Is the United States a a ground a land

power?

>> It is in the uh Western Hemisphere, but

it isn't in the Middle East. It

certainly isn't in Europe. You remember

back during the Cold War, one of the

reasons we maintained a force on the

ground in Germany

of 275,000

troops was that we realized we couldn't

bring that many forces into a crisis

early.

In other words, once the crisis began,

you had too many Soviet submarines

cruising the Atlantic that would prevent

any reinforcements. So, you you bet

heavily that this force in place ahead

of time would be helpful.

What we've now discovered is that if you

put something like that forward today in

Germany in the first hour of any future

conflict, the missiles will penetrate

whatever air defenses you've got and

utterly destroy the force on the ground.

So, the whole idea of

picking up and moving hundreds of

thousands of troops to another theater

beyond the Western Hemisphere, I think

that's it's a dead issue. It's the same

thing with amphibious operations. If you

think you're going to

mount another Normandy invasion again,

you know, whatever you concentrate in

England would be identified quickly and

then annihilated with missiles. And if

you tried to cross the channel,

everybody would be hits midstream and

you'd lose all the vessels.

>> Mhm.

>> You know, Eisenhower forecast this in

the 1950s. He told people this.

It's one of the reasons he said this

whole idea of NATO doesn't make a great

deal of sense and if it's still around

in 10 years, we failed. His point was

militarily, this is not going to work.

He was right. It doesn't. That era is

over. That's why the whole idea of going

back into the Gulf now is silly. We It's

been demonstrated. We can't protect any

of those bases. So, now we should spend

billions of dollars rebuilding those

bases again that we can't protect and

then put more soldiers, sailors, airmen,

or Marines at risk in them? It doesn't

make any sense. That's why this entire

negotiation with Iran,

I don't know if I I'd call it a

negotiation.

We've lost the strategic initiative. We

have been defeated militarily. So, just

how much can we demand? I don't think we

can demand much of anything at all, and

yet we we continue to act as though we

can.

>> [snorts]

>> Can the United States disengage from the

Middle East?

>> Uh well, I think the question to that or

the answer to that question is is

really.

Uh if President Trump wants to withdraw

us, he can withdraw us.

That's not impossible at all. In fact,

it makes a lot of sense.

For all the reasons that I just

outlined, it makes no sense at all to

try and get back in there.

We need to come to terms with the people

that run the straight. I mean, the Turks

have just raised the the fees for the

Bosphorus by 15%. They control the the

Dardanelles.

That's worked. They maintain it. They

ensure the waterways are operational.

The traffic moves quickly.

Uh I think the Iranians and Omanis can

do the same thing. Right now, our on the

hill, the hatred of the of the Iranians

in particular is at an all-time high

because of the addition to not liking

them for a whole range of reasons that

they'll tell you that are all Israeli,

they're angry that the Iranians have

defeated us militarily.

But, the point is uh there's

there's no point in trying to get back

in there and and reenact the stupidity

that got us into the problem in the

first place. But, you've got Israel, and

the Israelis are going to do everything

in their power to keep us there.

If our departure is viewed as an

existential threat to Israel,