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Thomas Small
The war in Ukraine it has lasted longer than many people expected. Is this because Russia is too powerful to defeat or because the west never truly decided to defeat it? That is the argument of retired US Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe. He believes Russia's advance has been halted, that Ukraine can isolate Crimea and eventually force Russian troops from the peninsula, and that sustained attacks on Russian infrastructure will make the war impossible for Moscow to maintain. In this conversation, General Hodges explains why his earlier predictions proved too hopeful, why he thinks Russia will never field a nuclear weapon, and what Ukraine's drone warfare and defense industry are teaching the world. We also discuss America's repeated failure to turn military power into political success, and whether President Trump is strengthening NATO or destroying the trust on which it depends. I'm Thomas Small. This is my conflicted conversation with General Ben Hodges, Foreign.
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Hodges, thank you so much for coming on Conflicted. It's a great honor, Sir.
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General Ben Hodges
Thomas thank you for the privilege.
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Thomas Small
General the most sober description of the Ukraine war from what I can tell now seems to be that neither side can generate a decisive breakthrough. Ukraine's recent wave of deep strikes inside Russia targeting vital infrastructure is certainly impressive, but I'd say a skeptical assessment would argue that these real successes cannot ultimately shift the war's long term trajectory. Ukraine's manpower disadvantage remains a huge Liability. Russia can retaliate against a smaller and more vulnerable industrial base. And Vladimir Putin has shown no sign of moderating his war aims. What would you say is wrong with that assessment or do you agree with it, broadly speaking?
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General Ben Hodges
I, I think I disagree with some aspects of it. For, for sure. Vladimir Putin has shown no interest in any meaningful peace negotiation. His, his attacks on you, on Kiev and other Ukrainian cities, the last couple of nights that killed dozens of innocent people in their apartments shows that he's not interested in any sort of a peaceful outcome. But I would say that we have to think of this conflict differently than we did a couple of years ago, where the, the idea was that large formations were going to somehow penetrate one way or the other and, and then retake all the territory or take more territory. I think where we are now is Russia has been stopped. They, they really cannot advance any further because of how Ukraine is using their, their technology, which has also enabled Ukraine number of troops they have in the front lines, so reducing their exposure and thereby reducing their own casualties. These attacks on the Russian oil and gas infrastructure, I think that really is the, the path to victory. They just got to be able to sustain this. I think Russia's defeat, which would mean being forced to live inside their own border. All right, it's not going to be a Ukrainian troops march into Moscow. It's just getting the Russians out of Ukraine. That's what victory looks like for Ukraine and defeat for Russia will be done as a result or will be caused largely because of the destruction of Russia's ability to sustain this war. Their financial resources they need for the war come from the sale of oil and gas to China, India and other customers. So if Ukraine can continue to be successful destroying these refineries and if, if Europe and other nations will continue to disrupt these shadow fleet vessels, then I think we're on a path to Russia no longer being able to sustain the conflict. And the people around Putin saying that's enough, you're, you're wrecking us. In parallel, what Ukraine is doing with their mid range strikes has isolated Crimea, which I think is the most important piece of geography in Ukraine for this war because of how Russia looks at it. And Russians are starting to leave Crimea and they, they don't seem able to stop Ukraine from doing what they're doing there.
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Thomas Small
You said success for Ukraine means pushing Russia out of, of Ukraine and returning, you know, a sovereign Ukraine to the entirety of its borders. Do you think at this point Vladimir Zelensky agrees with that definition of success, or do you Think he is open to something more like an armistice that might freeze the lines of battle more or less where they are now. Do you think that you and Vladimir Zelensky have the same ideal of what success means?
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General Ben Hodges
Well, of course, President Zelensky is the one that said victory was reestablishing the sovereign territory of Ukraine. Putin has no interest in anything like that. I can imagine at some point they would. They're hoping that President Trump will come to their rescue and put real pressure on Ukraine to, to stop the fighting. And where it is now, which would freeze the conflict in place. With Russia still in command of or in control of 20% of of Ukraine, including Crimea, that's a guaranteed pause before resumption of the conflict. That would not be a lasting, sustainable peace. And I think most Ukrainians would say that's, that's unacceptable because they know that Russia would resume. And if you think about the geography of, of Crimea, whoever controls Crimea basically can control the entire Black Sea coast of Ukraine. Would make it very difficult for Ukrainians, if the Russians control it, to resume normal economic transportation out of Odessa, Mykolaiv and other Black Sea ports, which would be an essential part of Ukraine getting back on its feet. The Russians would be able to disrupt that. The Russians would also be able to disrupt, continue to disrupt Romania and Ukraine from their oil and gas exploitation in the Western Black Sea. And then finally, if Russia continues to control Crimea, then that means they would continue to deny Ukrainian access in and out of the Sea of Azov, which pre war was interior waters shared by Russia and Ukraine. So I think that's got to be one that Ukraine is not going to be able to accept.
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Thomas Small
It sounds to me that you're talking about the liberation of Crimea from Russian occupation is something like eminently achievable. This surprises me. I would have thought that of all of its gains in the last 10 years or 12 years, Russia is going to hold on to Crimea come hell or high water. And yet you seem optimistic. I mean, I know we've seen some pretty remarkable moves. Ukraine has disrupted supply chains to Crimea and, you know, has made some, some good tactical advances there. But ultimately, surely Russia is going to hold on to Crimea. It's too strategically important for it for the reasons you just outlined.
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General Ben Hodges
Yeah, you, you would think that would be the case. But the, the thing is, the Ukrainians now have what they did not have two or three years ago, which is their own long range and mid range precision strike capability, where they have been able to achieve the first step of the liberation of Crimea, which is the isolation of Crimea. By destroying or damaging the bridges that connect Crimea and making it almost impossible for any r convoys to move from Rostov along the Azov coast down into Crimea, the Ukrainians are able to dominate that highway. They have destroyed ferries that the Russians were using to come across to Kirch because the bridge, the large Kirch bridge, has been severely damaged. It cannot sustain the. The weight of heavy cargo like trains bringing fuel, that Ukraine has just destroyed, two gas tankers yesterday that were bringing gasoline to Crimea. So I think that this is not going to be done in the next few weeks. It might not even be finished this year. But what I see is the continued isolation of Crimea and then the second step, or the next part of this, of course, is making Crimea untenable. For the Russians, that means destroying Russia's naval facilities, their air bases, their headquarters, logistics sites, air defense, radar. These are the things that they are hitting every week. And there's, there's really nowhere to hide. I mean, there's. Everybody knows where everything is on Crimea. And so far, and I hope it keeps this way, so far, Russia does not seem able to stop that.
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Thomas Small
So going back to the beginning of the war in 2022, early 2022, you, sir, expected Ukrainian victory to come much sooner than has proved possible. Looking back, what did you underestimate, would you say? Did you underestimate Russia's capacity to adapt to what initially seemed like such a cackhanded invasion? Did you underestimate Ukraine's military limitations? Or was it the failure of Western governments to provide what Ukraine has needed over that time? What, what, what went wrong, in your view?
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General Ben Hodges
Yeah, it's a fair criticism. But first, it is important to keep in mind that this war started in 2014, not 2022. And the reason that's important is because all the people that say, oh, there's no way that Russia can lose, we've been going at this for 12 years, and Russia's with Russia with every advantage, still only controls about 20% of Ukraine. And so I think the, the idea of inevitability of Russian victory and that sort of thing, it's important to, to keep this in perspective when we think about going forward. What's going to happen now? I absolutely was overly optimistic back earlier in the war, and I think, as I've thought about that, and you can be sure, I hear from a lot of people that tell me how wrong I was, where maybe I was naive, but I could not believe that the US Government under the Biden administration, which did A lot to support Ukraine, but the United States never could commit to helping Ukraine win. In fact, President Biden couldn't even say the words, we want Ukraine to win. We support Ukraine restoration of all of its sovereign territory. And I've, I've had some pretty heated arguments with friends from the Biden administration about this. And I think that they were overly concerned that Russia might somehow use a nuclear weapon, as that's never going to happen.
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Thomas Small
Can I just stop you right there? Because I definitely, in early 2022, was terrified of Russia using a nuclear weapon. And I just thought everyone had lost their minds. I thought, I thought, you know, isn't it the first rule of geopolitics that you don't engage Russia directly because they've got nuclear weapons? They've got more than any other country. Why, why do you say it's not going to happen? You know, why do you say that? That fear was over, over exaggerated?
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General Ben Hodges
You know, the, the Soviet Union lost a war in Afghanistan despite having thousands of nuclear weapons. We lost a war in Afghanistan and in Vietnam despite having nuclear weapons. So you have to think about what kind of nuclear weapons are we talking about? Why would they use a nuclear weapon? What would they expect to achieve for the use of a nuclear weapon? And the fact is, for Russia, the only real benefit of their nuclear weapons is the threat that they might use one. Because just like you described your own feelings about it, they know that many people in the west are terrified of the possibility of a nuclear conflict. So the Russians every two weeks would send Medvedev out there, or somebody would just talk about, we're going to nuke Warsaw or we're going to nuke London, or we may have to use a nuclear weapon. And that's just to get us anxious about it. But when you start thinking about why, I mean, what, what benefit would there be to Russia if they actually used a nuclear weapon? Of course you have strategic nuclear weapons, the big ones that are aimed at, you know, Washington, D.C. new York, major targets across the United States, the intercontinental ballistic missiles, but they're not going to use one of those against Ukraine. And then the tactical nuclear weapons, the ones that we expected the Soviets to use during the Cold War. Those weapons were created to blow a gap in the NATO defenses. And then the Soviets had thousands of troops that were properly equipped and trained to operate in a contaminated environment that would exploit through this gap and continue on to their objective somewhere in West Germany. There is no place in Ukraine where that would be feasible, where that would, you could achieve this kind of a gap. I mean, they have already destroyed most of the cities anyway. But the Ukrainians are still there and the Russians no longer have this capability of thousands of troops that are trained and equipped to operate in a nuclear environment. So from a practical standpoint, it doesn't make sense. And then the Chinese President Xi has told President Putin, do not use a nuclear weapon. In fact, you should stop threatening the use of nuclear weapons. Modi in India has said the same thing. So as I thought about why would they would do it, where would they use it, what benefits are there? There are none. It's just that benefit. Now, clearly, if you had an invading army that was headed towards Moscow, that's a different story. And we've always known that their doctrine was for defense of the motherland. But because they're, they're losing in Ukraine, that's not, that's not something that, that's why I was so confident that they would not do it. I am so confident that they would not do it.
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Thomas Small
So to return to the, the question about, you know, why you overestimated Ukraine's early chances for success. So you talked about the nuclear thing. You think that's, that's actually a kind of busted flush. What, what else, though? How did your calculations get it wrong?
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General Ben Hodges
Well, I was sure that we would, we would finally get it right by, by having a clearly defined strategic objective. You know, we, we didn't have a strategic objective in Vietnam, we didn't have one in Afghanistan, we didn't have one in Iraq. And if you don't do that, and we don't have one now with Iran, if you, if you don't get the objective right, it's very difficult to have the right policies in place about aid, what you're going to do, and so on. And so the administration, the closest they ever came was we want Ukraine to be in a better negotiating position. What, what kind of objective is that? Instead, if, you know, if you say, look, it's in our interest, and the Biden administration also failed here, they never talk to the American people about why it's in the interest of the United States that Ukraine defeats Russia because of what it would mean if Ukraine fails. Now you're talking about the potential of a war with a NATO country.
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Thomas Small
I actually want to return to the larger geostrategic question at the end, but since I've got you there and you know, you're the highest ranking States military officer I have ever talked to, and I can't, I'm gonna go off piste here. But what you just said made me desperate to ask you. You mentioned the lack of a strategic objective in all of those conflicts that America entered into. So, Sir. General, what is the problem with the Pentagon and the White House in general, over decades now? Why is America singularly bad at pursuing military victory? Well, I should say political victory, on the other side of military victory?
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General Ben Hodges
Well, of course, as you know from your study of Clausewitz, that the political aim is what matters, and the military is one of the tools, along with economy or information or diplomacy, that would be used in a clever strategy, working with allies to achieve whatever that objective is. And I think that we. I can't explain why every president, most every president, has had difficulty with articulating a clearly defined end state that allies would agree with and that the Congress would support. It's very hard, by the way, obviously. But if there's a belief, almost an arrogance, that in our superior technology and the ability to strike targets and destroy things at great distance, that somehow that's going to solve the problem. And so we're seeing it happen right now in Iran that they were sure that, just like with Maduro, that they could decapitate the regime in Tehran. The people would rise up, there'd be no American casualties, and Trump would then claim that he did what not even Ronald Reagan could do, let alone Obama and Biden and all the others, and that would be to get rid of the regime in Tehran. So this, this hubris, I think, that comes from having our incredible technological advantages is part of the reason for this.
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Thomas Small
Do you think the officers in the Pentagon, the strategists in the Pentagon and so forth are more aware of this than the politicians on Capitol Hill and in the White House? Is it mainly a politician problem? As a retired general, of course, you probably would say, of course it's the politicians. But I mean, honestly, do you think that even on the military side, there is that hubris? There's a sense that our technology will just allow us to do whatever we want?
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General Ben Hodges
Well, look, the political leaders have a. Have a lot of different things to take into consideration. The military is a part of their calculation. Of course, I'm not privy to the conversations between the President and his commanders, certainly not in recent years. I am 100 sure that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the. The Joint Staff, the military leadership, the combatant commanders in the relevant areas of responsibility, have communicated what they believe is achievable, what the risks are. But then it's the. It's the civilian leadership that has to take those risks. Now. Shame on us in the military, if we don't give that hard, professional, best military advice about this is how long we think it'll take. This is what we're going to need. These are the risks. And there's no doubt in my mind that that's typically what happens. But I remember back when we were getting ready to go to Iraq and General Shinseki was chief of staff of the army, he disagreed with what Secretary Rumsfeld thought would be required. I mean, he said it'll take, you know, like 600,000 or some huge number to take over all of Iraq, to defeat their forces, and then to bring about whatever the peaceful conclusion is going to be. So he was sacked because that was not what Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to hear. So it's harder to do than it is to say. But the fact is it's, it's the military's job to lay out options. And, and then when the President says, all right, we're going to do this, this and this, then, then you have to execute it. Please, please allow me to circle back to finish answering your earlier question or though about my being overly optimistic. I really did think that the Biden administration would see, obviously how it's in our interest that Ukraine defeats Russia and that it would be in the interest of all of the other European countries as well, and that therefore we would give Ukraine everything they needed. I mean, we had, this was an opportunity and, you know, we, we missed that opportunity. So that, that's where I certainly was wrong. I, and perhaps I was even naive, but there were too many people that were sky. They're scared of a nuclear use of a nuclear weapon or that Russia is just too big. And of course, there's a lot of people in Washington, just like in London, that have, have a stake in Russia continuing as it is for whatever their
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Thomas Small
reasons are returning to Ukraine. We hear a lot these days about the incredible technological advances that the new Ukrainian industrial complex has achieved, particularly in drone warfare and in the software that runs the drones and all that sort of thing. Is Ukraine becoming the defense industrial heart of Europe, would you say, or is that a little bit exaggerated? I mean, to be perfectly honest, sir, it is hard for me, an ordinary person, often to cut through some of the messaging, which tends to be, you know, you know, advocacy based, not necessarily objective. So what's really true about the situation in the growing Ukrainian industrial complex?
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General Ben Hodges
Okay, well, that, that's also a fair point. You know, Ukraine was the heart of the Soviet Union's defense industry. I mean, the technology that was there from shipbuilding to helicopter motors to rocket engines and, and so many other things. So it had this sort of a culture of technology and engineering. I think that's a combination of education, geographic location and also the resources that were there in the ground in Ukraine. So it became that for the Soviet Union. And I think that's why they're is still a residual engineering and technology culture that is better than in, in most other places. It looks to me that it's possible that if, if Ukraine can be successful in this war and if the west invests in Ukraine, that Ukraine very likely becomes the heart of the defense industry of Europe ten years from now. I mean, they're doing things that nobody else, including the United States is able to do. And that's why they're getting, being attacked. Their power grid is constantly under pressure. They need manpower, of course, for the war, but they also need manpower for industry. And I think that we can't think of the defense industry in the way it is in the US or in the uk It's a different animal. But if there were enough people with vision that could invest, I don't mean just putting money there. I'm talking about joint ventures, getting Ukrainians to build stuff in Germany or Poland for example, and vice versa. I think Ukraine will be able, will be like Israel actually. And I think that's what they're going to have to do. They're going to be like Israel, they're going to have a very big self sustaining defense industry as well as a large military capability that can rapidly mobilize to defend themselves.
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Thomas Small
Well, certainly if maintaining its sovereignty is the primary goal of the Ukrainian government, it will have to become a kind of impregnable fortress there at the farthest end of Eastern Europe. And you know, if the geostrategic calculations remain what they have been for centuries in terms of deterring Russia, Russian aggression, Russian almost innate expansionism, then we're going to have to support that. That seems absolutely clear. During the Iran war, I was getting texts from friends and from listeners just kind of annoyed with how, how Iran's deployment of drone warfare in that conflict seemed just to take everyone by surprise. And people were saying, look, haven't you been paying attention to what's been going on in Ukraine for the last three years, for Christ's sake, why was America, why were its Gulf allies even Israel? Why were they so slow? Why have they been so slow to learn from Ukraine and Russia's experience in the degree to which drones have changed warfare? We see this even now in Southern Lebanon and Israel. Israel's inability really to counter Hezbollah's drone attacks. You know, the Israeli armies now last week said it openly, like, we are struggling to counter these drone attacks. So why, why has Ukraine's experience in drone warfare not reverberated down to other armies?
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General Ben Hodges
This is a great question, Thomas, and I, I cannot explain it. I, I think that there's a certain sort of not invented here mentality this there. I think there are some people in the US and in Europe that still kind of look at Ukraine as, you know, Eastern European Slavs. What could you possibly teach us? And, you know, the Ukrainians are busily, you know, teaching us because there's an example of, of how to adapt quickly, how to innovate and, and how to, to sustain that. So hopefully we will, we will eventually figure it out before we have a real disaster. I was speaking to a gentleman yesterday. He's a former US military, but he's been working in Ukraine for quite some time, and he is very frustrated because he can see that we are not incorporating, not it. Not in with our urgency. What is there for us to see what. And what Ukraine is doing, not just about how to stop the Russians, but more broadly how to protect critical infrastructure. When you see the, when you understand the potential of anybody that has access to unmanned systems that can move at range now, there's so many things about this war with Iran that are, that are frustrating. First, I think it's. It always starts at the top. The leadership there was. I think they just really believed that once they took out the Ayatollah and everybody around him, that that would be it, that the Iranian people would come out to the streets one more time. And I think by this time, though, the Iranian people had, had seen all they needed to see, that the US Was not actually going to help them. And I think that the IRGC was prepared for this. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, I think they had imagined that one day there would be an American president that would do such an attack, and that's why they were prepared to launch these counter strikes immediately, even after all the leadership was taken out. And so the fact that we had radar and aircraft sitting out in the
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Thomas Small
open, not protected, incredible dereliction of duty, sir. No offense. I mean, I know you gave your career to the, to the American armed forces, but the performance has been pretty disappointing. I'd say, say.
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General Ben Hodges
I'd say that, that, that is a. I, I don't understand how we could be that unprepared. And, you know, part of the problem of course, is you. I never thought I'd say this, but I, I tend to believe what comes out of Tehran more than I believe what comes from the secretary of defense. Mr. Hegseth. I mean, I, they, they, they have a real problem with being truthful about what's going on, whether it's these schoolgirls that were killed or what, what happened. Why were we not so prepared? I think that that's part of the problem in trying to figure out, you know, why were we not better prepared.
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Thomas Small
Well, staying with this question of why Western militaries haven't learned the lessons from Ukraine, especially as regards drones and things, I would be remiss, I think, sir, if I didn't raise the thorny issue of, of old, good old fashioned military industrial corruption. I don't mean the kind of corruption that we see in, you know, swirling around the Trump administration. I mean, you know, old school procurement and you know, the old companies, the contracts. Everyone's in bed with each other. No one is incentivized to innovate, especially as technology becomes cheaper, you know, to produce. That's not in anyone's sort of, let's say, basic capitalist interest. You see what I'm saying, sir? Where is that military industrial complex really letting not just the American people, but the Atlantic world order down?
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General Ben Hodges
Well, I think that that's a little too easy to throw stones at the military industrial complex as letting us down. The fact is, at least in the US and probably most other places, it almost always takes a catastrophe to force us to make the big changes. It just, it just doesn't happen otherwise because people, okay, you know, things are moving along and hopefully we will figure out what needs to be done before there is a real catastrophe. But I worry about that. The second thing is, and you live in uk, you know, UK is going through this defense investment plan being unveiled and there's, you know, so people are pointing out, well, wait a minute, UK is, you know, had billions of pounds for defense investment and it's all been wasted on certain things. And of course, just as with us, you find out that of course there's enormous economic benefits in wherever these factories are, the plants are that produce things. Thousands and thousands of jobs are at stake. And that's, that's not inconsequential or irrelevant. And so members of Congress, members of Parliament are going to fight hard to make sure that, you know, this, this plant in Pennsylvania or Michigan or Florida continues to, to do that. So there is, there is a pressure. This is not evil. This is a fact. I will, I will say this. I'm not a huge fan of this administration, as you know, but the Deputy Secretary of Defense, I think it's Mr. Feinberg, who used to be the head of Cerberus. He's the depth Sec. Def, or I guess Deputy Secretary of War now. And he has actually changed how the Pentagon is going about things. I would want to give him credit for doing it where it puts the burden back on industry, where industry can't sit and wait for all the money to be spent, invested, and then they get going. He has, he has changed it. And so that industry has to bear a lot of the cost in there. And there, there are incentives for people that are able to deliver things and there are penalties for people that don't deliver on time. So leadership can do things without having to have the catastrophe. But this is where, you know, it's important that the, the Congress gets behind it, supports it, even if it may not be the best thing for their particular district.
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Thomas Small
Well, you know, that, that actually gives me some reason for hope. That's nice to hear Today, sir. The NATO summit begins in Ankara, in Turkey. What do you think is what specific decisions would make this summit most consequential for the Ukrainian war, for the battlefield there in Ukraine, what do you think has to happen in terms of air defense, ammunition, long range strike, industrial production, all this stuff to change the trajectory of the war rather than keep things on the way they've been just kind of helping Ukraine endure the war, but actually to change the trajectory.
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General Ben Hodges
We know the summit is going to be important for a few reasons. Number one, the fact that it's in Turkey is important. It helps so that everybody kind of realizes the, these geo strategic significance of Turkey. Why, why it became a member of NATO back in 1952 is because largely where it sits on the map and it's a huge advantage for, for all of us in NATO that Turkey is a member of the alliance. So this will be a good opportunity to kind of refresh people's understanding of the geostrategic situation there and the fact that Turkey has a huge military and a huge defense industry. The second reason this is going to be important is because during the Trump administration, both of them, people are always on edge about, oh my God, what's he going to do now? Is he going to just turn the tables over and, and, and is it going to wreck things? And I think more and more European countries and Canada are, are growing weary of this. And it's like, okay, we, we are going to do what American presidents have said. We are going to take on more responsibility. And what's going to happen is that the US Is going to become less and less relevant and this is going to be to our disadvantage in the long run. Even though we've all thought that European countries and Canada should do more, the way that this president has gone about it, it's going to make us irrelevant in a few years and I think we'll regret that. But I think we may see some of that coming out of this summit. It's still the most important objective of every summit is clearly no matter what arguments are going on, no matter what the American President barks at the Italian Prime Minister or who barks at who, that they're unmistakable unity of the alliance, that we're still committed. What the President could do, he won't do it. But what he could do, he says, because of me, all of you are doing so much. I take all the credit for this. NATO is so much better than when I first got here. So therefore I'm going to tell all of you, don't worry, the US Nuclear shield will always be here. The US this will always be there. But now you're ready to take on more responsibility because we have to worry about these other threats, I think everybody would stop popping champagne corks. That would be like, that would be the dream scenario. I don't know that he's able or willing to do that. Ukraine is for most European countries, a very important topic. And I think what should come out of this summit is a very strong statement with specific actions about why NATO wants Ukraine to be successful, to be able to defeat Russia. And this is what we are going to commit to doing to help make that possible. Now the President is meeting with President Zelensky. I think tomorrow at the end of all this, I'm pretty sure it won't be one of these stupid Oval Office meetings, you know, where you yell, you got no cards. Obviously the Ukrainians have most of the cards. And I think the president, I mean, just yesterday I was, I was watching where he was in the Oval Office saying that, you know, Putin, Putin really wants the war to end. You know, what a ridiculous statement. If Putin wanted the war to end, it would end, they would withdraw. So what, what Putin wants is for the war to end with Russia getting what it wants. And unfortunately, the President and his team still can't disengage from that. They, they've, they bought into that, that somehow Russia's entitled to something. And I'm, I'm, I'm pessimistic that, that the United States is going to do anything meaningful to help Ukraine, and so the rest of the alliance is going to have to do it.
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Thomas Small
Sometimes you hear people say that, look, for so many years, American presidents, American administrations did try to get the Europeans and Canada to pay their fair share and all that stuff, and it just
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took a kind of bowl in a
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China shop like Trump to force it to happen. Is it not possible that the next American administration can mend those relationships, but having benefited from that bull in that China shop. So with a new and more robust NATO alliance at the end of it, is that, is that just possible? And that historians will think, well, it was pretty messy, but it took a guy like Trump to kind of crack heads together.
- [39:21]
General Ben Hodges
I'm willing to give President Trump credit for doing more than any of his predecessors at forcing European leaders in Canada to finally accept responsibility for doing more for their, for their own defense and contributing more to the alliance. The reason I'm, I can't fully give a full throated endorsement of that is because, of course, Vladimir Putin, what he has done is what finally has caused especially Europeans to wake up and realize that he really is a threat, that this is not some Cold War thing. We don't have to worry about anymore that there really is a threat. So, so there is a growing awareness in most European capitals that we have to do something. So that's, that's a part of it. And of course, this is not the only threat with you have Iran, you have China and other things, North Korea that are out there. So I think most leaders realize they, they have to do more. So that's also part of this. But you also have to keep in mind that, you know, the thing about blowing the China shop is that there's a lot of broken China.
- [40:24]
Thomas Small
Yeah.
- [40:24]
General Ben Hodges
I'm confronted with it. You know, I live in Germany, so I'm confronted with it on a weekly basis at different work events. I go to where people are looking at me like, what the hell happened? I mean, the loss of trust, what the President did by threatening to take over Greenland, you know, that seemed like a distant memory. That probably did more damage to NATO than anything the Soviets or the Russians ever did.
- [40:48]
Thomas Small
And to insult an ally like Denmark, who had really stood beside the Americans more than other Europeans, it's really remarkable.
- [40:56]
General Ben Hodges
You had NATO troops, European troops, literally preparing to defend Greenland against an American attack. I mean, they didn't take this as a, oh, it's just Trump, you know, so it's that kind of stuff that is so damaging. And whoever the next president is, you know, it, we're never going to get back to where it was, unfortunately. But it can be, we can get back to, to a relationship with UK and Germany and France and Poland and Finland and everybody. El, Denmark, Netherlands, where there's respect and trust. The United States needs access. We need bases, we need to be forward deployed and we need forward friends. We can't defend America from Fort Bragg, North Carolina or Fort Hood, Texas. You have to be out there. And we Also, about 50% of the intelligence that the US government uses does not come from, from American satellites. It comes from allies. The intelligence sharing, which is based on trust, is essential for us. And I think if countries lose trust in the United States and they are very worried about who's in control in the US who's in the administration, that's going to hurt us long term.
- [42:13]
Thomas Small
I have literally never done this before, but I decided to just kind of cut into my interview with General Hodges, just briefly, because we recorded the conversation on the opening morning of the recent NATO summit in Ankara in Turkey. And I just wanted to let the listeners know that by the conclusion of the summit, NATO had formally described Russia as a long term threat and pledged 70 billion euros in military equipment assistance and training for Ukraine in 2026, saying that in 2027 they would match that. At the very least, European allies and Canada were explicitly recognized as financing most of that support. As for President Trump, he joined the other leaders in reaffirming what they called an ironclad commitment to Article 5. An attack on one is an attack on all.
- [43:12]
But the summit did not offer Ukraine
- [43:15]
a route into NATO. And despite the president participating in that collective expression of NATO's unity, Trump also showed some of that now customary behavior that undermined that message. He threatened additional American troop withdrawals from Europe. He revived his demand that the United States control Greenland. He openly criticized several European allies for not supporting the American campaign in Iran. And, and kind of most remarkably, he attacked Spain as a terrible partner and ordered officials to cut off trade with that country. So, on the one hand, institutional commitment
- [43:54]
was real and the United States certainly
- [43:57]
approved the final declaration. But on the other hand, America's personal and strategic commitment to NATO remains very much conditional. So there was that familiar Trumpian ambiguity, with one hand praising NATO's unity, with the other hand, threatening further reductions in the American military presence in Europe. And as far as Ukraine goes, yes, NATO, especially the European and Canadian components of NATO, robustly confirmed its dedication to Ukraine's sovereignty. And yet I think we're nowhere closer to the kind of explicit strategic objectives that General Hodges would like to see. Now, back to the interview.
- [44:38]
Well, you mentioned that Vladimir Putin has played a big role in galvanizing European increases in defense spending and all of that stuff. Halford Mackinder famously argued that control of Eastern Europe was central to the balance of power across the Eurasian heartland, as he called it, and he believed that to be the geographical pivot of history. I find that there's still a lot of salience in that initial entry into the study, into the science of geopolitics. Do you think that that kind of view still offers a useful way of understanding Ukraine's strategic importance? So, sir, setting aside the moral and even the political principles involved about sovereignty, about the nation state and all this stuff, what material geopolitical interests are NATO and the Atlantic powers, the whole Atlantic world order, defending in this war, what would you like decision makers to understand geostrategically about the importance of this war? I mean, taking in the broadest view, we're talking 350 years. I mean, if you. If you zoom out, you can see this is a contest with an aggressive Eurasian power centered in Moscow that has a kind of need, it feels, to expand and An Atlantic world order that knows it needs to push back against that. It's like, as old as our modern civilization. Do you still think that this is very important and this is the sort of thing that an American president should be saying to people to make them understand?
- [46:13]
General Ben Hodges
Well, I think the American president should lay out, what are America's interests in Europe? You know, the way President Trump speaks about it, it's like it's been charity to Europe. We've been doing all this for Europeans. We're leaving. We got to go somewhere else. Europe, as a bloc is America's biggest trading partner. So our prosperity depends on European prosperity, and European prosperity depends on stability and security. So when you've got Russia attacking Ukraine, that puts literally millions of refugees on the road into Central and Western Europe. That creates a lot of instability. It also has disrupted the shipment of food supplies that go into Africa. In the Middle east, it's disrupted energy flows that most of us have depended on. So stopping Russian aggression is important to re establishing stability and security. The flow of energy, the flow of food, these are part of the reasons that it's important that Russia is stopped. I don't care. What if Russia feels like they need to expand? They already have the biggest country in the world, and the population is only about 140 million people, and they've got unlimited resources. Why do they need to expand? The safest part of Russia was always the part that touched NATO because that was the one part of their. Their periphery where they knew they actually were never going to be attacked. They have much more to worry about on their border they share with China. And there in Central Asia, where you've got predominantly Muslim countries that are looking to break away from the Russian Federation one day. So this. This was all. I think the justification for what they've done was a fairy tale created by the Kremlin to justify their attack against Ukraine. And I think what they worry about is not Ukraine joining NATO, but Ukraine becoming a liberal, democratic, productive country, like Poland has become in other former Soviet republics. That would be very difficult for the Kremlin to explain to their own people.
- [48:15]
Thomas Small
Thank you very much, General Hodges. Thank you for coming on the show. It's been a great honor to speak
- [48:19]
General Ben Hodges
to you, Sir Thomas. I. I've enjoyed it. I like your style and I like. You obviously do your research, because you pulled up all my mistakes and. No, no, and no. It's okay. It's a. I think because probably the kind of people that listen to your podcasts are switched on and doing their own research. So thank. Thanks for the privilege.
- [48:39]
Thomas Small
Thank you, sir.
- [48:42]
That was retired Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. And remember, for deeper dives into the ideas we explore on this show, including extended conversations and Q&As with my CO host, Eamon Dean. Check the show notes for details on how to join the conflicted community. I'm Thomas Small. Conflicted is a message Heard Production. Our executive producers are Jake Warren and Max Warren. This episode was produced and edited by Thomas Small.