Colonel Douglas Macgregor on Russia's expanding war objectives and the West's strategic failures
Glenn Diesen interviews Colonel Douglas Macgregor on Russia's evolving objectives in Ukraine, Western strategic incoherence, and the prospects for a negotiated end to the war.
Summary
Glenn Diesen interviews Colonel Douglas Macgregor, decorated combat veteran, author, and former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense, about President Putin's recently stated objective of bringing all of Novorossiya under Russian control, including Odessa. Macgregor argues that this was always the implicit endpoint of the war, driven by Russia's security requirements, and that the West's continued escalatory rhetoric — particularly from European leaders — is pushing Putin toward decisive military action rather than diplomacy. He contends that the United States has no coherent strategy in Ukraine or anywhere else, and that Trump's decision-making is driven entirely by optics and personal image rather than national interest. Macgregor argues the war ends only when the United States withdraws from the region entirely, and predicts significant Russian military action in the near future aimed at forcing Europeans to the negotiating table.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Putin's expanded objectives and the security logic behind Novorossiya
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We are joined today by Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, author, and former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense. Thank you for coming back on — it's great to see you. I want to talk to you about this recent interview by President Putin in which he outlined what appears to be now expanded objectives. He called for taking all of Novorossiya under Russian control, which would include everything up to Odessa. He talked about buffer zones being lost in Kursk essentially as punishment for the Kursk incursion, as well as having obvious strategic objectives. And this is happening as many of the front lines are cracking. Do you see this as a new stage of the war, or how are you assessing this new rhetoric coming from the Russian president?
Douglas Macgregor: Well, first of all, I think that President Putin has said more than once since the beginning of this war that Kharkiv and Odessa are historically Russian-speaking cities. So I hesitate to say that it was always the objective, but I think most Russians believed from the beginning that if they were going to do this, those two cities would have to end up in Russian hands.
Secondly, I think he's looking at the reality that the security zone for Russia's interests and safety has to be much larger than originally planned or anticipated. Let's face it, Ukraine has become a much more dangerous irritant over time than I think he expected it to. Ukraine itself as a nation I would describe as close to dead, but we have this facade of a government in Ukraine with an infrastructure of supporters — not much from the population, but hardcore supporters, thousands of mercenaries and foreigners — and they are able to launch periodically missiles and drones to create the illusion that there is some real power or influence there, in the hopes of attracting more money.
And I think you know that Zelensky wants $90 billion from Donald Trump, and Trump actually sat with him and talked to him — to my surprise. And to my horror, I'm told he's considering it. I hope not, but anything is possible these days.
So I think that's a signal that there are plans afoot now — military plans to make those things a reality. I don't think the Kursk exercise is necessarily a punishment. I think it's just a realistic appraisal that says if we don't control this territory, we have no security in Russia. Russia cannot be secure. So Novorossiya, which was always I think in the back of everybody's mind, is going to become a reality. And I would certainly do that if I were in his position. No question about it.
European escalation and the risk of Russian military retaliation
Glenn Diesen: He also said that the objective of NATO in this war was the strategic defeat of Russia. Indeed, only two or three days ago, Mike Pompeo even tweeted that that's the only acceptable outcome — the strategic defeat of Russia. Now, I assume that Putin isn't going to allow this, but at the same time he's seeing the Europeans increase their direct involvement in this war. How do you see him managing this? Do you think, as many argue, that he might decide it's necessary to strike a European country, or do you think he will only look to essentially defeat Ukraine?
Douglas Macgregor: I think he's been asked privately inside his inner circle: "Mr. President, how bad must it get before we strike back?" We've watched the strikes periodically reach the outskirts of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Rostov, and so forth. They've hit some refineries. They struck a missile manufacturing facility. But they've also killed Russian civilians and destroyed Russian civilian infrastructure. I don't want to say that he's decided he's had enough, but I think he is at the point now where he recognizes this can no longer be taken in stride. In other words, it's time for some form of action.
Militarily, he is in a position to do any number of different things. He can take Odessa very suddenly and very quickly. He has the forces on hand concentrated to do it. He'll have to do some more work with regard to the destruction of some of the drone assembly points — where the materials come in from Europe and the drones and missiles are assembled as components of a larger system and then launched at Russia. He'll have to target those and administer some serious destruction, but that's not difficult to do. I don't think he has an inexhaustible quantity of Iskanders, but he's got a lot. There is no question about it. He's had plenty of time to build up that surplus.
So that much would happen. Odessa has to fall. Once Ukraine is landlocked and he is in a position to reach out to the Russian population in Moldova — which I'm sure he will — then the question is what are the Europeans really going to do? And the truth is they're not capable of doing much. You and I know that. But the Russians have been told otherwise.
From the very beginning, when you saw these fools in Ukraine running around with Nazi symbols on their uniforms, that was the red flag for the Russians. That was something that anybody in Russia could point to as evidence for something that was wrong and had to be destroyed. Now it's gotten worse. I would argue it's worse because you have European leaders like this man Merz who makes extremely dangerous remarks — along with his defense minister and others — about how Germany is going to build up into some giant military power with the obvious purpose of threatening Russia. You have similar statements coming out of other European countries and leaders. Macron is still with us. These people are all saying ridiculous things about Europe's potential to defeat and destroy Russia.
If you're sitting in Russia and you're listening to this, and this material is being transmitted through the Russian media to the Russian people — it's not being censored, it's not being modified, it's being transmitted — what does the average Russian conclude? It's 1941 again. Here we go again. Another European invasion of Russia.
Now, you and I know that's absurd. You could take the entire British army, French army, whatever passes for a German army — throw in the Danes, the Norwegians. What are they going to do? Where are they going to go? They couldn't even defend the Baltic littoral. They couldn't defend Western Ukraine. Who are we kidding? It's nonsense, but it's dangerous. And it's eliciting a very dangerous response from Russia. People don't seem to understand that President Putin doesn't have to create a bogeyman for the Russians to fear. We've done that for him, and we continue to do it.
So it's very easy for him to announce new measures, expansion of reserves. They've already got a Russian army today that's well over a million. It's brilliantly organized, well equipped, well trained. I think it's well led. I think many of the weak links in the chain of the officer corps and the senior ranks have been eliminated. If you were going to pick a time and a place to fight the Russians, this is a bad one. Don't do it. You're stupid to even consider it.
So I think Putin knows all of these things. I think he's still going to move very methodically because that's his nature, but I think Odessa is going to come under attack and it's going to be seized. Now, can he do more than that? Yes, he probably can. Will he? I don't know. I have listened to voices in Russia say this will not end until we are in Kiev and we absolutely eliminate this regime. I think a lot of people have reached that conclusion and they don't understand why more has not been done.
You know, the thing that's most tragic about the entire picture, Glenn, is that in Russia at any rate, people genuinely like Americans and they think that Americans and they are alike. Now, that's not really true. We would make good strategic partners for different reasons, but we are as different from the Russians as the Chinese are. That doesn't mean we can't get along. But I think they have developed this view that we have a lot more in common than we do. And at the same time, they have this very positive picture of Trump. They think Trump is really a good person, that he really wants the best. They don't understand what they're dealing with — the reality TV star who migrates in the direction of whatever promises to make him look good. That's not what they're accustomed to.
All you have to do to contrast Trump with President Putin is look at Putin on the stage — the way he behaves, the way he holds himself, how he dresses, how he speaks. Look at the audience, how they dress, how they look, how they comport themselves. Then look at what we've got in the United States for a president. It's totally different, completely unrelated. Putin is as close to a Tsar as you're going to get in the modern world. He does have one foot in the Tsarist world and another foot in the Soviet world. He knows both, and he has moved Russia down, I think, a very good path to unity and prosperity because he understands that those are critical. With unity and prosperity, you also get security. No one in the United States thinks like that. Trump doesn't even consider those things. But for better or worse, they think we're friends and they think Trump is a good guy.
Trump's strategic incoherence and the return to Ukraine involvement
Glenn Diesen: Trump did seem to be going for a diplomatic path — it seemed he thought it was better for the US to get along with Russia and essentially bring them over to our side of the ledger. But since those days, he now appears to have embraced his inner Biden — he's made this his war as well. Part of this is also linked to this new narrative coming out of every media outlet across the West, which is that Ukraine is winning again. What do you think Trump's calculations are? You mentioned he might start sending billions in aid again to Ukraine. Will the US go back deeper into the war against Russia?
Douglas Macgregor: First and foremost, you must understand that there is no strategy. There never has been. We had something resembling a strategy as a result of George Kennan, his "Mr. X" article, and what subsequently became containment. Since then, our strategy has been to retain control of 750 bases in 80 countries, to continue to exert influence in our pursuit of financial hegemony. And what underpins financial hegemony in the American mind has been military hegemony. So the American thinking goes: if I spend a trillion dollars on defense, I get all these benefits, including financial hegemony around the world. That's all nonsense, but that's the way people think. Americans think of defense the way you go to the supermarket and buy something off the shelf — a loaf of bread, butter, roast beef, whatever it is. Well, we buy this, we've got defense. No understanding of how you actually build military power.
So this is what confronts President Putin. This is what confronts the Iranians. The same thing. There is no strategy, and whatever President Trump wakes up in the morning and decides to do is what we do. And he is not planning the systematic demise or destruction of Russia — absolutely not, wouldn't know how to begin. So what's he trying to do? He's trying to do whatever he thinks is going to benefit him and his presidency, and a little down the line, maybe America. How he defines that is beyond me.
I see no benefit to us from involvement in Ukraine in any way. I see no benefit to us strategically from attacking Iran. Somebody says, "Well, what are those benefits?" I can't answer because it sounds stupid to me. But that's where we are.
I understand there was supposedly a recent meeting involving President Trump and his inner circle and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and maybe some other military leaders to talk about what do we do if we resume bombing with the goal of quote-unquote finishing the job. That's about as crazy as "here's $90 billion — now go win your war in Ukraine." It's absurd. We know that everything that goes to Ukraine, about 50% of it just disappears into corruption — the black hole of corruption. And what happens to the rest of it? A lot of it is sold off. The Ukrainians have been furnishing Colombia, Venezuela, and Mexican cartels with all sorts of interesting equipment and capabilities that were given to them by Europeans and by us. You would think President Trump is aware of that. I don't know if anybody tells him that, or if he'd believe it if he were told.
There is no strategic framework. There is no end state. It's all about how do we stay on top — how do we remain the world's financial hegemon and military hegemon? Well, we've just discovered that we are not the world's military hegemon. We've been defeated unambiguously. Instead of recognizing that and saying it's time to step back and reconsider what we're doing, he's talking about doubling down again. It's worse than insane.
So when you see all these globalists come out of the woodwork — I listened to Niall Ferguson the other day saying Ukraine is now in a position where it could strike back and win — I don't know of anyone who is sane, who has visited Ukraine, who thinks Ukraine has a snowball's chance in hell of winning a war against Russia. What is much more likely now is that Putin finally says that's enough, no more.
And remember, he's in a tough position. When I speak about Russia, I've always had people say, "Well, Macgregor, if the Russians can do all those things, why haven't they already won? Why haven't they crossed the river? Why haven't they entered Kiev? Why haven't they just marched west?" Nobody believes you until it's done. The burden of proof is on Russia right now to prove that it can do what it can.
There's no thinking that says, "Let's sit down, let's bring this to an end quickly. This has gone on long enough. This is not in the interest of Europe, not in the interest of Ukraine, certainly not in the interest of Russia or the United States. So how do we end this?" That should be the question. No one is talking like that. That's the tragedy.
Glenn Diesen: I think most of the public, as well as the political class — the hawks, but also many others — are just trapped by the narratives. If you argue that we should negotiate a new security architecture for Europe that also accommodates Russian security concerns, thereby removing Ukraine from the front line of a divided Europe, the pushback will be that's a pro-Russian thing to do. And instead, claiming that Ukraine is winning a war it can't win — which is destroying the country and possibly taking us to direct war with Russia — is somehow the pro-Ukrainian position. So there's no discourse around it. No one has to unpack their arguments. It's just sloganeering, very emotional sloganeering, and it's doing a lot of harm. But if Putin decides this is enough and they decide to escalate in a big way to put an end to this war, what would that escalation look like?
What a Russian escalation would look like — Odessa, Kiev, and the three-front option
Douglas Macgregor: I think first and foremost they would move to seize Odessa and transform Ukraine into a landlocked country. Ukraine historically — and if you look at the maps, most Europeans in the west or central-east Europe don't understand Eastern Europe either — is really not what Ukraine is today. It's a northern portion that reaches across to almost Kursk. It's an area, not a nation in the strict sense of the word. So stripping Odessa from it is inevitable. It was never Ukrainian, never part of Ukraine. It was founded by Tsarist armies that conquered the area and threw out the Mongols, the Tatars, and the Turks.
So the question now is what do you do at that point? If you're in the West, you're going to try to counterattack, try to throw the Russians out. Good luck — that's not going to happen. But I think the Russians can do that very quickly and very decisively. When I say quickly, the Russians are methodical, so they'll take months to do these things.
They could also very rapidly enter Kiev. They could come down from the north, from below Russia. I'm told they have tens of thousands of troops there, including something between 20,000 and 30,000 North Koreans that have not been committed to action — along with the force that is now in Kursk. And dealing with the three fortress cities in the center, those are about to fall, which means you can reorganize and reconcentrate all of these forces in Ukraine and move them wherever you want.
So I kind of see three potential moves: one is Odessa, one is across to Kiev, and another is down from Belarus towards Kiev. That can be done. How they will do it, when they will do it — those are questions I couldn't possibly answer.
Glenn Diesen: So you think taking Kiev could be a key objective then? I mean, this is the mother of all Russian cities, they say.
Douglas Macgregor: Yeah, well, it can't be ruled out. If you're sitting in Moscow right now and you're looking at the mess you've got on your hands — and the West has to deal with a government in exile that sits in Lviv — that area used to be part of Poland, Galician Poland, then it became part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, initially Austria and then Austro-Hungarian. That's one problem. And the good news is that the Poles have recently discovered Ukrainians are back up to their old tricks, and it's gotten ugly between Warsaw and Kiev — and rightly so. I mean, how many times do you have to sit there and watch these Ukrainians celebrate people that murdered 100,000 Poles before you finally wake up and smell the coffee?
From the very beginning, I talked to Russians and they all said the same thing: why don't they just turn Western Ukraine over to the Poles? Let them deal with it. And everybody would laugh and say, "Because they know if the Ukrainians hate us, they hate the Poles more than they hate us." It's going to be somebody else's problem, but let's get it off our plates.
I think you could probably sit down at a table with all the states that border Russia and Belarus right now in Europe and come up with some sort of solution everybody could live with. But you have to have rational people. Putin is rational. Warsaw is becoming more rational finally. Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia — I don't know. Those people are worrisome. The truth was they weren't badly treated under the Tsar. They'd actually had better living standards and many aspects of their society were much better off than Russia's. And finally it took Bismarck to get together and say, "Shut up. We're not coming. Get along with your neighbor." We're at this point where we should be saying similar things: get along with your damn neighbors and shut up and leave us out. But you have a president like Trump who is flattered by the thought that he is a great man who can meddle and move the chess pieces. Bad business.
Ukraine's manpower crisis, Zelensky's bluster, and the Belarus threat
Glenn Diesen: As we see there's an energy crisis in Ukraine, a manpower crisis, some fractures along the front lines — especially Zaporizhzhia is becoming a key problem now for Ukraine — and in the midst of this, Zelensky suggested that they might attack Belarus as well. How do you make sense of this? Is this just bluster to create some headlines in NATO, to show that Ukraine is winning again, or do you think they could actually go this way? Because I would think the Russian response would be quite fierce and would definitely change the dynamic of the war.
Douglas Macgregor: Oh, absolutely. Zelensky is the captain of a sinking ship. The waves are lapping over the decks. He's going under. So what can he do to survive? Well, the last thing he's going to do is make peace. The last thing he's going to do is suggest any sort of arrangement which would marginalize him and his government.
In fact, if you look at Israel right now, Israel is kind of in a similar position, although people in the West don't know it. The situation inside Israel is terrible. It's terrible inside Ukraine. There are millions of Ukrainians who are sick to death of this war. They would love to get rid of Zelensky. My impression, based on what Germans who've visited report, is that Western Ukraine is a disaster and the people there are sick to death of this whole thing and want nothing to do with it.
So what do you do? You do what Netanyahu is doing. Netanyahu says, "We will never leave Lebanon." He tells the army to dig in, set up checkpoints, build strongpoints. When you're failing badly, you don't admit that you're failing badly. You strike back with whatever you've got left until finally you go under completely. And I think that's where Ukraine is headed. Unfortunately, I think that's where the Israelis are headed too.
Glenn Diesen: So do you see any diplomatic pathway then? I mean, by comparing with Israel — I think many Russians were looking towards what happened with the war against Iran, and many of them concluded that all the negotiations were tricks by the Trump administration, that the JCPOA seems to be an initiative to buy time, because it seems very unlikely that those points will be implemented. I feel like the Russians have reached the same conclusion — that there is no diplomacy, there is no spirit of Anchorage, that it's essentially all gone. But if this is correct, that will only leave war, wouldn't it?
The "boy who cried wolf" — European escalation and the inevitability of Russian action
Douglas Macgregor: Yeah. Well, I think what happens is the boy who cried wolf — you're familiar with the story. That's what the Europeans are doing. They're crying wolf. The wolf is coming. If this nonsense doesn't stop, they'll get what they don't want. The Russians will strike back. There's no doubt about it. It should not be excluded as a possibility. They should not bet on the perpetual goodwill of President Putin. President Putin wants to do business with Europe. He wants to get along with Europe. But under the circumstances, if he can't, he'll do what he has to do to protect Russia.
So I think we're headed on that road. How far will it go? How long will it last? I don't know. Sometimes when the foreign army is at your gates, people finally wise up and want to negotiate. And that may be what happens. You'll end up with Russian forces that strike back violently and decisively. I hope not. But how else do you end this thing? Because if there's no strategy, how can there be diplomacy? What do you tell the diplomat? You know, go meet with the Russians in Geneva. Sit down there. See if you can work out a solution. The diplomat says, "Well, what do you want to achieve? What's the goal? What's the end state?" Nobody knows. Well, we want to make sure that we look victorious and the enemy looks feeble. That's what it's all about. It's optics with Trump. It's optics. That's all there is. There's nothing else.
So what are the Europeans going to do? They're trying to exploit the desire for optics by creating the myth that Ukraine is the phoenix rising from the ashes thanks to drones, and that the world will change. So please give us more money so that we can wage more war and save you and the West from the inevitable invasion coming from Moscow. It's all nonsense. Let's be frank. I hate to be so coarse at this point, but you and I and a lot of others have been talking about this for a long time. People don't listen to us. They listen to the leaders they've got in power who are selling them out every day. And until they wake up and conclude that they've got the wrong people in power, not much is going to change.
The economic breaking point — Western finances and the strategic petroleum reserve
Glenn Diesen: When you look at the economic situation, how long do you think this can go on? The main leaders in Europe are quite unpopular, the economies are quite shaky, yet they want to send more and more weapons and money to Kiev. Even the Germans have begun to express some concern about the budgets. If the economy tanks, a lot of things can go wrong. How do you see the possibility of continuing to drag on with this war, because the Europeans are still making the point that it's too early, too premature to talk about any diplomacy with the Russians — and this is four and a half years of boycotting diplomacy?
Douglas Macgregor: Well, I know that in the next twelve months, we have roughly $18 trillion in treasuries that have to be rolled over. That's an average coupon of 3.3%. The one-year Treasury now in the United States is roughly 4%. So you roll that $18 trillion today at the current level, you're looking at $49 billion in annual interest costs — and that's before you factor in the interest burden on the ongoing $2 trillion annual deficit. Glenn, I know we're broke. Let's be frank about it. We're absolutely broke.
When it comes to the oil situation, you get different interpretations, but I'm told that within the next two or three weeks, we're looking at very perilously low levels in the strategic petroleum reserve. The military privately thinks that we need at least 240 million barrels in order to be prepared to do much of anything. I don't know where we are now, but I know we're getting close.
I imagine the situation in Europe is as bad, if not worse. The gilts in London — which is the English word for treasuries — are in a lot of trouble. I don't think the economy there is going to hold up much longer. In France, I think everything depends upon the same thing as it does in Germany. If you're in Germany or France, you're waiting for your check to arrive from the government. Where's my pension check, so that I can go on vacation or do X, Y, and Z? When that stops, when that's disrupted, when that's interrupted, then all hell will break loose. That's much more important to people in Europe, as you know, than what happens in Russia.
Glenn Diesen: No, when the economy goes, the priorities obviously begin to shift quite quickly. But until that happens, there are contradictions — because on one hand we keep saying Ukraine is winning and turned the tide, and on the other hand we see the need to escalate in a big way, with strikes often from NATO territories with weapons targeted by our intelligence. Now another new development is that Finland has changed their laws so they can store nuclear weapons on their territory — not their own. Do you think this could be part of Trump's pivot back into the Ukraine war — actually stationing nuclear weapons in Finland? Because it would be hard to predict what kind of consequences this would have.
Finland's nuclear decision and the globalist framework driving European policy
Douglas Macgregor: Well, it's very reckless obviously. The Finns have done a land-office business with Russia for decades, benefited enormously from cross-border trade with the Russians. They shut it all down and shot themselves in the foot, much like the Germans. Why they would feel the need to have a nuclear weapon on their soil when the Russians have not threatened them nor expressed any interest in doing so — now, the Russians on the other hand are going to look at this and feel that they then have to station forces, including nuclear-capable forces, nearby so that they can neutralize Finland. What a disaster. This is just insane.
But if you are buying the globalist argument — remember the globalist argument is very simple: Russia is evil and bad because it has national character, national identity, national culture, borders that it protects, and it refuses to submit to all of the trends and wishes that we've been listening to from the European globalists. Somebody said, "Well, what does Russia have to do to be welcomed in the globalist committee in Europe?" And I said, "Well, I guess they all have to become transgender persons and advocate for boys and girls sports or something." This sort of lunacy — it's kind of 1919-1920 Bolshevism on steroids. That's not going to happen obviously.
And the people that are running Europe right now are globalists. They're all part of the same ruling elite class — globalists sitting in Washington DC, an hour plus from where I live — and they are very much of the same mindframe. Now, do most Americans who vote support these things? No. Do most Americans want them? No. It doesn't matter. In other words, democracy itself in the Western sense has become a meaningless facade. We have no control over the people that actually govern us anymore.
So the only way out of this, I think, in the short run — not just the long run, but the short run — is bankruptcy. And that's where the West is heading. Most of it. I think President Putin wisely has waited for this to happen. It just hasn't come about yet and he's disappointed, hoping it would come sooner rather than later.
All you have to do is go back to Alice Weidel. She gave a wonderful speech a couple of weeks ago in the Bundestag. She enumerated all of these problems and then she said, "What's the first thing we're going to do? Well, the first thing we're going to do is go to Moscow. We're going to renegotiate our arrangements with Moscow, our relationship with that country." She absolutely rejects the globalist threat picture, and she's right to do so. Then we've got to get control of our own country — of who's in it and the rule of law. Germany used to be a wonderful place where you could walk across any major city in that country twenty, twenty-five years ago at 3:00 in the morning and fear nothing. Not anymore. And that's what the AfD is about. And they're not the only ones. These elements are all over Europe. But the governments remain in power. They have to be removed. And the only way that I see that occurring right now is as described — the checks do not show up in the mail.
The only exit — US withdrawal and the end of the war
Glenn Diesen: The former adviser of Zelensky, Arestovych, made a similar comment — that if he would run for president of Ukraine, the first thing he would do if he won would be to go to Moscow and promise that Ukraine would never again be used as a front line by NATO against Russia, and he would also accept painful territorial concessions. For me, at least someone's talking about doing something about removing the threat to Russia. It's kind of strange now, especially in Europe, where the assumption is that Russia is imperialist, so any attempt to even talk to it will just appease and reward Putin. But you can't challenge this — there is no debate at all. That kind of takes me to my last question: how do you see this war ending? How does Europe look after this war? Because I can't see a possible end to the war — even if everything east of the Dnieper River falls to Russia, why would the Europeans or the US want to give up a proxy where they can just, as long as there's something called a resistance in Ukraine, launch drones and missiles into Russia and continue to try to weaken it. So how does this war actually come to an end?
Douglas Macgregor: Well, Glenn, you know that we Americans have this unfortunate habit of utilizing the Central Intelligence Agency to influence elections, and we have influenced recent elections in Europe. I think the leadership in Romania and Moldova would certainly be different from what you see right now had we not meddled in those countries. I think there are several leaders at the top of NATO who are compromised, who are effectively agents for US interests — tools of the CIA. This is not new. This is not a revelation, although some people will be surprised to hear it. The point is that has to end. And how do you get rid of these people? Well, you have to wake up the populations, get them to recognize the criticality of their interests.
You're beginning to see that in Germany for the first time since the 1970s, when we went through the debate about the theater or intermediate-range nuclear force — the INF — before we got to the treaty. Helmut Schmidt came in, took over the government, and steered Germany in support of it, which at the time was the right thing to do. But there were people then saying it's time for us to become neutral. Well, it wasn't a good time for that — a good time would have been right after the Second World War or certainly in the early 1950s. But that opportunity was missed. Maybe in the future. I think I see the Germans now moving back in that direction, recognizing that they do have core national interests and those have to be respected.
So when you say how does this end — I think it ends when we pack up our things and go home. Number one, we leave. We butt out. Somebody said to me, "When does this war with Iran end? If the JCPOA is not worth the paper it's written on, how does it end?" It ends when we sail away, when we fly away — because remember, we don't live there. This is what Europeans need to remember. We don't live there. Charles de Gaulle kept trying to tell them that Americans do not live in Europe. He's right. So we pack up our things and say that's enough. We can't afford to stay. We're leaving.
By the way, that's something that privately President Trump wanted to do back four, five, six years ago when he was in office — didn't know how to do it, but he wanted to disengage. Not commercially — we continue to do business, we want to be partners — but we want to get out of this business of garrisoning other people's countries. Dismantle it. It's an anachronism. It's being demonstrated that it is an anachronism in the Persian Gulf. All the forces that we put on the ground in Europe today — supposedly there to protect Europeans from an imminent Russian invasion — they would all be eliminated in the opening minutes of any war by precision-guided missiles and unmanned systems. Warfare has changed. It doesn't work anymore. We need to get out.
That doesn't mean Europe is defenseless, because what Iran has done, every European country can do. And the European alliances that want to exist, that will work with each other, that are culturally comfortable with each other — and I think that's very important in Europe where they share certain interests — they can build the kind of capability that Iran has built, that defeated us. So this can all be done. But as long as we're there, as long as we have our fingers in this, and as long as we're putting up money, it's going to be very difficult to get around that.
So I always say we've got to go. And I don't say that meaning I want my country to fail — that has nothing to do with it. We've got to get out, and when we do, it will end. And I think that's what President Putin understands. And that's why I think you're going to see some military action coming in the near future. I don't know how decisive it will be. I hope it's enough to persuade the Europeans it's time to sit down and put an end to this and have some serious talks.
You know, it's funny — I remember you in particular, years ago when we started talking about this stuff, who said the longer you wait for talks, the longer you wait to negotiate, the worse outcome you're going to get. People didn't seem to listen. And we act as though we won against Iran. We keep talking about Iran having to meet these requirements. Really? They won. We didn't. That's what Vice President Vance is telling everybody. Now, what are you going to do — tell Putin that he has to fulfill these obligations or we're not going to talk to him? He's winning. Now, if people don't believe he's winning, then he needs to demonstrate pretty conclusively that he is. I think that's where we're headed. It could be in the very near future as well.
Glenn Diesen: Anyways, we already ran out of time, so thank you as always for sharing your insights, Colonel. Much appreciated.
Douglas Macgregor: All right, Glenn. Thank you. Nice to see you.