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- [02:03]
Charlie Sykes
I'm Charlie Sykes. Welcome back to the to the Contrary podcast. You know, when I was writing my newsletter early this morning, I said stop me if you've heard this before, but apparently the war in Iran is back on again. At least for the moment. At least until the markets open. I don't know. Donald Trump took a break from bashing and alienating our NATO allies to saying that he thinks that the deal with Iran is over. And of course both countries are unleashing new waves of strikes. And the president, of course, being as diplomatic as he usually is, describes the Iranians as scum. They're sick people. They're led by sick people. About five minutes ago he was saying how smart and reasonable they were. Oil prices are surging as we are taping this and we're just getting reports that the Pentagon may be actually running out of cash. We have a lot to talk about today. And joining me on the podcast today, retired General Mark Hertling, the author of the book we talked about this last time. If I don't return, General Hurtling, welcome back to the podcast, Charlie.
- [03:10]
Retired General Mark Hertling
It is great to be back with you once again. But today is probably the worst day possible that we could be talking because so many things are changing and we're not sure of what anything is real right now.
- [03:21]
Charlie Sykes
Well, let's just start with just in real time. You sacrificed yourself by actually listening and watching the President's press conference with Volodymyr Zelensky this morning. Just give me your take on where we're at. We're going to get to Iran in a moment. But give me your take on what Donald Trump was saying at that press conference this morning. What do you.
- [03:43]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Well, it was in Ankara and they were discussing the war in Ukraine. The president said how he thought it was going to be the easiest war to end of all of them, that he would end it in one day. But because of the hard headedness of both President Putin and Zelensky, some were hard headed on one day and then it flip flopped and that was his message. But President Zelensky is sitting right next to him very patiently. And all I could think of as I was watching his facial expression is this is a guy who's got a lot of people to talk to and a lot of things on his mind. As I believe the Ukrainian forces have shown in the last two or three months a capability that is exponentially greater than they've shown in the first couple of years of the war. And even that, as you know my feelings on this, Charlie, they've sustained themselves very well and have fought an incredibly good fight. And Mr. Putin is in a very bad position right now. So I think the president at least has the understanding that perhaps President Zelensky does have a couple of cards to play. But there were a few interesting announcements. One of the things the president said is they were going to give Ukraine. He said this is a surprise for this press conference. A little birdie told him, and that was the phrase he used, that perhaps that they would allow Ukraine to start making Patriot missiles under an agreement within their own country. Now, okay, that's an interesting tidbit. I'm sure it's something that Raytheon and others have been talking about. But when you suggest you're going to start building those kind of technologically advanced missiles inside of another country. There are certainly a lot of agreements that have to be signed for that. But beyond just the physics of getting a factory up and running and producing the missiles, I'm sure it was. If the Russian GRU doesn't know it, I'm sure it was a surprise to Mr. Putin and will certainly not help any kind of negotiation between Putin and Zelensky if Putin knows the United States is now supporting the building of Patriot factories inside Ukraine.
- [06:03]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, they need those missiles now, though. So in the good news and the bad news, as you point out, it does appear that Ukraine has turned the tide. One of the most interesting developments, I think the last couple of years has been the United States abandoned Ukraine. So Ukraine basically reinvented warfare, didn't they, in terms of the drone use? And yet we had an attack just the other day, Russia, you know, missile attack on Ukraine. And Ukraine was not able to shoot down one of their missiles because they desperately need those Patriot missiles or something like it. So how do you, how do you evaluate the good and the bad?
- [06:39]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Well, you see the supply chain certainly running out. There have been such an extensive, there has been such an extensive use of air defense weapons systems across the board. Not just patriots, but all the other ones that they have both long range and short range. And Russia is taking that as an advantage and continuing to strike civilian targets. It was interesting. One of the other things I'll comment on after the President said he was a long student of warfare and knew more about combat and warfare than anybody. He also made the comparison in terms of air defense systems on the USS Abraham Lincoln, an aircraft carrier, which is what the military would call a point target for any incoming rockets or drones. And how they, at the early stages of the Iranian war, they shot down over 100 combined drones and missiles heading their way. Well, again, I'd like to point out the USS Abe Lincoln is probably target that's on a one square mile area of land which has multiple air defense systems to protect it because that's what aircraft carriers do. And he's talking to Ukraine saying that's what you need to do, basically. And Ukraine is a nation the size of the state of Texas. And Russia is hitting targets that go across the spectrum of civilian infrastructure within that large state. And you can't put air defense systems everywhere. We've been saying that from the very beginning. Just simply a lack of understanding of how some of these systems work and what the requirements are. But going back to your statement, yes, Ukraine has helped evolve warfare as we see it today, and we could learn an awful lot from them. But that's the other interesting thing the president said when asked that question about drones and are we buying Ukrainian drones? He basically said, sure, we're buying them, but we're also producing our own because we're the best drone makers in the world, which is certainly not the case right now. And we are struggling inside the US Military with ensuring that we take the lessons from Ukraine and incorporate them into our own evolution and adaptation of warfare. And we're struggling with that because Secretary Hegseth doesn't want anybody coordinating inside of Ukraine to learn some of their lessons.
- [09:07]
Charlie Sykes
I want to come back to Secretary Hegseth in a little while and want to talk about obviously what's going on with the NATO summit and the way Donald Trump is behaving to our allies and what we are seeing. But give me your sense this morning as we wake up again and Donald Trump, the war in Iran is on again. I actually did a livestream yesterday where I was asking, I was talking with Matt Lewis and I said, by the way, Matt, are we still at war with Iran? Because I'm not sure. It just sort of dropped out of the headlines. And of course today we're back on. He's calling them lot of exchanges going on. What is your sense? I mean, I feel like we've been through this so many times, the rinse and repeat. Is the memorandum of understanding dead or is it back on again? Are the blockades going to be back? What do you think is, what is your sense of the state of play?
- [09:59]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Well, a few weeks ago, under a two week deadline that we've long passed, we talked about the memorandum of understanding. And what I said on several cable channels is the memorandum of understanding is somewhat like an agenda for a business meeting. It doesn't mean things are all settled in that memorandum. It means this is what we're going to talk about. Many of the things that were in that MOU have not been discussed as of yet. There is still dynamics of a lack of coordination and cooperation between The Iranians, the U.S. the Israelis and those who are the Pakistanis and the Bahrainians and the Omanis who are all part of the negotiations. When you haven't even decided on the elements of an agenda that you're going to discuss and bring right along, you know, you've got issues. So, you know, from what I saw in the president's true social posting, he was talking about how the Iranians had completely torn up what we the deal we had made There is no deal they had torn up. I mean, there really isn't. I mean, there's, there's been no deal. I hear the media keep calling it a peace deal. There's no peace deal involved in this. He won't even define what's going on. Yesterday he called it again. It wasn't a war, it was a military operation. Shades of Putin this morning he called it not really a war. I've called it a military operation, but it's really a denuclearization of Iran. Okay, then why are we renewing fighting? Because a couple of ships were targeted last night. It seems like the issue is the Strait of Hormuz and getting the economic, the global supply chain moving again.
- [11:54]
Charlie Sykes
So what is the dynamic here? It looked like, you know, Donald Trump. Donald Trump has, there's a lot of pressures on him, you know, economic and political, you know, not to continue this work. Clearly he was willing to give up a great deal. He was comparing himself to Herbert Hoover. He didn't want to be Herbert Hoover, that there'd be a global economic catastrophe if the Strait of Hormuz was not open. And yet here we are once again. Give me your sense of what Donald Trump, and this is speculative, what he understands and does not understand about the enemy here, about the Iranians, because he seems to think that they were just going to roll over, that it was going to be Venezuela. This new regime, the non regime change seems pretty hardcore and feels kind of cocky at the moment. What is your take on this?
- [12:44]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Well, from an analytics point of view, and what the enemy is doing is they are trading a unique aspect of any kind of military operation. If you can trade space for time in certain situations, it will contribute to advancement. That's exactly what Ukraine is doing, or, excuse me, Iran is doing. They are trading space for time. They are saying the longer we can draw this out, the more trouble he's going to be in from an election standpoint. And we might get someone that will negotiate in good faith and goodwill. The President has not done that and neither have the Iranians, quite frankly. I mean, they don't trust us and we don't trust them. I would suggest they have more of a reason not to trust us because we've torn up agreements, we've bombed them during the middle of a peace talk. We've done some things that I think any enemy would say, hey, you all aren't playing fair either, if you're looking at, from a both sides standpoint, which is something you should do in war. So back to your question. Of where are we right now? Well, the attacks last night were pretty intense. There's film, and I watch a lot of the Middle Eastern networks like Al Jazeera and some of the others. There's film of Bushir, one of their major port cities, and one of their locations of some of the ROGC being bombed heavily last night. And the President said this morning in the press conference that it was going to happen again tonight. So he's already announced that we're going back in for a second run. The target sets, from a military standpoint, I would suggest are probably running out. There's been a lot of targets struck by accounts of Centcom. They've hit 15,000 precision strikes with a lot of precision weaponry. So even that we could talk about the drawdown in terms of expensive precision kinetic ammunition. So the question becomes, if the first 30 days of the war with repeated strikes didn't get the Iranians to the negotiating table in good faith, what are these additional nightly strikes going to do? And with the closing down of the strait, again, with the drawback on the sanctions relief which were given, with the fact that the President announced there was only about four weeks of oil supplies left in the global chain and with the straight blocked once again because there's no merchant ship that's going to go through there after the attack last night on either side, on either the Iranian side or the Omani side, we're back to where we were three weeks ago with not a whole lot of indications of future success, which is really extraordinary,
- [15:41]
Charlie Sykes
although it has been the rinse and repeat over and over again. So what did the Iranians take away from this last month? Because you had the President who essentially kind of gave away some of his leverage when he said that if we don't end this war, a global catastrophe, which gives them a lot of leverage. Right. He's basically acknowledging that they have this massive deterrent leverage over the Strait of Hormuz. We also saw the willingness of this administration to make massive concessions to the Iranians. And I guess whether or not they saw that as a sign of weakness. And then what did you make of the big funeral for, you know, the former Supreme Leader, which seemed really kind of belligerent on the part of the Iranians. So I guess what I'm getting at is in the last month, have the Iranians detected some weakness that they are exploiting now? And are they miscalculating? What do you think?
- [16:36]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yes, they are seeing weaknesses that they're exploiting. Are they miscalculating? I don't Think so. And I'm going to draw on something we watched for over a year, the Israeli fight against Hamas in Gaza. And what we saw repeatedly was a new doctrine of the various militias. But it also applies to Iran. And that is global messaging is important. The more you can show catastrophic events that the enemy has done, like Israelis killing civilians in Gaza or like the US Killing school children in Iran, or like the unintentional bombing of certain facilities, it all goes to a world messaging, a public relations campaign, and that is now part of the Iranian doctrine. Can you get the rest of the world against our enemies, whether it be Israel or the United States? And what we saw this week at the NATO summit in Ankara, frankly, is kind of a what I saw anyway in terms of body language of the European leaders. None of them wanted to be around President Trump. So you're already starting to see, I think, the president and his administration, no matter how much they bluster and say how successful they are, becoming at least leaning toward becoming the type of global pariah that Iran once was and that Russia certainly is as well. And that makes a difference on the battlefield. It contributes to the will of the people.
- [18:18]
Charlie Sykes
That's a pretty extraordinary statement that we would become the kind of pariah that Iran was before this war began. So this is a great pivot to this NATO summit because, of course, Donald Trump lands there, and the first thing he does is he starts ripping NATO. And I think we all agree on that. Well, you and I certainly agree on this. NATO was one of the most successful alliances in history. I mean, that it deterred the Soviet Union for so many decades. You know, it has been this great projection of American power. And Donald Trump really, going back to the first term, has had nothing but contempt for NATO, has, you know, hinted that he was going to pull out. And he continues to mischaracterize NATO. So he lands in Ankara and he starts saying that NATO failed the Iran test, that they were testing whether or not that. That NATO would be with the United States. What was your reaction to that? That the Europeans who were not consulted in any way whatsoever, somehow failed the Donald Trump war of whim test.
- [19:25]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yeah, that was. I would put it in the category of the PR campaign du jour. It is. Everybody is at fault except me. If only our allies, who we had paid so much for over the last 80 years, would just do whatever I told them to do. And that just shows a lack of understanding, first of all, what the security alliance of NATO is all about. But secondly, how you deal with other nations who have their own national security issues. What we've seen, not only in speeches and messaging, but also in our strategic documents that the President has published, the National Security Strategy, the National Defense Strategy, and other strategies that are are on paper that people can read. There has been the continual disrespecting of allies, that the only allies we really want are the ones that will do whatever we tell them to do. That became obviously clear. Now, there will be some, Charlie, who will accuse me of Trump derangement syndrome, but what I'll tell you is I've read these kind of documents as part of a career, and the way our allies read the documents are the same way I'm analyzing them. What did he mean by this paragraph? What did he mean by saying that you have to take up all your strengths on your own? And then, by the way, when the actions come after the documents are published in not just Europe, but in the Far east and in other places, the allies get the message and they say this is not a trusting relationship, which, truthfully, Charlie, I spent four decades of my career trying to build alliances. And all the allies that I used to work with now are still coming to me, the retired generals and some of the retired government officials. And they're just baffled by what has happened in such a short period of time. And we see that in NATO specifically because it is unlike individual alliances with, like, South Korea or Japan or any other nations. NATO is something that's held strong, as you just said, for 80 years. And it's been really upended by what's going on as well as the intelligence community, the five eyes, and other sharing of intelligence. No one trusts us. Well, I can't say no one. The people I have talked to that are part of governments of other countries are showing a lack of trust in dealing with this administration because they don't know what's going to happen next. Hell, we don't know what's going to happen next. We signed on to this program. We don't even know what we're talking about right now. Right.
- [22:10]
Charlie Sykes
So what do you tell them when they call up and they say we're baffled by all of this? What do you say to them? How do you explain this? How do we explain ourselves what's happening to the rest of the world?
- [22:21]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yeah, the first thing I try to tell them is there are still those in the military and those who are career public servants who understand that we are at a blip and a fork in the road right now, and we're trying to keep ourselves on the right path and that the American public don't always. I mean, I try and tell them that the polling says the American public don't support much of this, and their response to me is, yeah, we've heard that, that song before under the Biden administration, when he came back and said, I'm going to renew all the alliances. And yet you Americans elected this guy again, and he's now even worse than he was the first time in terms of understanding what happens within alliances.
- [23:13]
Charlie Sykes
I want to talk to you about the US Deal with Iran and the coverage of that story. Look, obviously everyone, including me, has lots of opinions about this deal. But if you also want to get down to the facts of the story rather than getting lost in the hype of the headlines, there's an app and a website that can help you do that. It's called Ground News, and they have great tools to help you avoid getting caught in a bias bubble and avoid blind spots. For each story, they'll show you how the left, right, right and the center covered it. The Nobel Peace center even called Ground News an excellent way to stay informed, avoid echo chambers, and expand your worldview. Take, for example, this story, a judge denied Joe Biden's bid to block release of transcripts linked to a special counsel inquiry. On the left, you'll see headlines like US Judge Rejects Joe Biden's Lawsuit Asking to withhold Memoir Recordings. And on the right, you'll see headlines like what is the former President trying to hide? But then you can go to each source and see who's funding them and their factuality rating that shows how subjective or objective the source is. Ground News also has a blind spot feed that shows stories disproportionately covered by either side of the media. So if you want access to stories you may otherwise never see and the necessary context to make up your own mind, visit groundnews.com tc to get 40% off their unlimited access. That's groundnews.com tc so they know that I sent you. I believe that if you like this podcast and what we do here, you'll like their mission. Visit groundnews.com tc today. Look, if you're like me, you're thinking a lot more about what you wear day to day and are looking for pieces that feel easy, comfortable, and still look put together. It just makes getting dressed simpler. Quince has been my go to. Their fabrics feel elevated, their fits are clean, and everything just works without needing to overthink it. And I definitely do not want to overthink what I wear every day. Well, I have to tell you that Quinn's has really changed how I get dressed this summer. I mean, they're gorgeous linen shirts that I frankly just, you know, keep grabbing without thinking and, and the T shirt that I end up wearing more than pretty much everything else or look a lot of their stuff just works with everything. Stop over complicating your wardrobe. You don't need a closet full of options. You need a few pieces that actually work work. So right now, make your summer wardrobe easier. Go to quinn.com contrary for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-Com contrary for free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com contrary. So you wrote a piece called the the NATO Defense Spending Canard. There's nothing magical or strategic about and this goes back to Donald Trump's obsession where he seems to think that it's all transactional, that NATO is not carrying its own burden and obviously there's some upside to Europe taking more responsibility for its own defense. But talk to me about why you call this the spending canard.
- [26:26]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Well, the first thing I did, Charlie, in the piece was outline the path, the history of first the 2% goal and then the 3% goal and then how it changed and then suddenly became 5%, which seems to be an off the top of the head figure.
- [26:44]
Charlie Sykes
5% of GDP, right.
- [26:45]
Retired General Mark Hertling
I mean 5% of GDP. And the issue is every nation in NATO. Back in 2011, I think it was 2011, Secretary Gates went to the NATO ministerial and said many of you are not carrying your weight within the alliance. And I propose a goal by 2024 was the date of all of us reaching 2% of our GDP goes to our national defense spending. This is not a bank that you're putting a check into. This is telling every country in the alliance try and spend about 2% of your GDP on your particular military operations. He didn't define what the military essence was. He just said 2% for defense spending. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2014, I think that was a great impetus for most of the nations changing their budgetary constraints and trying to reach the 2% figure, which they all did by 2022, which I outline in the article. But then suddenly President Trump said that's not enough. We want 5% or we're getting out of NATO. Well, Charlie, the first thing I'll say, and now he's even saying that because of his emphasis on that that most of NATO is reaching the 5% goal. He's established that is a lie. There is not a single NATO country that's at 5%. The one that is greatest is Poland. Poland is at 4.2% of their GDP for defense spending. And that's something that Poland, because I was there and I know, I saw this with my own eyes, they started building a defense establishment in Poland starting in about 2008. And they were pressuring us to buy M1 tanks, F16s, Patriot missile systems. And every time I went to Poland, I got another tug on my sleeve saying, hey, we need to buy this and can you help us get it? So that's that. The other nations are all over between 2 and 3%. Some are over 3. But here's the funny part about all this, Charlie. The United States is nowhere close to spending 5% of its GDP on defense spending.
- [29:07]
Charlie Sykes
What are we at?
- [29:07]
Retired General Mark Hertling
It is currently we're at 3.4% and that's up from 3.2%. And if we were to reach 5% of GDP in the United States, we would have to add a half a trillion dollars more to the Pentagon's budget.
- [29:24]
Charlie Sykes
Well, isn't that what Donald Trump is proposing though? Right. He's proposing a 50% increase in the Pentagon budget, which I think is unlikely to get through Congress. But they're talking about a massive increase in defense spending, aren't they?
- [29:36]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yeah. And at the same time, Secretary Hegseth is saying that there's so much waste, fraud and abroast inside the Pentagon that he's going to make sure they're accounting for everything. And yet he came up with this figure of $500 billion. And the members of Congress were trying to pin him down on that. And I watched those hearings too, and I couldn't make hide nor hair of where he was going, other than just saying, give us the money and we'll decide what to do with it.
- [30:03]
Charlie Sykes
Okay. I was going to save this for a little bit later, but since we brought up Secretary Hegseth, talk to me a little bit about what it looks like to you and to other people in the military to watch this performative Secretary of War Pete Hegseth going around. Give me a sense of the effectiveness of his leadership style. Let me put it euphemistically like that.
- [30:37]
Retired General Mark Hertling
I would prefer not to critique him on his style. But what I would say it's certainly not the style I've seen in civilian leadership over a four decade period in the military. It's certainly not the style that's admired by most members of the services who are wearing the uniform. What I say is most, because I can't speak for all the members of the military, there are certainly some who think this, this is the greatest Defense Secretary we've ever had because he does PT with the troops and he talks about lethality and no rules of engagement and he's poking fun at the generals and all this. And he's relieving generals that should have been relieved a long time ago. And most people are saying that have no idea who some of these people are that he's relieving or asking to retire. So from an assessment standpoint, again, looking at what a Secretary of defense should be doing in the second largest government bureaucracy in the United States and in the world, that's a tough job. You not only have to be a businessman, you have to understand contingency operations. You have to care for the soldiers and the troops and their families. You have to understand budget priorities. You have to balance between the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and, you know, okay, great. I'm happy that every once in a while when you go out to visit troops, you do PT with them. But that seems to be that. And the social justice issues seem to be top of priority in the Department of Defense right now.
- [32:21]
Charlie Sykes
Give me your take on the purges also, because this seems to have rattled even Republicans in Congress that some of the most respected senior officials in the Pentagon have been purged by Pete Hegseth. You know, what is the. Are you sensing a rhyme or reason to this? Because, you know, we've seen, you know, mass purges of generals in other countries, but in this case, it's not just that he's going for woke generals and admirals or people, you know, messing with the promotion list, but that he's firing some of the most respected lethal warriors in the Pentagon. So how do you connect the dots what Pete Hegseth is doing except creating as much chaos and firing so that he can replace them with utter loyalists? What's happening?
- [33:15]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yeah, I think part of the issue, and this is conjecture on my part because I'm not dealing with him every day, but I think part of the issue is because. Because there is so much sycophancy between cabinet members and especially Secretary Hegseth with their leaders, with their president, that I don't know what goes on in national security meetings or principals committees. But it seems like there is not a whole lot of telling no to the president that that has trickled down within the Department of Defense. And there's Not a whole lot of saying no to the Secretary of Defense by senior military officials in offering their best military advice. Now, I grew up in an organization that said differences does not equal disrespect. You should always offer, through personal courage, your best military advice to your senior civilian leaders. Because truthfully, Charlie, they don't have the experience you have. And there's a lot of scar tissue gained in experience. Pete Hexseth has never commanded a unit during his time in the military. He was a lieutenant and then a captain, then a major, mostly in the National Guard. Not to disparage the National Guard, but he was on one deployment. He was not well liked, all indicators by his soldiers. He did not get promoted beyond the rank of major. And he's dealing with guys who have had. I mean, we'll use the example of C.D. donahue, the former commander of U.S. army Europe and Africa. Guy probably has close to 12 years in combat. He has commanded every organization from an infantry platoon up to the US Army Europe. He has commanded most of those in combat. He has a little bit of scar tissue. He understands how wars are fought. He is probably one of the more lethal guys you could imagine meeting, although he never shows it. He's a Delta guy. Good God. I mean, the most secretive. Beyond the seals, Delta is more secretive than the seals are. So this guy's a stud. But he's just an example I could name. Randy George, JP McGee, DA Sims, all of these guys I know personally. And there would be no finer officers that I would go into battle with in any of these. But then you also have to look at why the hell is he asking the Chief of Army Chaplains to retire? And why is he asking the IGs, the inspector generals and the Staff Judge advocates? It seems to be, number one, he's trying to clear the path for those who are of like mind as he is. And he's also not willing to suffer anyone that gives him disagreement on policies or procedures.
- [36:19]
Charlie Sykes
I think that is fair. So let's talk about the people that Donald Trump admires the most. Let's talk about his BFFs. And this goes back to the NATO summit. So he lands in Ankara. And of course he's continuing to attack, you know, some of the our Democratic allies, saying he's going to cut off all trade with Spain. He's, you know, continuing his petty attacks
- [36:42]
Retired General Mark Hertling
on
- [36:44]
Charlie Sykes
the Prime Minister of Italy, you know, which again, yeah, no, but just bizarre that he's been, you know, that she was one of the few friends. And yet, you know, once Again, his admiration for the authoritarians, that Erdogan is the best leader that Turkey has ever had. Erdogan is in the process right now of suppressing, you know, suppressing his opposition, jailing journalists. This was a regime that actually beat up protesters in Washington, D.C. and yet, you know, it's not news, not breaking news. But Donald Trump, once again, on full display his admiration for these international thugs and authoritarians. You know, Orban or Xi or, you know, Erdogan or Putin or Erdogan. What do you make of that? And how does that play to the Europeans, where he's dissing one European country after another? But Erdogan, who is a strong man, authoritarian, is a number one in Donald Trump's book.
- [37:52]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yeah, if I can, from a military perspective. Let me talk about Turkey for a minute. Yes, please. When I was commanding US Army Europe in 2013, it was the last visit I made to a foreign country before I retired, which was Turkey. I had been there several times before. We had had a couple of partnership programs. We had provided them Patriot missile systems against Iran for the potential of an Iran, a strike into Europe. Turkey has the next largest army in Europe under Russia. It's the largest military force. And I'm going to remind you, and I'm sure you'll remember this as soon as I trigger this, this, but the year after I retired in 2014, Erdogan basically disbanded his entire general officer corps because he accused them of fomenting a coup. So all the individuals I worked with, who I thought were all very solid guys and gals were suddenly put in jail, and they're still there today. If we go back even further, what we see is a Turkey that refused the US Military from going into northern Iraq with any kind of force as part of the Turkey alliance back in 2003. Maybe it was the right decision. I don't know. Maybe it was the wrong one. President Trump yesterday announced that he wanted to give Turkey the F35 fighter jets. Well, he can't do that because Congress said no, because the Turks had bought the S400 air defense system from Russia. So there is a congressional law that says they can't have any aircraft until they get rid of those S4 hundreds. Because if you have an air defense system from Russia and a plane from the United States, you can kind of work out how each of them work together or the difficulties in air defense. So all of these things. I understand why he's pulling Erdogan closer, because they are at the crossroads of the Middle east and Europe and Africa. But it seems so haphazard and ad hoc in its approach that it'. Sit. If you talk to any other NATO leader, yeah, Turkey is part of the alliance, but they're not the most reliable partner in NATO. I'll say that as diplomatically as I can. And yet now we have the president going over, as you're saying, with a guy who's considered somewhat autocratic in his own country, somewhat autocratic, and saying, hey, he's my best friend and he's run a great conference.
- [40:31]
Charlie Sykes
So let's go back to where we started in our.
- [40:34]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Hey, Charlie, I'm not providing you any answers. I'm just kind of giving you the atmospherics of.
- [40:41]
Charlie Sykes
That's what I want.
- [40:42]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Okay.
- [40:42]
Charlie Sykes
I'm not even sure there are answers to any of these things. I mean, these things are the unknowable unknowables, which is like anytime we're getting into the mind of Donald Trump, which unfortunately, we have to spend some time in there, and we're in that tangled web of, you know. But let's go back to where we began. Donald Trump shows up at NATO, and you said that you could tell from the body language of the other leaders that they didn't really want to be around him. We are seeing, and, you know, in terms of just long history, a decoupling. Well, as a question, you know, you know, how far will this decoupling of Europe from the United States go? You said that they no longer trust us. That's not going to flip back in the next administration, is it? I mean, they're making decisions right now to go their own way in ways that are really going to shape the next probably half century or so. Give me your sense of the extent of which Europe is, in fact, going to or can decouple from the United States.
- [41:42]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Well, I'm the eternal optimist, Charlie. And you mentioned the article I wrote for the Bulwark on that, the canard of the 5%. I also mentioned there that NATO has been through these kinds of turmoils, dysfunction, chaos through its history. I cited in the article that France left the alliance. Well, they didn't technically leave the alliance, but they kicked NATO out of Paris, the NATO headquarters, so it moved to Brussels. And it wasn't until President Sarkozy came back in and 22,000, 2009, that they rejoined as one of the founding partners of NATO. You've had dynamics with Turkey, with Greece and Macedonia. I mean, there have been with Italy, when Berlusconi was the president, there were some issues there. Poland was the same a few years ago when they had an autocratic leader. So you can see that there have been nations in Europe that have created somewhat problematic dysfunctions within the alliance, but they eventually will come back together because they realize how valuable the alliance is. That's my way of saying that these things so far can be fixed with different types of leadership. But to your point, it's going to take a while. This isn't a, hey, we got a new president. We're back to normal. This is going to take a whole lot of humility, some understanding of the value of other nations, the lack of swagger on the part of the United States. I mean, I think it wasn't a NATO issue, but the US Belgium soccer match sure created a whole lot of problems there, as did the comments by the President on Greenland yesterday. So those are the kind of things you have to solve, and it's very difficult to do.
- [43:42]
Charlie Sykes
Okay, So I was remiss not to have mentioned that right at the top is that if Donald Trump wanted to be on his best behavior, which he clearly does not, if he wanted to, you know, make, you know, move ahead, he would not be bringing up Greenland. Because you think of the pivot points over the last couple of years. It was that obsession with Greenland, his threats to Greenland. And so what does he do? He goes to this NATO summit and he says that we should control Greenland and continues to basically lie, you know, that Denmark doesn't, you know, doesn't support Greenland, which of course it does. And the Russian and Chinese ships surrounding Greenland, I mean, just making this shit up. And that's gotta be leading to a lot of eye rolls and this sense of that, you know, we have to go our own way. Because, I mean, there was a time when they thought that they could appease him. I mean, the Secretary General of NATO continues to kind of suck up to Donald Trump. Is he the designated Trump whisperer? Is it Rute? Is that how you pronounce his name?
- [44:43]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Yeah. Secretary Rooney is the Trump. Probably. That's not a bad way to classify him as the Trump whisperer. And I think personally knowing NATO, they've had some strategy sessions saying, how do we deal with this guy? I mean, that would be the smart thing to do. And I would bet a month's pay that they're doing it.
- [45:07]
Charlie Sykes
You got the short end of the straw. You have to suck up to them. You're the designated suck up.
- [45:11]
Retired General Mark Hertling
Okay, so, yeah, because we, you know, if you go to Macron or any of the other presidents and say, do you want to do it, they're going to say, no, no, no, I got to protect my own national security. And you're the Sec General, a Secretary General of NATO, so you do it. You know, let Mikey do it.
- [45:27]
Charlie Sykes
The old commercial, I was thinking of that analogy too.
- [45:31]
Retired General Mark Hertling
But it is to me, as a guy who spent a lot of time in Europe, it's almost embarrassing watching him do it, if I can say that. I'm sure Secretary Ruda is a very good diplomat and he knows what he's doing. But it just seems to me you got to stand up to a bully and if you get called a name, you're going to get called a name anyway and it's eventually going to happen one way or the other. So, yeah, I don't know. I can't put my finger on a solution for that one. But Ruda seems to be the Trump whisperer.
- [46:14]
Charlie Sykes
Yeah, I guess I'm going to cut up a little slack that he's sort of taking one for the team because as you point out, the elected leaders aren't going to be able do it and obviously they don't want to have that moment where Trump just stands up and says, okay, I'm done. Because he could at any minute essentially say that in fact could have done this in the last five minutes when we were taping this. Because this is the world that we. This is the world that we live in general. Thank you so much for all of your time and insight. I am very grateful. I appreciate it very much, Charlie.
- [46:46]
Retired General Mark Hertling
It's always a pleasure talking with you. It's a great conversation and very provocative. Thank you so much and thank you
- [46:52]
Charlie Sykes
all for listening to today's episode of to the Contrary podcast. I'm Charlie Sykes. We continue to do this because it is so important to remind ourselves that we are not the crazy ones. Thank you.
- [47:16]
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