Douglas Macgregor on Russia's escalating military campaign and the collapse of Western strategy in Ukraine and the Middle East
Colonel Douglas Macgregor, decorated combat veteran and former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense, joins Professor Glenn Diesen to discuss the state of the Ukraine war and the broader geopolitical situation.
Summary
Colonel Douglas Macgregor argues that Ukraine is effectively a "zombie state" — already fatally wounded and surviving only on Western life support — and that Russia is now positioned with sufficient troops, equipment, and strategic clarity to deliver a decisive blow. He contends that the anticipated European military intervention is a fantasy, primarily because Poland — which he identifies as the indispensable base for any NATO operation — has categorically ruled out further involvement. Macgregor also addresses the looming replacement of Russian Chief of the General Staff Gerasimov, arguing that whoever succeeds him will signal whether Russia shifts from its slow, methodical approach to a more aggressive operational posture. On the Middle East, he argues that US naval operations in the Persian Gulf are dangerously overstretched, that Iran's new leadership has no interest in genuine negotiations, and that a strike on a US aircraft carrier, while unlikely to sink it, could trigger a domestic American backlash demanding withdrawal rather than escalation — an outcome he contrasts with the Pearl Harbor moment, which he argues required deliberate provocation by the Roosevelt administration to produce public support for war. He warns throughout that the United States faces simultaneous financial and military overextension, with rising Treasury yields, dedollarization accelerating beyond rescue, and no credible path to victory in either theater. Macgregor also describes Trump's cancellation of joint exercises with South Korea — in reaction to Seoul's refusal to support the US position on Ukraine — as emblematic of the erratic, counterproductive decision-making that is damaging US strategic partnerships.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: The state of the Ukraine war
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. Today is August 18th, 2026, and we have the great privilege of being joined by Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran and author, and also a former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense. Thank you for coming back on.
Douglas Macgregor: Well, thank you.
Glenn Diesen: We appear to be reaching an increasingly critical time in the Ukraine war. The latest PR operation around Ukraine turning the tide has well and truly run out of steam, and reality is setting in. The Ukrainians aren't really able to intercept any of the Russian missiles anymore. Even the drones are all coming through. Ukraine is largely now landlocked due to this naval blockade, many of the very critical front lines are faltering, and there's been a gradual escalation throughout this war. To be honest, the Ukrainian resilience has been kind of impressive, but it has come at a price — throwing older men into this war and draining NATO's weapons stockpiles. So where do you see this heading now?
The drone strikes on Russia and the European dimension
Douglas Macgregor: Well, if you're part of what I call the Netanyahu-Zelensky-Trump triumvirate — because they're in a triangular relationship right now whether they like it or not — I think there is a view on one side, among the European leaders and the globalists running the show, that they're having a big impact on Russia. You had 800 drones that managed to penetrate air defenses and ultimately reach targets in Moscow, Volga, and another city, and do some damage. It's not so lethal that it's putting Russia at risk of going under by any means, although you'd think so listening to the reports.
These 800 drones were a product of British technology provided to the Ukrainians. They had new engines in them. They could fly further and faster. They came in at about 20 feet above the treetops. By the time Russian radars identified them, it was too late — they'd already flown past and reached most of their targets without much difficulty. This is more than just an irritant now for President Putin and his government. There are a lot of Russians who are genuinely angered by the whole process, and of course they've been angered for some time and want this war to end. But this, I think, has added fuel to the fire. It's also raised questions in various people's minds: how much more do the Russians take of this before they finally strike back at the locations where these drones are manufactured — in places like Germany or Britain or France?
The situation in Zaporizhzhia and Odessa
There's another dimension right now that a lot of people aren't watching, and that is the developments in the southwest. The Russians are now on the outskirts of Zaporizhzhia. The bridge in Zaporizhzhia — the one that people pointed to for a long time as being very significant and structurally very sound — has been damaged. It's not been destroyed, but a lot of Russians have wondered for a long time why all the bridges had not been dropped. The argument was, "Well, we may want to use them on the way back," but that hasn't held up to closer scrutiny given how long everything has taken. Frankly, if there's one thing Russians can do well, it's throw bridges over rivers. So if this one turns out to be unusable, I don't think it makes much difference.
What it suggests is that the noose around Odessa has been tightened considerably. That is of course a lifeline for Ukraine, which is already on life support. It means Ukraine is dependent entirely on everything that comes to it through Lithuania or primarily Poland. And President Zelensky's relationships with Warsaw are pretty terrible. The Poles are fed up. They would like to export as many of the Ukrainians they've taken in as they can, and at the same time they're deeply offended by Zelensky's remarks and behavior. Not a good thing for the Ukrainians.
I think the population of Ukraine is at least 50% of what it was at the beginning, and falling. I'm told there are as many as 10 million so-called old-age pensioners. That's not a good sign. And as you pointed out earlier, dragging them into uniform and shipping them east to sit in a trench is a waste of time. Russian forces on the ground are moving very consistently, and I think they'll soon be on the Dnieper River. Of course, I expected that to happen a lot earlier, as did most people.
Gerasimov's replacement and what it signals
Now, there is an interesting development worth mentioning. I'm told by my sources that Gerasimov — that is, Colonel General Gerasimov, Chief of the General Staff — will be at the end of his tenure by the middle of September. A lot of people are wondering what that means. There aren't very many rumors with any substance circulating, but we need to understand that Gerasimov was a key figure in the Prigozhin drama and wanted Prigozhin dead as soon as possible. He subsequently had at least one Russian major general jailed for effectively challenging him and his conduct of the war. As far as I know, that general is alive and still sitting in jail, much to the shame of President Putin, who I think should release the man.
Gerasimov is not a particularly popular figure. A lot of people in Russia blame him for the slow, ponderous conduct of the operation. But we have to keep in mind that back in 2021, he was extended for an additional five years as Chief of the General Staff, and he's still there — which means that whatever he's done has been comfortable with Putin's outlook.
So the question is: what happens now? We had all of these speeches that President Putin gave not long ago insisting, "I want an acceleration of operations. I want more offensive action." Everybody gave him a resounding round of applause. The question is, is that really meaningful?
One source I trust said, "Well, there are a lot of people wondering if Surovikin — who is back from Africa and had a very widely publicized and happy office call with Putin — is now going to step into the light and become the next Chief of the General Staff." Others have said, "No, he's an Air Force officer. That's very unlikely. They'll want another army general." I don't know. But when this replacement is made, that will tell us a lot about where things are going to go from now on, because Gerasimov has always been associated with a sort of Soviet hangover — the slow, deliberate, methodical way to do business. And that's not something Putin says he wants. That's not something the average Russian wants. They want decisive action.
Clearly, the Russians are now positioned with all the troops, all the equipment, and all the capabilities they need to be very successful.
Why European military intervention is not credible
This fear of the Europeans entering the war — I don't think it's dissipated, but it has certainly lost some airspeed and altitude. There's a growing awareness that the Europeans aren't capable of putting up much and getting much into the fight. One of my sources tells me they're more concerned about the use of modernized aircraft potentially over Ukraine against Russian forces than about any ground force that might show up.
And it's pretty obvious that since we're having trouble conducting one campaign in the Middle East against Iran, and we're already running low on all the munitions and capabilities we would like to have, and our navy is already overstretched because it's much smaller than it has been in the past — it's very unlikely that if something were to happen in Ukraine, causing that state to finally collapse and Russian forces to cross the Dnieper River, that we would do anything. Which means the Europeans would be on their own. And the real question is: would the Europeans do anything beyond what they've talked about? I don't think so. And I don't think so because I don't think the Poles would support it.
The Polish population doesn't want it. The government is now sick of Zelensky. And if you don't have Poland firmly in your camp, willing to provide you with a base of operations, forget it.
The 1981 Poland lesson and its relevance today
A lot of people don't realize that back in 1981, when they declared martial law in Poland in December and put Jaruzelski in charge — I'm talking about Moscow — within a few weeks there was a Politburo meeting involving Brezhnev and his colleagues and Kulakov, who was really the Western theater commander, the Soviet commander. They called him the Warsaw Pact commander, but that was always a joke. There was never a building for the Warsaw Pact. The Warsaw Pact was a facade. It was the Soviet armed forces, and then you had non-Soviet forces inside the Soviet armed forces. So Kulakov was in command of everything, and he gave a very blunt speech at the time. He said any offensive operations by our forces against the West is now impossible. And everybody sat up and looked at him. Why? Very simple. Poland is in disarray. Poland is not a reliable base of support. We have to reckon with a very high possibility that if we were to launch an offensive, the Poles would hinder it, would obstruct, would disrupt. So until we can be absolutely certain that Poland will be firmly in our camp and order is totally restored, we've got to forget any notion of offensive operations.
At the time, that was very sensitive intelligence, but it was true. And what's really funny is that we continued to talk right up until the bitter end — when the Soviet state fell apart — about this imminent Soviet offensive operation, and there was no chance whatsoever of that happening after 1981.
So Poland is once again playing a very important role, and we should not ignore that. Whatever the German government or the British government or the French government or everybody else says — it's absurd. Forget it. Write it off. It's not going to happen. I think that's beginning to sink in at high levels for the Russians.
We'll have to see who shows up as the next Chief of the General Staff, but I would think September would be a very important month. We don't know how much rain we're going to get, how muddy and miserable it's going to become. But as long as the ground is reasonably dry as it is at the moment, they could do a lot in September.
North Korean troops, Russian momentum, and the smell of blood
Glenn Diesen: Well, if the Russians — first of all, they would like to do some vengeance on the Europeans due to their growing direct involvement in this war. And as you said, they're also doubting that the Europeans would want a direct war with Russia. How do you see this impacting Russia's strategy on the fronts? Because Surovikin — which they call General Armageddon — is obviously for a much more aggressive approach, but this also seems to be the growing consensus: that the former slow grinding war of attrition should be changed. We see now all these attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, the bridges, ports, quite brutal attacks on Kyiv itself. We see threats of seizing European ships. We see the North Koreans possibly entering in a much bigger way. The Russians are attacking targets they didn't do before due to collateral damage concerns. It's becoming much more ruthless. Do you think it's possible that there's a strategic shift where the Russians might be going for a knockout blow as they see their adversary being weakened?
Douglas Macgregor: I'm told there are now at least 20,000 North Korean troops in the theater. There may be more. The North Koreans are anxious to get some combat experience. The Russians are happy to have the additional manpower. But we should also understand that the Russians have a lot of manpower as it is. Their force has grown dramatically and they are training about 150,000 reserves right now.
I do think the Russians smell blood. I think they know that Ukraine is a fatally wounded animal, and they're not so much worried about what the Ukrainians might do as they advance. They're much more worried about the Europeans, obviously, as you point out. But I think the fear that this could result in a larger conflagration is beginning to dissipate.
The Russians are sick to death of these sort of pinprick operations that have now grown into something more than pinpricks. If you look at the 38% reduction in refining capability and the fact that the Russians had suspended the export of refined oil — in the form of gasoline, diesel, and other distillates — that suggests there's been an impact, obviously not on the scale that the hopeful voices in Washington, London, Paris, and Berlin want to believe privately. I think everybody knows it's only a matter of time until Ukraine is dead as a nation state. It's already a zombie.
So the question is: what are they going to do next? How much are they willing to do? And I think we're going to find that out with Gerasimov's replacement. That's going to tell us a lot, because I think it would be wise now, if they're going to take serious action, to do so. We don't know what else is on President Putin's mind. My view as an American would be: if they do a great deal now, we cannot do much about it, and Trump knows that. Whether that has entered into his broader strategic calculus, I can't tell, but I think he's well aware that we're not in a position to take on the Russian armed forces over a place like Ukraine. We're stretched very thin right now in too many ways in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean.
Russia's preparation for a potential NATO confrontation
Glenn Diesen: Even if the Russians think that NATO countries won't intervene when Ukraine finally begins to collapse, it nonetheless can't base its strategy on hope. It has to prepare for the possibility of war. We've seen the shift in the nuclear doctrine, but do you see any other indications that the Russians are preparing for a possible war with NATO? Because from what I hear, they're producing a lot of Armata tanks, but we're not seeing them on the front line. They're developing a lot of armored vehicles, and we're not seeing them either. Is this for a later stage in Ukraine, or do you think that's intended for a NATO contingency?
Douglas Macgregor: I don't think it's intended for NATO per se, but it will be ready for NATO if NATO decides to intervene. They've always held forces — large forces, well-equipped forces — in reserve. I think that's more true now than in the past. Why would you commit the bulk of your capability if you think there's any chance that someone from NATO could intervene? So they've always had their eyes on Moldova, on Poland, the Polish border, Lithuania, and so forth.
My point is that I think increasingly they're aware that there's not a great deal that can be done. The Poles are not going to enter this. The Poles, in my judgment, have perhaps the best army in NATO — well trained, well disciplined, much better than the Western forces. And I think the Poles would fight very effectively. But the president of Poland, Nawrocki, has said that's not going to happen on his watch. No more Polish soldiers will go into Ukraine. They've got at least 8,000 to 10,000 dead Polish soldiers lying in cemeteries in Poland right now.
And again, if you don't have Poland with you, forget it. It's like saying, "Well, we're going to invade at this place called Normandy, but Britain's not available." It's literally that important. If the Poles are not on board, it's not going to happen. How are you going to try and do it from the Baltic littoral? Going into the Baltic is sort of like going into your swimming pool in the backyard. Anything you put in there could easily be detected and sunk. I don't see that happening, and I don't think the Russians see that happening either. And as they become more and more convinced of this, the probability of a much more decisive operation becomes inevitable.
Kharkiv, Odessa, and the logistics of advance
There are also forces that have gone in and out in small numbers on the outskirts of Kharkiv, but Kharkiv is one of those places that can wait. Odessa is far more important. The good news for the Russians is that they've taken it out of the picture from a logistical sustainment standpoint. But they still want it. It's a Russian-speaking city, and taking it would probably destroy any hope that remains in the West of any success that Ukraine might try to achieve.
But you've got to move forward your air and missile defenses. You've got to build up your capacity logistically so that you can sustain over distance. There are a lot of things that have to be done, and I think a lot of that is underway.
If you look at us, for instance, we didn't invest any time at all in thinking through carefully in the Middle East and the Persian Gulf the kinds of obstacles we would confront logistically as well as operationally. As a result, this whole thing is an embarrassment. The war has become a huge embarrassment for us, which is one of the reasons that Donald Trump runs around making so many outrageous statements — as a compensation for what is obviously a clear and unambiguous strategic setback or defeat.
Diplomacy as a tactic and the European desire for a pause
Glenn Diesen: In the Middle East, Trump tends to use negotiations as a tactic for buying time. I'm assuming the same approach will be used against Russia. The Europeans, according to the New York Times, are noticing that things are not going well. This whole optimism from NATO seemed to have been based solely on attacks on Russian civilian infrastructure — Wildberries e-commerce warehouses, that sort of thing — as a measure of success. Now that many are recognizing things are going wrong, there are reports that the Europeans wouldn't mind the US restarting talks with the Russians. That would be a shift from before, when they were quite unhappy with any talks. But of course the European leaders don't want an actual end to the war. I think they want a pause so they can reorganize, re-equip, and prepare the Ukrainians for another round. How do you see the possibility of restarting diplomacy? Because again, it's a bit like with the Iranians — whenever things go very wrong, there's a tendency to reach out and seek to start talks, either genuinely or to buy time.
Douglas Macgregor: Well, if you're a Russian right now at the top — working for Foreign Minister Lavrov or President Putin or the current defense minister — the advice I think they would get is: look, set it up. Let them talk, but pay no attention and prosecute this war with a vengeance. This is evidence of the weakness we've identified. Now is the time to exploit it and strike hard. That's what I think many Russians at very high levels are telling their leaders. We can talk and talk and talk as long as they like. We know they're not sincere. There's no reason whatsoever for us to trust anything coming out of the mouths of any of the people currently in power. And by the way, we Russians have been patient waiting for these governments to fall. And clearly the government in Berlin is much closer to that than it has ever been before. That's very obvious.
I'm confident the Russians have already understood that Poland doesn't want anything to do with a war against Russia over Ukraine. Absolutely none. So if you're a Russian: fine, talk. Let's get this on the road and get it done.
Iran's new leadership and the futility of negotiations
Now, if you move down to the Middle East — to Persia, to Iran — how many times do they have to be lied to before they finally say, "This is pointless. It's over"? If you look at the new leadership, if you go through and look at the individuals who've been appointed to key positions inside Iran — and there are many articles out there, Art Mouini is an expert on this sort of thing and could explain and detail the backgrounds — these are people who are hardly amenable to a negotiated settlement. These are people who've lost family members going all the way back to the Iran-Iraq War. And we in the United States never even bring it up. We don't even mention it. Five hundred to 750,000 casualties, hundreds of thousands of dead. Most of the people in power today had relatives who fought in that war. It's as meaningful to them as World War II was for us.
I understand that Jared Kushner is insisting there are talks at lower levels. I have no idea what that means. And I have learned not to believe anything that he or Netanyahu or Witkoff or Trump say.
Trump's erratic behavior and the South Korea episode
And then you have this emotional knee-jerk reaction to everything. The South Koreans would not support the US position on Ukraine, and suddenly Trump pulls the plug on a joint exercise that we conduct on an annual basis with the South Koreans. He thinks he's punishing them. The people of South Korea would like us to get out. We've been there long enough. This government doesn't need us, doesn't want us. There is no imminent threat from North Korea because the Chinese will not tolerate it. They will not permit a war on the peninsula. And the Russians aren't going to push it because whatever happens in Asia, they will always defer to Xi — as well they should.
The bottom line is that I don't see any negotiations of any kind making any difference to anybody anymore. And I think an awful lot of that rhetoric is for consumption in the West, for consumption at home by people in the United States. I still run into people who say, "Oh, wow, Trump — he's playing 4D chess. He's a genius, you don't understand. He's creating a new architecture." Well, he's certainly contributing to the emergence of a new architecture, but it's certainly nothing that's necessarily in the interest of the American people, and it's destroying most of our strategic partners in the region.
The domestic American mood and the financial crisis
It's frustrating dealing with people like that. But you know, it's sort of like in 1945 when Hitler looks at someone and says, "What are you, an idiot?" — and walks away. What about the inevitable victory? This is all crap. It's all going to collapse sooner rather than later.
The smart way to deal with it is to recognize something I hear all the time. I had a friend who just came back from northern New York — up along the border with Canada, then down in Utica and Albany. He said, "Nobody up there even cares what happens in Iran. Nobody gives a damn." They said, "What are we doing over there?" They're all worried about inflation, the rise in prices for everything. And that's a pretty grim outlook if you look at the markets right now.
I think we're going to go up and up and there's going to be something similar to what we saw in 1929 — a dramatic, steep decline. Diesel is really hitting Europe hard now. I have friends in the Balkans, Hungary, Austria, and Germany, and they're telling me diesel is going through the roof. Diesel keeps everything rolling, as we know. How do you keep things operating? How do you keep the electricity running for all the trains?
Here it's not as bad as it is there, but it's getting there. We now have a 30-year Treasury bond selling for over 5% — something like 5.2 or 5.3%. The 10-year Treasury bond, which is the bellwether that everybody watches as the indicator of real disaster, is up to 4.72% interest. Once that hits 5%, we're finished with this sovereign debt. We can't cope. And what's interesting is to watch the interest rates rise and the yields rise simultaneously. That doesn't happen normally — it's the opposite. One goes up, the other goes down. Not a good sign. I don't think Secretary Bessent can play the shell game he's been playing too much longer before we're in real trouble.
The petrodollar, dedollarization, and the economic logic of war
Glenn Diesen: It's interesting that Bessant and others keep discussing all these wars in economic terms. Bessant was quite explicit — he said all these wars more or less had an economic function behind them. That is, Venezuela will be trading in dollars soon, the Russians will be trading in dollars. This was kind of how victory was defined. So obviously the wars, which are making the economic situation much worse, are also seen as a way out. If we win, we can get our hands on Iranian oil, we can get the Russians to trade in dollars — because they're almost done selling their energy in dollars now. It's not great when you see great powers thinking in completely zero-sum terms where it's all or nothing. But it's a little late now to stop dedollarization, don't you think?
Douglas Macgregor: I don't see how you stop it. I don't see how you rescue the petrodollar from extinction. What's going to happen in the region if the Iranians carry through on what they're saying? They've made it very clear that if they're in collision with us once again, they'll destroy all of the oil infrastructure and desalination plants on the west side of the Persian Gulf. That's it. It's over. Saudi Arabia can't withstand that. We don't know what the Houthis will do, but there's no reason to believe they won't intervene and do serious damage to Saudi Arabia. The pipeline that runs from the east to the west across the country is very easily disrupted.
I don't see any good news. The world has had it with us. They're not interested in playing with us anymore. They want an end to our interference, our bullying, our financial domination. The Iranians have said they have to have all of their money. The Russians would still like to have their money. You can't steal from people and then expect them to cooperate with you. But there is this sort of delusion that we are untouchable — and we're not untouchable.
Russia and Iran moving to the offensive — the end of diplomatic patience
Glenn Diesen: Certainly Iran and Yemen are communicating this quite clearly — that they're going on the offensive, more or less. You see it in the rhetoric and in their actions. And a lot of this is reflected in what you say: diplomacy is seen as just a sham, a deceptive maneuver to set up another surprise attack. But do you see the same development in Russia? That they're also moving towards the idea that there's no point anymore in diplomacy? Because in the past it looks like more hawkish voices — like Foreign Minister Lavrov — were a bit constrained by Putin. Now the leash is off. He becomes more and more critical of the United States. From what I've heard, they were supposed to avoid criticism of the United States — that's what they were told. This doesn't seem to apply anymore. And again, when Putin makes comments that we will start to reciprocate and take European ships, and his trip to the southern Kuril Islands was — to use your language — a big "screw you" to Japan for getting involved in this war in Ukraine. Do you see the Russians also going on the offensive here?
Douglas Macgregor: I think the answer is yes. Lavrov is an interesting man. I had the opportunity to meet him once. He is someone who probably knows more about the United States and its people than anybody else in the Russian government, and he has had it. There's no question about it. He's felt that way for a long time.
I think people are reaching the conclusion that only by striking back at us on various levels are we going to pay any attention to anything they say or do. And I think that's true, unfortunately.
The US Navy's overstretch and morale crisis
If you look at our position militarily in the Persian Gulf right now — the problems that we've seen reported from the fleet, the USS Abraham Lincoln — I don't know how much of that is true or not, but I do know that it's like hell on earth if you are stuck for 300 days practically at sea. I mean, I can't conceive anything worse than that. I've listened to people in other services say, "Oh, how could they complain?" They don't understand. There's a big difference between being in some dump they call Afghanistan or Iraq for another six months — that's one set of problems, but there are ways you can deal with it, your mental health can adjust — and being out there day after day, month after month, where the only thing that breaks the monotony are the aircraft that periodically take off and deliver munitions somewhere. Otherwise you're stuck.
We don't have the size of the force that we once had. And we also know that the US Navy is sitting several hundred miles south in most cases — 150 to 300 miles, depending on where they are — to avoid Iranian missile capabilities, let alone unmanned systems. So it's not unreasonable for people at sea to get sick of this and disgusted. I'm sure lots of people are saying, "What are we doing?" And somebody says, "Well, we're here to run a blockade." Okay, now what? How long do you do this? Do we have enough ships? The answer is usually no.
A blockade that runs as long and as deep as we're trying to maintain requires at least 100 ships. I talked earlier in a previous episode about the 200-plus ships that were involved in the blockade against Cuba back in 1962-63. And then we also had ships in the North Atlantic to deal with the Soviets if they tried to violate the blockade. We don't have that right now.
The aircraft carrier question and the risk calculus
And in fact, many of those ships are frequently viewed as potential disasters waiting to happen. In many war games, if you lose a carrier — if a carrier is damaged and put out of action — that becomes a catalyst for war on the grand scale. It's one thing to shoot down a few aircraft. It's another to sink or damage a small naval combatant. But when you start attacking aircraft carriers and inflict real damage, the question you have to ask yourselves is: do we want to put this at risk? Is it worth the risk?
Now we have the F-35 — the most expensive aircraft in history, the plane that ate the Pentagon, as we refer to it in Washington. If you lose how many of those, what do you get back in terms of your return on investment? There are a lot of problems with everything that we're doing. I'm sure the admirals and the generals are aware, and I'm sure these questions come up again and again. I've heard people say, "We're not fighting the Imperial Japanese Navy." We lost a lot of ships, we lost thousands of sailors, because we were fighting a navy we had to drive out. We had to seize control of the straits. We're not doing that. So what are we doing? These questions come up, and the answers coming from the White House and the administration are not very satisfactory.
How does this all end? Russia's war objectives and the April 2022 missed opportunity
Glenn Diesen: How do you see this all ending? Especially in Russia — if there's no peace agreement at all, what would a victory entail? Because one gets the impression from the rhetoric that the war objectives are expanding. And if there is no diplomatic agreement, territorial acquisition becomes a replacement for one. And to make it a larger question — same with the Iranians — if the Iranians now really go on the offensive and begin to target the aircraft carriers, how would the United States react? Because this is not a good end to the war. It's not as if an aircraft carrier will sink and the US goes home. How do you think the US would respond?
Douglas Macgregor: Let's take one at a time. Let's go back to the Russian dilemma. If you go back to 2022, in April, when there was an agreement hammered out between the Ukrainian and Russian representatives — and supposedly some of the Ukrainians involved with that were killed by Ukrainian secret police working for Zelensky — then you had Boris Johnson fly in with a message from Biden: "Oh no, no, no. Stay the course. You're going to win. We're with you." We go back to that. What were the Russians willing to accept? They were willing to accept a neutral Ukraine. They were even going to leave Donetsk and Luhansk and other Russian-inhabited areas in Ukrainian hands, provided the Russians were treated equally before the law and treated as human beings. That's gone. That opportunity has vanished.
So what are the Russians going to demand now? I think they want this regime and all its adherents, all its proponents, eliminated. Too many atrocities have been committed against Russian citizens and Russian soldiers. Things that we blamed on the Russians were done by Ukrainians. I mean, we can watch the satellite footage of bulldozers that have dug giant holes — almost looks like a small quarry — and then thousands of Ukrainian dead are bulldozed into the hole, then it's all covered up because the Ukrainian government doesn't want people to know the level of losses.
Right now the only thing we can depend upon as an indicator comes with the exchange of bodies, where a certain number of dead Ukrainian soldiers are exchanged for a certain number of Russians. On average, if you get 20 Russian bodies, the Russians are providing 60 to 70 dead Ukrainians to get those 20 dead Russians. So the numbers of losses, about which we in the West have continually lied, are huge. It's just beyond our imagination.
There's too much blood that has been lost in this war on all sides, but particularly from the Russian standpoint. We have betrayed the Russians — we in Washington — too many times when there was no reason to do so. We have no vital strategic interest in Ukraine. None. We have never had any. We certainly wish the people well and are willing to do business with them, but whether they were neutral or part of the Soviet Union or whatever is irrelevant to us. We were not interested — certainly not in a place that would justify American blood and treasure under any circumstance. We tended to draw that line at the Polish border. And I think that's where it still is.
Russia's territorial vision and the disposition of western Ukraine
So the first thing to understand is that the Russians are going to demand a clean sweep. Now, why do you think publicly you've listened to President Putin talk about the fact that there are large parts of Ukraine that were historically part of Poland? There are parts of Ukraine still occupied by hundreds of thousands of Hungarians who would like to rejoin Hungary. And there are other areas that Romania would like to have. His view is: well, why not give it to them? And everybody says, "Oh no, that's unacceptable, we don't play those games." I've got news for everybody — in Eastern Europe, everybody plays those games. If you go to Vilnius, everybody wants to talk about the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. There used to be a giant pillar in Minsk with three languages — Russian, Latin, and Lithuanian — and you know what it said? "Here begins Lithuania." You don't think the Lithuanians know that? Of course they do. So Putin's right about that.
He's not going to give up part of what is today Russia. He's not going to surrender the gains that Stalin made as a result of winning the Second World War against the Germans. But he knows the realities in Ukraine. And secondly, he does not want to govern any Ukrainians. He doesn't want to be over there. No Russian in his right mind wants to go over there. I talked to a former Soviet intelligence officer who said he never went anywhere in western Ukraine — over near the Polish border, what used to be southern and southeastern Galicia — this is back in the 70s and 80s — never went anywhere without being armed with an automatic pistol with cartridges in the chamber. What does that tell you? Russians don't want to go over there.
So what the Russians are interested in is this thing they call Novorossiya. There's no doubt about it. They would like to see something emerge that is not going to be hostile to Russia and is not going to operate as a satellite for NATO and as a base for projecting violence against Russia. Can they get that? Well, they're not going to get it from us. They're not going to get it from the Europeans. Which means they're going to have to impose it, and they're going to have to turn to the people that border Ukraine and ask them to sit down and negotiate. But I think this whole thing is going to be taken out of the hands of whatever governs today in Ukraine. Why would they pay any attention to anything Zelensky or his representatives say? None.
Iran's goals and the US position in the Persian Gulf
And I think you're in much the same problem with Iran. The Iranians don't want to occupy everything. That's all nonsense. Territorial acquisition is a lot of trope. You have to administer it. You have to shelter, protect, and support the population that's there. The Russians don't want to do that. The Iranians don't want to do that. They've got their own issues, their own problems.
So if we're talking about turning over Kuwait to Iraq, which is an Iranian ally, that's fine. If they want to sit down with the Turks and divide up things later on, that's fine. The Turks and the Persians have historically run the region. But they want us out. That's their number one priority. They've accomplished it largely. The reason we've got so many problems with the Navy is that we were so dependent upon the Fifth Fleet headquarters and the facilities in Bahrain. Those are gone. We're not going to get them back.
So the situation in Eastern Europe and the situation in the Middle East are kind of analogous. And the question is: what do we want to do? Our plan at this point is to prolong it. And how long does that last? I guess it lasts until we collapse financially or we are so thoroughly embarrassed militarily that we simply can't continue.
The Pearl Harbor analogy and what a carrier strike would mean
And you said, "What would the average American say?" The average American would say two things right now. Number one: what the hell are we doing over there? That question comes up all the time. People think, "Oh, you're going to get a Pearl Harbor moment." But you've got to remember how much effort FDR invested, along with Secretary Stimson in the War Department, to provoke the Japanese into attacking us — that's another issue. But the Japanese were dumb. They did it. And they did it on a Sunday morning, when we were a Christian nation and most of us went to church on Sunday morning, and they killed thousands of Americans. Okay, that was it. At that point, every American said: that's it. These Japanese deserve the worst, and we gave them the worst.
We had a big problem in the West because nobody wanted to fight the Germans, all the way up until we crossed the Rhine. Eisenhower was always stopping American soldiers and asking, "Well, do you hate Germans now?" And of course the answer was not really, no. So it was two very different wars for very different kinds of reasons. After the war, we see the concentration camps and then you get very anti-German sentiment. But even that doesn't last very long. By the 1950s, that's really pretty much dissipated because the Germans and we were too much alike.
So at the end of the day, what you're asking is: what happens if a carrier is damaged? It's damaged. Get it out of there. Because I don't think you can sink a carrier over a long range with a missile over a very great distance. You don't have enough of a warhead. You can put it out of action, but you can't necessarily sink it. You'd have to be very lucky to sink a carrier. It's enormous. It's brilliantly built. It's designed to withstand nuclear strikes. Other vessels are different, but a carrier is something else entirely.
Now, if one is severely hit, I'm sure Donald Trump will want to unleash hell and all that kind of business. But America is going to say, "Wait a minute. Let's get our men out of there." That's what I think.
Lavrov's warning and the limits of European military power
Glenn Diesen: On the Russian one, I'm just wondering where this is headed, because I saw Lavrov making the point only today that Moscow has the right to interpret the UK's involvement in strikes on Russia as Britain being a direct participant, with — in his words — all the consequences that entails. It could be a bluff, but once those words are out there, they must be acted upon. It's noteworthy. It wasn't used in the past. So I'm not too sure where we're heading, but we're going somewhere different at least.
Douglas Macgregor: Yeah. But right now, whatever the Europeans want to do depends entirely on us. It's the same thing with Israel. If we pull our forces out and halt operations, how long can Israel last without us? That assumes we're not constantly supplying them with everything they need. Europe isn't very much different. And Britain in particular has practically no navy. Their army is a mess. It's a shadow of its former self. The US Marine Corps is much larger, more robust, and more capable. So I have a great deal of difficulty understanding what terrible things the British would do.
I'm not even sure they could safely launch a nuclear missile from a submarine. Would they do that? I don't think they're that crazy, because Britain could be turned into a smoking heap of ruins overnight. Gone.
The French have always made it very clear their nuclear deterrent is theirs. I used to ask the question all the time: when would the French employ a nuclear weapon? They said: when the enemy is on the Rhine. Okay. So I don't see the French doing very much. Who else is out there? The Germans. The German army is a mess. It's not doing much of anything. They're as backward, if not more so, than we are when you start talking about dealing with this new battlefield.
So I think there are reasons why Lavrov is now more vocal, why the Russians are more aggressive, and I would simply warn the Europeans that they need to take this very seriously — because I don't think they are. And I blame that to a large extent on us, because I don't think the senior military leadership — now General Cavoli, the four-star, may be an exception, I don't know — but I just don't see people taking the threat seriously.
Glenn Diesen: Well, thank you for taking the time, and sorry for going a bit over time there. Thanks again.
Douglas Macgregor: All right, Glenn. Good to see you, my friend.
Glenn Diesen: You too.