicious and Holocaust denier, someone once described his political views as the Holocaust. Never happened, but this time, we're going to do it right. Yeah, but he also, I. He was invited to speak at Columbia University. I don't know if you remember this. He gave a speech at Columbia University in which he made the claim that there were no gay men in Iran. I'm trying to remember if I remember this clearly. And people started laughing because it's such a ridiculous claim that in a country of, you know, whatever it is, 80, 90 million people, there's not a single gay man. And he thought the laughter was support. And so he kept on saying it again and again and again. It was a bizarre. He's a bizarre dude. He also apparently is a fan of Donald Trump, or at least tweeted like that. He's a weird guy. And apparently the Israeli plan was, we will bomb his house to free him from house arrest because he had gotten on the wrong side of the regime since leaving office, and then he will become the leader of Iran. Question mark. I mean, what. What the hell kind of plan is this?
- [17:24]
Mark Hertling
Honestly, you know, I thought two words when I read this in the New York Times. And the two words weren't Charlie Foxtrot. No, well, that, too. But the two words were not Mahmoud, If they were Ahmed Chalabi, because this was another plan that the United States had that after the fall of Saddam, they would take this guy who had petitioned and had gained insider information in the Department of Defense, saying, hey, I want to be the leader. And even though I haven't been in the country for 30 years and I've been making a lot of money, I could go back and be the president of Iraq. So put me in coach. And it was a disaster. And it was the central planning effort in the Bush. Well, a central planning method in the Bush administration. But, man, if we haven't, you know, if we haven't determined after, well, let's say Iraq after Saddam, Libya after Gaddafi, Afghanistan after the Taliban, and even what would happen to Iraq after ISIS and Al Qaeda and done it the right way, we should have learned that we don't get to decide those kind of things. It takes a whole lot of diplomacy. And it's one thing it doesn't seem like we've attempted to approach with the current Iranian situation. We fractured a regime. We haven't destroyed it. We've seemingly rallied nationalism, at least by some. We've strengthened the hardliners in Iran, and to a degree, we've created a martyr narrative, which is never good in a Muslim country. All of those things are not good, Ben. And yet we still think we can restart a military campaign. I heard the testimony by Admiral Cooper yesterday, which was, truthfully for me, a little bit frightening at times. And it just seems that we are. One plan is to kill more people, and that's it.
- [19:39]
Ben Parker
That just sounds like Vietnam to me. I mean, that's just, you know, body counts. If we kill enough of the enemy, we'll win. I should, you know, it did say in this New York Times report that I should Sorry, I should mention first that what apparently happened is that the bomb that fell on Ahmadinejad's house that was supposed to free him actually ended up injuring him. Who could have seen that coming? And he sort of went to ground and no one's heard from him. And certainly these. It seems like the Israelis haven't. So I guess that plan didn't work. What I wanted to mention was there's a historian, an Iranian historian, Iranian American historian named Reita K. Who's written really interesting stuff on history of Iran. And one of the things he points out it he hasn't. I don't think he says this explicitly, but you can read his work is basically putting the Iranian people back into the history of Iran. Because when we hear the history of Iran, it's all about MI6 and the CIA and Kermit Roosevelt overthrew the government and all that. And if you get a little more, you know, into it, you get, oh, well, the Russians were trying to subvert the Iranians. And his point is, no, it's always been the Iranian people at the end of the day who decided in the early 1900s to institute a democracy, who decided to first elect Mosaddegh. And then he kind of lost the people. So the Iranian people really rose up against him. And it was really the Iranian people who deposed the Shah as well. And if there is something, when eventually there's going to be something that succeeds the the Islamic Republic, and it's going to be up to the Iranian people to choose it. If I were telling the Israelis and the American government what they should do, it should be Help the Iranian people change their government.
- [21:29]
Mark Hertling
Right.
- [21:29]
Ben Parker
There are clearly people who want to. They need help organizing, they need supplies. We actually had a lot of success doing this in Eastern Europe in the later Cold War, where we helped, you know, solidarnish Solidarity and other and other organizations like that, Poland. But as you put it, so. Well, just offing the guy in charge doesn't give you any say over who comes next, because leadership isn't a title or the fact that you survived. It's who people follow. And we have no reason to suspect that people would have just followed Ahmad Ahmadinejad. That's just a total assumption.
- [22:02]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. Well, you know, the, the, the point that this all brings about is that operational victories, and what I mean by that is military victories often look spectacular on television, but true strategic success, that goes on behind the scenes, that success is usually measured in months, years. But its end state, the metric is all about stability of the population, political adherence, deterrence against other kind of threats, and whether the conflict actually ends. That's what I don't think we're focusing a lot on right now. With Iran, you know, we had an inroad, and I hate to use the dirty word of jcpoa, but we had an inroad for potential with the JCPOA that took years, 15 months, I think, to execute. And just because it was done under the Obama administration, it wasn't good enough to continue to carry on and work from. That's what transformational leadership is, Ben. It's trying to build on things new every day. And we don't see that a lot with this administration. It's more transactional.
- [23:19]
Ben Parker
Yeah. And it doesn't seem like they're trying to build anything. They're just trying to, I don't know, get their way. Exactly. And figure out how to spin every day as sort of a PR win rather than actual policy accomplishment. Okay, we. Before we get back to talking about Europe and talk about one of the most underappreciated stories in the world right now, we're going to quickly go to an ad and get another sip of coffee while we're watching.
- [23:46]
Pocket Hose Advertiser
This ad is brought to you by pocketos. Well, look, you know how much I love the pocket hose. I'm not going to pull it out of the drawer, but it's there. I love it. I'm excited to tell you about the world's number one expanding garden hose and their new product, the pocket hose ballistic. Look, I have a lot of flowers, I have a lot of needs for a hose when I go out there I know my pocket hose is going to be trusted and reliable. Pocket hose is the number one expandable hose in the world. It has re engineered thicker washers that resist leaks and carries over 100 patents worldwide. For now and for a limited time, when you purchase a new pocket hose ballistic, you'll get a free 360 degree range rotating pocket pivot and a free thumb drive nozzle. Just Text takes to 64,000. That's takes to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Text takes to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply.
- [24:46]
Ben Parker
Well, you heard it here first. Sam has a lot of needs for a hose. So I, I.
- [24:51]
Mark Hertling
Can I make a confession right here? Ben, I'm sorry, please. I had, I had to smile the way Sam was talking about that I actually have a pocket hose, so.
- [25:01]
Ben Parker
You do.
- [25:02]
Mark Hertling
I don't know if Sam has one in his drawer like he said he does, but I have one in my backyard. So it's, you know, it's a wonderful device.
- [25:10]
Ben Parker
There you go, real testimonial. They didn't even pay for that, by the way. Sam is in California right now. Our California shows are coming up if you want to join the shows. And I think they're today and tomorrow. I think it's today and tomorrow. They're very soon. I think there are a few seats left. Go to the bullwork.com events to get a ticket for LA or San Diego. We'd love to see you there. Okay. We should talk about Europe because you wrote very, very clearly and powerfully about the decision to withdraw 5, 000 troops from Germany last week or the week before. And I've written again about the decision to draw withdraw another 4,000 from Poland. So once again, let's back up, lay the groundwork. Why do we send troops to Poland? What do they do there? What is their purpose? What do we get out of is
- [26:04]
Mark Hertling
in my view, Ben, when I, you know, truthfully, when I left in 2011 the US Army Europe and retired in 2012, I was under the opinion that Poland was the new center of gravity for NATO. It is a marvelous culture, first of all, great people and they want to be with us and they want to lead NATO in the future. You know, my first interaction with Polish forces were in Iraq in 2003 and four when they had a general by the name of Biennik who later became part of the NATO command infrastructure. And he was saying how after years under the Soviet thumb, Poland wanted to break free and they wanted to do things. The entire time I was In Europe from 2004 to 2012, Poland, first of all, bought, replaced their Russian tank fleet with Abrams multi billion dollar deal. Every time I visited Poland, they were looking to buy F16s and Patriot missiles, and they bought them. They spent a significant amount of money in reforming their military. Their culture is right. They've had a couple blips in their political well being over the years, but they seem to be on the straight path right now. But beyond that, to the piece that I just wrote, they not only do massive defense spending, but they are. They have been the logistic hub for getting stuff into Ukraine over the last 12 years. Not just in 2022, but. But ever since 2014. They have become a key host for US forces. We have a core headquarters there now at a place called Camp Kosciusko. Believe it or not, they are one of our strongest allies in Europe. And if we're believing the reports that their senior military and government leaders were not fully consulted before an announcement that was made by Secretary Hegseth, it is extraordinarily concerning. And that's the best way I can put it. Because in alliances, when you work for years, decades on building friendships, the process matters as much as the decision itself. So again, I go back to trust and predictability are strategic assets, and we're wasting those right now throughout Europe, but especially in Poland and where we have a great number of forces.
- [28:44]
Ben Parker
And the. The forces that were withdrawn there was. It was a rotational brigade combat team. Is that right?
- [28:49]
Mark Hertling
Yeah.
- [28:50]
Ben Parker
So how does that rotation work? Why do we send forces to Poland on sort of a temporary basis?
- [28:55]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. I've been watching the reports out of Sean Parnell and Heg Seth, trying to explain what this rotational force was. Was. They're calling it a deployment. It is not that. Yes, forces deploy, but this has been part of a plan since 2004, when the force size of Europe was brought from 90. The US forces were brought from 90,000 to 30,000. And as we built this very unique puzzle of the different kinds of things that we wanted to have as our base in Europe, one of the issues was three combat brigades. There was a Stryker brigade, which is a wheeled vehicle, and it's highly mobile and it goes places fast. We had an airborne brigade in Italy that was a rapid deploying force, and we had an armored brigade, a tank brigade in Germany. Well, the big issue was the cost of the armor brigade there. It went back and forth as I was working on the staff in US Army Europe. I was part of the discussions and saw it, and I remember distinctly When I was leaving in 2008 to go back to the US and take a job for two years, I said to my four star boss as a two star, I said, hey, look, I said, this, this is really going to get contentious and I don't know how it's going to play out. But whoever commands Europe in the 2010 time frame is really going to suck in terms of a lot of the political dynamics. That's when I came back to command was 2010, and the political dynamics were all about bargaining for that armored brigade. The decision was finally made, let's take it back to the United States, relieve Europe of that heavy force of 5,000 soldiers and replace it with a rotational brigade, a unit that comes over for a nine month period of time. And it has what the Navy calls a 10 presence. A 10 presence means that a carrier strike group is in an area somewhere and we have several 10 presence around the world. Right now, we have a 30 presence in the Iranian conflict where three carrier strike groups out of our 10 are there. So anyway, we had this rotational brigade as a recurring 10 presence. It does a couple of things. It allows European forces that have tanks to train and exercise with our armored forces. It allows armor to be there as a tripwire, sort of like we also have in Kuwait, by the way, a rotational force. But it was supposed to be something that was always there, that rotated in and out. What Hegseth and the Department of Defense are doing right now is saying we don't need that 10 presence anymore. And that is an extremely valuable strategic message to somebody like Vladimir Putin, who, as we talked about earlier, is looking toward Vilnius and connecting forces. One more thing I'd say, Ben, on this. What was interesting when the announcement was made in 2012 and I was testifying before members of Congress, I gave them intelligence about what Putin and Russia may do if we pulled that last tank brigade out of Europe. And they did exactly what we predicted in 2014 by going into Crimea and the Donbas area. So pulling a rotational unit that has been replacing that permanently stationed tank brigade there could cause that same kind of message to be passed to Mr. Putin.
- [32:38]
Jake Stauch
I'm Jake Stauch, co founder and CEO of Cerval. We built Servl to automate the IT work that slows companies down. Onboarding password resets, access to applications. My laptop stopped working. While employees wait for help, their real work is put on hold. It desperately wants to automate this work, and that's why they need Serval. You just tell Servil what you want to automate in plain English. And it's built. No drag and drop workflows, no expensive consultants. Employees get unblocked and IT teams go from drowning in tickets to building what actually matters. With Cerval, it becomes the AI engine powering the entire company. This is a new way to run it. We guarantee you'll automate 50% of all tickets and we'll prove it to you in a free four week pilot. Go to cerval.com tickets that's S E-R-V-A L.com tickets.
- [33:38]
IQ Bar Sponsor
This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar.
- [33:40]
Will (IQ Bar Creator)
I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. The good news? There's a better option. I'm Will and I created IQ Bar Plant protein bars to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low sugar, brain and body fuel. IQ bars are packed with 12 grams of protein, brain nutrients like magnesium and Lion's mane. And zero weird stuff. And right now you can get 20% off all IQ bar products, plus free shipping, clean ingredients, amazing taste and you'll love how you feel. Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar.
- [34:15]
IQ Bar Sponsor
Try our delicious IQ Bar Sampler Pack with nine plant protein bars, eight hydration mixes and four mushroom coffee sticks. And now you can get 20% off all IQ Bar products plus free shipping. When you go to iqbar.com today and enter promo code BAR20 to get this exclusive offer for our listeners. That's iqbar.com promo code BAR20 to get 20% off plus free shipping. Iqbar.com, code BAR20.
- [34:38]
Ben Parker
We have thanks to producer Matt, who is the best producer we have Sean Parnell's statement. I'll just read the first part of it, Matt, if you want to throw it up on the screen. The Department of War, which is what he calls the Department of Defense, has reduced the total number of brigade combat teams assigned to Europe from 4 to 3. This returns us to the level of BCTs in Europe in 2021, which is to say before Russia started the biggest war in Europe since World War II. This decision was the result of a comprehensive, multilayered process focused on US Force posture in Europe. This result, temporary delay, blah, blah, blah. You know what he doesn't say here? He doesn't say the polls knew this was coming. He doesn't say we coordinated this with our allies. He doesn't say we've made sure that anything that force is going to do has been taken over by others. It says that Secretary Hegseth spoke with Polish Deputy Prime Minister Kosnia Kamish. Yeah, yeah. This is earlier today. He posted this yesterday, which after this was already announced. So I guess we announced it. And then the polls called saying, guys, what the hell? Yeah, this is, this is not a great way to treat our allies. And you know, the polls. There's a reason that that American base in Poland is named after Kosciusko, because the Kosciusko was a Polish officer who helped the American Continental army learn how to. I think he learned how to build fortifications, but he advised the Continental army during the revolution. And there's a reason why, back during Donald Trump's first term, they said they were going to name a fort Fort Trump. The Poles are desperate to be good allies. They are very good allies, as you said. They have come closest to spending the 5% of GDP on defense of any NATO country. I believe there are now several NATO countries that plan to spend that much in the coming year. Polin first among them. And, you know, it's not really going to hurt the polls that much that we're pulling out these soldiers. It's not like their economy depends on it. But it is going to hurt us. And it is. It is going to make them wonder. Here's a good example. The poles aren't buying M1 tanks anymore. They're not buying American tanks. They're buying South Korean tanks because the South Koreans will certainly deliver and the Americans. Well, now, how can you be sure?
- [36:50]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. Before we continue to discuss, let me give you a fun fact, Ben, please. There is a statue, the only statue to a foreign general at West Point is to Thaddeus Kosciusko because he built the battlements, the defensive measures at that post. And he's standing on the plane still today as a tribute. So that's one of the things. It's sort of the Polish equivalent of Lafayette.
- [37:17]
J.D. Vance
Yeah.
- [37:18]
Mark Hertling
French. Yeah. The thing is, though, too, Ben, I'd point out that that, that that post that you just mentioned from Sean Parnell talked about a multi layered, comprehensive approach. You know, when you have the commander of EUCOM saying, gee, surprise to me, and the US Army Europe commander saying, didn't know about this. And the fact that we have something called SOFA agreements, Status of Forces agreements, whenever you have US military in any country, it's one of the reasons we didn't keep forces in Iraq because they refused to sign a Status of Forces agreement. And it has to do with the legalities of treating forces so when you surprise everybody by just announcing something and then have a conversation a couple of days later, it tells me the process is very flawed and it continues to denigrate our allies that we've been working very hard to inspire and influence.
- [38:21]
Ben Parker
Yeah. What process? Honestly? Okay, so there's another part of this that we have to talk about, and that's Ukraine. We've been talking about Ukraine. One, because it is still one of the most important stories in the world, and two, because it's generally good news. The Ukrainians continue to do very well. They just launched a whole series of drone strikes at Moscow region, which is where Russia's air defenses are concentrated. So they're saying, we're going to go after the hardest target and prove to you that we can. Their, their adaptation, as you've written about, is really incredible, but I'm not so sure that the American administration is entirely clear on what's going on. Can we play this? Do we have this clip, producer Matt, of the, of J.D. vance talking about Ukraine?
- [39:07]
Mark Hertling
Well, before we play it, though, Ben, if I can, maybe we should say for people who are watching cable news or any other kind of news, or reading about what the administration and Department of Defense is saying, when we hear the president or the Secretary of Defense talk about how much we're providing and how President Trump has been the most generous to Ukraine, let's remind them what really happened on here on Earth. One, with some of the proclamations that Matt's about to show us.
- [39:37]
Ben Parker
Well, wait, here's the first, first, here's J.D. vance making that claim. So let's check that out.
- [39:43]
Jake Stauch
Last week, the Pentagon halted deployment of 4,000 troops US troops in Poland to Poland. This is indirect contradiction to President Trump explicitly promised not to reduce the troop level in Poland. So I'm going to ask you this question, which many people in Poland think why are you rewarding Putin and punishing your best ally in Europe?
- [40:15]
Mark Hertling
Well, first of all, I'd say there's
- [40:17]
Will (IQ Bar Creator)
been no president who's done more, frankly, to ensure that Ukraine survived the invasion
- [40:23]
Mark Hertling
of Russia than Donald Trump.
- [40:28]
Ben Parker
I, I
- [40:32]
Mark Hertling
What? What?
- [40:39]
Ben Parker
That is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Let's just, I can't even, let's just play the next video. I just have nothing to say about that. Yeah.
- [40:47]
Will (IQ Bar Creator)
Offer some words of appreciation for the
- [40:49]
Mark Hertling
United States of America and the president
- [40:51]
Will (IQ Bar Creator)
who's trying to save your country, please.
- [40:56]
Jake Stauch
You think that if you will speak very loudly about the war.
- [41:00]
J.D. Vance
He's not speaking loudly. He's not speaking loudly. Your country is in big Trouble? Wait a minute. No, no. You've done a lot of talking. Your country is in big trouble.
- [41:08]
Mark Hertling
I know you're not winning.
- [41:10]
J.D. Vance
He's going to have to get on the ball and accepting things, you know, when you're losing, because you're losing. Talk about zelensky, but he's P.T.
- [41:18]
Mark Hertling
barnum.
- [41:18]
J.D. Vance
You know, he got Crooked Joe Biden to give him $350 billion. So I think it's time to get that war settled. And I think it's a war that can be settled, but it takes two to two to tango. Well, at some point he's going to have to accept something you know, he hasn't accepted. You remember right in the Oval Office not so long ago I said, you don't have the cards.
- [41:46]
Ben Parker
So yeah. Somehow constantly telling Zelensky that he's losing, that he's, that he doesn't have the cards, that he's not allowed to talk, somehow that is supporting him against Russia's invasion, somehow complaining about all the aid that we gave the Ukrainians that helped them defeat the Russian full scale invasion is helping them win. Somehow constantly pressuring them to give up territory that they don't need to give up, that they haven't lost and that Russia can't take is helping them win. And just one more, one more thing that's so stupid it doesn't even matter, but it bothers me and then I'll shut up. Does Trump think P.T. barnum was a bank robber? Who, like you say, he accused zelinsky of being P.T. barnum because he, you know, walked away with so much money. PT Barnum was an entertainer. I guess that's it because Zelensky was a comedian. But like that doesn't like, P.T. barnum didn't rob banks. The thing that made P.T. barnum famous wasn't robbing people. Is that what he's trying? It makes no sense. None of this makes any sense. It is infuriatingly stupid. Okay, end of rant. Your turn.
- [42:52]
Mark Hertling
Ben. You're getting a little bit fired up today. This, this the, the only positive thing that you can take from this, that even without the help of the current administration are much help. I personally think the last administration contributed significantly to growing the Ukrainian armed forces. And I knew what they were like because I worked with them before. And the thing that you have to give Ukraine as well is their ability to adapt to every single situation where there's been hardship for them. They have maintained their will even when they didn't have the resources, when they figured out how to make the resources. They expanded that and it created more will. That is why what we're seeing today, in terms of the very successful targeting operations they're conducting against Russia is going to, I believe, drive this war to a conclusion with Ukraine coming out, if not the stated victors, victorious in terms of regaining their sovereignty, their territorial integrity, and maintaining their pride. And again, let's connect this to Poland during the Afghanistan war. When we asked. The US Asked for forces to Afghanistan, the, the Poles, the Ukrainians and the Georgians were some of the biggest contributors. And what in what interests me is they actually used to call the segment the section of Afghanistan where the Polish and the Ukrainians were stationed. They called it the Pole Yukre Brigade because it had Poles and Ukrainians. They work together, they understood each other, they're extremely supportive of each other. And they both see what has happened when Russia, previously the Soviet Union, has had their way and they're not willing to accept this. And they're now joined by the Baltic states and many others that we've already talked about. And the only one that's falling out of that right now is the United States, which pains me tremendously because we've spent the last 80 years building a very solid foundation for a house that is NATO and we're burning down our own house. And it just, it really discourages me.
- [45:32]
Ben Parker
Well, you can be discouraged because our country is losing its principles that have been its strength, or you can be encouraged because all that time we spent teaching those principles and supporting those principles in other places around the world is working. Ukraine is not only. Not only performing tremendously well in its war, it's also democratizing at the same time, which is incredible. You know, Poland had a bit of a rough patch there, but it's now coming around. Europe is doing surprisingly well. We saw what happened to Viktor Orban in Hungary. There is a lot to be encouraged by. It's just unfortunately not on this continent, though. Speaking of this continent, we. We had an email from a reader. You, you answered this question over email, but I think we should address it before we say goodbye. This is from Erin. Two questions. One, we'll take this one at a time. One, I heard the U.S. congress passed a draft bill. Could you explain what that means? Could you answer Erin's question for us?
- [46:28]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. It's not a draft bill. It's a change in the draft system. You used to have to register for the draft when you became 18 years old, physically registered. Now they're taking information from Social Security from employer records to automatically contribute to draft information. So if there is the point of a national emergency where you had to go return from a professional force to a draft force, that they would already have the information on who to contact.
- [47:03]
Ben Parker
Yeah, I remember filling out that form. I think by the time I registered it was an online form. But you had to proactively go and find it and fill it out. Now no longer they'll just automatically take your information. So they don't. So they can find you if they need to. The actual Selective Service system remains basically the same. Okay, Second question. The U.S. is pulling out of a military board with Canada. How significant is this and who is behind it?
- [47:30]
Mark Hertling
Yeah, there is some discussion about, and it's really been driven by Elbridge Colby, who's the undersecretary of Defense for policy, who basically says Canada is not given enough for defense for, you know, whatever category he wants to claim. But Canada, like Poland, have, have been very good allies. They are immersed and embedded within several different commands to include Northern North American Air Defense Command. Everything that comes over the top of the globe in terms of attacks against the United States is a combined command called NORAD, based in, in Colorado Springs. So again, with great wisdom, where we, as the Defense Department, or as they call it, the Department of War, are again disrespecting the allies who have contributed to our mutual security. And I don't understand the details of the pullout, but it has infuriated the Canadians, especially the Canadian government. Mark Carney has made mention of it and it's just another self inflicted gunshot wound.
- [48:44]
Ben Parker
Absolutely. I, I may have told the story on the show before. I can't remember. It was just us when we were talking, but not long ago I was talking to a European diplomat who, you know, in classic diplomatic fashion was saying things in a way that was somewhat guarded, very carefully couched and, you know, whatever, speaking diplomaties, whatever. And the subject of Elbridge Colby came up and, you know, this is the guy who says that we should all be focused on China, but then berated the Brits for saying, okay, well, we'll send an aircraft carrier, the Indo Pacific. He said, no, I, I said to this, this European diplomat, I said, it really seems like Colby has been like a real catastrophe. And the diplomat just said, yes.
- [49:28]
Mark Hertling
Yeah. And I'll say one more thing about that, because Under Secretary Colby has really been the primary element within the administration focused on China and the defense against China and the kinds of things that he has seen China do. And that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's been interesting because I don't think the President got anything in terms of his coordination with China over the last week when he was meeting with President Xi. And I'm sure that discouraged Secretary Colby because every action he has formulated has been to reduce the presence of US Forces in other places to try and get them focused on the East. And, you know, I'll just leave it at that. It's just been interesting. He was one of the main contributors to the National Defense Strategy. And you can read truthfully in that document what Secretary Undersecretary Colby has. Has kind of suggested we be doing.
- [50:38]
Ben Parker
I would. I would submit that if you, as a foreign policy scholar and commentator, made your whole thing, that the defining conflict the United States had was with China, and that everything else had to be ignored so that we could at least win against China, and that China was the threat to supplant all other threats. And then you came into office as the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, who is basically regarded as the number three person in the Pentagon, the top policy official, and the administration did absolutely nothing to improve our posture against China. And in fact, the President kept on saying, we won't defend Taiwan because we're angry at them for stealing our chips or whatever, that if you actually believed what you had written all those years and said all those years, you would resign in protest. You would say, my policy isn't this administration's policy. Clearly, the President wants someone with different priorities and opinions in office. So I'm going to go back and make my case to the public and someone else can serve in this job.
- [51:45]
Mark Hertling
Why?
- [51:46]
Ben Parker
Either Elbridge Colby has changed his mind and not told anyone, or the principles he claimed to have and the priorities he claimed to have were not true the entire time, and he. He should tell us which, or he should resign like a year ago.
- [52:01]
Mark Hertling
Ben, I got to tell you, what you just said in that statement was much better than anything I said, and we ought to use that as a trademark. It was magnificent in terms of describing the confusion which is in our National Defense Strategy right now, because there was a man, the policy director, who was trying to gear everything toward China. And first of all, that's an extremely simplistic approach to a world that is having more and more complex challenges that than I ever had when I was serving in uniform, to just say, hey, we're going to focus on one specific area and disregard the rest, and then to have it overcome by the actions of the President. I think if I were Mr. Colby, I probably would have resigned too. But luckily I don't believe anything he was saying as China being the only threat in the world. So maybe it's a good thing.
- [52:57]
Ben Parker
Yeah, well, there's a long history that actually, you know, one of these days of the world calms down. We should do a whole episode on this about back in the 50s and these sort of one section of the conservative sort of Republican Party focused on China, but it was really sort of a mask for isolationism. Just because they didn't want NATO to exist, they didn't want the United States to stay in Europe after the war. And that's sort of where I see Elbridge Colby is like the China stuff is just a cover for I'm an isolationist. Okay. We've run pretty long. We'll have plenty for the next episode of Command Post. Thank you so much for joining us. If you're in California, get your tickets to the California shows and we will see you next week in Command Post. General, thanks so much.
- [53:37]
Mark Hertling
Thanks, Ben. Always a pleasure.
- [53:40]
Tyler Redick
Hey, it's Tyler Redick from 2311 Racing. Most slot games are a solo lap. Slot Masters on Chumba Casino puts you on the grid with two other players. Battle it out over a two minute run. Everyone spinning at once, point stacking up and the leaderboard updating before the clock hits zero. Are you ready to race? With over 200 casino styled games and new ones dropping every week, there's always something new to line up for. Join the fun@chumbacasino.com let's jumble.
- [54:05]
Ben Parker
Sponsored by Chumba Casino.
- [54:06]
Tyler Redick
No purchase necessary.
- [54:07]
Ben Parker
VGW Group Fort Worth prohibited by law 21 terms and conditions apply.