>>Good morning and welcome to Global Perspectives.

I'm David Dumke.

Today we are joined by General Ben Hodges.

General Hodges was the former commander, commanding general, U.S. Army Europe.

He is an expert on U.S. security issues, U.S. European relations, as well as the situation in Ukraine and general national security issues around the globe.

Welcome to the show, General.

>>Thanks for the privilege.

>>So we've heard a lot about what's happening in Ukraine right now since the Russian invasion and where the battle stands for Russian advances, Ukraine stopped the counteroffensive that was supposed to take place this summer.

Where does the battle look - situation look right now?

>>Actually, right now, I would say that Ukraine has the initiative.

We know from history that war is a test of will, and it's a test of logistics.

And the logistical situation has changed in favor of Ukraine, thanks in large part, of course, to the support by the United States, U.K., Germany and 50 something nations, whereas Russia gets ammunition from North Korea and drones from Iran.

I mean, that's that's where they get their support.

And the Ukrainians have very, I think, skillfully shifted their targeting to Russian logistics, Russian artillery and Russian headquarters.

And it's paying off.

The last several days, Ukrainians have destroyed hundreds of armored vehicles and artillery, probably around 5,000 Russian soldiers have been killed around of Avdiivka.

For the first time in this war, the number of rounds fired by the Ukrainians artillery ammunition was more than what the Russians had fired.

This is a good direction for Ukraine.

>>Are you concerned when you when you hear the discourse in the United States, for example, where you hear increasing concerns about how much assistance is going to the Ukraine and whether this is valuable for the United States security interests?

What do you say that to critics of the Ukrainian policy?

>>Well, I would say that, of course, is the job of the president and other leaders to explain why this is in our strategic interests, that Ukraine is successful, that Ukraine wins, that they defeat Russia, eject Russia back to the 1991 borders.

That includes Crimea of course.

The Chinese are watching to see if we're serious about things like sovereignty, respect for human rights, respect for international agreements, respect for freedom of navigation and our own economy.

Our economic prosperity depends on European prosperity, and European prosperity depends on stability and security in Europe.

So this is in our interest.

That's not automatically obvious to everybody that doesn't pay attention or maybe doesn't know European geography or doesn't think in global terms.

So the president has got to make the case.

The good news is that the majority of the Congress, Republican and Democrat, supports continued aid to Ukraine, but that's not guaranteed to last forever.

And, of course, it's a it's a very small number of right wing Republicans that have been the most vocal about stopping it without explaining why they're against it.

And so I think the president has to make the case.

>>What is Vladimir Putin's end goal in Ukraine?

Obviously, you had the collapse of the Soviet Union, which he himself has called the most catastrophic event in the last century.

And you've seen bit by bit the Russian Federation regain influence in certain areas, but not at the same extent of the Soviet Union.

So what is what is the game plan in Ukraine and where does this lead Russia?

I believe his desire to instate of course, is the destruction of Ukraine as a state and even the idea of Ukraine as a state.

I think that Vladimir Putin envisions himself as kind of next in line after Peter the Great, Catherine the Great and then him kind of a legacy.

The clearly the government, the elites there, they don't care about the 130 million average Russian civilians.

What they care about is making themselves incredibly wealthy and maintaining maintaining power.

I think that's his number one objective, is to stay in power.

But part of this is based on expanding their frontiers to what it used to be with the Soviet Union to some extent.

I mean, they've pretty much said that that that would include retaking Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, for example.

So it's the thing is, with an autocrat and with a guy like Putin, they control their own narrative.

He doesn't have to answer to the Duma, the parliament, and he doesn't have to answer to tough questions from journalists.

He he sets the narrative.

And as long as he thinks he can win, this will keep going.

They'll just keep pushing troops into the meat grinder.

They don't care.

Once he has realized he's lost or he's about to lose, then I think he changes the narrative.

That does not mean that goes nuclear.

I think it he changes the narrative because staying in power and staying alive is his was his priority.

>>How did he miscalculate on this?

Because clearly he didn't anticipate a long war in Ukraine.

>>I think this war in Ukraine, which started in 2014, of course, when they invaded Crimea, illegally annexed Crimea and occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

This war is a result of failed deterrence.

We, the West, did nothing after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008.

We really did nothing after they jumped over President Obama's red line in Syria and helped the Assad regime kill their own people.

And then we really did not respond in a meaningful way after their invasion in 2014.

So they were pretty sure we probably were not going to do anything.

And then they saw the disastrous end to our 20 years in Afghanistan.

So the U.S. and our allies, we looked weak and disorganized.

They will have seen the chaos of January the sixth and for the first time in American history of failure to peacefully transfer power.

That would have signaled to them that we were distracted, not unified or strong.

The former president referring to NATO or excuse me, the French president referred to NATO as brain dead and former President Trump talking about pulling U.S. out of NATO or questioning our Article Five commitment.

And then Germany was still building Nord Stream 2 late into 2021.

So all of these things, you could almost imagine the Kremlin saying, well, let's finish the job there, because the West is too much of a mess there.

They can't and won't do anything about it.

And so that's why I think this was failed deterrence.

So they made three or four strategic miscalculations based on what they saw.

They were sure that they had force advantage over the Ukrainians.

I mean, the Ukrainians were not exactly squared away in 2022 either.

They had not they were not prepared for a major attack.

And the Russians had invested a lot of money modernizing their force.

So they were pretty sure that they had force advantage they would be able to roll in.

Secondly, they were sure that we the West, would not we would not intervene.

Third, I believe that they thought they could get a twofer, two for one, that they could not only destroy Ukraine, but that they could also break apart NATO that this would be too much and it would be the end of the alliance.

Those are the miscalculations that they made.

>>What is the impact having on Putin at home?

So, obviously, you're talking about this is a very costly war in terms of both lives, in terms of the cost of maintaining a war footing for a long time.

You are already seeing Moscow get weapons from North Korea, as you were just saying, and China and anywhere else they can get them.

Is this making Vladimir Putin more vulnerable at home?

>>I want to say yes, but we just don't know.

Obviously, it's not a transparent society.

All of the opposition are either dead or in jail.

You will not see, I don't believe anything that looks like Arab Spring or Maidan happening anywhere in Russia.

The the security service is very strong.

And he has spent the last 20 years making himself coup proof.

So it's hard to know what's really going on.

When I talk to friends that have Russian friends or Russians or Ukrainians that have relatives inside of Russia, they say when I talk to them, they are 100% behind Putin.

So there is a large part of the population that is so influenced by state TV and it's kind of been that way for a long time there.

So seems like most of the population is either indifferent or supportive or what can I do about it?

And President Putin doesn't have to worry about answering to the Duma, the parliament.

He doesn't have to answer hard questions from a journalist.

So he can he can do kind of what he wants as long as he has the power.

Now, we saw during the Prigozhin mutiny a few months ago, back earlier this year, there are problems, obviously.

Prigozhin head of the Wagner PMC private military company.

So unique sort of character had an incredible amount of influence and independence it would seem.

So he launched this mutiny and it was a business decision, not because he was trying to overthrow the government.

He just didn't want his company being subsumed into the Ministry of Defense.

And so I think he did this to to stop that from happening.

And because, of course, he hated Shoigu and Gerasimov the defense minister and the chief of defense.

And then, you know, two months later, very, very public execution assassination, because his plane being blown apart and most of his team being killed in that allegedly, you know, there's been no external confirmation of any of this.

That sent a message to everybody that loyalty is more important than competence.

All of the most effective Russian generals are dead in jail or have been sacked and sent home and Shoigu and Gerasimov remain in their post.

But it also revealed to me or confirmed what I suspected.

None of these people trust each other.

They absolutely hate each other.

The army hates the Chechens.

They hate the mercenaries, these factions that are out there.

Perhaps one day one of the oligarchs or somebody may raise their head above the parapet, but it just doesn't seem likely at this point.

So I can't tell how fragile he is.

We do know that there are probably about 700,000 Russians left the country within the last two years to avoid being conscripted sent to Ukraine.

So there's a massive brain drain as well as a drain on military age males.

>>So one of the calculations you were saying for Putin was this was a point where NATO's itself was was weak.

And you had leaders, including the former US president, the French president, others questioning its value and purpose.

Where do you see NATO today after long after the invasion?

We're in a stronger place, despite you have some concerns with places like Hungary.

>>Yeah.

>>With Orban.

Is is NATO's stronger today than it was?

>>I would say thanks in large part to the leadership of Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

He's been secretary general now for probably six years or so.

Just got another extension.

He held things together during the Trump administration, which would have been a challenge, but also challenges from President Macron.

And as you mentioned, Hungary is is a concern.

But I think President Biden also deserves a lot of credit from the day he became president.

He talked about the importance of alliances that the United States, even with the biggest defense budget in history, does not have enough capability or capacity to do everything that we're required to do.

Our great Navy, our great Air Force, they are totally stretched to do all the things that are required just for normal deterrence and operations.

And then when you have to surge, as is happening now with the Hamas attack against Israel, I mean, this really stretches resources.

And I think the president has made - hes allayed concerns from our European allies that the United States was not reliable.

The readiness level of troops in Europe now is as good as I have seen in any sense, any time in the post-Cold War era.

So over the last 30 plus years exercises, nations are finally getting back to the business of of readiness, maintaining readiness.

Have a long way to go.

We have a real shortfall in the area of air and missile defense.

But, yes, we're in a much better place in terms of readiness capabilities.

But at the end of the day, it's American leadership.

This is key to holding all that together.

>>You are living now in Germany.

What do you hear when you talk among European leaders and European militaries about the United States going forward in this question that you just mentioned, the key word reliability.

We've had ups and downs in our political system after after a long period of, you know, whether it was Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush, Clinton, pretty much stable foreign policy, defense policy with variations, but stayed the course.

It was very predictable.

And then you've had obviously unpredictable elements in the last few years.

Is there a concern if there wasn't a President Biden, that the US would be an unreliable partner again?

>>There's real concern.

And look, every European I know, whether it's Germany, UK, France, Poland, Romania, they all know that they have to do more.

I mean, they have obligations and responsibilities.

The Eastern Europeans, that's never a question.

Central and Western Europe, a different story.

And they all understand that they have to do more, partly because they are obligated to do it and partly because they do worry that will the US be distracted by a war with China, for example, and in three years?

And then you add to that, you know, the the very real concern that if President Trump comes back and is elected again, or if somebody like him that is dismissive of Europe as an important strategic interest of the United States, they're concerned.

You know, the US nuclear shield in particular is important.

The French and the Brits, they have nuclear weapons.

Germany doesn't.

And that affects their willingness to do things that or if they fear that it could end up in a conflict with Russia and there was no U.S. with the nuclear deterrent, that it is a very difficult position for them to to be in.

Now, I think strongest economy in Europe ought to be doing more.

It should be more self-confident and not hide behind the history any more.

This is an area, though, where I think the uncertainty and the way you laid it out with all the past administrations, even though domestic policies were so different between all these, there had never was a question about American commitment to NATO because it's to our benefit.

We're not there guarding Germans or protecting French.

We're there in Europe because just to our advantage, we have bases there that enable us to do things in the Middle East and Africa as well as in Europe.

We have about 100,000 American troops deployed all over Europe.

That's a mix of rotational as well as permanent 100,000.

That's about how many people fill up the University of Michigan football stadium.

So so it's it's not that much.

I mean, it's a small number, but yet it enables us to work with allies to deter as well as project power into three different continents.

This is to our advantage.

>>I want to shift a little because obviously we're talking about Ukraine and how that's important to Europe, but it's also become a key global issue.

So you have a country like China, which a lot has been talked about, the US China rivalry of sorts.

How does China see Ukrainian situation?

What are they what are they watching?

>>I think you have to think about what's at stake in Ukraine.

This is not just, you know, us really liking the Ukrainians because they're brave, courageous people and they're the underdog against the big Russian brutal power.

This is about geography.

It's about economy.

It's about global security.

It's about the international rules based order.

What does that mean?

That means everything that comes from the UN charter and the various other agreements that were that were made right after the Second World War, which has created an environment where we, the United States, benefit more than anybody.

Respect for sovereignty, respect for human rights, respect for freedom of navigation, respect for international law agencies.

This is this world order that the Russians and the Chinese hate.

That's what's at stake in Ukraine.

And so the Chinese are waiting to see, are we really serious about that?

Are we really going to help Ukraine defeat Russia and protect Ukrainian sovereignty?

So back to the 1991 borders, human rights, the war crimes that the Russians have committed, as well as the 20,000 or more Ukrainian children have been deported.

Freedom of navigation.

Are we going to do something about the Russian Navy disrupting ships, moving through the Black Sea and International water, the Russian disruption of grain shipments that millions of people in the Middle East and Africa and Asia depend on coming from Ukraine?

That's what's at stake.

And the Chinese are looking well, if the US and the West are not willing to protect those where it's much easier.

All these countries are contiguous.

You know, we have bases and so on.

If we're not willing to do it there, I don't think they'll be terribly impressed with what we say about Taiwan or the South China Sea, where the challenge will be much greater because of the distances and because of the reliance on the maritime seapower versus land power.

>>Are you are you satisfied with the efforts the current U.S., the Biden administration has taken in terms of building alliances and that not just working on the defense side, but also the diplomatic side in addressing some of the very concerns youre outlining with China?

>>It feels like we are getting organized again with you have NATO, you have work being done by the administration in the Indo-Pacific region.

We saw recently President Biden hosted the Japanese prime minister and the president of the Republic of South Korea at Camp David.

It was an historic meeting to get those two guys together.

And now you've got nations, including the Philippines, where once again, we're able to operate out of the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, obviously even India.

So it's not so much alliances as it is coalitions here, but a recognition that we have got to be we have to deter China from making the same terrible miscalculation that Russia made against Ukraine.

So I think the on different levels of security arrangements, economic agreements, sanctions, which always have holes in them, but the level of sanctions is that a I don't know if it's been higher, certainly not in many years.

It feels like we're getting organized.

The the administration - the president has a chance now to be an historic figure.

He has a chance in the year 2024 to defeat Russia.

An existential threat to the United States.

He has had the chance next year and the next few months.

If we provide Ukraine everything they need and we want them to win, they defeat Russia.

And now without Russia, Iran becomes much, much less able to to cause problems around the Middle East in several countries because Russia and Iran, that's those are the two real allies.

And of course, then Iran has less ability to help Hamas and Hezbollah.

So in one year, the president, if we're organized and we get our defense industry going, our alliances are strong, our diplomatic efforts are strong, and we stick together and defend these things that we say are important.

He could defeat Russia, Iran and wipe out Hamas in one year.

I mean, that would be an historic accomplishment that would benefit all of us.

And I hope that they're thinking globally because these things, I do believe, are all connected.

>>So what prevents us from doing that?

So you're saying about this is a historic opportunity, but also it could be also historic failure to seize the opportunity.

>>You know it could very well be a missed opportunity.

I don't mean to sound too cavalier about these things, and none of this is happening in a vacuum.

The president will always worry about Russia finally deciding it was appropriate to use a nuclear weapon.

I think the administration over worries on this.

I think it's very unlikely Russia would use a nuclear weapon in or against Ukraine, for example, the Iranians or what do we want to do to them?

There's no interest, obviously, in starting a conflict or seeing the conflict expand.

So how do you contain Iran so that they don't develop a nuclear weapon?

And that's going to take help from other countries.

But making sure that they can no longer bypass sanctions, working with Russia as they're doing right now.

But the administration will be concerned about how do you get all the disparate countries in the region to work together to do this.

And Hamas has only one interest, and that's destroying the state of Israel and killing as many Israeli citizens and Jewish people around the world as possible.

That's not somebody you negotiate with.

So how do you how do you smash that without such colossal damage to innocent people in Gaza, for example?

All of these are very, very hard.

But I've been impressed watching the secretary of state in the last several days what he's doing, going around, taking prudent steps to help deter Iran from making a terrible decision.

And at the same time delivering capability to Ukraine and to Israel to enable them to be successful.

You know, this famous arsenal of democracy that FDR talked about in the before the Second World War.

That's who we should be.

>>So we only have a couple of minutes left and I want to answer, ask a more general question.

And this is, you know, you have served in the armed forces all over the world.

And since leaving the armed forces, you've looked at different aspects of security like rule of law and other other elements like that.

How important is the nonmilitary factors of foreign policy, foreign aid, promotion of of values?

How important is that to U.S. national security?

>>You know, when we go to staff college as a as a young major and lieutenant colonel, you learn about this thing called the DIME construct D-I-M-E Diplomacy, Information, Military and Economy.

These are the four basic broad pillars of national power.

And everybody I know that's in the military wants that “M ” to be a lowercase “m ” and the “D ” “I ” and “E ” to be capital letters.

So more emphasis on diplomacy, use of information to help influence how people think about the US and our interests.

And then obviously, economic investment, whether we're talking about no kidding, investment in building up infrastructure in nations to help them grow their own economies, which benefits us as well as more direct aid type programs, whether it's agricultural aid, humanitarian aid or economic.

So I think that the finding the right balance, but diplomacy, information economy mean nothing if it's not backed up by a very strong, capable, ready, modernized military and alliances.

But the lead.

Every soldier I know, every service member I know always would prefer that these things get sorted out before you have to commit young women and men into combat.

Yeah, I think the the US sometimes we get that right, sometimes we, we don't.

We, I think after 9/11 we rushed into Iraq and that was totally unrelated to 9/11.

So when emotion plays a part, it's hard to have cool, calm, steely eyed strategic thinking.

>>As you were saying that comment.

I couldn't help but to think of George Marshall, who was a great soldier, but also a great statesman and diplomat in terms of developing the Marshall Plan to alleviate some of the problems.

So it's very, very critical.

And it's throughout history, it's proven to be successful.

Great example.

I mean, the whole point of the Marshall Plan was not to benefit the Europeans, help them rebuild, because we felt sorry for them.

This was to help Europe become strong again, to resist the Soviets and to create markets for the United States.

So it was a fantastic investment and we've been benefiting from that since the end of the Second World War.

But that was Marshall, who worked very hard with the US Senate at the time, because not everybody you can imagine the Congress right after World War Two is like what we're going to spend, we're just going to destroy and all that stuff.

Now we-- >>Theyre mad enough.

Yeah.

>>Yeah.

But it was Marshall's ability to explain, to put it all together that it's in America's interest that we are involved overseas to prevent another conflict and to develop markets overseas that are good for American agriculture, good for American manufacturing, good for American security.

>>General Ben Hodges, thank you so much.

Welcome back to Florida.

You are a native of Quincy, Florida.

I'd be remiss if I didn't say that.

It's great to have you on.

And thank you for joining us.

We'll see you again next week on another episode of Global Perspectives.