Ukraine Past, Present and Future
Segment # 377
This is basically a white paper on Ukraine with several perspectives that have not been heard for some time as part of US foreign policy.
“What’s Happening In Ukraine, and Why Do We Care?”
A question I got today from a loved one who doesn’t follow politics or the news and wanted a brief explanation about the war, why it started, and why she should care. Knowing she likes to read, and having followed the situation in Ukraine since 2014, I said, “Give me a few hours, and I’ll make a post giving you my take on it all." That social media post ran several paragraphs long, so it became this piece instead.
The current war in Ukraine has its roots in the 2014 U.S.-backed uprising, which led to the ousting of the democratically elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych after he refused to sign an EU association agreement, opting instead for closer ties with Russia. While there was genuine domestic opposition to Yanukovych due to corruption, Western influence played a significant role in shaping events. In his place, a pro-Western government took power, supported by nationalist and, in some cases, Neo-Nazi elements, particularly groups like the Azov Battalion and Right Sector, which played a significant role in the violent Maidan protests. One of the new government’s first moves was to outlaw official use of the Russian language in eastern Ukraine, despite the fact that a majority of the population in Donetsk, Luhansk, and Crimea speak Russian as their first language. This disregard for the rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians led to immediate unrest, with Crimea voting to secede and join Russia through a referendum that was widely disputed in the West but supported by a majority of Crimeans. The Donbas region (Donetsk and Luhansk) sought greater autonomy, leading to an armed conflict. Instead of negotiating a peaceful separation, the Ukrainian government labeled these regions as "terrorist-controlled" and launched a military crackdown, escalating the conflict into a brutal civil war by 2015.
A Chain of Events That Began As Protests In 2014 Would Eventually Spiral Into Civil War In 2015
For eight years, the Ukrainian government shelled and attacked Donbas, despite peace agreements like the Minsk Accords, which were meant to provide stability to the region. These agreements were later admitted by former European leaders such as Angela Merkel to have been a stalling tactic to allow Ukraine time to build up its military. The fighting raged on, with over 14,000 people killed by 2021, when Ukraine began preparing a large-scale military operation to regain full control over the Donbas region. At this point, the Russian government, citing the ongoing attacks on ethnic Russians in Ukraine, the failure of diplomacy, and NATO’s increasing support for Ukraine, intervened militarily on February 24, 2022. Western media immediately framed it as an "unprovoked invasion," largely ignoring the years of conflict that preceded it. What followed was an escalation fueled by billions in American and European aid, prolonging the war rather than seeking a diplomatic resolution that could have prevented further devastation.
Ukraine Incorporated The Notorious “Azov Battalion”, A Fascist Militia Who Adopts Nazi Symbolism and Ideology, Into Its Formal Military
From the very beginning, the Biden administration and media carefully shaped public perception, presenting a simplified black-and-white narrative where Ukraine was the virtuous underdog and Vladimir Putin was the new Hitler. This narrative ignored the complex history of the conflict, including the role of the 2014 uprising, Ukraine’s war on Donbas, and the open incorporation of nationalist battalions like Azov, Aidar, and Right Sector into Ukraine's armed forces. Instead, the media ran wall-to-wall coverage portraying Zelenskyy as a heroic, Churchill-like figure while downplaying reports of war crimes committed by Ukrainian forces, such as the shelling of civilian areas in Donetsk and Luhansk, the mistreatment of POWs, and the persecution of Russian speakers. The Biden administration used this selective narrative to justify sending Hundreds of BILLIONS in taxpayer dollars to Ukraine, suppressing dissent by labeling skeptics as "Putin sympathizers" and "Russian propagandists". Ironically, while they claimed to be fighting against "fascism," they were funding and arming battalions that were documented by Amnesty International as having committed war crimes. The American people were once again deceived into supporting another costly foreign intervention, aligning with those who do not share our values, under the guise of "defending a democracy" that seemingly doesn't exist.
So who is to blame? The truth is, there is blame to share, and anyone pretending this is a simple battle of good versus evil is either misinformed or dishonest. America and NATO bear responsibility for their repeated interference in Ukraine’s political affairs, including their support of the 2014 uprising and continued escalation of tensions with Russia. Constant expansion of NATO despite prior diplomatic assurances to Russia set the stage for conflict, treating Ukraine and other nations as strategic pawns rather than sovereign nations. Russia of course is also to blame, and not just Putin. The Russian people for centuries have been unable to shake off the yoke of insane totalitarian leaders who abuse them and their neighbors. They naturally bear the responsibility for that. Putin happens to be the current incarnation of those insane totalitarian leaders. For all of their grievances about NATO expansion, the Kremlin seldom hesitates to use military force when it suits their interests. Ukraine is not blameless to be sure. Long before the war, corruption plagued the country, and the mistreatment of Russian-speaking minorities certainly didn’t help. The inclusion of literal Nazis into their military, the imprisonment of priests, forced closing of churches, the outlawing of religions, the banning of political parties, and the refusal to hold elections all call into question if Ukraine can be called a "Western Democracy".
In Lviv, Ukraine There Is A Massive Monument To WWII Nazi Collaborator Stephan Bandera, Responsible For The Ethnic Cleansing of Hundreds of Thousands of Poles, Jews, and Russians During WWII.
At the end of the day, Americans need to recognize our role in this disaster. We were sold another war, led into another conflict that does not serve our national interests, and forced to bankroll yet another corrupt foreign regime at our own expense and at the cost of millions of Eastern European lives. We do not owe Ukraine our money, our weapons, or our allegiance. We should not be a party to their war, nor should we continue sacrificing American prosperity for foreign conflicts engineered by elites. The world is not as simple as "Us good, Them bad," and the longer we allow ourselves to be manipulated into these false narratives, the more we enable endless wars that benefit the few at the expense of the many. It is time to step back, reassess, and demand that our government prioritize American interests above all else.
What we saw today in the Oval Office of the White House between President Donald Trump, Vice President Vance, and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy was the perfect demonstration of why America should no longer be involved in these types of conflicts. We saw President Zelenskyy embody the arrogance that American military support often gives such Petty Tyrants. Their belief that American funding and weaponry will come regardless of what the American People think empowers even vertically challenged men like Zelenskyy to believe that they can tower over the will of the American People. If you’ve not seen the video of the Oval Office meeting yet, I encourage you to do so. I urge you to pay special attention to the facial expressions Zelenskyy makes when our leaders are speaking. The disdain. The disrespect. The smugness. All of those expressions are meant for you, Mr. and Ms. Everyday American. Knowing what you do about your life, your family, and your struggles, where do you want your money and your government focused?
Probably not to funding this war.
Alternative Conservative Commentary from the vantage point of a Gay Army Veteran and Christian in Charleston, South Carolina. substack.com
The Ukrainian military is selling American weapons systems on the black market, including to drug cartels. This war is killing the United States. Col. Daniel Davis on how Donald Trump can end it.
Chapters
5 chapters in this episode
00:00:00
1. Why Crimea Is So Pivotal to the Ukraine/Russia War
00:13:17
2. Ukraine Is Powerless Without the US
00:31:15
3. Ukraine Selling American Weapons to Cartels
00:47:30
4. DEI in Our Military
00:54:28
5. Is WWIII Coming?
Transcript
Tucker [00:00:00] Trump gets elected not exclusively, but heavily on the promise. No more of these nonsense wars that are draining the Treasury, getting Americans killed, making America weaker globally. There's no upside at all, particularly the war in Ukraine. Donald Trump says, I'm going to do that. I'm going to bring it to a close in like the first hours after becoming president. I think he says that. And the question to you, who actually knows? The answer is, how do you do that?
Daniel Davis [00:00:21] Yeah. Well, how you bring the war to an end. This has been on the table since before the war started. And Trump is going to have a much more difficult position now to bring that to a fruition because of the horrific decisions made by the outgoing administration. This war could easily have been avoided. Before it happened, the Minsk agreements I know a lot in the West like to say bad things about them, but the fact is that we now know Angela Merkel. Hollande of France have both admitted that. That was never supposed to be implemented. They just wanted to, quote, stop Russia's invasion of the Donbas area. That's what they said, that it was.
Tucker [00:01:19] For Ukraine.
Daniel Davis [00:01:20] To fire them to the Ukraine side, Tom, so that they could defend against it. It wasn't to implement. And, you know, that's true because one of the central provisions that was agreed to by the Russians and the French and German and the Ukrainians was that the Ukrainians would change their constitution to have political autonomy and protections for the Russian speaking people in the east. That was one of the absolute central figures of the features of that Minsk agreement in the.
Tucker [00:01:45] Belarus.
Daniel Davis [00:01:45] Minsk in the Minsk agreements 2015. And it was never done, ever. So the Ukraine side didn't implement the most important provision of it. They were also supposed to move back heavy weapons and all this kind of stuff, some of which happened. And then both sides had minor incursions over the time with artillery that was going back and forth because the Russians are go, all right, we're not going to implement our part of this all fully until you get that central part. And so they just talked about it all this time. And all we had to do is say, okay, Minsk agreements had no needle in it. There was no Naito for Ukraine inside there. It was just resolve this.
Tucker [00:02:20] Dress-
Daniel Davis [00:02:21] It didn't. So it definitely didn't say that they were on the table. It didn't talk about it. So since 2008 that had been talked about by the West that they were going to come in, but the Minsk agreement would have ended all the conflict that was on the line of contact for essentially an eight year civil war before this one broke out. All they had to do was just implement those. And then now then Russia has no need to to intervene because the whole issue has always been protection of the rights of the Russian people and the ethnic Russians living in eastern Ukraine and the protection on their border not to have naito in it. So if you get that off the table now, then there's plenty of room. But then by 2021, which very few Westerners are even aware of is in March of 2021, Zelensky signs this law that says they are going to now take back all of the temporarily occupied areas, especially Crimea, which is a no go red line for the Russians and by force if necessary.
Tucker [00:03:15] And then can you describe why? And lots of Biden administration officials talked about taking back Crimea. You say it's a no go. It's not even worth discussing. Why is that? What is Crimea?
Daniel Davis [00:03:27] Historically, Crimea has was in Russia, too. I think it was I can't remember the exact year that it was. It was given to Ukraine by, I want to say Nikita Khrushchev. Correct. Wrong. So he gave that to them. But it's historically I mean, for centuries been Russian. The vast majority who gave it to.
Tucker [00:03:42] Ukraine when Khrushchev controlled.
Daniel Davis [00:03:43] Ukraine. Right.
Tucker [00:03:44] When he was part of the Soviet Union.
Daniel Davis [00:03:46] Yeah. So it was just like, you know, moving things left and right within his controlling and holdings. But the people in it were still ethnic Russians primarily. And when they had this plebiscite, like 95% of the people voted to go into Russia, went after the, you know, the coup that happened that unseated the legally elected government in Ukraine that Victoria Nuland and all these other people supported. Then Putin said, well, I'm certainly not going to have a natal country around Sevastopol where I have my Black Sea fleet. So he said, We're going to annex the state. The people voted for it and that's what he claimed. Now you can disagree that that was legitimate, but that's how they voted.
Tucker [00:04:23] And that's why, one argue that the Crimea Crimeans, the residents of Crimea, if allowed to vote on it again, would vote to join Ukraine. Does anybody think that anyone argue that?
Daniel Davis [00:04:34] No. No one argues that because they know it wouldn't be the case and life is improved for the the Crimean population since Russia annexed it. It's gotten a lot better and it's gotten even better since the 2022 invasion because they got water back. It's one of the big things there. Yeah. So none of them would ever want to go back into the Ukraine side.
Tucker [00:04:53] Because if you cared about democracy, you wouldn't try and steal Crimea from its people and give it to another government that they didn't want to join right.
Daniel Davis [00:05:00] Now, especially if you care about people getting to make their own decisions, which we cling to in other parts of the world, that, yes, the will the people should rule. Unless, of course, it's somebody we don't like, which goes back to the whole thing that happened in February 2021, I'm sorry, 2014, when we.
Tucker [00:05:17] Encouraged?
Daniel Davis [00:05:17] Coup, encouraged the coup and then supported the overthrow of the legally elected government because we didn't like what they were doing and we helped the actual occupy the other people who were going against it. So everything that violated what we claim to believe we were supportive of at that time and that's not democracy in any way, shape or form.
Tucker [00:05:35] No, of course not.
Daniel Davis [00:05:37] But but still, that that's the problem, that we could have ended this war by doing the Minsk agreements then in 20 late 20, 21 and we know this for a fact because Jens Stoltenberg has admitted to stuff very publicly that Putin said, hey, if we don't get a deal here, we're going to use force. Jens Stoltenberg said, For sure, Yes.
Tucker [00:05:56] And who was on board?
Daniel Davis [00:05:58] He. The former secretary general of Naito, and so he has led this Naito up until just very recently when Mark Rudy took over. But he said yes, Putin told us that. But of course we didn't sign that. We're not going to agree with that because no one can tell us who's going to join Naito. So understand at that point we and of course the United States was in complete agreement with this that war could have been avoided by simply saying what we all knew. Naito is never going to accept Ukraine. There's no way we would ever do that. But instead of saying that, we said the opposite, they're going to come in. And so Putin says, then you've made my decision for me. I'm going to we're going to take military action, which you said on December 22nd, 2021. He said, we will take military specific measures if this continues on. And it certainly we know what happened on February 22nd. So we could have stopped the war from happening before. And then two months in, we could have stopped it again. And the Istanbul people certainly know a lot about that. Putin mentioned that when you interviewed him about a year ago. I think Sergey Lavrov even mentioned it when you talked to him about that, too. They always say we're willing to talk. Everybody has said in that.
Tucker [00:07:02] Way through down by Boris Johnson, former prime minister of Great Britain, acting on behalf of the Biden administration.
Daniel Davis [00:07:08] That is that is that is what we understand. And Johnson has almost never he he's kind of waffled with it. But he has said you can't talk to Putin. You can't have a negotiated settlement with him. So whether he actually did it all or was with Biden, we don't know. But we know for sure.
Tucker [00:07:23] I tried to ask you directly and he demanded $1 million for the interview. And I'm seeing him at the end of the month, and I hope I'll be able to interview him then.
Daniel Davis [00:07:31] Wow. I'll be watching that one with you.
Tucker [00:07:33] Well, I don't have $1 million in my checking account right now to pay Boris Johnson, but.
Daniel Davis [00:07:39] Yeah, but what he has said makes it very clear that that was his position. You know, no matter who it was, though, that did happen. So just think about it. How many Ukrainians allegedly around a half a million are dead and probably double that or maybe even triple that wounded? It's a staggering number. None of them should have died. All we had to do was just say what we already know. NATO's never going to invite Ukraine in and the war would have been avoided. Absolutely. Because then there's no reason for Russia to ever have invaded in the first place. Right. Just like if if Russia was talking about Armenia, I'm hypothetically here wanting to have missiles, say, on Cuba or so we had a negotiation. If they had kept the missiles there, we probably would have gone to war. But we had a negotiation and they moved them off. So if we had said no naito coming into Ukraine at that time, then Russia had no need to do anything. They also would have backed off because it's in their interest to do so. But we didn't. So when we're talking about now, when we say no democracy and and this, you know, unprovoked aggression, which we know wasn't true because we've admitted that it wasn't true. Now, then we have what we have here. And so all of these opportunities and by the way, there was one more in November. This is one of the worst ones, in my view, in November of 2022, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley, said, Hey, by the way, if you want to negotiate a settlement, now is the time to do it. Because remember, that was the one year where there were two big successes for the Ukraine army. They drove Russia out of Kherson City and drove them out of a huge swath of Kharkiv area in the north. Yes, at that time, Russia was at its weakest point. They had force mobilized 300,000 people. They were scrambling just to get uniforms, you know, much less trained, etc., to stop the gap, to stop the bleeding up there. And the Ukraine side had every advantage. And Mark Milley publicly said, if you want a negotiated settlement, now would be a good time. Russia's at its weakest. Ukraine's at its strongest. He goes, I'm just saying, if you wanted it, now's the time. He knew that they did. He knew that Russia, as bad as it had been battered, was still Russia. They still had all the natural resources that they could ever need. They had the military industrial capacity, which was already starting to gin up. And they had the manpower, the.
Tucker [00:09:49] Population, exactly.
Daniel Davis [00:09:50] Everything that you need and the mentality, because they view this as an existential fight. It's not like Vietnam was for us. This is on their front door and it is an existential fight. So they will recover. And he knew that. And so if you want to negotiate from a position of strength, which he said and Milley at the top now is the top. But no, we didn't. Zelensky was now, I think, drunk with power because he's like, We beat them here. We'll keep beating them. But militarily, Tucker, this is one of the thing is so important militarily. It was evident at the time that Ukraine couldn't win because Russia then they had if they withdrew from Kherson City and it was talked about a humiliation for Russia at the time. But militarily, that was the wisest decision they could have made because it would have been hard to hold on to Kherson City because of the river behind them. So they moved 40,000 guys across the river, blew all the bridges so that now Ukraine can't follow that up. And so they preserved all of that manpower and all of the experience that they had. And then they ended up using them elsewhere to to build a fortified defensive series of about five different periods. And Russia was really good at defensive. So there was every reason to think.
Tucker [00:10:57] They've had some. Practice.
Daniel Davis [00:10:58] They have had practice. And even when I was served during the Cold War, we studied the Russian tactics and we knew how hard it would be. I was in an armored unit, so I knew how hard it would be to try to do an offensive against a dug in Russian defensive line. And so when I heard in 2023 that the Ukraine was going to have this big combined arms operation going into the Russian lines, I said there's no way that they're going to do that. I've conducted operations like that before in Desert Storm with Doug MacGregor and an armored cavalry regiment. I knew what it was like to go into prepared enemy defenses, and that was against a not very good unit, but to go against the Russians when they had six months to prepare was suicide. Our leaders should have recognized that. Our secretary of defense should have recognized that. But instead they said, no, we're going to succeed. We've trained them up. We've given them all these thousands of military vehicles, millions of rounds of ammunition training, intelligence support. You know, I think it was Hammer's at that time that we've given them already stingers, all kinds of stuff. And I said, look, and I wrote about this ahead of time. So this is not revisionist history. I wrote ahead of time, this will fail and here's why. You have no air force. Effectively, there's no Ukrainian air force. You don't have enough air defense and you don't have enough engineering support to penetrate these minefields. And the most important ones, you don't have them trained manpower. It didn't matter how many people they mobilized. I know from the armored Cav how hard it is to maneuver in coordinated fashion across a broad front. It's extremely difficult. And they had this much experience in doing that. And you can't train that up in a 2 or 3 months. It just can't be done. Our leaders should have known that. But instead they encouraged it. And then you had I'll never forget this one. David Petraeus at the end of May 20th, 23, went on the BBC and said, I think that that the Ukraine side is going to do this combined arms operation. And he listed all the reasons why they're going to and the tanks and the Bradleys and all this stuff. I think that they're going to penetrate the Russian lines. The defensive lines will crumble, crack and maybe even collapse and they'll go to the East Coast. That's what he said on the eve of this thing. And of course, it worked out. The way any rational analysis would have said was a complete disaster. It never even penetrated the first line of defense. So all of 2023 went to a predictable failure. And so now then that was the next chance we had to end the suffering in the Middle East.
Tucker [00:13:18] Asher You're describing the war as really a war between the United States and Russia. You're saying that these are decisions that our military leadership made or should have made.
Daniel Davis [00:13:29] Is that that is what I'm saying, because the Ukrainian leadership and military, they don't have the historical experience the way they do only existed for 30 years. Right. We've got all of this stuff going all the way back to World War two, World War One. I mean, we've had all kind of institutional knowledge, and without us, nothing happens. Doesn't matter what Ukraine wants to do, without our willingness to give the information, the ammunition, the weapons systems, all of it, and to apparently help with some of the plans, they can't do anything.
Tucker [00:13:57] Okay. So I just don't think I mean, thank you. Everything you're saying makes sense. I think it's obvious once you think about it. But too few do think about it. And I think a lot of people have been lulled into this idea that, you know, there's this valiant going, maybe valiant, but, you know, Ukrainian military that's fighting this war against the foreign aggressor, Russia, and sort of leaving out the key point, which is that the strategy and the munitions come from the United States. So this is a failure on the part of our military leadership as well.
Daniel Davis [00:14:24] But what 100% think it's avoided was such an avoidable situation. We knew better.
Tucker [00:14:30] And when Ukraine loses, you can look at the Pentagon and say, nice job, guys. Yet again.
Daniel Davis [00:14:34] It's exactly what I say. And very quantifiable reasons why that is, though. I will say it's it's not it's not exclusively us, because Zelinski deserves specific credit arguments and criticism because he continued to take these operations and actions. However much who actually made the decisions is unclear. But he actually has a lot of the say over what they did, especially over how they employ them. And so he's sent his troops to do operations that really had no chance of success. And especially he deserves people claimed that he's, you know, like this modern day Winston Churchill kind of thing. Right. I mean, he got all this publicity in the first. Well, Winston Churchill made some huge mistakes in early in his career. And because of that, I was.
Tucker [00:15:20] Just thinking about Gallipoli. Yeah.
Daniel Davis [00:15:21] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. He had his biggest mistake.
Tucker [00:15:24] Churchill, Right.
Daniel Davis [00:15:24] Well, he was back there. Yeah, he's that version of Churchill. Yeah, good point. But he learned from those mistakes, and so he did a bunch of things right in Second World War because he learned from his mistakes. And most parts Italy's a separate issue that was its. Yeah but, but but he eventually did help with that. Well Zelinsky doesn't have any of that experience at all and so he fought in this place called several Donetsk like chance can even Mariupol early in the war. And in every case he stayed too long. So when his forces started, when it was clear that the Russian forces had moved in and into the outskirts of the city, they should have withdrawn to the. Next defensive line. They should have been building subsequent defensive lines knowing that the Russians were going to eventually get there. Make it as expensive as you can on every go back and then you'll have luck or it will back here. We're not going to allow penetration or we have to bring the war to an end. But instead he just stayed there. And almost like Hitler in the end of World War Two, not one inch. So instead of pulling his forces back, he kept them in there and they were methodically destroyed. Now then you have to have new guys for the next city, and then they're destroyed. And you see what happens, Tucker, is that you destroy the ability to have a coherent offensive or defensive because the guys who know how to fight have learned die. So now then you have to bring in new guys and it's starting from scratch again. Bark was the worst because they lost probably 10,000 people to defend a city that gave them no value. They should have moved back to another area because here's the key. So like Mahmoud is here and it's tough to move into. But if you had moved back here where there's a lot of open land and to the next defensive position, which high ground, then it would cost the Russians a lot more to move across this territory. And they could have defended themselves better. But instead they stayed there. Then they lost thousands of men. F.D.A. The same thing. They keep repeating the same mistake over and over. They've done it now in terrific interest of your. And they're doing the same thing. Head up on patrols in the area down there. The let's see, the war in the south. They're in the coop, not the coop on Syria. The one in the south was one of the worst two because the Ukraine side held out in that town for a year and a half in Boulder. But then the Russians learned a lot. And so now that instead of going head on, they start flanking it and it becomes evident you're going to lose it. But again, they would not give the order to receive. So they keep losing thousands upon thousands of trained people. So now then they're talking about lowering the age to 18 so that they can bring more people in.
Tucker [00:17:48] They're talking about actually our incoming national security advisers talking about it on television, whom I like. And so I'm not in this on a personal attack. But here, U.S. policymakers have completely destroyed Ukraine. They pushed this war. They started this war. I think it's I think it's very obvious that that's what happened. You just described how and, you know, Ukraine has been devastated. The Ukrainian parliament made it legal for outsiders, non citizens to buy their land. So they're going to lose their country physically. And a whole generation has been destroyed. And now U.S. policymakers are saying it's your fault. You need to lower conscription age to 18. I mean, I don't, says Christian. I'm infuriated and repelled by that. Like what? Yes, that I think it's disgusting things I've heard.
Daniel Davis [00:18:31] I'll tell you what I hope is really at play here.
Tucker [00:18:34] I know what you're going to say. But what that this is tactical. This is like trying to strike a tough pose to put the incoming administration in a better spot for negotiations.
Daniel Davis [00:18:42] No, I think that I think I think that it is the incoming administration's to put Zelensky in a position this to say, look, if you want to do this, you have to go in, put these people in here. But you can't because it's so it's this has been been talked about for probably close to a year in Ukraine keeps getting pushed back for the reasons that you just illuminate there So direct the rationale kill more. Right. Why would you take another generation and sacrifice them for nothing? And so yet people are violently against that. Well, so he's put him in a position, I think I.
Tucker [00:19:15] Hope you're right, but.
Daniel Davis [00:19:16] So that Zelensky will realize then, you know, you have to have a negotiated.
Tucker [00:19:19] So you don't talk that way because it's repulsive.
Daniel Davis [00:19:22] Okay. I agree with Vice is immoral. I agree with you. It is anguishing for me to hear, even if it is a negotiating position. I hope it works. If that gets the war over, then okay. But I fear that they may.
Tucker [00:19:33] Say, why don't you say, well, look, I mean, why even include the Ukrainian leadership in these conversations? I don't understand. I mean, I do think we should apologize for what the Biden administration just did to Ukraine. I think that is our fault or their fault. But I don't know why going forward, you would even why would you have Zelensky, the you know, Mr. Play the piano with his deck guy? What does he have to know? I'm serious. Like, why? Why? He's unelected. He's not the democratically elected leader of Ukraine. There has been no he term expired. He has no moral right to run that country.
Daniel Davis [00:20:06] Well, see, then there's more truth to that than a lot of people may realize, because Putin last month reiterated that point. It's in fact, we're willing to talk, but we can't sign any deal with Zelensky because he's a he's a not a legitimate leader. He is not the president country. He's not legally the president of the country. That's right. So he said until somebody gets in there, then we can sign a deal, but we can talk to the United States right now. And so I think Trump's coming and Trump is not going to be tied to what Zelensky does like like Biden apparently was. I don't I don't I can't imagine he's going to he else because we call all the cards and Russia says, yes, America has to. I think Sergei Lavrov in the in the interview you had with him said the same thing. We'll talk we're open to talk with with the Trump administration. We're willing to do that. And the Biden administration could have done it at any point. And they refused to do it. And now we have the wreckage that we have.
Tucker [00:20:57] Yeah, we do. So I'm. I'm sorry I keep pulling you into just trying to tell a story and answer the question. Yep. You know, going into cul de sacs, as usual. But back to how this can be settled. So you just describe why it's a very tough position for the incoming president. How do you how do you end this?
Daniel Davis [00:21:16] Well, I didn't describe the worst part of it yet because of everything we have done and by the way, we set as an objective. Biden did on the first day of the war in his speech to the United States and the secretary of defense, Austin, did so in April, was to weaken Russia. That's what we said. Ukraine must prevail. Russia must fail. I think that we used that phrase that Biden used in Austin said that we have to weaken Russia. That was our objective.
Tucker [00:21:44] Instead, why would we want to weaken Russia, secure their nuclear arsenal, and to make sure that, like some violent Muslim separatist group, takes control of parts of the country? Like why?
Daniel Davis [00:21:56] Because we don't like them. Just because we don't like Russia. There's too many people in power still today in Washington that grew up in the Cold War and were mourning the loss of the of the Soviet Union and the enemy. We should have ended.
Tucker [00:22:09] Up like Moammar Gadhafi. But has Libya improved since he was murdered?
Daniel Davis [00:22:13] Lord, yeah. They have slave.
Tucker [00:22:15] Markets in Tripoli. So how is that a win for anyone? Like what? Who's who are these people like? How are people that stupid be in charge of anything?
Daniel Davis [00:22:23] Because they replicate themselves. They're the ones that are in charge. And so they don't let anybody else rise up. And even to the lower and the middle levels, unless they give in to the way people think. They're they're not like me. Forget it. If you're talking about doing something that makes sense, that doesn't mean more war. You're going to get rid of. Look at Tulsi Gabbard. They are terrified of having somebody of her quality in that position of DNA because they know she'll actually tell the truth. She'll actually faithfully tell what the intelligence is, as opposed to just slanting it so that the president gets wrong information or slanted information that makes them think, yeah, you should go and use more military force or whatever it is. So that's why these people are still in power today. But yeah, you're right. There was no reason to want to weaken Russia. We should have wanted to end the war. And if we cared about the Ukrainian people, that's what we would have done. We would have prevented it, or at least ended it when it came in. But instead we wanted to weaken Russia. So why not keep the war going? Because the Ukrainian people are willing to do it. Zelensky's willing to keep them going in there, even though any rational explanation could have shown the opposite. Okay, so we achieved the opposite. Russia is now much stronger than it was in February 2022. The Ukraine side is much weaker than it was. We're much weaker than we were. Just imagine just fundamentally how many thousands of armored vehicles have we sent to to the Ukraine side? How many interceptor missiles have we sent? Almost all of our attack arms missiles have been sent to Ukraine. We don't even have a handful left. What if we get into war with somebody? God forbid it should be China or North Korea or or, you know, even more, God forbid, if you should be Russia. What if we have to defend ourselves? We have now just eaten into our capacity to even wage war. And now then you have the Russian side has gone to the opposite side because they have now mobilized their industry. They've now expanded their army by 50% from where it started. They do have a lot of people that are have gotten experience in this army and lived. And so now that their institution is growing even more capable. So that's why this is so hard for Trump, because Putin is coming in saying he's willing to talk. He's well, he's having negotiations, but he set some pretty high standards. I think when you talk to Putin in February of last year, he when you asked him what his terms were, he kind of went back to what we've already talked about this in Istanbul. So maybe something like that. Well, because we didn't take it and then we allowed long range weapons to be used by Americans into to Russia. Putin said that deal's off the table. Now, on June 14th, he listed a new set of deal, which is all for the oblast, all of it, even the territory that Ukraine still owns. So now it's not going to be that deal before because that would have been just the Donbass area, just Luhansk and Donetsk. Now it's going to be bigger. But then Biden didn't accept that either. And so now then, with all the price that Russia has paid, they're in the strength. They don't have to negotiate. This is so important to understand. Ukraine has to negotiate to survive. We have to negotiate to get the war over. Putin doesn't. If he doesn't get the deal he wants, he'll just keep rolling until he does. And I believe that the likelihood is that they would take all the way up to the Geneva River, even if it took another six, nine months of fighting. I don't see any way that they're going to stop fighting here. And they've said so. They've said we're not. Lavrov, about three weeks ago said no kind of cease fire. We're not going to do a pause because that would just help the other side there. We're going to keep fighting and we'll negotiate, will talk, but we're not going to stop fighting. So there's no cease fire. It's going to be a vote because that will have to. A ringside seat to the river, which is a considerable distance from where they are. Yeah. But see, here's.
Tucker [00:26:04] How far does that put them from the capital city?
Daniel Davis [00:26:06] Well, the never goes into Kiev.
Tucker [00:26:09] I'm aware. That's why I'm asking that.
Daniel Davis [00:26:11] So I think that the likelihood is that Odessa and Kharkiv cities are probably not going to remain on the western side if Trump doesn't come in and give Putin everything he wants on the first day. And I perceive and I certainly don't know this. No, I haven't talked to Putin, so I don't know. But I perceive that he's set these lines here on the 14th June lines, which were all of those for Oblast because there's large swaths that Ukraine still owns. It would be so hard, maybe even impossible politically, domestically, for Trump to to give away areas that Ukraine hasn't lost in the war and agree to that. And so if Trump, you know, with the Kellogg plan or whatever, they try to say they want needle put off or, you know, they want the current line of contact to be the dividing line, then Russia will just say, okay, we tried to negotiate with you. We didn't. And they'll just keep going until they get to the Geneva River because we can't stop them. If if Trump says, okay, we're all going to get tough and I'll give more stuff to you than you've Biden did. Well, first, we don't have it. But second, it doesn't matter because they don't have the manpower to.
Tucker [00:27:19] Literally don't have it.
Daniel Davis [00:27:20] We don't. And Tucker, if if Trump said, all right, well, I'm going to go in big I'm going to take the first Armored Division, first Infantry Division, first Cav division, all of that equipment, the whole set, and just give it powerful divisions that we have there. And just handed to the Ukraine. They don't have the manpower to use it. They would still lose just as much.
Tucker [00:27:38] But then you also have a problem, which is this Donald Trump just ran for office on the promise, no more, you know, counterproductive wars. And so if his first act in, you know, as president in office is to arm Ukraine. I don't I don't see how that works.
Daniel Davis [00:27:56] Honestly, it's I, I can see where he would have that temptation. And I know that he's going to have that suggestion from many of his supporters because I've been reading about them already, because I say we've got to show him he's tough.
Tucker [00:28:09] Well, not his supporters. His the the you know, the neocons in Washington, you know.
Daniel Davis [00:28:14] Fair point. Yes, that is exactly what I mean for that.
Tucker [00:28:17] Like. Right, right, right, right.
Daniel Davis [00:28:18] Probably, you know, yeah, they're definitely not because they know they can see what we're talking about here. It's it's nothing but a losing prospect. Why pay more to lose?
Tucker [00:28:27] So why is it how do we get involved in this?
Daniel Davis [00:28:30] Because the two.
Tucker [00:28:31] Guys get a fight down the street and I like bankrupt my family and put their lives at risk, too. Like what?
Daniel Davis [00:28:36] That is exactly what we're talking about here. Yeah, and it's much worse because that. And also we're bankrupting ourselves. Why? We're enabling that family to die even more. Exactly. More of them. So it's immoral and irrational, in my view. So but but here's the problem with it. Trump's political enemies here and I've already seen it, Biden is absolutely set this up. He just said last week that I have created all this great situation here where our enemies are weaker and our friends are stronger. And I'm hand in this over to Trump. You had Secretary Blinken say, you know what, we have.
Tucker [00:29:07] Secretary Blinken's a criminal, by the way. And if he retains his security clearance after January 20th, I'm going to every single day raise the alarm. I mean, there's no way that Tony Blinken should have a security clearance after Trump was inaugurated. But I know he's going to. It's super simple. Just pull Tony Blinken security. Tony Blinken is a you know, I think was running the US government, hurting this country more than maybe any other single person in the in my lifetime. And yeah, that man deserves to should be held to account for what he did.
Daniel Davis [00:29:39] 100% agree and and his his exit interview showed why he actually told that interviewer last week that we have put Ukraine in a stronger position militarily, economically and domestically. Are you serious? yeah. He's a straight up and we have them on a sustained path to continue improve it. And then he said, But if if Trump, you know, comes in and they negotiate an yeah, that's up to them.
Tucker [00:30:01] Those are lies a liar 100%. I know because I travel flat. And, you know, last weekend I had a meeting at, you know, in a ski resort in the Alps, which is probably the most expensive town in the world. I was not there to ski, for the record, but the whole town is Ukrainian. You know, all the visitors, Ukrainian, and they're rolling into arms and dropping $1 million in an afternoon. Okay. So it's all through Europe. You see this. The richest people are the Ukrainians. That money is ours. It belongs to me and you and every other American taxpayer. That's where it's going. Second fact. Fact, not gas. Fact is, Ukrainian military is selling a huge percentage, up to half of the arms that we send them half. And I'm not guessing about this. I know that for a fact. A fact. Okay. Not speculation. And they're selling it. And a lot of us ending up with drug cartels on our border. So this is this this is a crime. What's happening? Our Intel agencies are fully aware of this. You tell me. They're not profiting from this. Of course. You think CIA is not profiting from this? Yes, they are. I can't prove that. But I believe that. What they don't know this. I know this, but they don't know this. They know this. And no one is saying it like no American seems aware of this. We're sending these arms to Ukraine, billions upon hundreds of billions of dollars, and it's being stolen and sold to our actual enemies. Like what? They're trying not to swear. What is this?
Daniel Davis [00:31:17] Yeah, well, the reason why is because you have Zelensky. It was about three weeks ago, I think was specifically asked this question. So he went at some length in one of his interviews to say, no, absolutely not. There's no truth to that at all. We have implemented all this thing. I know that. But the media just reported what he said.
Tucker [00:31:33] The New York Times Keep it on the Web and order Ukrainian weapons. That's a fact. I'm not guessing. It's a fact. They could do that today. Like everyone who wants to know what's going on knows. And yet they're telling me, 70,000 Ukrainians have died. 70,000 really think that's the number. Everything about this is a lie. And Tony Blinken, of course, because he's running the US government knows that it's all lie. And so for him to say that out loud is evil, like that's truly deceptive, I think.
Daniel Davis [00:32:00] And 100% it is, because it is in a direct contradiction to reality on the ground.
Tucker [00:32:05] They're selling weapons to the drug cartels. Are you kidding? This is a nightmare. I don't understand. Why is nobody How come I know that?
Daniel Davis [00:32:14] Yeah, that's that's.
Tucker [00:32:15] So The New York Times doesn't know that.
Daniel Davis [00:32:17] Yeah. Yeah, I think that report. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, how could they not? I mean, the stuff is all over the place. It's. This has been an open secret for almost the duration of this. Yes. And sometimes they put a little caveat headline and then move on to whatever's next. And they don't. No one says the implication of way this stuff could come back to bite us on our own board.
Tucker [00:32:34] Well, yeah, we saw that. We saw that in the 80s with a machete. And of course, how are you going to commercialize air travel around the world, by the way, if their missile systems, you know, handheld us, you know, you can shoot down a commercial airliner pretty easily with all of this stuff. That's what it's designed to do. And if it's in the hands of separatist groups, terror groups, drug cartels, which it is now, how? Do you have a civilization? How do you have global air travel? I don't. I don't get it.
Daniel Davis [00:32:58] Well, yeah, I mean, I pray that remains a potential and not something that actually gets manifest, but it's out of our hands and that's the problem.
Tucker [00:33:05] But how can you send hundreds of billions of dollars of aid and weapons to a country and then not keep track of what happens to it?
Daniel Davis [00:33:13] I can only speculate that they just don't care about that. If it ends up if some of it ends up hurting Russia, then cool. And I think that's the extent of.
Tucker [00:33:22] Their attacks inside Russia. A lot of them. Yeah. So since when does the U.S. government sponsor terror attacks like this is our government?
Daniel Davis [00:33:29] Well, of course, we just put a different tag on it. Well, no, we're just helping the Ukrainian side fight its war against the Russia sanctioning people. That's that's really I mean, and as I think you've talked about before or against our daughter, who was a.
Tucker [00:33:41] Lot of other people. Yeah.
Daniel Davis [00:33:43] Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. General Now, again.
Tucker [00:33:45] Not speculate much at all. I know firsthand. Yeah. So anyway, sorry to get upset. It's that the Blinken stuff is like it's bad.
Daniel Davis [00:33:56] Yeah. And then also did the same thing about six days ago, to be specific, where he says, we have given Ukraine everything we can and we still he's saying this still at this point, we can't let Ukraine lose that war.
Tucker [00:34:08] Liar, liar.
Daniel Davis [00:34:10] The war is already lost.
Tucker [00:34:11] I know.
Daniel Davis [00:34:12] Past tense. There is no possibility to even maintain a thing. For him to say that is to continue the fiction that they are. So that and here's why I think all this is happening. So that when Trump comes in and whatever he ends up negotiating, it's Trump's fault. We had Ukraine set up. We were doing everything we could. And then Trump comes in and hands it back to Putin. That's why I think it's going to be so hard for for Trump to do what makes sense of what's rational because he's going to come under withering attack from the political left. I mean, it's just going to happen.
Tucker [00:34:40] I think, you know, you're effective. You can exercise power to the extent that you're willing to exercise that power and to the extent that you're willing to ignore, you know, your faithless critics like who actually cares what they say, who cares? Did you really mean?
Daniel Davis [00:34:58] And that's what I hope Trump does. I hope he says, Yeah, y'all are the ones that set all the stage for this. Have always clarified on what he can.
Tucker [00:35:05] Do better in Europe. Like, shut up. Yeah, I know.
Daniel Davis [00:35:08] Who cares for million people?
Tucker [00:35:10] Why not?
Daniel Davis [00:35:10] We're talking World War One. We lost in World War One and World War Two combined. About a half a million.
Tucker [00:35:17] Exactly.
Daniel Davis [00:35:17] That is two world wars. And they have doubled that in all probability. And now than you were not even talking about how many have lost limbs, how many have severe PTSD that will take the rest of their lives to recover. They've lost generations of people. I think like 22 million people have fled the country. That's what we produced, Tucker. That's what we built. And that's how prideful it is for America to say what we generated. That is.
Tucker [00:35:42] Why.
Daniel Davis [00:35:42] I was.
Tucker [00:35:43] So distressed when I heard the incoming national story adviser. I really like personally. He's a good man, actually. But I use the term democracy to describe what's happening in Ukraine or motives in Ukraine. I mean, that is so dishonest. That is so false. I don't know. Maybe he believes it, but that is just not true. Right. And I don't think there's any evidence that is true at all. The opposite is true. Right. It's a tyranny that's banned forms of Christianity. Yes. Yeah.
Daniel Davis [00:36:08] Political opponents, any opposition media, everything. Just jailed all the.
Tucker [00:36:13] Murdering the murdering people. A lot of people to get not gassing. So sorry. My rent's okay so what should thank you for being patient. What So so given everything you've described, what should the incoming administration do?
Daniel Davis [00:36:27] I think that Trump should come in and try to get this resolved as fast as possible and rationally understand that the June 15th line that Putin laid out is the best that he can possibly get. And and he's going to have to put a good face on. You can't just come in and say, okay, whatever you want is fine. We'll just sign here. But there are some other there's some levers we can do elsewhere that's like, hey, look, we can even remove some of these sanctions on Russia as long as we get this in return for it, you know, some increase, some security guarantees that Russia is not going to do anything beyond this, etc., which is going to be hard because they have the capacity should they want to go further than the deeper river. But I think that he should just say, hey, this is the best we're going to get right here. I'm going to end this war as soon as we can on these lines right here, because it would all we're going to do is get more Ukrainians killed if we if we keep delay in this. So we're going to get this done here. We're going to start the process of letting the Ukraine side recover And to help them rebuild Europe needs to handle the lion's share of that, not the United States. But we can help diplomacy, you know, build that with diplomacy. You're the EU, especially the Eastern Europeans. Let them build up their own national security, civil defense, get bigger on there. Not the United States, not put more money in Naito, but the Europeans need to handle that. That's that's one of the big things here. And then the other thing is we just have to acknowledge this is where the lines are going to be because that's already a reality on the ground if you get that. Over with now, then we can start the next hard thing, which is to rebuild relations with Russia going forward. And I know many don't want to do that, but Russia is going to exist into the perpetual into the future.
Tucker [00:38:04] Why are we supposed to hate Russia? Exactly.
Daniel Davis [00:38:06] Because these people can't escape the Cold War that we won in 1990.
Tucker [00:38:11] Why? As long as Bill Kristol is chirping, his vile little lies in your head like you're never going to get anything done? Like, why don't you ignore them? Like, Russia should not be our enemies. They should not.
Daniel Davis [00:38:21] Reason. And you showed that and is so graphically with with both the Lavrov and the Putin interviews. They're very reasonable. They're not doing things that are they're not asking us.
Tucker [00:38:30] To civilized old country. And now it's aligned with China in a larger, much larger military and economic bloc then Naito. So by the way, we just destroyed the European economy by blowing up Nord Stream. No one's ever been held accountable for that. I don't know how the Europeans are going to pay for Ukraine reconstruction when we wrecked their economy by blowing up their natural gas pipeline. But whatever you don't want. We have lost our preeminence because of this. Yes. Now Russia is aligned with China like that's, you know, built.
Daniel Davis [00:39:00] Into that China. That's the headline and actual military alliance with North Korea and the cooperation with Iran as well. All those things. And the BRICs, like you say, that is the wreckage of this outgoing administration. That's what they have produced. None of those things existed prior to October 22nd when we started making Russia weaker. We have made them stronger in every capacity.
Tucker [00:39:20] If you stayed in the United States for the past four years, you didn't leave and you didn't read any non American non US media. You have no idea, no clue, no idea that any of this happened. You would think that it was 1997 and this was, you know, we had a unipolar world and were in charge of everything in the blue passports, a big deal. And also you'd have no idea. And that freaks me out. Yeah. Yeah. People don't know. They should know if they did know. I mean, you know, they'd be upset at the damage. Pointless damage done in this country.
Daniel Davis [00:39:48] Upset. And I hope that's. That's why I'm so grateful for your show here that you separated from the mainstream media because now then you're putting it to millions of people to get this information that they aren't getting in anything.
Tucker [00:39:58] Yeah, I live here. I am American. My ancestors came here a long time ago and they're all buried here. I'm not going anywhere. I love the United States. And so to see a bunch of people who have no interest in the United States whatsoever destroy it, it's like it drives me crazy. I don't know why. I don't know. Yeah, that's my only motive. You love Putin. Fuck. I lied. Hooten.
Daniel Davis [00:40:19] Right, Right. Well, there's no reason to antagonize a nuclear superpower when they're happy to just cooperate with us and actually help us in the Western European countries with cheap energy so that they can develop their economies. Why do you want to harm that?
Tucker [00:40:34] Well, it's also like it's a Christian country. And so why wouldn't why wouldn't we be allies with them? Why would we drive them into a permanent alliance? Lavrov told me. It's a permanent alliance with China. Game over. Game A look. Look at a map and a map. Some day I'm like, look at it. You know you want to move Russia West. And it's of course, it's not a fully Western country and the Mongols invaded it. It's like a complicated country, but it is in some deep sense Western because it's Christian, mostly Christian. So why wouldn't they be on our side? Because certain people in the U.S. government hate that idea. They hate Russia because always Christian. They loved it when it was atheist. They loved it. They defended it. Their ancestors, you know, we're agents for it, you know what I mean? And the entire American left was working on behalf of Stalin at one point, but now they hate it. What's the difference? Because it's I don't know.
Daniel Davis [00:41:19] But it's to our harm. And that's is.
Tucker [00:41:21] It's a Christian country, not an atheist country. Yes. It's that that's my view. Whatever I mean. Anyway, excuse me. So do you think that Trump can do that? It's like, what would the settlement look? What what's how much do you think the Russians would accept? What do you think the new administration can actually pull off, given the enormous political pressure on them from Trump enemies?
Daniel Davis [00:41:43] If Trump takes your advice there and just says, I don't care what anybody else thinks, this is what I'm going to do, this is what's good for America, is what I was elected to do, then he's going to say, All right, we're going to acknowledge the June 15th line and it's going to be those four regions there. And that's where it will the Ukraine side will pull back to those lands, etc.. We will declare no narrow net. We're never going to go in there. We were never going to go in there. So we'll just acknowledge reality. But bottom line here, no Naito. And that's not going to happen on the border here. And then let's start to see how we can rebuild relations to our advantage. And we, like you said, this stuff with China and this other stuff that's that's that's irreparable. We can't fix that. But we can. And again, back to your interview with Lavrov. He still desires that he even called us a great country. I'll listen to that again. Earlier today from your interview, he called America a great country. We're demonizing them and he still is calling us a great country that they want to have relations with. So Trump can exploit that and say we're going to start repairing that to our advantage and to our benefit because there is still advantage to have. And instead of going down any other path, I don't know if he'll do it, but he can do it by just because he's the president. He gets to call the shots. So we'll see what he does.
Tucker [00:42:55] Yeah, I mean, I think it would, you know, take on every member of Congress, 535 House and Senate and send him for a week to Moscow, then some to Beijing, and send them to Delhi and ask them which of these cities would you live in, which has a population that you know, has more in common with Americans. And it's it's not even close. Actually, it's not even close. And so your alliances should be built on shared interests, but also shared attitudes and history and shared goals. And they're a natural ally of ours. And, you know, the east is not. It's just a fact. And they they fundamentally like us, the people like us. Putin and Lavrov are the most pro-Western Russian leaders we'll see in my lifetime. They're actually the people who will replace them will not have the same attitude. And this is just self harm. What? We're hurting ourselves.
Daniel Davis [00:43:47] Yeah. And you know, to those people who and I saw a lot of them complaining against you after you, especially if you went to Putin and they're saying it's Putin apologists. And I would say to them, you show me a map of the last three years physically and also calendar wise and you show me where we're better off today because we followed the path that you said we did turn them into an enemy. And how have we improved because of that? Now, a million people are dead here. We've lost all this energy here. Our economy has been severely constrained, all because you won't be acknowledged. Reality.
Tucker [00:44:17] Tony Blinken, mad at Russia or something? Yeah.
Daniel Davis [00:44:21] No, I.
Tucker [00:44:22] Agree with by people who hate America obvious. I mean.
Daniel Davis [00:44:25] Even if they don't, maybe they maybe they think they like America, but their harmonies no worse than the Russians are. That's the perversion of this. They are harming American interests left and right, making our own military weaker. We are weaker today. We have to fight than we were in February 2010.
Tucker [00:44:40] So what? Okay, so this is an area in which you have deep expertise. I don't have any expertise. Where are we right now from a standpoint of military readiness?
Daniel Davis [00:44:49] We are we have made ourselves substantially less good than we used to be. So and I fought in an armored warfare in 1991, and we were at our preeminent power because we had been training for a potential Cold War clash all this time. And so we had the force structure, we had the training, we had the institutionalized training, we had all the different levels, everything you can ever want. We had it at that time. Well, then all of a sudden we win the Cold War, and then after 911, we completely get rid of all that institutional knowledge we had. And now we're starting to fight, you know, Arabs in the Middle East. And so you had the Iraq war. You had the Afghan war, which dragged on for one and two decades each. And we're doing counterinsurgency stuff. And now we have these stupid bases all over the place. Every time you send a guy, that means he's not training for our core requirement to defend America. That's why I'm hopeful that probably the new secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, he said he's focused on national defense, on our borders and our skies and to rebuild the military, to make them lethal war fighters, which is what we need to get back.
Tucker [00:45:52] So women now, right. I mean, I just keep reading all these stories about how they couldn't meet recruitment goals. So we're just having women fight our worst. It's not it's not for women. I think that's great. The problem is.
Daniel Davis [00:46:01] What is true is that in one in this disaster for whatever and they wanted to give women opportunity, they gave the women opportunity everywhere, even when they weren't physically capable of doing so. So they lowered the standards.
Tucker [00:46:12] But it's not just physical. There's like women, I'm sure, better drone operators than men. I have no trouble believing that. I mean, I have a mostly female staff. I think they're smarter and more capable than I am. That's why I have hired them. You know, I'm not against women at all. I think it's a moral problem. You have a home invasion, you're lying in bed with your wife. Do you say to your wife, hey, you get this one right? No, no. The point I thought the point of having a military is to defend your women and children. There's no other reason. I don't understand. So you have women for your wars. For you. You're disgusting. I think that. I know I was. Shut up. You hate women. Actually, I love women. And I hate anyone who would put a woman in.
Daniel Davis [00:46:50] Combat in this in this day and age, you.
Tucker [00:46:51] Can't gives a shit what you say. But they've wrecked our society. Like, at some point, if you start the Iraq war or you start feminism, you start something it's or the transgender brain virus, something that's so clearly hurt a lot of people. The Ukraine war, don't you? Aren't you disqualified from weighing in on, like, future issues?
Daniel Davis [00:47:09] Unfortunately, no.
Tucker [00:47:10] You know, Iraq war guy. Shut up. Hey, Gloria Steinem, you know, dying alone, unmarried and childless. I think you kind of proved it doesn't work right just by your own life. Shut up. Like I don't understand why. Why people with a long track record of failure. Well, get to talk about, you know, what we do next.
Daniel Davis [00:47:29] Do you have to go any further than David Petraeus, former CIA director? That the architect of the disaster in Afghanistan to this day is still putting a mic in his face? Ben Hodges, the worst analyst I've ever seen still to this day, and I'm talking like 2 or 3 days ago, is still saying Ukraine can win and eventually get back Crimea. It's totally detached from reality. But the key put the mark in front of them. That's what needs to change, I reckon. That's the failure. Don't put your mark in front of that guy.
Tucker [00:47:56] I do think that's the central problem in the United States is that we do not punish anything really. We only punish disobedience to the regime. But nothing else is ever punished. So you can be like, you know, the worst fire captain in the western United States and let your city burn. And it's like you go girl or whatever, right? But I just do think there's there's something repulsive about sending women to go defend your country where the men that's your job is to defend and provide. That is your job. And that's not my opinion. That's nature. And there's never been a society, a functional society, in which men were required to defend and sustain, you know, work to protect the women and children. That's the whole point of the Western, the Titanic, That's Western civilization in a sentence. And we've just inverted it. And like, hey, ladies, go, go defend us while we stay home and game and get high or whatever. Like, I just find it there's nothing. Well.
Daniel Davis [00:48:51] You know, one of the reasons for that is because we have lowered the standards so much that a lot of the good guys, they don't want to come in like some of your staff members I talked to, Those are the good guys. Right. But lie to those kind of people now. They don't want to come into this force because it's like your standards are low and see, you're not serious about it.
Tucker [00:49:08] I'm saying the guys who won the Second World War somehow went to immoral to serve in the military now and that the fat guy who runs the military remembers Milley, Mark Milley, you know, with the chest full of medals that guys like old white rage, white men are bad. Really? Who won the Second World War? So people look up to look at the pictures. It was white men. Actually. I don't want to be Hitler. So why don't you shut up, Tubby?
Daniel Davis [00:49:29] So. So if you can't recruit enough men like that, then you have to recruit something. So that's. That's why we're lowering the staff.
Tucker [00:49:36] Like, I love women, and that's why. But I just think it's. I mean, just think about it first saying, what is the point of having an army? And so people don't show up and rape your wife, you carry off your daughters, murder your children like that's the only point, actually.
Daniel Davis [00:49:49] So here's that hasn't been exposed yet, though. And I fear that one day we will have to fight a peer or near peer. And we haven't since. Really, you can say Korea and maybe Vietnam, but none since then where we fought anybody who was any good. So you can have anybody honestly, you know, even our base is so good that we can beat, you know, the Taliban well, we can tactically beat the Taliban in any engagement with our military. So there's nobody in Iraq that could have beat us, etc.. But if we had to fight, I'm telling you, if we had to fight the Russian army right now, like war broke out tomorrow and all of a sudden we have to send in our divisions, I think we would probably get hammered.
Tucker [00:50:27] Well, obviously.
Daniel Davis [00:50:29] I mean, not even just because of the stuff that you're talking about there, which will also be exposed, but because we don't have the combat experience that they do and we're still locked in like the 1991 or 2003 Iraq war. And the Russians have gone way beyond that and we're way behind on that. But all these things would be exposed. And then until then, they're not exposed. And still then we still are the greatest military power on earth. And who's to say differently.
Tucker [00:50:52] Graphically? So the Ukrainians took out a bunch of Russian bombers, long range bombers on an airfield with drones early in the war. And I thought to myself, wow, you know, the this war, which I don't know are we studying this like carefully makes we're running it. But are we taking its lessons shows that, you know, drone technology has got to change our calculations about where we spend our money. Right. So how many aircraft carriers do you need in a world with drones? I don't I don't know the answer to these questions, but is anyone smart thinking about this?
Daniel Davis [00:51:23] Well, I, I think about it a lot and do affect us all. Whatever we're building to new aircraft carriers right now and they're already name and then what they're going to be and I'm like, did you not watch what happened to the Black Sea fleet, the Russian Black Sea fleet, because of naval drones? I mean, dude, they were sent to the bottom of the ocean. We would we would get hammered if we had to fight. That's that's World War two level. We're not at World War Two anymore. And look, to your point, there.
Tucker [00:51:47] Are already named one is called the George Bush I think.
Daniel Davis [00:51:49] Yeah. Yeah. And Clinton Bill Clinton is the other one. I'm not making that up. That's that's what's been reported.
Tucker [00:51:54] The draft dodger is an aircraft carrier. Unbelievable. We've reached like peak parity. But why are we building aircraft? I mean, look, you know, you're the retired colonel, but it does seem like we should pause and ask, like what? You know, what are we learning from what's happening in Ukraine?
Daniel Davis [00:52:10] Yeah, well, that's where I was going to say, I was a little surprised that Russia didn't start off on a higher level tactically than it did in February 22nd. They they they were behind the curve for a long period of time because Armenia and Azerbaijan had a war in 2020 were all of this stuff was put on full display for the first time in large scale. The Armenian armor was hammered from the Azerbaijanis because they used the long range drones. They had missiles, they had drones, and then they were able to bring them in and vector in other targets. So it started. Doug MacGregor wrote about 1997. They employed for the first time. And I thought when I saw that, okay, this is now changed warfare. No one's going to fight the old way anymore because you see how powerful drones are and the Russians didn't. Well, here's the problem. We still. Haven't. And now they're not just to 2020. And it was a really short conflict. We've had now three years and we're tinkering around the edges with stuff. There have been some changes, but it's like about this much when you need this much. If we had to fight Russia today, even everything we've observed for the last three years, we are not up to the standard. We are way behind the ball and we would die and I think large numbers.
Tucker [00:53:14] So, I mean, this is like a what we're watching does seem to have like lots of precedent in the history. But the most obvious is the British army that spends the entire 19th century fighting all these colonial wars against the Pashtuns and the mutants, you know, the mutinous forces in India and. You know, every the Zulus and they win most of those engagements. And then they have this peer to peer war in the First World War. And it commences with like British cavalry charges into machine gunfire. And, you know, it would destroy Britain. It's never been a great power really since then. It's pretended to be, but it's not. It's wrecked the country forever and destroyed the British Empire. That war, first World war. And everyone makes fun of them for that. Like you didn't keep track of what real war was, is you were like killing all the villagers around the world.
Daniel Davis [00:54:02] Let me tell you, 25 years later, it was the French army's turn. They were the preeminent power on the European continent. And then they just they were destroyed in a month.
Tucker [00:54:12] I know it.
Daniel Davis [00:54:13] When the Germans came in using modern technology, modern tactics and new doctrine that they were and everyone knew, the Germans knew that they were better, but they had to go fight anyway. But because they were still in the not in World War one mentality, that's what happened to them. So you have British rule were one fresh from World War Two. Are we going to be the next in line?
Tucker [00:54:33] Well, I mean, because it is the parallels are pretty obvious. I mean, you know, whatever. You don't want to be mean or anything. But the truth is, fighting, you know, third world nations is different from fighting, you know, technologically advanced, you know, nations that have satellite stations and stuff. And so, yeah, I'm I'm really worried. Did you think.
Daniel Davis [00:54:53] As Russia's talked openly about if they get into conflict with us are satellites of the first thing coming down they've said that recently I'm talking about and I'm telling you we don't even know how to fight without all of our connectivity. And the Russians do because they've learned how to. And and that's another factor that if we get into a fight, I think that we're going to get hammered.
Tucker [00:55:14] Do you think? So The real question is, do smart people at the Pentagon, like, are they throw away the all the procurement stuff, the defense contractor pressure and all that, which is like seems determinative and a lot of it all of the time. But is anyone thinking about this is can and doesn't even have the power to change the way the U.S. military.
Daniel Davis [00:55:32] I retired in 2015, so I can't speak of anything beyond that. But I can tell you that a lot of my experience, part of it when I was in the Future combat Systems program at Fort Bliss, Texas, in the early 2000s, you had the senior leaders that were totally disconnected from reality. All these exercises and tests that they claim were showing how this new modern force is going to be fantastic. It was all video and fake because the tests were lied. All the guys I was a major to top all of that, like the major below the guys who were physically doing this stuff. We knew it was absurd and so we told people. But to make contact to context earlier in this conversation, those guys don't get promoted. The guys get promoted who signed off on this fake test results here.
Tucker [00:56:15] He does promotional Davis not General Davis did.
Daniel Davis [00:56:18] He bribed lucky to get colonel. But that's a separate issue.
Tucker [00:56:21] So what is. I mean I just know from living I know very little about the military, but I've been around it a lot. And I know from living in Washington you do run into tons of smart teachers and colonels, but like flag officer. No. What is that? What is that? What was the leap from colonel to general? What does it require and how do they manage to weed out all the smart, free thinking people?
Daniel Davis [00:56:43] Because in order to become a general, you have to have the approval of the generals. That's how technically the president designates these people. But in reality, they just the president signs off on whatever, and then the Senate signs off on whoever the generals approve of. So they don't approve of anyone that doesn't already play the game. That is one of the big things that I think needs to be reformed because you that's why I say they replicate each other. So nobody gets up into that upper echelon. And I just got to say, and I hate to use this example, but H.R. McMaster, who is the former national security advisor, I fought under him in Desert Storm. He was my direct commander at the time and he was fantastic. Under fire, was brilliant, and I had the highest respect for him for 20 years. We were close friends all the way through until we both went to Afghanistan in 2011, 2010, 2011 at the same time. And then Allison, he gets promoted by David Petraeus after he had not been promoted several times before that Petraeus gets him promoted and now he becomes general. And almost overnight he starts sounding like Petraeus and stuff that he and I had talked about before. That's like, you know, there's so much this is unreal, untrue. This is not going to work. All of a sudden now he's saying it. He was put in charge during that time of the anti-corruption process for the Afghan government. And he claimed over and over how they were making progress and all this stuff. And as we talked about earlier, this show, that never happened. But then since that time now, then he's going on and saying all kinds of stuff like, yes, he needs to, you know, is anti-Russian and all this. He became like them. And so now he's just another one of them. He got absorbed and all the stuff that happened before that when he was the one who was talking on the outside where he was. I don't understand.
Tucker [00:58:18] He was I mean, even I knew who he was. And again, I don't follow this that closely, but he was famous for his, well, intellectual horsepower, but also curiosity. Honesty like he was a well-known guy, right?
Daniel Davis [00:58:32] Yeah. The battle seventh reasoning that that he was in command of was I mean, they still study it today in West Point and for good reason because he was there was tremendous but something happened to him after he got promoted from colonel to brigadier general.
Tucker [00:58:47] Just like swimming in a in the filthy pool of power politics or what? What do you think that I.
Daniel Davis [00:58:53] Can I really? Because we literally never spoke after that time. It was really sad that it would. We we had a good friendship up until that time, but then we broken that history in 2011, never spoke again. So I don't have any idea of what may or may not be the case. I just see him on TV all the time, so I don't know.
Tucker [00:59:09] Wow. How do you feel about the national security team being assembled?
Daniel Davis [00:59:15] I am a huge fan of Tulsi Gabbard. I think I am. I had advisor recommended and. I mean, I don't have a lot of influence, but to people who have the knowledge, I suggested she would have been a better secretary of state, maybe even secretary of defense, because I think her mind is brilliant and her focus on America and keeping America safe. You look at everything she's done in such a tough year consistently through her career is always focused on what's going to benefit America. And she's smart, knows how to do it. I hope that Pete Hegseth does what he said he was going to do in his opening statement that he revitalizes the national security. The Defense Department picks up the war fighting ethos mentality, hold people accountable, passes. And I hope he does all those things. If he does, then I think we're going to be in a lot better shape. And Mark was right. I've also been concerned by some of the statements he has made. But if true, President Trump is calling the shots. I think he'll do what President Trump tells you. We'll just have to hope and see with that. But those are the main ones in there and so are some of the Elbridge Colby is another really good, good situation there, a good person there. So I think that's right. Having him in a position right now is going to be very good. So there's a number of people right now then the Trump team here that he's going to start with. That was a huge anchor that he didn't have in 2016. So I'm hopeful that he can move.
Tucker [01:00:37] How hard is it to reform the Pentagon?
Daniel Davis [01:00:39] It's it's enormously difficult. I don't want to underestimate how that is, because it is absolutely built on no change. It wants to perpetuate. So because all those generals I just talked about who have been replicated are still in control of that. So it's going to be really hard. I tell you what, I would love to see. I would love to see Trump come in and do what he did or what the President Roosevelt did just before World War Two, where he had the Army chief of staff come in and say, you know what? We're going to review everybody here and anybody who's not pulling their weight or is not modernized, they're going to get low. They're going to get rid of them. And I think it was like hundreds of senior colonels and generals were retired from the service and then they elevated new people who could get the job done, who were smart, etc..
Tucker [01:01:22] Stalin did that with guns, with gunfire.
Daniel Davis [01:01:24] But I don't want that path. But I do want the George Marshall path, Bill.
Tucker [01:01:30] But I mean, look, what did the winning side do in both in both cases in the U.S. and in the Soviet Union? They they got new leadership.
Daniel Davis [01:01:37] Yeah, because guys who aren't performing need to get out of the way.
Tucker [01:01:39] Now, I agree. I and by the way, I'm not calling for a purge of the U.S. military by force or anything like that, But I think it needs a peaceful purge.
Daniel Davis [01:01:46] It does. I strongly so because because these guys all have an incentive to maintain the status quo and they will, I think, push against anything that does if they're all left in power. So I kind of think that it.
Tucker [01:01:57] Really it comes down to what it always comes down to, which is how the information is presented to the public through the media who are working, you know, every day assiduously with their allies and paymasters in the federal bureaucracy. And if you care what they think, you will achieve nothing. They will control you. And if you don't care what they think, then you have a chance at eliminating corruption and raiding the country.
Daniel Davis [01:02:20] Because you look at what history's going to say. Biden did all the things you mentioned. He got along with everybody. Everybody loved him. But history will condemn him and all his leaders. Trump will face heat up at the front. But if he does these things, then the history will love him if it improves our country. And that's what I hope we see.
Tucker [01:02:38] Colonel Davis, thank you very much. That was great.
Why Russia attacked: The Backstory You Should Know – Self Reliance Central
Not once, but three times, Baker tried out the “not one inch eastward” formula with Gorbachev in the February 9, 1990, meeting. He agreed with Gorbachev’s statement in response to the assurances that “NATO expansion is unacceptable.” Baker assured Gorbachev that “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place,” and that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.” (See Document 6)
James Baker III https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early
Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist and professor at Columbia University, has articulated a detailed perspective on the origins of the current situation in Ukraine, emphasizing the role of U.S. foreign policy and NATO expansion as central provocations leading to the conflict. According to Sachs, the roots of the war trace back to the post-Cold War era, specifically starting in 1990 when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand “one inch eastward” if the Soviet Union allowed German unification.
The letter he refers to is heavily reacted in the National Archives.
Despite this assurance, the U.S. pursued an aggressive policy of NATO enlargement, which Sachs views as a deliberate strategy to weaken Russia, driven by neoconservative ideology aimed at maintaining American hegemony.
Sachs highlights key moments in this trajectory: NATO’s expansion began in the 1990s under President Clinton, against the advice of prominent diplomats like George Kennan, who warned it would destabilize relations with Russia. By 2008, at the NATO Bucharest Summit, the U.S. pushed for Ukraine and Georgia to be offered future NATO membership, a move Sachs sees as crossing a critical Russian red line. Then-CIA Director William Burns, serving as U.S. Ambassador to Russia at the time, explicitly cautioned in a 2008 memo titled “Nyet Means Nyet” that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were perceived by Russia as a direct threat to its security, likely to provoke conflict.
A pivotal event in Sachs’ narrative is the 2014 overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, which he describes as a U.S.-backed regime change operation. Following Yanukovych’s election in 2010 on a platform of neutrality, the U.S. allegedly supported the Maidan uprising, leading to his ouster and the installation of a pro-Western, anti-Russian government. Sachs argues this event ignited a civil war in eastern Ukraine and set the stage for Russia’s annexation of Crimea and, ultimately, the 2022 invasion. He contends that the U.S. ignored Russia’s security concerns, escalated tensions by arming Ukraine, and rejected diplomatic off-ramps, such as the Minsk II agreements, which were never fully implemented.
Sachs asserts that the current war, rather than being an unprovoked Russian aggression as often portrayed in Western media, is the culmination of decades of U.S. provocations, particularly the relentless push for NATO expansion despite repeated Russian objections. He emphasizes that this conflict could have been avoided through diplomacy and respect for Russia’s stated security interests, such as maintaining Ukraine as a neutral buffer state. Instead, he criticizes the U.S. for pursuing a neocon agenda that has devastated Ukraine, cost billions, and brought the world to the brink of nuclear escalation, urging negotiations as the only viable path to peace.
*US interference
Jeffrey Sachs specifically points to key figures in the U.S. government as being behind the 2014 overthrow of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, framing it as a U.S.-orchestrated regime change operation. He prominently names Victoria Nuland, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs at the time, as a central figure in this effort. Sachs highlights her role in actively supporting the Maidan uprising, citing her leaked phone call with then-U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt, where they discussed shaping the post-Yanukovych government, famously including Nuland’s dismissive “F*** the EU” remark regarding European allies’ input. This conversation, intercepted and released in early 2014, is cited by Sachs as evidence of direct U.S. involvement in engineering the coup.
Additionally, Sachs implicates Geoffrey Pyatt, the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine during the Maidan events, as a key player alongside Nuland in coordinating U.S. efforts to back the protests and influence the outcome of Yanukovych’s ouster. He suggests that Pyatt worked in tandem with Nuland to ensure the installation of a pro-Western government aligned with U.S. interests.
Sachs also broadly criticizes the Obama administration, under which these events unfolded, arguing that the operation reflected a broader neoconservative agenda driven by figures like Nuland, who had deep ties to the neocon establishment from her earlier roles under Presidents Bush and Clinton. While he doesn’t always name other specific individuals in every account, Sachs occasionally references the involvement of Senator John McCain, who visited Kyiv during the Maidan protests in December 2013 and publicly expressed solidarity with the demonstrators alongside Senator Chris Murphy, signaling high-level U.S. political support for the movement.
In Sachs’ view, these named individuals—Nuland, Pyatt, and to a lesser extent McCain—represent the visible hands of a U.S. policy that, through the State Department and broader intelligence community, funded and directed the overthrow, leveraging NGOs, opposition groups, and street protests to topple Yanukovych and install a government hostile to Russia.