Transcript: Ukraine Peace Plan, No Territory Decision – Col Doug Macgregor

Doug, as always, welcome back to the show.

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, using the word “sense” probably dignifies this entire event to an extent that it doesn’t deserve. There’s not much sense involved.

DANIEL DAVIS: No, no, there’s definitely not. Lots of words though. And I just kind of want your thought because yesterday afternoon around 3 or 4 p.m. Washington D.C. time yesterday, a lot of words coming out of Berlin.

Chancellor Scholz was one of the leading ones where he had a press conference with Zelensky there and he’s saying, “Yeah, I’m very, very optimistic and confident, hopeful that we are nearly there, we’re almost to the end where we have an agreement to where we can end this war.” What do you say to that?

Public Relations Over Substance

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: These are public relations offensives designed to create the illusion that the governments in the West, specifically Berlin, Paris and London, are actually engaged in useful work and diplomacy. They’re not. So this is all meaningless hot air. I wish it were more, but it’s not.

And again, nothing that they talk about, nothing they mentioned really addresses fundamentally the original plans and proposals submitted by the Russians. Again, the Russians have never looked for some sort of interim solution or short-term ceasefire. They’ve always been interested in a new architecture for security in Europe that would provide greater security not only for themselves but for everybody.

And there’s never been any willingness whatsoever to arrive at such an outcome. Now, I don’t know why. To some extent I’ve begun to think that no one in Europe or in the United States is capable of thinking much beyond the next quarter. You know, that’s our way of life in this country. Three or four months. What do we do then?

The Russians are looking for an organizational construct for peace that will provide stability and conditions for prosperity that will last for decades. So the two really aren’t talking to each other. So whatever they said is entertainment for the West, but is otherwise completely meaningless.

DANIEL DAVIS: Unfortunately, it’s hard to argue with that. I mean, even without looking at some of the specific statements, just given the history of the last four years and the destruction of diplomacy that the West has been engaged in for the duration of this, it’s not surprising.

But let’s get into some of the details here, because this was from Britain yesterday. Mark Galeotti was talking about two of the thorny issues that actually do remain. We also had the statement that said that 90% of the issues have been sorted, which may well be true, but the 10% that remains are very thorny ones.

But the interesting thing is that really, if one thinks about it, the crucial ones, which looked as if they could derail the process, were security guarantees for Ukraine and the territorial issue. In other words, Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender portions, unconquered portions of Donetsk region.

Now the Europeans are saying that they’ve now sort of sketched out security guarantees. We have no idea, though, if those will be acceptable to Putin. And there’s no sense yet that Zelensky is willing to give up that strategically crucial territory.

So I still feel that we got two crucial issues that aren’t being sorted yet, but everything else is working out, and the atmospherics are very positive, so we can always cross our fingers and hope.

I think his last comment there about the atmospherics are working out—I mean, that almost directly confirms what you just said there. This is about political theater, and this is about the illusion of progress, but not actual progress, because I think he’s right, Doug. I think those two issues are two of the most difficult ones.

And let’s look at them in order. First of all, these security guarantees, do you actually see a chance that Europe and the United States will actually provide Article 5-like security guarantees, which is the claim?

The Security Guarantee Fantasy

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: No. And the notion that we in the United States, or for that matter, any of the European powers, can provide some sort of permanent guarantee to the Ukrainians that in the event they find themselves at odds with the Russians or anybody else, we will all instantly ride to their rescue? That’s a lot of nonsense.

And I think this man, Mark Galeotti, I don’t know where he’s from, strange name for an Englishman. But anyway, I think he’s putting a happy face on the dead rat, to be frank. There’s no chance of anything coming out of any of this and just simply saying, “Well, you know, Zelensky accepts neutrality.”

Well, Zelensky really doesn’t have anything to do with it. That’s what has to happen. That’s preordained. The Russians aren’t going to accept anything less. I think it’s all nonsense, it’s tragic. It will change nothing. And the Russians know that the only way to solve this problem is to continue to advance to the West. And I think that’s what they’ll do.

DANIEL DAVIS: Well, it’s not even lipstick on a pig, but a happy face on a dead rat. Hadn’t heard that one before. That’s, I think, pretty indicative of what the situation is, though. I think that’s probably the best one.

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Why does anybody give a damn what Zelensky wants or needs at this point?

DANIEL DAVIS: That’s part of where I’m kind of wanting to go with this because it really seems to me that the West—West Europe and Ukraine together—seem to want this war to go on indefinitely. And towards what end, I have to speculate on.

But the evidence and the actions these people are taking, to me it looks like they are literally sabotaging any possibility of a peace at every opportunity. So that’s what it looks like to me.

Denial and Delusion in Western Capitals

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Yeah, no, I think it’s accurate because again, these globalists that are in charge in Berlin, Paris and London cannot possibly admit that they were wrong, that they miscalculated. It’s much easier to bloviate about, “We’re going to ready ourselves for the inevitable war in the future to protect civilization from the aggressive Russians.”

Okay, good luck with that. You know, how many years is this going to take? It’s all nonsense, it’s crazy. And the Russians aren’t interested in going to war with anybody. They simply want security and they deserve it. Just as we want security on our borders and security in our neighborhood, so do they.

I think this is all theater. I don’t think we should take any of it seriously. And anybody who does is delusional. But we have a lot of delusional people in Washington D.C.

DANIEL DAVIS: We do. And that’s one of the things that we want to try and do here, is to peel back some of the cover and the fiction on this to show why what you say is accurate.

And we talked about the security guarantees. You said there’s no chance on that. The second issue he was talking about may be even stronger, and that is the territory of the four oblasts. There are some claims that the West is saying they have some sort of possibility with Russia to say, “All right, tell you what, you guys can keep the Donbas area, the Ukraine side will withdraw from that, get back to some line. And so you have all that. And then in exchange, then you just make the line of contact in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in the south, and that becomes the new dividing line, at least for the time being.”

So you’re going to have to give up the territory that’s the administrative borders of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. And somehow people are thinking that’s going to be a good compromise. Problem is that the Russians last night, Sergei Ryabkov on ABC News said, “Yeah, we aren’t willing to compromise on anything. We can’t. We can only take all of those territories.”

So almost no matter what else you want to talk about, 95% or whatever number, that can’t—so far you have categorically contrary views on the territory.

The Reality of Russian Military Power

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Territorial exchanges, population exchanges, boundary changes are part of European history. If you really want peace and stability in Eastern Europe, you’re going to have to accept the fact that the borders will now change.

Ukraine has demonstrated conclusively that it cannot possibly defend itself against the onslaught of Russian power. NATO has turned out to be the paper tiger, which of course, is what NATO’s leaders always insisted Russia was. The paper tiger has failed—weapons, military equipment, everything on the NATO side has failed to perform to expectation.

So the war is de facto at an end militarily. What are we going to do? We can sit on the sidelines, we can carp, we can hurl epithets at people. I suppose you could escalate to the nuclear level, which would be massively suicidal for Europe and for us. So I don’t see that happening.

So what do you do? Well, you do what the Europeans are doing. On the one hand, I think there’s a desire to play for time. I don’t know what they expect to change or happen while they play for time. And on the other hand, there’s a desire to simply live in denial. Don’t admit it. If you don’t admit that it’s true, then it’s really not true. That is the sort of mentality in Western Europe.

But the truth is very clear. Russian military power has smashed its opponents. And the opponents are not just Ukrainian, they’re also NATO. And this is humiliating. It’s disastrous for NATO. NATO was always a defensive alliance. It was never designed or built to wage offensive war. So trying to do so has failed.

It’s time to admit that. It’s time to look at alternatives to the status quo. But instead of doing that, we’re more like a reactionary Austria-Hungary in the 1840s or ’50s, trying to hold on to whatever is there, to the bitter end, until it becomes patently obvious it can’t be done.

It’s tragic, it’s unfortunate. It’s going to cause more people to die than need to. There’s going to be more suffering. I think you’re going to see more decisive attacks on Ukraine, particularly on its energy infrastructure, to the point where Ukraine no longer has any form of electricity or illumination at all.

So what do you do? We’re not helping. You know, the most important thing that President Trump could have done, he still has not done, is to say, “Look, the war is over, Russia has won. It’s time to sit down and come to terms with reality.”

And ultimately, that’s up to the Europeans to sit down with Ukraine and make that very clear. Then somebody needs to tell Zelensky, “Thank you for your interest in international security. Why don’t you leave for Israel tomorrow morning where you’ll be safe from extradition and criminal proceedings.”

There’s no future for any of this. This is a complete waste of time. Russia just called up another few hundred thousand men. Their force continues to increase in size and capacity and scope and power. Who are we kidding? Nothing like that is happening in the West. It would take a decade or more for the West to even come close.

So there has to be some sobering event, I suppose, and that hasn’t happened yet, but it may.

Zelensky’s Defiant Stance Despite European Progress

And if Zelensky has his way, I think he may precipitate some of that, as you suggested. Gary just showed you that headline. That’s from today where Zelensky is even saying, I’m not even going to do the first part. We’re not even going to withdraw from the Donbas, but we will definitely take more of the territory in the south, as though he’s in a position of power.

Now, you might think in a rational world, Doug, that given the words that came out of Berlin yesterday and they say we’re 90% of the way there, we’re making lots of progress. I’m optimistic about it, especially for Maers, that you might expect Zelensky to play along. You might expect him to say, hey, you know what, let’s see where this is going to go.

But instead, this morning, he made a speech before the Dutch Parliament. And he was somewhat less than apologetic.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKY: That’s exactly where the real path to peace begins. It’s not enough to force Russia into a deal. It’s not enough to make it stop killing. We must make Russia accept that there are rules in the world and that it cannot deceive everyone. This is the path to lasting peace.

Ladies and gentlemen, together with partners, we are working not only to stop the bloodshed, but to change the situation along Russia’s borders so there is no opportunity to start another war. And we understand that criminals don’t change in a day. That’s why the talks these days are not only about ceasefire, but about security guarantees.

This is not only about diplomacy, not only about physical security. It’s also about making Russia finally learn to live by the rule of law.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

So he’s demonizing Russia, calling them a criminal regime, saying they have to learn how to live with our version of law, and that it’s not enough to force them to do all these things. It has to be basically a defeat of Russia. And that is so far detached from any kind of reality.

And yet, coming on the one hand, that might seem to me, Doug, and tell me what you think about this, it’s almost like a spit in the face of what all the European leaders have just said about coming close to negotiated settlement, because all that stuff will be received like a red cape in front of a charging bull.

The Irrelevance of Small European States

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: In Russia, everything that Zelensky said applies preeminently to him and Ukraine, not Russia. He’s the one who is living a lie that is fundamentally deceitful and irrelevant.

The truth is that the Netherlands, these are nice people. Everyone who spends time with the Dutch generally likes them. They’re nice people. They’re irrelevant. This is the other tragedy of Europe. Lots of these little tribal groupings have survived for centuries in a state of autonomy, really, when they probably shouldn’t have.

And the whole notion of the European Union and NATO and so forth was always resting on a foundation of American and primarily German and British military power and economic power. Well, the economic power is gone. It’s being wasted and frittered away. The military power is greatly diminished. So these old structures don’t mean very much.

Showing up and giving this kind of ridiculous statement to the Dutch, I think says more about the Dutch than it does about Zelensky. Zelensky is just lying through his teeth, but he’s been doing that for years. The Dutch, though, are living in fantasy world, a fantasy world in which they have a say. They’re really important, and everyone should listen to them. I’m afraid they’re not.

This is the great tragedy of Europe. There is no leadership. There is no unity of purpose, no unity of effort, no unity of command. And I don’t see that this is going to change immediately. But eventually we’re going to have to see a reorganization and consolidation of European states into something other than what they are now, which is this loose confederation of small peoples that think they’re important. You know, it’s harsh, and I feel badly about having to say it, but that’s where we are.

Lowering Ukraine’s Draft Age: Advice from a Friend?

DANIEL DAVIS: Doug, I got to be honest with you, I don’t. I think that it should require a lot more commentary based on what we’re about to see. I’m going to show you some more comments in a second. But before I get onto where Europe is and why I think they deserve more condemnation, I want to show you just a little bit of America.

This is not the administration, but someone who’s, as a friend, trying to give some good advice. And I think this is advice from a friend.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: I think they need to lower their draft age from 25 to 18 to get more manpower on the battlefield and to make sure that the country as a whole is bearing the burden of this war equally.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

That to me, Doug was just, I was shocked. Even I was shocked when I heard that. Because with one thing you talk about no vision, there’s no strategy here at all. Just, hey, you know what? There’s more guys we could scoop off the bottom and throw into the meat grinder, because there’s no path that he offered at any point that by adding guys down to 18, that can turn things around the battlefield by X, Y and Z didn’t even go there.

Just, you know, I think everybody should suffer on the Ukraine side. This is advice from a friend. What do you say to that?

War Has Lost Its Utility in Modern Europe

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, in the history of Europe, this is a point in time where war has largely lost its utility. The notion that European peoples and states should be embroiled in war with each other is absurd.

To some extent, I’ve begun to think that the last 80 years of relative peace and stability have resulted in creating a new and dangerous fantasy that modern war is something that you could fight without putting the very existence of your society at risk. In Europe, that’s not true. One thought we had learned that lesson over the two world wars.

But again, remember, we intervened in these wars and the intervention distorted the normal dynamics. And our presence for 80 years in Europe has distorted the natural dynamics of the region. Peoples that would have been willing or compelled to cooperate with each other, have not done so because we’ve essentially indulged them and allowed them to operate independently when they shouldn’t have been allowed to.

And I don’t know how many times I sat in meetings at Supreme Headquarters, Allied Powers Europe, where people came in from various, you know, states, and there was a discussion of who will contribute what. It’s another version of this coalition of the willing. Well, how many troops will the Dutch send, what will the Norwegians send, what will the Croats, the Slovenes, the Poles send?

And it was not a true alliance in the sense that it was oriented on a particular enemy, which is really why alliances develop. They develop in response to what they think is a serious threat. But there is no serious threat from Russia. And I think that more and more Europeans understand that and are walking away from this nonsense.

But in the absence of those kinds of things, you get this silly notion of a coalition of the willing. Oh, you guys are good. You’re going to go with us. We’re all going to commit suicide together. Welcome. Get on board. It’s a dumb idea, but that’s where we are. It’s not going to work.

Lessons from History: Desert Storm and World War II

DANIEL DAVIS: You know, something you said a second ago, Doug, I thought was really telling, something I hadn’t thought of, at least not consciously, but I think deserves a little bit more focus. And that is, you said the last 80 some odd years of peace in the Western world, in Europe in particular, may have dumbed down and numbed out maybe even our recognition of how things are at risk.

Now, I know that from the time when we were getting ready to fight in Desert Storm. And one of the things that you taught us before we went into that was about the World War II Gazala battles, because you said, here’s the last time there was big offensive operations on desert, with armored vehicles, et cetera. So we studied that a lot.

We always had professional development courses just throughout our time in the 2nd US Cavalry, et cetera. And all of that taught us the real potential risk, cost and benefit, et cetera, of various actions. And so we were aware that things could go wrong if you don’t do things right, et cetera.

That seems to be lost on it because given where you have been and where you taught us back when we were both on active duty, and when I hear what’s about to come out of the mouth of Kaja Kallas here, it is just a stunning shock to me that she seems to be, and I think genuinely wholly unaware of the risk that she is putting on Europe. If they actually listen to her advice.

Kaja Kallas: Security Guarantees and the Nuclear Question

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

KAJA KALLAS: Why countries want to be in NATO. If this is out of the question, then we need to see what are the security guarantees that are tangible. They can’t be, you know, papers or promises. They have to be real troops, real capabilities so that Ukraine is able to defend itself.

We have to understand that Donbas is not Putin’s endgame. If it gets Donbas, then the fortress is down and then they definitely move on with taking the whole of Ukraine. You know, if Ukraine goes, then other regions are also in danger. We know this from the history and we should learn from history.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

So we have, listen, we need to continue to give Ukraine teeth on insecurity guarantees potentially sucking us into a war that should stay, if anything only between Russia and Ukraine. And then that we have to be ready to go forward because Russia is going to come after us. So let’s fear Russia and start taking action that could bring that inevitable day of clash to the fore.

But then she says, and this is the part I think leads to your point about the lack of understanding. She says, this is basically like 1938, 1939 all over again, except there were no nuclear weapons in 1938, 1939.

If you do then what happened in 1939 and you actually get this conflict, then as you said just a second ago, we could all be vaporized here and there’s no win. That thought should eliminate any more possibility that and should lead to immediate try to get the war over with. And yet it’s not.

The Myth of Russian Territorial Expansion

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, we’re still stuck in the past with the Soviet experience in Stalin. Putin is not Stalin. Russia today is not the Soviet Union. There are no forces massing on the borders of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the goal of overrunning them. That’s nonsense. There’s no one massing on the border with Finland for the purpose of invading Finland. These people are trying to persuade their populations of a threat that does not exist. That’s a very important point.

One of the lessons of the 20th century and certainly the 19th, that’s very important that the Russians have learned it. I think we, to some extent sometimes I think we’ve learned it. This whole business of territorial imperialism is a loser. It’s an economic disaster. It becomes a burden on an asset.

If you go back and look at the position of Cuba inside the greater Soviet empire when the Soviet Union was strong in the 1980s, it was a terrible bottomless pit for Soviet resources. You have a similar situation in the so-called Warsaw Pact. At the end of the life of the Soviet Union, the Soviets were sinking more into these places than they were getting out.

Unfortunately for this Ms. Kalis, or Mrs. Kalis, she doesn’t seem to understand the Russians aren’t interested in occupying her country or anybody else’s in the area. But if she continues to insist that Russia is a threat, if she invites foreign military powers to come into her country with the sole purpose of potentially threatening Russia, then, yes, she will put her country at risk.

The Case for Neutrality

This is the reason why neutrality was always a much better solution for Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, probably Poland, certainly the Czech Republic or Slovakia on the Austrian model. There was no need to drag these people into a military alliance whose entire strategic imperative was always to fight Russia. This has got to go away.

The small powers with their interests, their agendas, are trying to make their interests and their agendas ours. We have no interest in going to war with Russia. I think that should be made very, very clear. I wish the President of the United States would simply state that the United States and the American people have no interest in going to war with Russia. Next question.

Now, if you take that position in Washington, suddenly everything that Kalis says falls apart. Because what she’s telling you straight up is we join NATO, allegedly for protection against Russia. Well, what if Russia isn’t a threat? Then there’s no real reason for you to be in an alliance called NATO. NATO, after all, is, at least in theory, does not exist to defend against anybody at this point.

So this is why a lot of us, and you were there at the time, thought that the NATO alliance should just go away, because it had no real enemy. Well, we kept it. And then we began to fabricate and cultivate an enemy. We’ve got an enemy now, at least in theory, in Russia. The Russians don’t want to be an enemy, but increasingly they’re getting stronger and becoming more powerful and are quite capable of overrunning everything quickly if they want to. They don’t want to do it.

I mean, if you were going to pick a time in the history of Eastern Europe, if you were being led by Alexander the Great or somebody like that, you’ve got a force at your doorstep right now that could crush you. If you’re an East European, you need to wake up and come to terms with that reality. Nobody wants to turn to these small countries and tell them, you’ve got to get along with your neighbor. Don’t come to us and complain. Get along with them.

Historical Lessons from the 1870s

The most famous example was in the 1870s. It was not specifically Estonia, but it was what the Germans referred to as Kurland, which was the area we call Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia. And that particular area had fallen under Russian control after the Treaty of Narva in 1720. And the people didn’t like the Russians. They were all either Protestants or Roman Catholics. They spoke a different language. They wanted to be rid of the Russians, who were Orthodox Christians.

And finally, in the 1870s, it actually looked as though there might be widespread rebellion. And they turned to Bismarck and they said, we want your help. Liberate us from the Tsar. And of course he said, you’ve lost your minds. We’re not going to do that. So you’ve got to get along with the czar. The czar is not as bad as you claim. The czar is actually being pretty good to you. The czar simply collects taxes from you. The czar is not trying to turn you into Russians, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

There was a meeting in 1879, in the aftermath of this, between the German Kaiser and the Czar of Russia. And they embraced each other. And they both said, look, these people are nuts. We’re not going to go to war over this. It’s not in our interest. It’s not in your interest.

Well, here we are again. We’re dealing with the same nonsense for the same region, for the same people. They’re charming, I like them. But this is crazy. We want nothing to do with this.

The Need for Presidential Leadership

And this is the problem. When you try to repurpose an alliance that was created in the 1950s for one purpose and that purpose has vanished, and then you try to give it a new purpose by refurbishing and you hope this Soviet-like threat in Russia, which doesn’t exist, it’s counterproductive, it’s stupid. It needs to end.

But for it to end, you have to have the president. The President of the United States needs to state publicly, we have no interest in a war with Russia, period. Not now, not ever. And if that’s something that you want to pursue, you must pursue this without us. We will not participate. It will end all this crap. It’ll end Ukraine.

That was the point that I tried to make when President Trump finally was inaugurated. I made it while he was running for office. Stand up and make it clear, we want no part of this. We are not going to fight Russia. And he fell into the hands of the usual suspects who were trying to tell him, oh, no, no, we, that would be humiliating. We can’t do that. We would look weak. And all the stupid ideas that you can come up with, we have no interest in a war with Russia.

Mrs. Kalis, we wish you all the best. Shut up and go away. I mean, that’s what it comes down to. And Zelensky, the notion that this little pip-squeak is running around Europe trying to incite war with Russia is even more disturbing. Europeans should have more brains. They should send him away.

War Is No Longer a Useful Tool

This is a different world now. It’s not just because of nuclear weapons. War isn’t needed. That’s what people need to understand. We’ve reached a point in the history of our civilization where it’s just not a useful tool to achieve your aims.

What we really need is some stability which will produce prosperity. You can’t have prosperity without stability. And we have destroyed stability. And as a result, the prosperity in Europe and here in the United States is being destroyed.

So what’s the solution? Recreate stability. How do you get there? You end the conflict that doesn’t need to exist. And it makes no difference to us, none whatsoever. Who rules the Donbas? Forget it. It’s just not important to us.

UK’s Dangerous Rhetoric

DANIEL DAVIS: It’s not. And listen, in the last few minutes we have here, I know your time is a little short today. I want to show you a couple of back-to-back sound bites from UK. So it’s one thing if it’s Kalis kind of European-wise. It seems though, whether it’s Keir Starmer or some of his senior officers and officials in his government that they seem to really, really want to double down on posing a threat and laying a foundation to where that and preparing their population, as you’re about to see, that there may actually be a war with Russia and that it’s really needed.

So first we’re going to see from the new MI6 director for the UK. And then followed right behind that is one of the senior military members of the UK, Air Marshal Knighton. Watch these two.

VIDEO CLIP BEGINS:

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: We all continue to face the menace of an aggressive expansionist and revisionist Russia seeking to subjugate Ukraine and harass NATO. I find it harrowing that hundreds of thousands have died with the toll mounting every day. Because of Putin’s historical distortions and his compromised desire for respect, he is dragging out negotiations and shifting the cost of war onto his own population.

But Putin should be in no doubt. Our support is enduring. The pressure we apply on Ukraine’s behalf will be sustained because it is fundamental not just to European sovereignty and security, but to global stability. And I know I don’t need to tell this audience that while the price of peace may be rising, the cost of strong deterrence is still far, far less than the cost of war.

UNIDENTIFIED SPEAKER: Sons and daughters, colleagues, veterans, will all have a part to play, to build, to serve, and if necessary, to fight. And more families will know what sacrifice for our nation means.

VIDEO CLIP ENDS:

DANIEL DAVIS: You know, Doug, just to put that in context, first of all, there was information out that the UK, they would be lucky if they got into a conventional war if they could last a matter of weeks at their current rate. They are as small now as they were in the Napoleonic wars, actually before that, back in the 18 something. And this is the context with these really brash in-your-face that somehow Vladimir Putin is going to be afraid of UK. What do you make of this?

Britain’s Dangerous Delusions About Russia

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: It’s worse than delusional. It’s dangerously delusional. Look, Britain in particular suffers from a number of ailments right now, but it has always been an island. It still is an island. Admiral Jackie Fisher, very famous figure in the history of the Royal Navy, grew very tired in the years leading up to the First World War of people talking about the great danger presented by the Germans to Britain. Of course, there was none.

And he shook his head and he finally, in disgust, he told the politicians and anybody else who cared to listen, “No one is going to invade Great Britain. The Germans can’t possibly do it because we have an organization, it’s called the Royal Navy. It’s the largest and most powerful navy in the world. The Germans have no interest in going to war with us, and they’re not going to try to invade Britain. So shut up and go away.”

Well, Britain went to war anyway in 1914 when it was absolutely not necessary to do so. It would have been far wiser for the British to stay out of it. It was another European regional war over issues that were of no consequence whatsoever to Great Britain. In fact, the British were in a state of really almost euphoria when it came to trade and commerce with Germany.

When the war broke out, the fools in London finally discovered that they were entirely dependent upon German optics, along with a host of other technologies and metallurgies, for the effectiveness of the Royal Navy. This is just stupid. There is no threat that justifies any of this rhetoric, and these people will eventually be discovered for it.

This air marshal is going to have a lot to answer for because he’s there in uniform and he has an obligation to tell the truth. And the truth is that Britain is in no position to take on anyone, least of all Russia, and it has no real reason to do so. So the British are setting themselves up to lose another million men as they did during the First World War, for nothing, which is just beyond stupid.

But what do you do? And this poor woman, who is obviously deeply upset, at least she gives a good performance, seems to think that the Russians are prepared to invade at any point in time. Again, it’s not going to happen. There’s no interest in that. And they, too, have nuclear weapons. And those nuclear weapons are more than enough to deter anybody from striking at Great Britain. So I think the whole thing is just laughable nonsense.

But the tragedy is that these people are working overtime to sell it. The good news is I don’t think most of the British population has necessarily signed on for it. But I don’t know. I mean, I know that public opinion in Poland and Germany has shifted dramatically, which is why the Poles have made it clear there will be no Polish troops on the ground in Ukraine. I suspect that that shift is occurring elsewhere in Europe. But I don’t know. I don’t know how valid the polls are at this point.

The Fabricated Ukraine Crisis

But this entire Ukraine event is fabricated. You know, go back to Zelensky’s election to office. He was elected with a tremendous margin of victory because he promised to negotiate with the Russians and put an end to the stupid war which Ukrainians had started against the people at Luhansk and Donetsk because they were Russians. I mean, this is just complete lunacy.

So we’re at a point now where the most important and useful thing that the President of the United States can do to sober everyone up is simply say, “I’m the president, and while I’m president, there will be no war with Russia, period. We have no interest in going to war with Russia. And as far as I can tell from my conversations with President Putin, they have no interest in going to war with us.”

“We want an end to the war in Ukraine. If you will not cooperate to end that war, then there is not a great deal that we could do. But when you’re willing to cooperate to end the war, when you recognize that boundaries must change, they cannot remain the same. That Russia has legitimate national security interests in Eastern Ukraine, that Russia needs some security on its borders to ensure that Ukraine never again becomes a platform for attack against it, then let us know and we’ll be happy to support the peace conference in any way that we can.”

But right now, that doesn’t seem to be the case. Everyone wants to maintain the fiction that there’s something sinister going on in Moscow. And it’s a very straightforward affair. And as we’ve talked so many times in the past: What would we do if Mexico were a Ukraine? What would we do if the Russians, the Chinese or any number of other people went into Mexico, trained, equipped, armed and stood up a force that had one purpose, which is to attack Americans in the United States?

What would we do? We all know the answer to that. That place would vanish overnight. It would look like glass from the Atlantic to the Pacific in Northern Mexico. So it’s time to get real. But only the president can do that.

Ending America’s ADT Program for Europe

The rest of these people, if they don’t care to listen, they don’t want to, they don’t want to play ball, then we can end what I call America’s ADT program. You’re familiar with ADT, the national security system that people put into their homes? Well, we’ve been ADT for Europe at great expense to the American people. And the Europeans have paid little or nothing for the kind of security that our ADT system has provided. It’s time to pull the plug on that.

DANIEL DAVIS: You know, Doug, I think that you’re spot on here. And I genuinely think when you’re looking at what all of the European nations, except for Slovakia and Hungary, they are the two notable exceptions. But other than those two, and certainly the power ones you mentioned, UK, British and French and even the Italians to a certain degree, they seem locked in this confrontational just ebb that it’s inexorably pulling people in.

And I think, and Zelensky, of course, is only too happy to swim there, but I think that only President Trump, if he stands up, and as we said in a show I did a couple of days ago, he needs to be that 800 pound gorilla and just start telling people what we’re going to do and what we’re not going to do. That may be the only thing that can keep this trend to a potential war that could go nuclear between the west and the East. How do you see it?

The End of American Hegemony

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: No, I tend to agree with you. The problem is to persuade President Trump that the answer is not to try and bully Moscow or Beijing. This has got to stop. And too many times he wants to stand up there and posture as the great unassailable superpower. Well, those days are over. We are no longer the single superpower.

In fact, I don’t even like the words “superpower” because it denotes something that, frankly speaking, doesn’t exist anymore. We are not economically or militarily in a position to exercise hegemony over the world. And I think President Trump has this bad habit of standing up there and pretending, and I think he probably believes it, perhaps, that we are. We’re not. We are not.

DANIEL DAVIS: So let me ask you this, Doug. I know you only have one minute left, but what do you say to those people? Or what would you say to Trump? How he would answer? Because if he does what you and I suggested he should do, he’s going to come under immediate criticism of, “Oh, you’re just submitting to Russia. You’re just giving Putin everything.” How do you answer that and still advise what you did?

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Well, remember, the people that are going to attack him are people on the hills, primarily in the Senate and the House. They’re going to say, “Oh, you’ve surrendered to Putin.” You know, it’s kind of nonsense. What he has to keep in mind is most of these people, in one hand, they wave the American flag and pretend that they’re patriots and care about the United States. With the other hand, they stuff as much cash as they can into their pockets from lobbyists, donations, you know, insider trading for the stock market. They’re just corrupt.

So waving the flag for them is an expedient. It helps to cover and conceal what’s really going on, which is graft. Now, they’ll wave that flag as much and as often as they can. And when the President decides to do something that is in the interest of the American people that they don’t like, they can accuse him, “Oh, you’ve surrendered to Putin.”

Who Lost Ukraine?

Well, first of all, to surrender something, you’ve got to own something. We don’t own Ukraine. You know, pretty soon all over Washington, people are going to say, “Well, who lost Ukraine?” Who lost it? We don’t own it. We never did. There was no reason for us to become terribly involved other than to help facilitate a restoration of stability and peace. That was always the number one interest.

Okay, you’re fighting right now. We understand that. We understand your interests. We understand what’s at risk here. The Russian citizens on the ground in Luhansk and Donetsk and elsewhere in Ukraine are being treated as second and third class citizens. They don’t have equality before the law. They’re being punished for speaking their language. The church that they want to go to has to be closed because it doesn’t represent what they think is Ukrainian interest. We understand all that.

Oh, by the way, Ukrainians are shelling their towns and their cities and killing civilians. By the time the war broke out in February of 2022, 14,000 to 15,000 people, mostly civilians, had been killed in Luhansk and Donetsk.

Now, all we had to do at that point was say we understand and we also understand Ukrainians, but you’re not going to get what you want. You know, if you look at the European Union, you look at the declarations in the United Nations, everywhere, they’re all the same. If you have minorities inside your borders, you’re expected to treat them in a civil manner. You’re expected to reward them with equal rights before the law. They have a right to speak their language.

Now, if you don’t want those people inside your borders, you can do something. You can let them vote themselves into Russia and out of Ukraine. Nobody wanted to go there. And the most moronic thing that I listened to back in 2020 from various centers, “It is American policy that the borders of Ukraine that exist today may not change.”

DANIEL DAVIS: Why?

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Who the hell cares?

DANIEL DAVIS: This is the United States.

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Worry about our border.

DANIEL DAVIS: Exactly. Yeah. That’s the thing we need to worry about.

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: If you can change a border that results in a peaceful settlement, then do it.

DANIEL DAVIS: As opposed to say, “No, we’re not going to,” and we’re going to keep the death and destruction going on. But that’s where we are today. Well, listen, I know you got to run, Doug, so really appreciate you coming on today. And man, you know, you pointed out a lot of really important things today that a lot of our viewers don’t get from other sources. So we’re very appreciative. Thank you for coming on.

DOUGLAS MACGREGOR: Okay, thank you, Dan. Bye bye.

DANIEL DAVIS: And we appreciate you guys too. As a reminder, we are on podcasts now. Apple podcast, Spotify podcast. Type in Daniel Davis Deep Dive and you will find us there. Be sure and share that with somebody else, folks. Seriously, share the love, man. Don’t hold us all to yourself because we’re unintimidated and uncompromised to bring you the truth you need.

And you need also as a reminder that 2 o’clock today, we’re going to have Andrei Martianov back on today and he’s going to kind of give us the view from the Russian side. We talked about the European side and the Ukraine side today. This afternoon we’re going to see what is this close deal apparently look like from the Russian side. And is there any room for negotiations and maneuver on that side? Tune in today, 2pm, Andrei Martianov and we’ll see you then on the Daniel Davis Deep Dive.

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