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Hold These Truths with Dan Crenshaw
Why America Can't Build Weapons Fast Enough | Dr. Seth Jones
00:41:59
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We hold these truths to be self
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evident, that all men are created.
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As a member of Congress, I get to have a lot of really interesting people in the office, experts on what they're talking about.
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This is the podcast for insights into the issues.
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China, bioterrorism, Medicare for all. In depth discussions, breaking it down into simple terms.
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We hold. We hold.
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We hold these truths.
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We hold these truths.
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With Dan Crenshaw, the eagle has landed. All right, welcome back, folks. Greatest podcast on Earth Today we have Mr. Seth Jones. Thank you for being with us.
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Thanks for having me. It's great to be on.
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So, a little bit about Seth. He's the president of the Defense and Security Department at the center for Strategic and International Studies, one of America's leading experts on irregular warfare, defense strategy and the defense industrial base. Spent years studying how technology, industrial capacity and innovation helped shape modern warfare and what we have to do to maintain our military edge. So we're going to talk about a lot of things today in our limited amount of time, which is, you know, what the war in Ukraine has taught us. You've got a new book, the American Edge, and we'll, we'll ask you about that growing role of drones, artificial intelligence, I mean, you know, and the need to revitalize America's defense industrial base. Like a lot of people think it's this all powerful being that's soaking up all the money. And it's like, turns out it's actually this has not been nurtured the way it needs to be, as it turns out. So we're learning those lessons now. So, Dr. Jones, sorry I said Mr. A doctor.
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That's okay. You can call. I've been called a lot worse.
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Yeah, that's right. Me too. Welcome, welcome. And appreciate you being here. So, so let's just start with this. Just, this came out just now, right. The American Edge Military tech nexus and the Sources of Great power dominance. What are the, what are the sources of great power dominance?
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Well, it's the industrial base. What, what has helped the great powers over time win a protracted war is an industrial base that can give the military what it needs to fight against and win the protracted war.
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Whose quote is that? Patton's quote.
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Like if there are actually a bunch of people that have said that 5%
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of, of good strategy or whatever is, is the tactics and the 95% is logistics.
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B
Logistics, yes. Omar Bradley is, is apparently. But I'm not sure that's definitive.
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You're a doctor, so you know better than I do. Yeah, but okay, so that's but that's the simplest, that's the simple answer.
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Yeah. And, and, and actually to the, the, the. The basic argument is, is to get a, a At a defense industrial base at a wartime footing, you need to maximize production capacity. You need to make the acquisition and contracting much more efficient. You need to eliminate a lot of the red tape that goes into that. And then you need to unleash the innovation of the American industrial base, which is what we've had in the past.
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And you can't ramp it up quickly.
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You can't ramp it up quickly.
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Why not? Because we did in World War II. Right. Ramped it up so quick. But I point out to people it's like well what are we building back then? We're just putting, we're just, we're just. Rosie to the riveter is just putting metal together. Now we're building these super complicated machines. You can't just ramp up quickly.
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Well, the challenge we have right now is that, is that a number of our types of Systems, whether it's fifth generation aircraft like the F35 or whether they're long range strike like the long range anti ship missile, the Orism, the, the timelines for building those are, you know, in the two to three year timeline, you know that that includes the supply chain which can be pretty difficult. Not just the company that's putting them together, but a pretty complex supply chain.
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I mean some of these systems could, I don't know, 500 companies could be contributing in the end. I mean, who knows?
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And with raw materials that are coming from across the world. So I mean this is why the timelines are difficult. Not as complex as they were during world. But I think we can find ways to build faster.
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Way more complex I guess was my point. I mean like, because again you're just putting metal on metal back in World War II, that the system is simpler and, and I think people think back to that. Well, we've done it before and I guess I have to point out it's like yeah, these are, these are different systems. This is modern warfare. You've got. We didn't, we didn't have semiconductor chips back then.
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Right.
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You know there was, you weren't, it was not that complicated. So you could pump out a ton.
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We didn't have stealth technology back then which is. Or we didn't have long range strike. The had like, it was totally different. We were just dropping bombs 10,000 plus miles with precision strike capability.
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That's just.
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You can't build that.
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We're storming Beaches and kicking ass. But. Well, so, so then what's the, what's the thesis here then? Like are, are we doing well on this front? Are we not doing well?
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And the basic argument is if, if that's what a, that that's what you need for a wartime environment. We're in an environment right now where we've, we've got a growing threat from the Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, North Koreans and others. And we've got a peacetime industrial base.
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Yeah.
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So that's base. That's the basic thesis.
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Yeah. So you have to accept the, the premise that we're kind of in a constant warfare state. I mean, I would agree with that. I mean it's, you got it going through it from China, all the countries you just mentioned. The world is not becoming safer and more peaceful. No, not even close.
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No. And we're either in, we've either been involved in war for, for better or worse, or we're aiding countries like Ukraine that are engaged in war. So I mean hard or, or we're, we're trying to deter war from happening as we, as I think we are in the, in the Pacific.
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Yeah. Not that many times in recent American history have we just been at a, in a peacetime state.
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No.
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Maybe I was some like a small portion of the 90s.
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Yeah. Well, and that, that actually got a chapter on the, the, the peace dividend and the, the Last supper that happens where the defense industrial base consolidates to five or six major primes and the defense budget decreases dramatically over the course of the 1990s.
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That's happens in the 1990s.
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Yeah, but we're not. If the Soviet Union collapses so US loses its major adversary and, but we're not, we're not in that world anymore.
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We thought we didn't need it. And in production, you know, I point this out to people too. It's like again, this is the kind of folks who like to scream about the military industrial complex, like buying Congress. You know, I'm like, look guys, like the problem is the opposite of what you think the problem is. You know, we didn't, we didn't put those orders in. And when you don't put an order into a company, well, they stop making it. And when they stop making that particular product, which is incredibly complex, well, the 500 other little small companies that contribute to that product also stop making it. And their production lines go and, and they're that, that one 55 year old dude that knows how to do the one little thing that makes that One little thing that makes the other one work, he's gone. And so it's. Bringing it back is extremely difficult. We're. I think. I think that problem is very well known right now. That's the good news. I mean, we hear about it a lot. I think this administration has put in a lot of, you know, maybe not nobody was like defense, not nobody, but people. Not necessarily with defense experience, but business experience for that reason. Kind of reminds me of like Churchill and that, you know, he put a. I can't remember his name, but reading a book about it. He put some guy in charge of creating their, you know, manufacturing their aircraft. A business background.
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Yeah.
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So are we doing better at least? You said you got to make acquisitions better. You got to. You got to cut out the red tape. Are we. We have taken some steps.
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We have taken some. I think we've taken some steps. We certainly have innovative companies. You know, we've got more competition in the defense space. We're focused on issues like drones and counter UAS unmanned aircraft systems. We're making. Now starting to make unmanned underwater systems so undersea. It's a real vulnerability for the Chinese. So we're starting to do that. We're just, we're not. We're not making them in mass right now. We're still. Still making a lot of really expensive types of hardware. I don't think having just come back last week from our headquarters to aid the Ukrainian Sagu in Germany. I'm not sure we're fully learning the lessons from the Ukraine war on multiple, including you. There's this one interesting war game at Grafenwehr at the end of the spring where a US army brigade gets ripped apart by Ukrainian unmanned. About 41 man unmanned system team. Just. They were exposed. The Ukrainians had said in the after action report they hadn't seen a line of soldiers and equipment that long since the early days of the war against the Russians where they tore them apart. So I'm not sure we fully internalized what this new type of warfare actually means for our forces.
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That's disappointing. Yeah. I mean, at least in socom, I know we're starting to do f, you know, FMV drone courses. It's now codified. They're starting to think about it. But yeah, it's. You're probably right. It's a slow uptake, just like everything in the military.
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Yeah. I think actually General Fenton probably was, at least my experience, one of the first SOCOM commanders to really start getting a lot of his staff to interact with companies on the Front line, start educating the military about what's actually even available.
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You should be bringing in Ukrainian advisors. It's like, look, if in a drone environment, which is basically the environment from now on. Yeah, that's, it's going to be the environment from now on. It doesn't matter if you're going against state or non state actors. That's the environment. Because drones are cheap and, and plentiful. Yeah, you're changing your tactics. It's kind of like, it's kind of like Afghanistan. I mean, you know, we would, we would patrol in a single line, which is not a good tactic. That's a terrible tactic. You know, I want to be able to shoot, move and communicate. I want to have a base of fire. I want to have maneuver elements. I want to have an overwatch. Well, that involves walking. That involves walking across areas that are covered in IEDs. So, so you don't do that. We walk in a line and that's a, that's bad for a gunfight, but that's how you survive IEDs. And even then you don't always quite survive. And you know, is because our calculus was like, well, I brought it. I can, I can fire back accurately and better than they can, but I, but I can't unblow myself up. Right.
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Can't do that.
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That's really good. Yeah. Tactics always have to adapt to the situation.
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And you know, there are people who make these arguments that, well, we, first we wouldn't fight like the Ukrainians or the, the situation of the Pacific is different from what it is in Europe. But the way the Chinese have been building drones, short range, medium range, long range, that you have to expect that any marine or army force or any base in an area like Okinawa, Japan, where we've got our Kadena Air Force base or a third Marine Expeditionary Force, they will come under significant threat not just from ballistic and cruise missiles, but from massive proliferation of drones. And not just air, but surface or sub sea, the way the Ukrainians have used it. And, and you know, there's some things that I don't think people fully appreciate. In the Ukraine case you get a casualty in and around the kill zone where, where you know, much of the fighting is actually happening. You don't send people in anymore. It's far too dangerous. You've got an unmanned ground vehicle that goes out and then has a buddy that gets them in. It's like an, like, like getting an MRI and then wheels them off the battlefield. That's just, that's a very different concept than we've ever had to deal with.
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That's wild. Now, the Iran conflict, learning from that, at least. I mean, we have fended off swarms of, of these things. I mean, we do have some defenses. And in fact, we pick up those pilots with an unmanned drone boat, whatever you want to call it. Autonomous surface vessel. Yeah, made in, made in Texas. That's good. Very cool company. But. So, yeah, we're getting there. But it's. Yeah, it's just, you know, like everything in the military, it's like, it's, it's. You're probably right, it's slow. The counter drone issue is a real problem. Again, I feel like we've done okay and we've learned some lessons from Iran. But, you know, I get concerned about domestic counter drone issues. You know, our laws prohibit us from even allowing like local law enforcement and certainly not private companies from defending themselves if they're, you know what if you're a critical infrastructure node, it's a bunch of drones overhead, you can't do anything about it. What do you think about that?
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I think it is one of the most significant threats that we face in the United States. Could be from state or non state actors. You can see on the state actor side, you see what the Ukrainians did to the Russians as a deep strike against a Russian air base. Strategic bombers with drones. That threat is absolutely significant in the United States. You can also see it from non state actors targeting locations like football stadiums. And you know, it's one thing I'm
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amazed it didn't happen in the World Cup.
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I mean, you know, honestly, I mean, I get it. At our Super Bowls, there's a level of security that's different from sort of a normal college football game, for example. And I think the challenge, a big challenge we have is we don't have enough authority to go after those kinds of drones that are persistent. The thing that's particularly concerning to me is these drones are getting better. They're longer range, they carry higher payloads, and they're now increasingly autonomous.
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Yeah.
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And so if you, if you cannot strike quickly, then you threaten everybody that's sitting in that stadium.
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How much do you look into the technological advances of these kind of drones and like, where, you know, where's the industry at when it comes to developing the right counter drone stuff? I mean, it's one thing to kinetic, you know, defend a ship or a base where you can shoot at it, you can jam it. Yeah, there's, there's just a little bit more freedom there. But talking about a Football stadium. Well, you don't want it to fall on the people it just, it's hovering over because it has explosives on it, or maybe it doesn't. You still don't want to fall on people. I'm not sure we have even the technologies. The law certainly is a problem because it's not letting us deal with it. But even if we could deal with it, I'm not sure the technology's there yet.
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I mean, there are two challenges. One is the technology for drones changes every day or week. The that what you see on the battlefield, both with the Ukrainians and the Russians. And by the way, it's not just the Ukrainians and the Russians. The Chinese are providing aid to the Russian side. The US and others are providing aid to the Ukrainian side. So there are a lot of actors involved in this and they're using in many cases, commercially available technology. But it's getting better and better. And so for counter drone, it's going to have to change dramatically week by week, month by month. It's been okay for some types of drones, but the variations of the electromagnetic spectrum to these are sort of gun versions to drones themselves that are useful for counter drones. There have been some helpful developments, but the issue is what's good today is not going to be good tomorrow. So you have to advance and adapt, like at the speed of technology.
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And it just goes back to the discussion about policy. You know, are we, are we well equipped to adapt that way? You know, you said some changes have been made at Department of Board, a better acquisitions process. We would go into a little bit more detail on that. You know, there's an empowerment of like at the O6 level, for instance, I'm forgetting like the, the term, but it's, you know, it has to do with a procurement officer or something like that. Yeah. You know, like we're pushing that authority down, which I think has been good. What else should we do? What should Congress do?
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Well, I, I think there are a couple things. One is, you know, it's interesting when you go back to one of the major speeches during World War II by FDR, Frank Delano Roosevelt, a big part of the speech was the workforce. I think one of the challenges we have right now with the industrial base is we do not have sufficient workforce. In some cases, it's not necessarily technologically capable. In other cases, people are choosing not to go down that because they can make just as much money at the local Walmart. I mean, it's understandable. So I think we've got to Incentivize and there may be ways to support vocational schools or, or other types of education that put people on a good track to do work for the nation. So what are the workforce steps that Congress can take to build the workforce that FDR talks about in the arsenal of democracy speech that can build the equipment that we need along those lines? So that's one big issue.
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I mean, what do we mean exactly? Like engineering degrees or what do we.
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Yeah, well, I mean, what do you
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think is the biggest lack of.
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Take a shipyard, for example. You need welders.
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Okay.
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You need, you need electricians.
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And we are trying to pass things like that. Like. Yeah. Improve apprenticeship programs. Get this, there's a, there's a mindset that needs to change too, which is, okay, four year college degree or year and a half, you know, certification to be exactly that, a welder and make $170,000 a year.
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Yeah.
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Pretty freaking good.
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Yeah. So, I mean, I, I think so there's a big workforce.
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I think AI is not going to weld.
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No, AI will not. I mean, you know, it'll help with a design in some cases, but you need people at this day and age to still. Well, so I, I think that's a big issue that we've got to get our hands around.
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That's. Yeah. And that, that's, yeah, and that's true. You hear that from companies all the time. It's like, you can pay us more money, we can't go faster. That's just for, for a ton of different reasons, whether it's supply chain or access to critical minerals or, or workforce. So, but, but, but my question was more about policy. Let's, you know, what should Congress do to. Okay, well, yeah, we can do things to improve the, the workforce. Right. Incentive structures. I think, I think student loans should be a higher, this is my idea. I've always thought there should be a higher interest rate if you're getting like some stupid degree and like, you know, I don't know, basket weaving underwater for, for whatever, whatever dumb degree you can think of.
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There are a lot of them that
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should be, that should be a high, that should be a very high interest rate. You know, art history should be a high interest rate. A lower interest rate for stem. That would make sense.
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Yes. Yeah.
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Engineering or something, something useful or welding
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for nuclear, nuclear powered submarines, for example.
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Yeah, well, and that's another actual solution we've, we've put forth is, you know, you gotta allow student loans be used for something other than a four year degree for certifications, for Apprenticeships, things like that, that, that would go a long way. But aside from that, I mean, going back to rules and regulations, about, about acquisitions, about, you know, how, how can we buy the next, next greatest thing and quickly and move fast. I mean, help us policymakers, like, write the right thing.
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Yeah.
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Because you're a doctor and, you know.
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Yeah, I, and an author. Although as my kids have told me, as someone had a medical emergency on a plane, I had to explain to one of my kids that, no, I'm not the kind of doctor that helps people. So. No, I'm, I'm kidding.
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I don't practice on people.
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So, so on the policy side, just. So talking about, you mean when it comes to like regulations for acquisitions and contracting or.
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I mean, you said, you said it in the beginning. Right. We need to improve the way we do acquisitions. We need to cut red tape here and there. Like, so, like what, you know, you know, if you're advising Hegseth or telling us what to pass in the baa, like what, what changes need to be made. So we talk about this a lot, but it's hard to find out.
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Yeah. So I, I'll give you one example. I know it's, it's a controversial topic on the Hill. You know, if, if, if, if you take a look at shipbuilding, the PLA now and PLA shipbuilding, these are state owned enterprises, have now capability that's 230 times the size of US shipbuilding to build both military and commercial ships. It's a huge advantage. They also build a lot of commercial ships in the region. The US has essentially gotten out of that market for a long time.
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Yeah.
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You know, there's a really interesting question, I think, about how much and do we change laws? Take the Jones act, for example, and allow more South Korean or Japanese help in building ships. Now, you're not going to want to do that, I don't think for our nuclear powered Virginia class or Columbia class submarines. Those are probably too sensitive. Probably not for your aircraft carriers. But what about cruisers or, I don't know, destroyers maybe or parts of the hulls or something? I think. What incentives do we. Because when you look at some of those Korean and Japanese shipbuilding companies, they've got robotics and autonomous capabilities. They're able to build faster and have been building commercial.
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It'll take a while to catch up to that.
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And so my question is, is, are there ways where we can loosen some of the restrictions on partnering with foreign companies that have an advantage right now?
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Well, it's specific to shipbuilding. Yeah. I mean, but it's, you know, what about like getting the latest and greatest drones? Because the drones are coming out constantly, depending on which part of the military we're talking about, they have an easier time adapting. SOCOM is generally pretty good at trying new things out. Getting something, deciding on something for everyone is a whole other story though. And you hear from startups and there's a lot of innovation out there, more than ever maybe right now there's a lot in the defense and intelligence sector. It's all over the place. But you definitely hear a lot of complaints. Like first of all, how the hell do I interact with government? You know, government tells you to do something and doesn't want to buy it.
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B
Right.
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It's a mess.
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B
Yeah. You know another area that I think has been a challenge, you know, there's a lot of criticism laid a company at the feet of companies. They are for profit companies. They do have shareholders. I mean that is a reality of an American company.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And you, when, when you look at the last couple of decades of defense spending, it's varied quite a bit. We are not spending anywhere near the same amount as a percentage of GDP as we were during the Cold War. I mean that's just a, that's just a fact. I mean people can argue about whether that's a good or a bad idea.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And so since that last supper in the 1990s, defense budgets have been much lower. There's a legitimate question from defense companies on if you're asking us to build X, Y or Z, but you're not giving us a multi year contract, how do we know that that missile isn't going to be a bill payer at the end of the year, which is what's happened. So I, I think, and that Congress has started to push the department for multi year contracts for key munitions. I think that's absolutely essential.
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A
And that takes this argument about the supplemental that we want to vote on. It's, it's, it's a, we're, we're buying ahead one, one. You're getting a better deal because you know, if you buy 10 widgets. Yeah. I've visited these contractors and I'm like, well you know, we're making a satellite and it costs this much. I'm like, what if we, like, we know we want four. What if we told you we were going to buy four right now, would the price go to this? And they're like yeah, sure, yeah, of course it would. Yeah, you idiots. It's very frustrating.
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B
And if they needed to build more infrastructure to Build more. They could do that as well. I think that that's like a signal to the industrial base. And actually it's not just the primes that are assembling it. It's the whole supply chain that we talked about earlier. You're giving a signal to the whole supply chain that you are committing yourself to buying these things. And for everybody that starts to wonder, well, what if we don't use them because the numbers from some of our war games we run out of our long range anti ship missiles after a week of a war in the Pacific. What if you don't use them and they sit on the shelf for a while? My response to that is fine, I'd take that if it strengthens deterrence than actually having to go and fight the war. Yeah. Because the blood and treasure costs of actually having to fight World War III are going to be staggering.
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A
You can ask what if we don't use any. You can ask that about anything. Right. And deterrence is, is actually part of the strategy.
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B
I'll take that.
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A
Part of the reason for building it. I mean and like you're, you're kind of a lack of an answer is, is indicative of the problem. It's more of a mindset almost. You know there's, there's some steps we can take but there's no policymakers. We're always looking for like that one regulation. If we just change this or just change this law. And it's, but it's like, it's like a mindset.
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B
I think it is a mindset. I think it's mindset. And socon's actually a good example of it. I'm not sure it's been as pervasive in some of the services where, where it, it's, it, it was never a legal issue. It wasn't just a legal issue at various levels of Special Operations Command to talk to companies and to educate yourself about what's out there, what you need and then to go out and test and then have companies help you. You know, you, you can adjust so it's a war fighter and not have to go all the way back to.
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A
That's how, that's how.
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That's policy builds basic.
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That's how they build their rifles.
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B
Yeah. It's like we're going to use this.
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Okay. We go back to man. Actually change those changes. It's, it's good.
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B
That's a cultural mindset issue. And I think it, I, I think you see it in, I mean this is this one of the things that's Interesting. Having visited some of the frontline areas of Ukraine, there is a level of cooperation. Oh it's constant between companies and the, the tip of the spear, the war fighters on the ground that makes innovation happen. And, and so you know, you always have to be aware of fraud, waste and abuse, of course, but there has to be a level of cooperation. We have the most innovative companies in the world. We have to find ways to get that partnership down from the acquisition level down to the war fighters. And it's more of a policy and a cultural and a mindset issue than it is a legal one or necessarily a legislative one.
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A
Since you think about all these big problems when we reflect on 911 the. You get that term failure of imagination.
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B
Yeah.
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A
You know that leads to Nile. A lot of things led to 911 but failure of imagination you could argue is one of them. What do you think our, what do you think our next failure of imagination could be?
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B
I think one of the biggest ones we've already talked about is. I think, I think one of our biggest failures of, of. And we've started to imagine it but we haven't done much about it is getting hit on the homeland from autonomous unmanned systems.
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A
Yeah, yeah. We think about it all the time. I mean I'm talking about all the time. But yeah, doing something is another is. I mean I got a bill that well, would at least make it legal to defend ourselves which is. I mean it's insane that we even have to have that conversation. But it's okay. So there's that. I mean, God, I guess we could go down a long list.
- [26:21]
B
Yeah.
- [26:21]
A
People. People get freaked out about.
- [26:23]
B
I mean I will say as well. Yeah. That there are bio threats. I have to say we, we. I've run a couple of different war games that start off with a quarantine or blockade. The Chinese quarantine blockade of Taiwan. They escalate up to a conflict scenario which the US conducts an attack in response to like a destroyer getting sunk in the Pacific and the Chinese hit the US homeland. I will say I also don't think there is a level of resilience in the United States that we are I think in a very different world than we were even back in 911 from state based actors. And I would just give.
- [27:02]
A
What do you mean by resilience? Like, like you don't think the, like the people would be ready for it.
- [27:05]
B
I'm not sure we have internalized that. The same the two oceans that we have had and you know, the border we've got with Canada and Then Mexico are going to protect us from all threats anymore. I mean, that was a. It was a sense of sanctuary. I'm not sure that exists anymore.
- [27:24]
A
Yeah, the world is a small place. Place and remind people all the time, like, the world is not a large place. It was a large place. I don't know. The last time it was a large place was maybe the 1600s, maybe, you know, because it was a small place. Even when, during our own revolution, when the French decided it was in their interest to sail across the ocean to help us. Yeah, it was a small place back then. You know, it's people. Because I deal with people a lot as a politician. And the question, why are we over here? Why do we have 10,000, 30,000 troops in this country? In that country? In that country? I'm like, because that's, that's forward. That's forward posturing. That's national security.
- [27:57]
B
Yeah.
- [27:57]
A
Do you think national security is Navy seals just like on Coronado beach, just like waiting for the Chinese, like, is that what you think it is? It's not what it is. Yeah. You know, you, you build alliances. You, you train, you equip, you, you, you, you know, and you forward deploy. People just don't quite understand that you have not internalized that. We live in a small world. We feel, I think we feel definitely feel too safe.
- [28:20]
B
Well, yeah, just one last thing on this point that. On a failure of imagination and again, it's sort of right out there in the open is what the Chinese have just done with Volt Typhoon, which is not just espionage anymore, but the ability to go after critical infrastructure in the United States against everything from the financial grid to electricity network. That a foreign actor with the capability now and potentially the intent to take down key critical infrastructure. Volt Typhoon should be a warning that our homeland also has significant threats from offensive cyber operations that could take down critical infrastructure. So again, that goes back to the same theme of the. Of kind of like an end of sanctuary. I mean, there's a. If you're in Finland right now, you are in a very different position. Since the Russians invaded Ukraine. They, they. And they feel it over there.
- [29:15]
A
Oh, yeah, no, I bet they do. And then, so, so what are our big gaps? I mean, like in, in this book, you. You talk about even if you have the best technology, it doesn't mean a lot if you can't scale it. Yeah. You know, and we talked about how we're not scaling it quickly enough and why. Where do you, where do you think those big. Where are the most dangerous Gaps right now between what the military needs and what the industrial base can, can produce.
- [29:39]
B
Yep, I, I, I think there are, I think there are a few areas to focus on. I mean, you know, a lot of people have sort of talked about this, but in general you, when, when you talk about either defense or offense having some exquisite capabilities, you need your, what we have right now, Thaad and Patriot, to shoot down incoming cruise missiles or ballistic missiles. But we increasingly need a lower, much cheaper capabilities to go after the drones. And it's the same thing on the offensive side with strike We've got very exquisite, super expensive long range anti ship missiles. But where we're hurting right now is the ability to project power with precise mass because you need more than just expensive systems as we've just even seen with the war in Ukraine. We need to get those price points down for undersea, for air, for surface, down to much cheaper numbers right now. And I think there's a big push, needs to be a continuing push on industry, get the price points down for a longer range strike for air defense systems because you can't fight a protracted war with the kinds of numbers we're talking about right now.
- [30:54]
A
Yeah, I mean since you were just in Ukraine and looking at that problem set, I mean where do you think the Ukrainians are doing? Pretty well, obviously. I mean it's hard, it's hard to predict Putin, you know, he seems to have an endless appetite for, for sacrificing his own people. But how long do you think that can, can last? What's your latest take on that?
- [31:12]
B
Well, I mean the, I mean it is worth noting that Putin has clearly not cared about the casualties that his military has suffered. They are extraordinary. By the way, our numbers which we recently put out were 450, at least 450,000 Russian fatalities since the war began. That is over four times more than all U. S fatalities in all wars combined since World War II. So you take Vietnam, Korea, all of
- [31:42]
A
those and most of those are in the last year or two.
- [31:44]
B
Yeah. And you multiply that by a factor of four and you still don't get to where the Russians are. And then you, you look at their control of territory this year, in several months this year, including April and May, they've actually lost territory to the Ukrainians. So I think when you look at rates of advance by the Russians, you look at the extraordinary casualty and fatality rates and you look at their inability to control any territory right now. And then in addition to that, you look at the Ukrainians, medium long Range and even short range strike against Russian territory and Russian held areas of Ukraine like Crimea. They're hitting targets. The Ukrainians are hitting targets in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, Crimea. They can't go to the beach this summer. The summer camps are closed. I don't see Putin relenting and stopping the war right now because I suspect that means the end of Putin if he does that. So I think what you've gotta wonder is whether what he's got next, whether he can successfully get Belarus to enter the war, whether he expands the strikes into areas of NATO's eastern flank. But, but I think whether he rattles his nuclear saber in a way. But I, I think he's going to be up to no good sooner rather than later.
- [33:05]
A
Is it, is there. And we've been looking for these kind of off ramps that, you know, he could, he could go home and say he's won something, but it's, it doesn't seem interested in those off ramps.
- [33:14]
B
I, I mean he had made the case the year before the war that Ukraine is historically Russian territory. So I mean, he's basically said what he thinks. So I, I think he really would have to suck it up if he were to, to, to leave now. I don't think. I just don't see him willing to do that.
- [33:34]
A
Yeah. Yeah, it's unfortunate. What about Taiwan? I'm heading to Taiwan here pretty soon, my first time there. But do you think they're ready to, to fight? I mean, you know, we've got our, our, our programs and, and efforts to make Taiwan this, this porcupine that prevents a war in the first place. Always a lot of concern over the Taiwanese and, and you know, what they're investing and willing to do. Yeah.
- [34:01]
B
Well, two comments on Taiwan. One of the things we know now from the Ukrainians and I think the Russians had questions before the war is would the Ukrainians have a will to fight? The answer was absolutely yes. And they were willing to come out and they were willing to kill Russians. Do the Taiwanese have a will to fight? I just, I don't mean just the
- [34:18]
A
military, but if there were, I mean like. Yeah. In the streets, like the cla forces
- [34:22]
B
on the ground, into the streets.
- [34:23]
A
Because I could have answered that. I could have said yes, Ukrainians will fight because they're Eastern Europeans and they like to fight.
- [34:27]
B
Yeah. And they've been doing it. We saw that in 2015 and 16 and 17. They've been fighting the Russians.
- [34:32]
A
But I think it's the question when you're talking about Taiwan. Yeah.
- [34:34]
B
So I think that's, that's a question. Now, the, the president, William Lai, has been increasing this focus on national resilience, including some of the training that's gone on for civil military training and training, including weapons training for local communities. So I think they're moving slowly in the right direction. So there's that component which is a big important part of deterrence. There's a second part which is do they have the capabilities to do it? And I think what Admiral Paparo, the PAYCOM commander as part of the defense of Taiwan has focused on, this could be just the US or it could be US or. Sorry, it could be just the US And Taiwan, or it could be just Taiwan is a hellscape scenario that includes a significant component of unmanned systems, air surface and a subsea.
- [35:27]
A
Just making the cost so great that it's too annoying.
- [35:31]
B
Right. So Xi Jinping wakes up day after day and says, today is not the day. Still naked, I think, you know, and,
- [35:37]
A
you know, a maritime invasion is not easy.
- [35:40]
B
It's not easy.
- [35:40]
A
Not in that terrain either.
- [35:42]
B
So, you know, but, but I mean, also the same thing with blockade or quarantine. He decides it's not worth going down that road. And so I, I.
- [35:49]
A
What's the Chinese. I mean, but he's like, it's kind of like Putin. He's committed himself. Xi Jinping's basically committed himself event, you know, to this idea. Now, he hasn't committed a certain strategy, but. So what is the, what do you think the most likely meant? I think we have to vote. Do they call votes? They have not called votes yet. See, we don't even know what the buzzing means. Like there was all that buzzing earlier. It's like, I don't know, but check on that. Yeah, they haven't called. So what was I gonna ask? Yeah, I mean, he's committed himself to, you know, to this one China future. How do you, what do you think the most likely scenario is? You know, in military, we like to talk in most likely scenarios, most dangerous scenarios or courses of action.
- [36:30]
B
I, I think it would be very difficult for a People's Liberation army with very limited operational experience. No major combat other than like the line of actual control since in India. But that was like, like, like, like if you've seen the videos of the fighting between the Indians and the, and the Chinese tonight in 2020 or 21, it's like baseball bats with.
- [36:51]
A
Yeah.
- [36:52]
B
With nails in them.
- [36:53]
A
They haven't quite figured out, like, joint strikes and.
- [36:56]
B
Yeah, like, like dynamic targeting kill chain. So in the US during World War II, it was a huge concern to try to invade Formosa, Taiwan, at the time. I think it'd be a huge question for the first major Chinese war to be an amphibious invasion of Taiwan with a fair amount of US equipment in Taiwan. What that probably suggests to me is what's more likely, because that's what you asked about, are two kinds of Chinese moves. One is sort of a quarantine or blockade that they use not PLA naval vessels, but Coast Guard ships, and then are almost begging the US or the Japanese or others to escalate up to the military realm that benefit that.
- [37:49]
A
Because you mentioned this, the horrible potential of. Yeah. Chinese using that as an excuse to strike the homeland or not. I mean, geez. I mean, that's quite the escalation.
- [37:58]
B
Yeah.
- [37:59]
A
So.
- [37:59]
B
So it would be the escalation unless they believed that the US was deterred from actually doing that. Which leads me to what I think probably the most likely scenario and the one that I think they'd probably prefer is, is what you might call actions within the gray zone. So, you know, the, the, the Democratic People's Party loses the next election. Xi Jinping has been working on KMT cover.
- [38:25]
A
Yeah. Information operations.
- [38:27]
B
And so you get a.
- [38:28]
A
It's kind of like Hong Kong. I mean.
- [38:29]
B
Yeah. And so you get a more malleable government after the next election or a future election in Taiwan that is willing to broker an evolution in the relationship with the Chinese.
- [38:41]
A
I wonder what that means for us. I mean, like, because if we're being, you know, there's. We have to take a step back as Americans sometimes and be like, yeah, what's in America's interest? And you know, Taiwan is very much in America's interest in the sense, economically speaking, if you lose that semiconductor capacity, let the Chinese on it, It's. It's pretty bad.
- [39:00]
B
Yeah.
- [39:01]
A
Would we lose it in that scenario? I mean, we'd, it would probably be more expensive. We don't like the Chinese controlling it. So it's still not in our interest even to allow that gray zone activity. Yeah. Well, what are we willing to do to stop it? That's the real question.
- [39:13]
B
And what would they do? Would they. Would they actually, as they. They did with Hong Kong, would they pull it back into the, into the prc? Would they put bases on there, push their subs out from there? Because there is certainly a world where the Chinese own Taiwan, which suddenly gives them access to key economic lines of communication. So think sort of Strait of Hormuz. But now in the, in the Taiwan Straits and then in other areas of the South China Sea. If it gives look at the reaction. If you're the sitting. The Philip, our major allies in the Philippines or Japan, now you've got the Chinese right up against them. There are Japanese islands right near Taiwan. It starts to change the dynamic of, of the balance of power.
- [39:57]
A
Koreans, you know, they're not really pulling their weight in this. The Japanese are really ramping up, it seems like, and taking this seriously. The Philippines as well as deployment in Korea, you know, I just didn't get the sense of the, especially the younger generation. The older generation loves Americans, remembers the Korean War. The younger generation, no. Yeah.
- [40:17]
B
Oh, I, I, I hard to know where the population sits. I would say at least my interaction with Korean government, the South Korean government is that it is a increasingly concerned about Chinese military capabilities, including nuclear capabilities, because the Chinese aren't tracked by the end of the decade, a thousand nuclear warheads, they're on their way to increase above that. And then also North Koreans still.
- [40:43]
A
So they're definitely concerned about that. That was a constant.
- [40:46]
B
So I think the government is concerned how much that is like, proliferated down into the population.
- [40:51]
A
That's a, that's, I think the North Korean stuff is proliferated down, but like, you know, do they really, I mean, and also, you know, they can be scared, but are they putting up capability? I guess that's what my real question is. Are they putting up capabilities? Are they investing in capabilities? You know, we're asking the Europeans to spend more money, right? Well, we should be asking our Asian partners. It's not us in Taiwan versus China. It's got to be like this entire coalition.
- [41:12]
B
Yes.
- [41:12]
A
That's the only way to defend it 100%.
- [41:15]
B
And so I think that should be an important source of dialogue with the Japanese. I'd add the Australians to that as well.
- [41:20]
A
Australian. Australians.
- [41:22]
B
Good. And the Koreans. Yeah, and the Koreans, you know, to be investing more joint production, you know, co production, co development, even with American companies or us selling them stuff as well, but in areas that would be useful for strengthening deterrence in the region.
- [41:36]
A
Yeah. Prove that. I gotta go vote on some stuff. Well, hey, thanks for, thanks for, thanks for being here.
- [41:43]
B
Thanks for having me. What an honor to be here. Appreciate it.
- [41:46]
A
It's best podcast ever. I appreciate this. It is the best podcast, everybody, for Seth Jones. Dr. Seth Jones. Not a practicing doctor, different kind of doctor. All right, so thanks for. Thanks, thanks for good conversation.
- [41:57]
B
Thank you very much. All.