00:00:00
Speaker 1: The Talk Station. 829-55KRC, The Talk Station. Very happy Tuesday to you. Always a special time of the week to be tuning in or listening to the 55KRC Morning Show or checking out the podcast later in the day, 55KRC. iHeart. com. It's that time of the week where we get the alliterative Daniel Davis deep dive. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis offering up all his knowledge and wisdom and tapping into his resources to give us updates about the various wars going on in the world. Welcome back, my friend, Daniel Davis. It's always good to have you on the program.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: And it's always good to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me back.
00:00:30
Speaker 1: And forgive me a little bit for not being as up-to-date on the conflicts, the various conflicts. Really been focusing a lot on the upcoming election. We've got a hell of a battle going on here in the state of Ohio, so it's been dominating the morning show news. But I know it's still going on over there, and the challenges seem to be getting a little bit bigger. One of the developments which... I thought was interesting. Uh, Egypt is now decided to, has decided to send troops into Saudi Arabia to defend against the Houthi rebel attacks that have been going on for some time now. And I think talking to you, the Houthis are a substantial military presence. I'm hundreds of thousands of Houthis that are, that are waging this kind of this war against Saudi and, and, and, and they're doing it primarily because we have a presence in Saudi Arabia is, is that correct?
00:01:16
Speaker 2: Uh, Partially. It's not really about us, actually. There are definitely hundreds of thousands, and apparently they're mobilizing more. It could be north of half a million here shortly, if it's not already. This is an issue that goes back for many, many years, and actually decades, between Ansar Allah, the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia. And it was sparked when Saudi Arabia attacked the airport at Sana'a last August, when the Supreme Leader's funeral was going on, and they were sending a delegation there. that sparked, re-sparked, because they had been in a ceasefire since 2022, and now it's come back into a hot phase. You mentioned about Egypt. We'll see what actually comes about from that, how many troops and what kind of troops. That's kind of important because Egypt itself has some bad experience in the past with the Houthis in Yemen. So I doubt that they're going to sign up to be putting a lot of combat power. But I don't think that all of Saudi Arabia's allies together have enough ground forces to be able to stop Ansar Allah on the ground. And Ansar Allah may take even three Saudi provinces on the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia because they're at real risk right now.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: Well, which sort of brings to mind Russia going into the Ukraine and taking over a chunk of Ukraine. Are we going to be doing this now? Is this what we should expect in the future? Because that's a real new development, Daniel Davis.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there was, I mean, I would say just think about last year, last May, when President Trump went to Saudi Arabia and on this whole Middle East tour. And, man, it looked like the whole Gulf Arab countries and the whole Emirates were all this strength, the bastion of strength and economic power and oil and all that. Right. And all these deals that were going to be done. And now then just barely a year, a little over a year later, the whole place is on fire and potentially falling apart in Saudi Arabia itself. is genuinely at risk of a dissolution, both from fracturing inside and then from the external pressure of the Houthis. So it's just hard to believe how much change is coming. So at least right now, yeah, there are some real problems, and you could add Iraq to that if you wanted to.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Well, go ahead and add Iraq to that now. How do they factor into this equation?
00:03:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the United States finally completed its final withdrawal, so that took a lot of the pressure off. off of the Iraqi government, but it also opened up some space. And by the way, I'm definitely for the withdrawal, and I applaud President Trump for doing so, because all it did is make it more difficult, not even impossible, for the Iran-backed militia, which are part of the official Iraqi security forces. They may actually take action against Saudi Arabia, too. And you may recall before we left, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia together attacked forces inside of Iraq, which just kind of stirred that pot up, in my personal opinion. So now there are three separate directions that Saudi Arabia is at risk from, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen.
00:04:16
Speaker 1: Where are we relative to our military strategy just with Iran? I mean, ignoring the chaos that's unfolding all around the area, I, again, keep hearing these– suggestions or veiled or otherwise or out loud, overt suggestions that the kinetic activity, the bombing is going to start and that really don't know when these threats keep coming from Donald Trump. But we always you and I always go back to the practical reality. It sounds great to the rabid mob out there that just wants to roll over Iran as if it would be an easy thing. It's not. It never has become easier. We still have, you know, a country that's two and a half times the size of Texas. We have limited arms that we can use. They have a seemingly unlimited number of drones and missiles they can rely on. It's just day after day status quo and week after week, as far as you and I are concerned, or rather year after year we're getting on. Daniel, has anything changed at all?
00:05:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there are really contradictory signals coming not just out of the White House, but out of President Trump himself, because on the one hand, he, I think on Sunday, made a pretty strong statement that, you know, hey, they're either going to make a deal or we're going to go in and finish the job, etc., But then he also said, I think the day before, he said, or maybe we could just do nothing. You just let them wither on the vine and just let this go indefinitely until they eventually just starve out or the economy finally collapses because of our Operation Economic Fury or whatever they're calling it today. So we don't really know. I can tell you, though. For anyone who thinks that, no, go finish the job, then you have to explain how, if you're going to have the same weapons, the same missiles, the same rockets going against the same targets on these mountains and underneath these mountains that didn't work in two kinetic rounds already, and actually three if you go back to 2025, then you have to say, why would you want to go back again and expect a different outcome?
00:06:06
Speaker 1: Because here's the key thing.
00:06:07
Speaker 2: Whereas we don't have any new targets to go after of military significance, meaning where the missiles and drones are located, Iran does have additional targets it has not attacked from our side, which are very much out in the open and vulnerable, like economic targets, energy targets, desalination plants, etc. All are indefensible from us. So we don't want to go down this path because we can't knock them out and we can suffer a lot more harm.
00:06:33
Speaker 1: Well, and that brought to mind these easy-to-hit military targets or United States-affiliated targets. That could be anywhere in the United States, too. And I saw the Pentagon... released this doomsday scenario, this fortress, unprecedented planned branded fortress, which is hardening our military bases so they can be self-sufficient, have their own energy, their own stockpiles. In other words, be able to live off a grid that they expect is going to be taken out by the Chinese Communist Party or some foreign actor who's hacked into our systems. I mean, we are open targets. The oceans of the world don't protect us like they used to anymore, Daniel Davis. Do you have any concerns along those lines? This could expand, the Iranians would look beyond the region and start targeting American interests literally anywhere they happen to be?
00:07:18
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why that worries me. Not because of Iran. Iran doesn't have the capacity to do that. There are only two states on the planet that have the capacity to prompt that kind of protection on American bases throughout the continental United States, and that is Russia and China. And the fact that they're talking about doing this right now makes me worry. Do they know something that we don't know yet? Because to The level of protection and expansion of the infrastructure and to be able to sustain for 90 days on.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Not just get a cyber attack somewhere. We've got a pretty good system against those, obviously. And for Iran itself, they wouldn't do that because, number one, they don't have the capacity. And all they're interested in is to get the United States out of the Middle East. And to do that at the lowest cost, striking the continental United States they know would almost certainly prompt a nuclear weapon. So they're not going to do that. It's not in their interest. You don't have to trust them or anything else. But if we're getting ready like that, I'm worried about the two nations that can do something and do have the capacity. And I just don't know if they know something we don't know.
00:08:23
Speaker 1: Well, the timing was rather suspicious because the British Defense Secretary, Wes Streeting, said his country needs to be ready within 1,000 days and advised citizens to stock up on essential supplies. because of these same kind of veiled threats. Now, he did specifically say Russia, which is one of the reasons why I bring this up. The timing with the warning here in the United States is a concern, and they're warning the British population about this. But I think this has to be concerning them more beyond Russia, because as you and I have talked about, the likelihood of Russia launching a war against a NATO country is pretty slim, unless your perception of that has changed. So maybe they're concerned as well.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: Well, Streeting actually, and I'm going to be showing this on my show here in a couple of hours, he met with his Polish counterpart, and it was either this morning or yesterday, and he did expressly say, we have to be ready for war against Russia because they're a terrorist state. So he specifically named them, at least in this particular iteration here. And Russia is never going to attack Europe and NATO unless Europe and NATO continue to press attacks into Russia via– So we're playing with fire. When we continue to support Ukraine, which can never win this war, it's definitely impossible for them to do so.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: But it is.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: Possible for us to expand the war if we keep striking long enough and hard enough. And also yesterday, this is critically important and possibly related to this development of the United States. Karaganov, who was a well-known kind of far-right figure in Russia, openly advocated the use of nuclear weapons against the West as a means of restoring deterrence. And he said, we should not be afraid of using them. We could win a war in Europe in three days.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: A nuclear war.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: He thinks they can win it. Now, he's been out on the right. The problem is, from some other sources I have, his thoughts are more centrist.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: In Russia now.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: And he has a direct line to President Putin. So we can never rule out that they may finally get tired enough and say, you know what, we're just going to have to go. So we should not unnecessarily poke the bear if it's not going to help us out.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: Well, and I think most people when they consider attack, they think about bombs being dropped, people, you know, forces invading. But I would argue, and I think I may be on solid ground here, even though I'm just pulling this out of my sphincter, you could probably do as much damage as a nuclear weapon by just shutting off the electric grid. People will die. Chaos will ensue. You can't get access to your bank accounts. Grocery stores won't be open anymore. I mean, the entire society would come to a screeching halt if the energy system were to completely go under. That, to me, is a bigger threat than even a bomb.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, that idea is definitely on the minds of many Russian thinkers right now. And they are even saying that. They're saying, listen, We don't need to have an army to go invade NATO. If that's what you guys, if you're forcing one on us, we would go with our ballistic missiles. We would go with our arrestings. We would go with our hypersonics. And they have openly said we would hit your economic centers, your banking centers, your electric centers, and your factories to produce long-range drones and missiles. I mean, they would go after those specific things. And you're right. That would literally just bring our economic to a standstill, aside from all the other problems that are already out there. Now, Russia is vulnerable, too, but that's not helping anybody if we get into a war that we can't win and could cause that much damage for a country that has no interest or ability to invade us. So we need to cool the jets and start talking a lot more about diplomacy.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: Well, I concur with you on that. And that's about as far as we're going to get towards solutions today, Daniel Davis. We keep trying. Someday it'll happen. You and I'll come up with the answer to everyone's problems and We'll just go on.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: We will.
00:12:10
Speaker 1: Find something else to do with our days. Daniel Davis, Deep Dive. Find his podcast wherever you get your podcasts and tune in every week to the 55KRC Morning Show at 830 for another thoughtful analysis. Thank you again, Daniel Davis. I appreciate your time on the program.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: See you then.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Take care. 841-55KRC, the talk station. We're going to ask an expert. Like Steve from USA is going to come in. Got something to tell you about. Don't go away. More to talk about.
Speaker 1: The Talk Station. 829-55KRC, The Talk Station. Very happy Tuesday to you. Always a special time of the week to be tuning in or listening to the 55KRC Morning Show or checking out the podcast later in the day, 55KRC. iHeart. com. It's that time of the week where we get the alliterative Daniel Davis deep dive. Retired Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis offering up all his knowledge and wisdom and tapping into his resources to give us updates about the various wars going on in the world. Welcome back, my friend, Daniel Davis. It's always good to have you on the program.
00:00:27
Speaker 2: And it's always good to be here, Brian. Thanks for having me back.
00:00:30
Speaker 1: And forgive me a little bit for not being as up-to-date on the conflicts, the various conflicts. Really been focusing a lot on the upcoming election. We've got a hell of a battle going on here in the state of Ohio, so it's been dominating the morning show news. But I know it's still going on over there, and the challenges seem to be getting a little bit bigger. One of the developments which... I thought was interesting. Uh, Egypt is now decided to, has decided to send troops into Saudi Arabia to defend against the Houthi rebel attacks that have been going on for some time now. And I think talking to you, the Houthis are a substantial military presence. I'm hundreds of thousands of Houthis that are, that are waging this kind of this war against Saudi and, and, and, and they're doing it primarily because we have a presence in Saudi Arabia is, is that correct?
00:01:16
Speaker 2: Uh, Partially. It's not really about us, actually. There are definitely hundreds of thousands, and apparently they're mobilizing more. It could be north of half a million here shortly, if it's not already. This is an issue that goes back for many, many years, and actually decades, between Ansar Allah, the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia. And it was sparked when Saudi Arabia attacked the airport at Sana'a last August, when the Supreme Leader's funeral was going on, and they were sending a delegation there. that sparked, re-sparked, because they had been in a ceasefire since 2022, and now it's come back into a hot phase. You mentioned about Egypt. We'll see what actually comes about from that, how many troops and what kind of troops. That's kind of important because Egypt itself has some bad experience in the past with the Houthis in Yemen. So I doubt that they're going to sign up to be putting a lot of combat power. But I don't think that all of Saudi Arabia's allies together have enough ground forces to be able to stop Ansar Allah on the ground. And Ansar Allah may take even three Saudi provinces on the southwest corner of Saudi Arabia because they're at real risk right now.
00:02:26
Speaker 1: Well, which sort of brings to mind Russia going into the Ukraine and taking over a chunk of Ukraine. Are we going to be doing this now? Is this what we should expect in the future? Because that's a real new development, Daniel Davis.
00:02:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there was, I mean, I would say just think about last year, last May, when President Trump went to Saudi Arabia and on this whole Middle East tour. And, man, it looked like the whole Gulf Arab countries and the whole Emirates were all this strength, the bastion of strength and economic power and oil and all that. Right. And all these deals that were going to be done. And now then just barely a year, a little over a year later, the whole place is on fire and potentially falling apart in Saudi Arabia itself. is genuinely at risk of a dissolution, both from fracturing inside and then from the external pressure of the Houthis. So it's just hard to believe how much change is coming. So at least right now, yeah, there are some real problems, and you could add Iraq to that if you wanted to.
00:03:23
Speaker 1: Well, go ahead and add Iraq to that now. How do they factor into this equation?
00:03:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, so the United States finally completed its final withdrawal, so that took a lot of the pressure off. off of the Iraqi government, but it also opened up some space. And by the way, I'm definitely for the withdrawal, and I applaud President Trump for doing so, because all it did is make it more difficult, not even impossible, for the Iran-backed militia, which are part of the official Iraqi security forces. They may actually take action against Saudi Arabia, too. And you may recall before we left, the U.S. and Saudi Arabia together attacked forces inside of Iraq, which just kind of stirred that pot up, in my personal opinion. So now there are three separate directions that Saudi Arabia is at risk from, Iran, Iraq, and Yemen.
00:04:16
Speaker 1: Where are we relative to our military strategy just with Iran? I mean, ignoring the chaos that's unfolding all around the area, I, again, keep hearing these– suggestions or veiled or otherwise or out loud, overt suggestions that the kinetic activity, the bombing is going to start and that really don't know when these threats keep coming from Donald Trump. But we always you and I always go back to the practical reality. It sounds great to the rabid mob out there that just wants to roll over Iran as if it would be an easy thing. It's not. It never has become easier. We still have, you know, a country that's two and a half times the size of Texas. We have limited arms that we can use. They have a seemingly unlimited number of drones and missiles they can rely on. It's just day after day status quo and week after week, as far as you and I are concerned, or rather year after year we're getting on. Daniel, has anything changed at all?
00:05:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, there are really contradictory signals coming not just out of the White House, but out of President Trump himself, because on the one hand, he, I think on Sunday, made a pretty strong statement that, you know, hey, they're either going to make a deal or we're going to go in and finish the job, etc., But then he also said, I think the day before, he said, or maybe we could just do nothing. You just let them wither on the vine and just let this go indefinitely until they eventually just starve out or the economy finally collapses because of our Operation Economic Fury or whatever they're calling it today. So we don't really know. I can tell you, though. For anyone who thinks that, no, go finish the job, then you have to explain how, if you're going to have the same weapons, the same missiles, the same rockets going against the same targets on these mountains and underneath these mountains that didn't work in two kinetic rounds already, and actually three if you go back to 2025, then you have to say, why would you want to go back again and expect a different outcome?
00:06:06
Speaker 1: Because here's the key thing.
00:06:07
Speaker 2: Whereas we don't have any new targets to go after of military significance, meaning where the missiles and drones are located, Iran does have additional targets it has not attacked from our side, which are very much out in the open and vulnerable, like economic targets, energy targets, desalination plants, etc. All are indefensible from us. So we don't want to go down this path because we can't knock them out and we can suffer a lot more harm.
00:06:33
Speaker 1: Well, and that brought to mind these easy-to-hit military targets or United States-affiliated targets. That could be anywhere in the United States, too. And I saw the Pentagon... released this doomsday scenario, this fortress, unprecedented planned branded fortress, which is hardening our military bases so they can be self-sufficient, have their own energy, their own stockpiles. In other words, be able to live off a grid that they expect is going to be taken out by the Chinese Communist Party or some foreign actor who's hacked into our systems. I mean, we are open targets. The oceans of the world don't protect us like they used to anymore, Daniel Davis. Do you have any concerns along those lines? This could expand, the Iranians would look beyond the region and start targeting American interests literally anywhere they happen to be?
00:07:18
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why that worries me. Not because of Iran. Iran doesn't have the capacity to do that. There are only two states on the planet that have the capacity to prompt that kind of protection on American bases throughout the continental United States, and that is Russia and China. And the fact that they're talking about doing this right now makes me worry. Do they know something that we don't know yet? Because to The level of protection and expansion of the infrastructure and to be able to sustain for 90 days on.
00:07:50
Speaker 2: Not just get a cyber attack somewhere. We've got a pretty good system against those, obviously. And for Iran itself, they wouldn't do that because, number one, they don't have the capacity. And all they're interested in is to get the United States out of the Middle East. And to do that at the lowest cost, striking the continental United States they know would almost certainly prompt a nuclear weapon. So they're not going to do that. It's not in their interest. You don't have to trust them or anything else. But if we're getting ready like that, I'm worried about the two nations that can do something and do have the capacity. And I just don't know if they know something we don't know.
00:08:23
Speaker 1: Well, the timing was rather suspicious because the British Defense Secretary, Wes Streeting, said his country needs to be ready within 1,000 days and advised citizens to stock up on essential supplies. because of these same kind of veiled threats. Now, he did specifically say Russia, which is one of the reasons why I bring this up. The timing with the warning here in the United States is a concern, and they're warning the British population about this. But I think this has to be concerning them more beyond Russia, because as you and I have talked about, the likelihood of Russia launching a war against a NATO country is pretty slim, unless your perception of that has changed. So maybe they're concerned as well.
00:09:02
Speaker 2: Well, Streeting actually, and I'm going to be showing this on my show here in a couple of hours, he met with his Polish counterpart, and it was either this morning or yesterday, and he did expressly say, we have to be ready for war against Russia because they're a terrorist state. So he specifically named them, at least in this particular iteration here. And Russia is never going to attack Europe and NATO unless Europe and NATO continue to press attacks into Russia via– So we're playing with fire. When we continue to support Ukraine, which can never win this war, it's definitely impossible for them to do so.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: But it is.
00:09:42
Speaker 2: Possible for us to expand the war if we keep striking long enough and hard enough. And also yesterday, this is critically important and possibly related to this development of the United States. Karaganov, who was a well-known kind of far-right figure in Russia, openly advocated the use of nuclear weapons against the West as a means of restoring deterrence. And he said, we should not be afraid of using them. We could win a war in Europe in three days.
00:10:10
Speaker 1: A nuclear war.
00:10:10
Speaker 2: He thinks they can win it. Now, he's been out on the right. The problem is, from some other sources I have, his thoughts are more centrist.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: In Russia now.
00:10:20
Speaker 2: And he has a direct line to President Putin. So we can never rule out that they may finally get tired enough and say, you know what, we're just going to have to go. So we should not unnecessarily poke the bear if it's not going to help us out.
00:10:33
Speaker 1: Well, and I think most people when they consider attack, they think about bombs being dropped, people, you know, forces invading. But I would argue, and I think I may be on solid ground here, even though I'm just pulling this out of my sphincter, you could probably do as much damage as a nuclear weapon by just shutting off the electric grid. People will die. Chaos will ensue. You can't get access to your bank accounts. Grocery stores won't be open anymore. I mean, the entire society would come to a screeching halt if the energy system were to completely go under. That, to me, is a bigger threat than even a bomb.
00:11:06
Speaker 2: And I'll tell you, that idea is definitely on the minds of many Russian thinkers right now. And they are even saying that. They're saying, listen, We don't need to have an army to go invade NATO. If that's what you guys, if you're forcing one on us, we would go with our ballistic missiles. We would go with our arrestings. We would go with our hypersonics. And they have openly said we would hit your economic centers, your banking centers, your electric centers, and your factories to produce long-range drones and missiles. I mean, they would go after those specific things. And you're right. That would literally just bring our economic to a standstill, aside from all the other problems that are already out there. Now, Russia is vulnerable, too, but that's not helping anybody if we get into a war that we can't win and could cause that much damage for a country that has no interest or ability to invade us. So we need to cool the jets and start talking a lot more about diplomacy.
00:12:00
Speaker 1: Well, I concur with you on that. And that's about as far as we're going to get towards solutions today, Daniel Davis. We keep trying. Someday it'll happen. You and I'll come up with the answer to everyone's problems and We'll just go on.
00:12:09
Speaker 2: We will.
00:12:10
Speaker 1: Find something else to do with our days. Daniel Davis, Deep Dive. Find his podcast wherever you get your podcasts and tune in every week to the 55KRC Morning Show at 830 for another thoughtful analysis. Thank you again, Daniel Davis. I appreciate your time on the program.
00:12:21
Speaker 2: See you then.
00:12:22
Speaker 1: Take care. 841-55KRC, the talk station. We're going to ask an expert. Like Steve from USA is going to come in. Got something to tell you about. Don't go away. More to talk about.
