The Military America Needs
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Last week, President Joe Biden finally, one might say belatedly, gave the Ukrainians permission to use American-supplied Atacoms, long-range missiles, to conduct strikes against military targets in Russia. That made Vladimir Putin very angry. There are those who argue that we should be careful not to anger or provoke Vladimir Putin, and that if Putin issues threats, well, then we had better back down.

Putin has reportedly recruited hundreds of Yemenis to fight in its war against the Ukrainians. And a company linked to the Tehran-backed Houthi rebels has reportedly facilitated this recruitment.

The Houthis also reportedly are being told that they'll receive Russian weapons in exchange, weapons the Houthis can use to target commercial shipping and the American Navy vessels deployed to guarantee freedom of the seas among the most basic of international laws.

Putin also has imported some 10,000 North Korean soldiers who he's deploying against Ukrainians. I think the last time that troops from that far east came to kill and conquer Slavs, they were on horseback and using bows and arrows. Now, if I'm wrong about that, Mark Montgomery will tell me. As you may know by now, he served 32 years in the U.S. Navy, right, retiring as a rear admiral. He recently visited Ukraine, where he provided military advice there.

We had a foreign policy conversation about that. If you missed it, I'd urge you to give a listen when you can. Mark is senior director of FDD's Cyber Center and works closely with Brad Bowman, who runs FDD's Military Center. Mark has a new essay in a report published by our friends at the Vandenberg Coalition and the McCain Institute. The report features eight thought leaders, two of them from FDD. Matt Zweig, senior director of policy at FDD Action, is the other.

Adam O. Montgomery is here with me in our small but well-appointed studio. I'm Cliff May and I'm glad you could join us too here on Foreign Podesty. So welcome, Monty. So first of all, am I right about what I just said? Yeah, I'm going to go with Genghis Khan. That's what I'm thinking of, right? Yeah, thanks for having me though, Cliff. I appreciate the opportunity. By the way, before we get a little wonky...

The Mongols used stirrups, which was a great innovation. They didn't have those in Europe. They were metal and leather, and it allowed them to balance on horseback without holding the reins so they could more easily and accurately aim their bows and arrows. And by the way, from what I can find out, the stirrups were in fact invented either in China or Korea or both.

So a little bit of military history as a bonus here for- Right next to fireworks on the great inventions from the Chinese. Okay. All right. And then it goes from stirrups to attackums, hop, skip, and a jump. You know what I mean? Yeah. All right, getting serious. Look, isn't the most important national security question this simple? Do we deter our enemies or do our enemies deter us? I mean, it seems to me that when dealing with

If we have an America that is to be great again, Putin and others like him should be the ones who are reluctant to provoke. And if push comes to shove, they should be the ones to back down.

Cliff, you're exactly right. This is, at its core, a question of deterrence. The question of, are we, as a strong, powerful country, committed to a series of values about freedom, transparency, democracy, rule of law when it comes to international trade? If we're committed to those principles, then we can't be deterred by bullies. And there are four bullies out there right now. We have to always look...

In the past, we've said, well, we have these group of adversaries. I think if you go back to President George W. Bush, he had his axis of evil. I think we really do have four adversaries now. It's beyond transactional now. They are sharing equipment, personnel, information, economic, military, diplomatic support. It is the definition of an alliance.

And whether they have a treaty signed between them or not, by their actions, we're working against China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran. And we're seeing this in Ukraine, and we're seeing it in Israel. Both those countries are fighting all four of those countries simultaneously.

And those, you know, who say, well, but it's only transactional. And I agree with you, it's not. I mean, and that their ideologies are different, and they are. I mean, so what? You can't say that the Japanese, the Italian fascists, and the German Nazis saw the world exactly the same way. It didn't really matter. They had similar goals or goals that were mutually supportive of one another. And here the goal is very clearly, whether it's

Xi Jinping or Vladimir Putin or Ali Khamenei or Kim Jong-un.

They want the U.S. to become a has-been power. They want, in a way, what the isolationists want, get America to retreat within its own borders, between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and leave the rest of the world to us. That's what we want, and we can get them to do. One of the ways they're talking about this, I need to write a column on this to flesh this out, is you'll see a lot of people, isolationists,

The Chinese communists, others talking about we're moving into a multipolar world. And a multipolar world really means Americans really have no more clout than anybody else. But it doesn't mean that over time the four, the axis of aggressors you're talking about don't have most of the clout at the UN in terms of trade, in terms of taking over lands of others that they covet, all of that.

Well, no, I agree. I agree completely. And when I go...

Look, when you start giving troops into combat, you've moved beyond transactional. Now, I'm not talking the Yemenis here who, by the way, enjoy the winter in Russia. It'll be a wake up call. But on top of it, I've always felt Iran is more than happy to fight Israel to the last year, many they can find. Right. But the North Korean is different. He's sending, by his definition, crack troops into combat. They're not come and people like, well, they'll get this training. No, they won't. They will get trained and then they will get killed.

The average survival rate on the Russian front lines, the Russian-Ukrainian front lines for Russian soldiers is extremely low. The death or significant injury rate is extremely high. They're losing 1,100 soldiers a year. Not a year. Excuse me, a day. So 1,100 a day. These 12,000 soldiers, 11,500 soldiers are 10 days worth of combat casualties. Now, they'll last longer than 10 days in combat because

of distribution. But this is a commitment from North Korea well beyond transactional. They're going to get something back for it. I understand that. Well, that's important. Yeah. But this is beyond that. Look, if this is a transactional alliance, then I fear transactional alliances. Yeah. Right? Let's put it that way. I don't care how you define it. They're sharing. Look, China's

to Russia appears to be the most benign, but it's the most important. They're backstopping the economy. They're buying the oil and natural gas that Europe and the United States are sanctioning. And they're doing it in a way that makes the Chinese economy stronger because it's at a lower price. The Russian economy surviving

that's oil-soaked, natural gas-fueled economy that my old boss, John McCain, called a gas station operating, masquerading as a nation state, going so that they can put an unbelievable amount of money as a percentage of GDP into their defense. China is effectively backstopping the Russian war effort. And so, yes, it's transactional, but no, it can't be dismissed.

Right, right. And what the North Koreans, what Kim Jong-un wants in return, I would assume, is technology and help with his—he already has nuclear weapons, he has missiles, he wants to make them accurate. We're talking about intercontinental ballistic missiles, ICBMs. He wants to know that he can reach targets in the U.S. And by the way, this is an important part of this. If Putin can say to the U.S.,

I'm really angry that you're sending weapons to an independent country and they are using them against us to defend themselves from our invasion. And if you continue to do this, you know, we may use our nuclear weapons against you. And we back down from that. Why would we not back down when Kim Jong-un says, you know, we have nuclear weapons. We have missiles that can deliver them anywhere.

We want to reunite the Korean peninsula. We're going to do that. Get your 28,000 troops out of the way or we'll kill them. And by the way, I know if we can hit Sony Studios in Hollywood if we want to as well. Again.

So I'm going to take your DPRK and raise you a China. So first on DPRK, absolutely. This is about improving their IRB, Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles, against Japan and Guam and their intercontinental ballistic missile attacks on the U.S. mainland. We should be concerned about this. Even...

you know, after much arm twisting, the Obama and Biden administrations agreed with the Bush and Trump administrations that you have to actually defend the United States against a strike from Iran or North Korea, that you could not use mutual assured deterrence against these two states because mutual assured deterrence doesn't apply to the mindset of either the leaders at the Ayatollah or Kim Jong-un and his family in general. So we actually have built

GBI field, ground-based interceptor fields in California and Alaska. We have a radar system going against the limited North Korean systems. Well, their systems become more accurate, more capable, able to deploy decoys. Our ground-based interceptor systems, which we bought at some cost over the last 25 years, will not properly defend us against North Korea. So this is a big deal.

Now, I'm going to raise you one and say China, because quietly what's been happening behind the scenes is China, some of their payback for backstopping the economy has been tech transfer that the Russians have long loathed to do, which is to give some of the Rosetta Stone technologies that they have, some of the things that approach U.S. capabilities to the Russians.

to the Chinese that they've been demanding. And there are two of them. One of them we're pretty sure is happening. That's anti, that's submarine technology, the ability to make your, maybe make your submarine quieter or make its combat systems better. This is stuff where there was a clear number one, the United States and our ally, the United Kingdom, who we shared stuff with. Then there was a number, a clear number two there, Russia. Then there was a big, big, big, big, big drop. And you got down to some of the other Western countries and China.

Um, and so that big drop, Russia would not help close it in the past. They're going to start help closing it. Now. I also worry about what are called, um, you know, high performance engines for like fifth and sixth generation, um, fighter jets. The Russians have always kind of held that close. Um, I mean, the Ukrainians had it because the factories happen to be in Ukraine, but, um, uh,

They have not transferred technology to the Chinese. I mean, ironically, when I was at UCOM in 2014, the Chinese tried to buy the technology from the Ukrainians and we had to intervene and block it. But my point on this is there are things that...

Russia has that they've held off giving so that they maintain their material advantage over China, that they're now willing to give up as part of this transactional alliance that's much more than that in its actual actual actualization.

When you talk about this, and we talk about this axis of aggressors, and we talk about these four enemies of the United States and of free countries, do you have, first of all, any sense that the Biden administration, anybody in the Biden administration—

Tony Blinken, do they get this or do they reject this? I mean, it's not that they're not, I mean, do you have any sense of what they think about this? Look, these are smart people. They get it. I mean, the only people who don't get this are people who willfully reject

choose, like Restrainers, Quincy, and Stimson, some of the others, the decision priorities, and some of the prioritizers. And these are people, some at Heritage, others who are close to the president-elect in the sense of, we want to prioritize just one thing. That causes you to devalue. The Restrainers devalue everyone. The prioritizers devalue everyone but

China. The problem with this is deterring China is predicated on ability, not just that you have a capability, and I respect Heritage and other prioritizers for wanting to do better against China. I absolutely respect that. The problem is part of deterrence isn't just that you have something, it's that your adversary credibly believes you'll use it. And if your track record is fleeing from Afghanistan and to some degree, unfortunately for President Trump, even though maybe he had a different vision,

His plan was inherited by President Biden and executed extremely poorly. So the two of them are in that milieu of failure. And then if you were to have President Trump walk away from President Biden's poorly executed support of Ukraine, then he inherits that as well. So you'll then have a China that even if you're talking tough and building a military goes, yeah, but the minute I bring a lot of pressure on you, you wilt. You being the United States of America.

I personally, after 32 years in the military, don't want to be called a wilter, right? I believe that we have to be strong in this case. We have to absolutely maintain our commitments so that there's a credible deterrent feeling in China, in North Korea, in Iran, in Russia. And so...

even if I were to prioritize China, I would say you have to deal with all four. So I don't think the Biden administration doesn't see that. I think their idea of how you convince somebody you're willing to do something is much weaker than my idea of how you convince somebody you're willing to do something. And from what you can infer of, say, Marco Rubio, who's likely to be the next Secretary of State,

Mike Waltz, who is likely the next national security advisor, in particular, I suppose there are others we should bring into the mix like Tulsi Gabbard, who could be director of national intelligence. I mean, do you have your sense of how the extent to which they get? I mean, very quickly, I'd say Rubio, Waltz, they get it. Tulsi Gabbard, probably not.

Yeah, I think I'd go along with that. And I'd probably put Hegseth in the get it. I mean, I'm uncomfortable with some of the other things. I have a real problem with how he has verbalized

his opposition to women in the military. His book is a little better than his spoken word on this. It's women in combat positions, right? I mean, it's not women in the military. And that's controversial. We won't take up that controversy now. But I see how people are saying, I don't want to share a foxhole with a woman. And it's not because...

I mean, it's because I'm not going to treat her the way I would treat a buddy. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to get myself killed over her. So I would just say the best Navy pilot I know is a woman. Pilots? Listen, I think it's a – my son, you know, was a ranger. He said, hey, I went through ranger training with women and they were –

You know, they get broken legs and they would still march. I mean, if they can do the job, I don't want a different level of standards. But if they can do the job, I don't care. And I agree with that. You have a standard. You adhere to it. In my service, the Navy, with probably the exception of SEALs,

where I just think there's a higher percentage of men. I wouldn't get through the training. And there's a lot of other men who wouldn't get through the training. And there's probably even a higher percentage of women that wouldn't get through the training. But I think all the other trainings are pretty equal in terms of standards of getting through. By the way, I just got to, the most important thing Hagseth will do if he's defense secretary is not this.

I mean, we're going to get to it. The most important thing is to have a military that is so obviously superior to any other or any combination of others. If you don't see that that's the goal, I think we're in bad shape over the next 10, 20 years. So let me close out Rubio and Waltz by saying I agree completely. I think both of them get it.

I think Rubio has pretty consistently been, you know, a full spectrum, recognizing all four threats pretty equally. I think probably Representative Waltz, his quality,

it's quieted a little bit on Ukraine, but probably that had to do with getting a job or getting a nomination for a job. But I think, I think he understands deterrence. I think he understands how it works. You know, he certainly had the opportunity when he's affiliated with that, with FDD to, you know, to be exposed to that. And, and I, but I'm, both of those were stellar nominations from my point of view. And if you're, if you're interested, you know, if you're worried about U S national security, you should be happy with both those selections. I got to throw this in because it's,

So I was reading TASS, which is the Russian news agency, right? Well, I have nothing better to do. What can I tell you? And I came across this story quoting Donald Trump Jr. commenting on Biden giving permission for the use of attack on long range into Russia. And here is what he says. A military industrial complex seems to want to make sure they get World War Three going before my father has a chance to create peace and save lives.

A couple of things that strike me there. One, talking about the military-industrial complex, is this guy from the far left? I mean, that's really, you know, you and I have talked about this, and we will again today probably, but the military-industrial complex means the defense industrial base, right?

Ours is still sclerotic. It's a little better actually thanks to the war in Ukraine, but it needs to be much more than it is for him to hit that. I mean, if Robert Kennedy Jr. said that, I might understand, but not for him. And second, for my father, before my father's chance to create peace. You don't create peace.

You deter war. Listen, this is going to get me not invited to something, but I'm reminded of an old cartoon I think I saw in the New Yorker years ago and a manager in an office has an employee. This is the boss's son. See what else he can do.

Yeah. So I'm with you. First, you know, military industrial complex makes me think of Dwight D. Eisenhower. I know he started it, but it was still a concept. I understand. But I do get that.

Yeah, he's – look, we need a different military-industrial complex. By the way, that's what Musk – what Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy – one of the things that they're talking about is how to do that because it is a – look, it's in a bad situation for reasons you've spoken about with me where we reduced it to very small demands from a very small number of companies. We eliminated competition that you want. I mean there's a whole kind of – a lot of reasons why the defense industrial base is as bad as it is.

But the first thing is to say we need to revive it. And the second thing is to say, how do we do it well without wasting a lot of money, without having a lot of inefficiency? That's a separate question. Yeah, I agree. And I say, look, I am skeptical that we can get Vladimir Putin to a reasonable peace agreement or cessation of hostilities. Right, right. But I certainly, as an avid reader of

of Donald Trump's art of the deal, I understand that to negotiate, you want to be in a position of strength. Strength. And the Biden administration helped the Trump administration by making that decision on extending the ranges of weapons to include close areas, areas in Russia tactically relevant to

and reasonably close to the Ukrainian border. It's still, frankly, not everything I would have expanded it to. I would have given them more room than they were given, than they allegedly have been given, and more opportunity. And I'd be giving them more of these attack weapons than we've given them. I mean, I think their total number they have remaining has got to be less than 100 at this point. But from my perspective, we need to... That's one step of pressure.

We need to continue strong, you know, pushing weapons systems, artillery, air defense weapons, all those through presidential drawdown authority and Ukraine security initiative funds.

We should do what Lindsey Graham says, have a loan program that continues it. We need to lean into Europe hard. Here's where I think President Trump will be fantastic and say, we're given $60 billion in grants or loans. You're given $40 billion a year. Wrong answer. You need to up it to $60 billion or more.

More. Yeah. And then turn to – and then finally, put the squeeze on the oil and natural gas. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Really sanction the shadow fleet. Look, I think President Biden intentionally – I think the administration, not the president himself – poorly enforced those sanctions.

are weakly enforced then because to do so would have driven up the price of gas temporarily for everyone else and Russia would have lost access, but it would have made gas at the pump for Americans a little higher in September, October. Probably not the message you're trying to say when you're claiming there's no impact on inflation and things.

But of course the answer to that would be drill, baby, drill, federal lands, allow leasing, sell natural gas, talk to the Saudis, get them to raise their output so that prices come down. Part of the problem is this idea that this administration has insisted upon, which this is another conversation, but –

It's untrue that climate change is an existential threat to America or to the world. It is not that. It is something that we're not going to go through a whole thing, but it is something we should be concerned about. There are things we can do about. But fossil fuels are here to stay.

Someone's going to pump them. And if it's us, it gives us the leverage to use it and work with the Saudis to really punish Russia. So if you do all those things, expand the weapons, include the assistance, push on the Europeans and cut off access to cash that hyper fuels the Russian economy right now for that defense spending, then you wait about three months, so maybe five months in the administration, get

Give Vladimir a call, say, "Hey, President Putin. Hey, Vladimir, how you doing? How's it feel?" Let's start talking about a cessation of hostilities and where we're going to land

in terms of what territories occupied afterwards, where we're going to land on the militarization of Ukraine, where we're going to land on Ukraine entering NATO in the EU. And you'll be in a much better, as I've read in The Art of the Deal, a much better position to win that negotiation than giving him a call January 22nd, which has been implied by a number, not by Trump himself, but by, actually he has said the next day, on day one. You know, on day one, he needs to take action

to win that negotiation on day 150 or 180. To me, that's it. And go work other things. We have a ton of budget work to do, a ton of tax decisions to do, reconciliation. Go work that. Let the system put a few things in play against Putin. Let the system play out. He's the president of the United States. He gets to decide when this discussion starts.

And not President Putin. Make President Putin the weaker partner in this negotiation. And understand who Putin is. He will not –

negotiate a cessation of hostilities because he feels so bad about all those Korean and Yemeni boys getting killed or even Russian boys getting killed or a lot of them are not Russian boys. Really, they're from the Russian Far East, which means the former colonies of Russia. So that they're Tatars or they're Chechens or whatever.

That doesn't – it's only if he's feeling pain and thinks I need a cessation of hostilities for me. And he may think and I'm going to build back better so I can attack again or I'm going to attack Moldova or whatever or I'm going to make Belarus not just a vassal state but I'm going to incorporate whatever he wants to do. Because again, he – I've said this a million times. I've been saying it for many years.

He wants to restore the Russian slash Soviet empire and make it – he wants to make Russia great again as he sees it. So he's got to feel pain or he won't do it. It's not about, you know, it's not about peace. All right.

Three sentences from the forward that Vandenberg-McCain Institute report, which you contributed, I like. No clearer example of the Russian threat exists than its full-scaled, unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which has since claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Russia is simultaneously waging non-kinetic warfare against the world's democracies, including the U.S.,

through information manipulation, cyber attacks, election interference, and malign finance. The Chinese Communist Party and Islamic Republic of Iran have aided Russia's efforts supplying weaponry, training, and technology, as well as sharing tactics and working in tandem to undermine our public's faith in democratic institutions and the global world order. I think that's a pretty clear-eyed assessment by our friends at Vandenberg. Based on what you wrote and what others wrote,

You might want to talk a little bit about that. And also, you've got this new piece coming out in National Review. And it's an important point. Among the important points, if national security is going to be a priority, and it should be the number one priority for this administration, you think, I think, that's going to mean increased defense spending. No way around that. Yeah, Cliff, you're right on that. First of all, Vandenberg did a great job.

I have a lot of time for Carrie Filippetti. Yeah, she's terrific. I think they've done really well. And I know Mark Dubowitz, our CEO, is on their board, I think. I think I may be too. So there you go. They have, in addition to everything else, they have good judgment. All right. So, you know, look, my argument in this, you know,

if I was only given one paragraph, it would have been the paragraph on defense spending, just like as Brad and I are about to, Brad Bowman, the head of our Center on Military and Political Power, about to publish an op-ed with the same argument, you know, very specifically drawn out into four or five paragraphs. It would be about the defense spending. Look, this is, the history of our defense spending is not something we should be proud of over the last 20 years.

under the Obama administration started out at 4.5%. Now, about as a defense as a percentage of GDP,

People say this all the time. I just want to back up and say that's a very good number to understand because GDP growth kind of reflects what the cost – that's the closest we have to like what weapons system growth would be. It's slightly more than inflation, right? And our weapons systems costs grow because you're talking about the high-end technology involved in things, the workforce used for this, the technology used for this. So let's start. 2009, it's 4.5%.

Our defense spending is of GDP. Now, I'm going to give you about 0.5% of that was just for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. So I'll remove that and just say we're at 4%. Over the next 10 years, over the next nine years until President Trump took over, it went down about 0.1% a year until it ended up about 3.1% when President Trump took over. He then pushed it back up last in Trump 45 to 3.4%.

And then over and by Congress is part of this. I don't want to just say is President Obama's President Trump Congress, but clearly, as I'm about to tell you, under President Biden, it then dropped back down to 3.1 percent where it sits today. And they're FY 25. In fact, they're FY 25.

to Congress, this is the fiscal year 25 budget from the administration, was 3.02%. I mean, they were just above 3%, but going low. All right, so what's that mean? That means under Democratic administrations, it's been going down 0.1% a year. Under Republican administrations, it goes up 0.1% a year. President Trump's coming in. If there'd been a President Harris administration,

I think it would have gone down to maybe 2.7%. This is crazy. You know, this is 19, we're talking like early 1930s levels when we weren't preparing properly for a war, when tyrants grew in the absence of our leadership, right?

So let's just remember what the last time we were like this, and I'm confident we'd have gone there under President Harris. There was nothing stopping it. There was never been an argument in the Democratic administration about getting that better. They basically argued that if you're going to increase defense, you've got to increase non-defense. That's all they cared about. This is the fact that we spent $4 trillion on non-defense discretionary spending over the last four years in various bills called the Inflation Reduction Act, Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, COVID Recovery Act, all this money.

$4 trillion that went to those non-defense agencies. And then they turn around and say, hey, if you're going to raise defense $30 billion, you've got to raise non-defense $30 billion. You're like, wait a minute. Where was that rule for the last four years? Okay. So at 3.02% coming in now, right away, Senator Wicker said, this is not going to happen. So I think working with Senator Wicker, who's going to be chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee starting January 7th or so of next year,

President Trump needs to say the FY25 budget as submitted, we're adjusting it.

And then when he puts together his 26, 27, 28, 29, he needs to increase it 0.1% a year. Now you ask, what does that really mean? Well, our current GDP is between, is right now 28, 29 trillion. It'll be 31 trillion when he leaves office, maybe 32 trillion, depending how successful his tax cuts and other things are. We'll see. That works out 0.1% to about 30 billion a year increase.

So that's what we have to do. So instead of President Biden's budget, you add $30 billion. The next year you add $30 billion more, $30 billion more, $30 billion more. I would not tie it to non-defense spending. You already took care of that.

And by the way, that's an Obama era principle that was not a principle before the Obama era. And look, both of these defense discretionary, non-defense discretionary are now lower than our interest payments and half of our social security payments and half of our Medicare payments. I mean, that's what makes up the federal government. Those two big entitlement programs, interest, non-defense and defense discretionary, which those last two I mentioned are about 13% each.

So that's the kind of picture that I think you've got to increase it 30 billion a year. This should not be that hard. But if you take that, it's how you also spend the 30 billion. And we could talk about that in a minute, but I'll just say it anchors in that. If you don't do this, Brad Bowman, I can move our hands fast and talk about missile defense or the Navy or the air force, or it doesn't matter if you do not change the amount going in.

The way the Defense Department budget works with so many program of records already in play, so much money in personnel, so much money in congressional set-asides for things,

you've got to have some room, some money, some house money here. And that 30 billion a year is the kind of house money that can make us really ready for China, really ready to deal with all four of these authoritarian states. It can really be that discriminator. And remember, it's 60 billion the second year, 90 billion the third year, 120, 150, because it's cumulative. But that's how you get back up to 3.5%. And this is the president to do that. He's done it once. He needs to do it again. And just...

a point or two on this. One is that if you recognize that we have this axis, you recognize that they are essentially fighting a cold war against us. So we're in a cold war that's kind of on steroids since the Soviet Union was never as powerful as the People's Republic of China is. And the Soviet Union never had allies the way that People's Republic of China does in Tehran, in Moscow, in Pyongyang, in North Korea.

So we have to be right now. The most important job you have in a Cold War is to prevent it from becoming a hot war. How do you do that? Again, by deterring your enemies so you don't have to fight a war with them and defeat them, hopefully, which is more expensive, obviously, than deterrence. Losing is even worse. Part of where that money comes from, I would argue, is deterrence.

And we're doing some research here to kind of crunch the numbers better. The West is spending something like $5 trillion over the next few years on this bogus transition to renewable energy.

That's what the Inflation Reduction Act had nothing to do with reducing inflation. The name was not- It was nowhere near a $600 billion act. It was sold to the government. It's one of those ones, I don't know if you remember on Obamacare, but Pelosi had the temerity to say, you can read it after you pass it. After you pass it. This is what happened on this bill. I'm going to just real quick say this Inflation Reduction Act was a singular worst piece of legislation done during the Biden administration for this reason, not least of which its name.

But let's look here. It was $600 billion on all this technology, basically green energy technology. In 300 pages, it never says the word cybersecurity once. Why? Because the companies that wrote the legislation handed it to Chuck Schumer, who jammed it in the bill without review and shoved it down the Senate House and President's throat.

Didn't want cybersecurity in there. So now we have Chinese companies winning grants. Why didn't they want cybersecurity? Because when you put cybersecurity in there, it causes you to have to question, can we have a Chinese company do this? Where do we get these goods from? If you go to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act, which was worked very hard by Republican and Democratic staffers, both sides. By the way, the Democratic staffers didn't get to see it either because I trust...

that they would have also said, wait a minute, we're not saying the word cybersecurity here. So same says bill giving away 1.2 or $1.3 trillion, mentioned cybersecurity two or 300 times. That's the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act. Inflation Reduction Act, which in the end is going to give away more money, about the same length, never says the word cybersecurity. That's all you need to know. Right there, that's when government companies came in, green energy companies put their finger on the scale and drove it. So not only is it misspending the money,

but it's spending it inappropriately on things that actually make us less secure. Our homeland is insecure in cyberspace. The Inflation Reduction Act, if allowed to continue on the path it's on, will make it more insecure, which is, I don't think, the intent of President Biden when he signed it or most of the senators who voted for it, who I trust actually value national security. I believe...

In the end, there's a few other things in there from Senator Manchin, as you remember. He was trying to get a pipeline deal bridged in there. But again, that stuff has not... This is, to me, an outward sign of an inward failure, right? When you can see that they don't mention this critical issue that any technology bill needs to have now, you know it wasn't properly reviewed and amended. So terrible bill. Sorry I jumped in, but it drives me crazy. No, no, no, that's important. And when we talk about trillions being spent also for this...

Energy transitions have happened in the past. They happen naturally, not by government fiat.

And they're not complete. I mean, if you want renewable energy everywhere in Africa, that's fine. Let people continue to burn dung and wood. Those are renewable resources. You can do that. But then they will remain in dreadful poverty. If you want people in Africa to get out of poverty, they need electricity. If they want electricity, fossil fuels are the answer, not wind and solar, even in Africa. It won't work for a lot, a lot of different reasons. And by the way, when we talk about trillions, how much do we spend for defense in the U.S.?

Less than a trillion dollars. So if you could double it, wow, wouldn't that be something? All right. Let me ask you about this in terms of weapons. I was listening to a guy by the name of Christopher Kirchhoff on Military Innovation. He was on a podcast that I like from time to time called Conversations with Tyler. And what I took away from him was that

Two things. One is that hypersonics are hugely important to who wins wars in the future. And we have to be way ahead, and we're not, of China and Russia on hypersonics. And the other is AI, artificial intelligence, is going to be hugely important, is now and will be. And we have to be way ahead on that too. Do you agree with Christopher Kirchhoff on those?

I do. As it happens, I know Chris, he gave the first brief to our CyberSolarium Commission on the attributes of a successful commission. I think he wrote his PhD on it. And I said at the time, I'm surprised that this would garner a PhD. And he had a book that is associated with it. But in the end, his advice to us was fantastic and he helped us be a good commission. So first let me take hypersonics. Oh, hypersonics are incredibly important. In fact, our article talks a little bit about it. So

there's two sides to hypersonics one's offense for a lot of reasons some of them tied to the intermediate nuclear forces treaty debacle where we adhered to a treaty that the russians signed but didn't adhere to and the chinese never signed yeah um for a long period of time we were slow we moved into hypersonics and then backed out and now we're moving back in this is offensive hypersonics this is our ability to launch a hypersonic missile let me explain hypersonics

Lots of missiles go hypersonic speed. All our ICBMs pretty much go hypersonic speed. What we're talking about here is hypersonic maneuvering missiles. Not ballistic, not us. You don't know the... You can steer them. Yeah, you can't predict the impact point on a hypersonic cruise missile because it maneuvers. Right. A ballistic missile, you can predict its impact point, right? And so it's a much harder targeting problem for defensive systems. So hypersonic missiles were working. We've got...

We're playing catch up, but we're playing catch up with $4 billion worth of money every year, which is a good number when you're doing it in research and developments and original operations and testing. I think we had about six or seven programs going, a couple of fall, and by the way, which is normal and good. I like to see that. We're down to four or five, the Army, the Navy, Air Force, Air Force.

DARPA, I've said the Coast Guard would do one if they thought they could get in the game, but they can't. So working them, I think we'll end up producing two or three variants of this that go in different. And that's good. You want some to be scramjet, some to be different types of propulsion technology in them. You want different types of what altitude they're operating. In other words, make it harder on the enemy. Don't make all three of yours look exactly the same.

You know, so have three, but make it so you can be launched by different, some by ship, some thing can be launched by ship or submarine or an aircraft, whatever you want. You know, so have some interoperability, but have choice, right? That's great. We're going to catch an equal and eventually pass China and Russia in this. And we're probably right on the pessimistic. We will. Oh yeah. We're moving ahead. But here's the problem. Because we have better research and development. Yeah. Because we have better engineers and better research. We have better universities. Really? Oh yeah. Yeah.

Not Columbia and Harvard and Humanities. No, no, I'm talking about these engineering departments, engineering universities. All right. My daughter has an engineering degree. University of Arizona, right? Where we have a hypersonics lab, things like that. Okay. MIT might make the cut on that discussion. So here we go. That's the first part, hypersonic offense.

But here's the kicker, hypersonic defense. And look, it's important that we can match them in hypersonics on the offensive side, but deterrence is predicated on

I can stop you, right? There's a, there's a, that I have a capability or capacity to stop you. So I need to be able to shoot down hypersonic offense. Here's where we're hurting for reasons. I can't explain for the last five years or four years and including the 25 budget they just submitted. The Biden administration asked for about 200 million a year in R and D. Even though we know that internally the missile defense agency saying, Hey, we need at least 500 million. So Congress, cause someone whispers in Congress's ear, uh,

usually bumped it up to 500 million a year. And so for shame on the Biden administration, I've always tried to figure out what it is. I really hope it's not that they think hypersonic defense is strategically destabilizing. I've heard that argument from the kind of plowshares crowd, but I've let it go normally. But I'm going to assume for a moment, it's not that, that they're just not being smart.

I mean, the other choice, one of them's like, you're slightly evil. The other is you're stupid. I'm going to go with your stupid. All right. So you're not putting enough money in. And we've told him this. I'm not saying anything out of school here. We've talked about this a lot. Um,

Congress eventually got tired of this. In 24, they didn't add money in, but they did put a law in that said you will have a hypersonic, it's called glide phase interceptor, by 2029, an IOC in 2029. So I was like, I helped write the legislation, but so I was like, hallelujah, they've got to do the right thing now. Nope.

In 2025, they put in a $200 million request again. And you're like, ah. 425, yeah. 425. And so I go, hey, well, then they said, don't worry, though. We're going to down select and pick a missile to go because there's two choices. Now, here are the two choices. First of all, we should do both. If you're going to build five or six offense, how about building two defense? But the two choices are there's one where the company's ready soon to meet the 2029, but it's probably not as good.

But it'll make 2029 because it's using existing systems that have been slightly modified to do hypersonic glide phase intercept. The other one's a whole new idea. By the way, it's a glide phase. Glide phase intercept. In other words, there's a point at which you can calculate the trajectory. When it's in its glide phase before it starts to maneuver. So you got, these are like- Before, this is early or late? This is like in the middle of the flight. So maybe a thousand miles away from the ship that's intercepted.

It's gliding for a while and going straight. You can figure you can catch it. Before it starts to maneuver crazy. Got it, got it. And if you want to see crazy maneuver, I would suggest go watch the Mervyn missiles landing in Ukraine from about three days ago. You know, from early November, there's a shot that scared me or concerned me.

So the second company looks really cool. And they say, don't worry, we'll be ready to go by 2035. Now, here's my take. If a company in 2025 says, well, have your weapon ready in 2035, I'll crack open the champagne in 2039 when they're done, right? But so you say to yourself, well, the obvious choice is put the first one into production, keep the second one on R&D. That is not what the Biden administration did.

What they did was cancel the first one, the one that could be done and meet congressional law, and instead say, we're going to continue to put some R&D in the second one. There's several reasons they could have done this. One, I'll just put completely crazy dumb. We'll set that aside.

Although sometimes I think. Number two is they're trying to save money. That in the large budget we have, the Missile Defense Agency has X amount. They have a lot of things to do. And they just internally decided, you know what? We'll take the long-term answer because it'll have the minimum impact for the next six or seven years on our budget. We don't have to buy missiles.

Three is that nefarious thing where, look, they're just trying to kick this can because they think it's strategically destabilizing to have this capability, which I don't believe. When your enemy has a conventional capability, you should counter it. And really, those are the only three, right? You know, did you just make a boneheaded error? Were you trying to save money in the wrong place, which is kind of a boneheaded error? Or were you kind of nefariously trying to delay the advent of this technology for us?

So I'm from the school of, I think they're trying to save money. The new administration needs to come in and say, that was the wrong answer. Put the first one back into production and get the first one moving into production from research and development. And the second one, you can continue with the research and development. And here's what I'd say to the company. So the first company I'd say, if you get better, we'll buy more.

If you really are better, buy more. And at the second company, I'd say, don't worry. The minute your higher quality thing comes online, we'll shut those boys down. So the faster you deliver, the more money you make. The slower you deliver, the more that other one we buy. And you know who wins from this? My son sitting on a ship in the middle of the Western Pacific. I would like him to have a system in 2029 or 2028 with an IOC, not 2037 or 2038. This is

I just, I'm so afraid. I tried to stay out of Navy business after I retired. I can't. This is wrong. We are absolutely putting our sailors, but also our airmen and our soldiers who are air bases that will be under these same attacks at risk with this decision-making. So that's one I want that, you know, Hank Seth, you know, if I can get to him or get to his deputy secretary of defense and say, this is a quick win.

Also go to Congress and say, you know, they're out there. They're they're actually just disregarding you. They're ignoring you. You're not the Biden administration's decided the law doesn't apply to them. Go right back at them. Move the money.

It's hard because they don't, you know, DOD says, you know, we've got the experts here. And I'm like, this isn't an expert thing. This is a policy thing. Or they say things like we have a highly classified thing we can't talk about, which is complete bogus. You know, in this case, the programs are pretty clearly there. We have not developed this technology yet.

We've got to get moving on it. So I'm extremely frustrated. To me, I know it's a small portion of the budget. We're talking in the billion dollars or less for the next couple of years, but then maybe 2 billion, which is a small portion of an overall nearly trillion dollar budget. But we've got to do it. Leaving our soldiers, sailors, airmen, marine with no defense against something is absolutely abhorrent and something we have to avoid. So I'm hoping we can fix that. So

I guess that's a way of saying that Chris Kirchhoff is correct. It is correct. Hypersonics are pretty damn important. Defensive as well as offensive. Right. Okay. And AI, do we not, we need, I think as Putin said, whoever wins in the AI race wins the world. Something like that. So here's the good news. In AI, we have never taken a pause.

We are the frontier AI companies are broadly American and Western. There are, there's a couple of things we need to do there. Like I would like to have, have some rules about the physical and cybersecurity of the frontier of the labs, you know, so that the great breakthroughs that are made there aren't immediately stolen by either a nation state or a criminal actor who could really do nefarious things with it. Yeah.

But I think that that'll move out. I do think this is an area, like we actually do, I'm not a big fan of having discussions for no purpose with the Chinese or Russians, but we probably have to have a discussion about the use of AI with nuclear command and control. That neither one of us should allow AI-driven systems to be a part of nuclear command and control. That needs to be a human.

Because the chance of an accidental launch or a launch driven by like some perceived advantage would be, you know, obviously, you know, catastrophic. But other than that, I think, you know, we should be out there working to fully integrate AI into our military technology and our personnel and operations. And I think we will.

I think we're on the right side of the ledger in that in terms of quality versus our adversaries. And we'll have to see how that plays out. But to me, he's correct. That's another area where we have to establish and maintain an advantage. All right. Maybe three more questions real quick and lighting around, as they say. Yeah.

Forward deployment. Libertarians say, hey, if we don't have troops in other countries, they won't be targeted in other countries. If we don't have ships in the Red Sea, they won't be targeted in the Red Sea. I know you would say that's absolutely misreading defense in the world. Maybe say a few words about why. So there's two types of forward forces. There's forward station forces, which really, you know, get the restrainers, you know, bent. These are like our U.S. ships in Japan, you know,

where my son was, the brigade combat team in Italy where your son was previously, ships in Rota. Special forces in Syria. Special forces all over, yeah. Well, those are four deployed forces. I'm talking about four stations. Like your son and his, he would have lived in Italy. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So those forward station forces are critical because they allow us to have a lot less. Like normally when the army's somewhere, they say we got three brigades to make one. There'll be two brigades back in America working hard. I think your son was with the 173rd. Yeah, right. To rotate in behind the 173rd.

When the 173rd was in Vicenza in Italy, it was alone. It was one to make one and one brigade. So we got a lot of value for that. So when we have nine destroyers in Japan, usually about six are ready. To make six ready, you would have to have 18

in San Diego, maybe even with the Navy, 21. My point on that is with the budgets we have, can you afford 21 destroyers instead of nine? No, of course not. So you get big savings on these. So part of forestation is the savings. The second part is-

My son's ship does tons of training with the Japanese Navy, with the Korean Navy, with the Singapore Navy, with the Australian Navy at a very low cost to us because we're co-located. And by the way, the Japanese Navy under our tutelage has really developed into the third or fourth best Navy in the world and really capable and really well integrated with us. Similarly, the 173rd in Italy, your son's unit went around and trained 20 European nations to maximize the value of their 2%

you know, investment in defense because they had us forces bringing, you know, maximizing that value. So we got a second return. And by the way, our own forces got tons of training and they got to occupy the land, the ground. They may have to occupy in wartime, always an advantage to walk the battlefield. Right? So real big advantages to being Ford deployed Ford stationed like that. So I first want to argue, you need your Ford station forces.

Then you have this issue of four deployed. That's like army forces in Syria. It's like Navy ships in the Red Sea. They come and visit, stay for three to four months, support U.S. national interest, then go back. Those are hard to maintain because for every special forces troop in Syria, there's two back in Fort Bragg training and resting and recovering to go replace her or him there. Same with the ships. There's two to three ships supporting the one ship on deployment.

Those are expensive. Those hurt us. Those are the ones where the Secretary of Defense has decided, do I really want to commit to this? Is this in my U.S. national security interest? We've decided correctly that stabilizing the southern ports of Syria from Jordan is an important U.S. national security interest.

Mostly because it supports our key ally, Israel, as well. And look, let's remember, Israel is fighting four countries. We sometimes think they're fighting Iran. Iran's the chief protagonist. But I believe we're going to find North Korean missiles with Hezbollah. And the tunnels were North Korean engineered. Exactly. Oh, yeah. The tunnels in Gaza. And in Lebanon. And I think we'll find some Chinese fingerprints on that, too. Yeah, I think that's right, too. But I will tell you...

Additionally, the Houthis are not building ICBMs in Yemen. Those parts are coming in from Iran, from China, through Iran, from Russia, through Iran to there. So we need those forces. The Houthis, this ragtag bunch of terrorists, have been holding Red Sea shipping at risk.

And they've been doing it. Close it down, essentially. Close it down, you know, with the U.S. defending the few ships going through. Look, and that is, you know, that is completely Iranian-

and Chinese and Russian logistically supported operations. You know, so we've decided to make those investments. So for deployed force station, you need them to defend your national interests. What you determine your national interest. If you determine something, something's not in your national interest, you pull back the four deployed, the fourth station, you got to be careful because you put them where you're. So they're in Japan. They're in Korea. They're in the UK. They're in Germany. They're in Italy. That's where our forces are. And,

If you're telling me those are not five long-term U.S. allies, I'd be surprised. So that's where we make these investments. And they're the kind of countries who run a critical infrastructure that supports our militaries, right? So that we can run them at a reasonable cost. We don't have to come in and build our own power generators and things like that to operate in those countries. And I should mention Spain as well. We keep ships in Spain. But that's where we put our forward station forces. I think those are all stable places

with long-term U.S. interest in doing that.

All right, very quickly. Not a lightning round there. Sorry about that. Not a lightning round. All right, but still lightning. We talked a little bit about defense industrial base. Is it worthwhile if America, is it necessary if America is to be great again, that the United States becomes the arsenal of democracy, which means a really robust defense industrial base. Lots of factories, lots of skilled workers turning out the best possible munitions in the world. So we are the world's

arsenal of democracy. We are the arsenal of democracy. And the question is, will we remain it? And the answer is yes. And do I think it's to our benefit? You bet. If you look at our trade balances, you know, one of the few industries in which we have an extremely high export to import ratio is weapon systems. I mean, I can hear the plowshares people like cringing as I say this, but it does make America great again, right? It's a high tech, well-paid,

Look, the best thing that happened to the workforce in Arkansas, Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama over the last four years was the war in Ukraine. We've poured billions, you know, 50, 60 billion, that money that didn't go to Ukraine.

The vast, vast, vast majority of that money and almost 99% of the procurement money went to American companies in America to produce weapons to be sold in Ukraine. At the same time, the Saudis are buying a lot. The Taiwans

are buying a lot. I mean, they're the number... Here they are, a small little country. You know, they're Israel-sized country with a bigger than Israel population, about 20 million. They're buying the second most amount of American weaponry. The third, I think, is probably Israel, another small country. So we are a pretty popular place. It's good for our company. It gives us good, well-paying

technologically competent jobs, you know, with a pretty consistent workforce. I mean, there are changes in a weapons system over time, but when you go, if you're working the Amram factory or the Javelin factory, you've got some long-term stability in your job, you know, in your job over the next decade. So yes, the defense industrial base is important. Yes, it's important where the arsenal for democracy. Our biggest problem, by the way, is the Europeans are jealous of

And they're like, we should pass some laws that you have to buy a certain percentage of your stuff from here. Of course, the Poles are going, who are actually spending the money, are like, oh, to hell with that. We want quality. We want return on our investment. So actually, they buy from two countries, predominantly America, besides Poland itself. They buy from America and Korea.

South Korea.

I'd go to the United States. I'd go to Israel, Japan, Korea. Those would be my top four. Then I'd start thinking about some of my European allies. So yes, we're the Arsenal democracy. It's good for America. It's good for our GDP. It's good for our economy. And it's good for the American workforce.

Uh, drone technology, fast evolving, how much of a game changer over the next few years? So certainly in a battlefield like Ukraine, where there's no air power, it has been a predominant force. I, there are questions about the role to pay play in a high, in a place where there's, we like to fight with air power, the United States, either having it or taking it away from someone else. Um, it'll,

I think it'll play less of a role there, but still a really big role. I saw when I was in Ukraine, you know, their maritime under, you know, surface vessels go out and strike Russian occupied oil platforms and Russian ships. It's pretty impressive what you can do. So the answer is,

Drones are drones, both air surface and subsurface and ground are going to play a much bigger role in combat going forward. I don't know that it'll be as predominant as a role it plays in the Russian Ukraine conflict because of the uniqueness around no one being able to assert air power right now.

but it's going to play a bigger role. And I got to tell you, these are cheaper weapon systems. We have got to, our historical defense industrial base is like, oh, you need a drone? $100,000. And you're like, wait a minute, the Ukrainians are doing the same drone for a thousand. Let's find some middle ground closer to five or 10,000, recognizing the US workforce gets paid more. We tend not to want Chinese parts in our drones. There's some things that might cause our price to go up, but it shouldn't be

a hundred cents, you know, a hundred fold higher. It needs to be something more reasonable.

My final question, anything else in your essay for Vandenberg and McCain or in that report or in your national review piece that I should have raised with you or that's important to raise that you want to raise or just, if not, emphasize anything you want to emphasize before we close out for today and go home for Thanksgiving? Let me give you two thoughts. One is we do need to get the high-low mix right. You know, I've sat on here with Brad Bowman. He and I have argued for long-range anti-ship cruise missiles.

That's 3.2 million a piece. I was at a dinner with a senior four-star in our military. He's like, you know, I'm going for the high-low mix, Mark. I need that high-low mix of weapons. And we started talking about a weapon. He goes, ah, it's called the SM6. He goes, I love that weapon. I need a lot of those. I said, what about high-low? He goes, oh, it's not very expensive. I said, it's 4.2 million a piece. You know, he had to look at the phone and go, no, it's 4.3 million. I'm like, yeah, it's 4.2 million, whatever it is. We need a high-low mix here. We need to invest.

High, low in terms of price. Price. In other words, going alongside that LRASM long range anti-ship cruise missile, we need something called Power J-DAM with QuickSig, which is a $90,000 thing, which takes a 30,000 missile, puts a rocket on the end. That makes about 60,000. Puts a special seeker on the end that says, go get a ship. Look, is it as good as the LRASM? Hell no. No.

Maybe it's 80% chance of hitting the ship and the LRASM is 95%. But if I fire two of these at 80%, by the way, that makes me 96%, and I'm above the 95%, and I only spent 180,000 versus 3.2 million. So my point on this is the high-low mix is good. You need the two together.

But we need to, we're really good at the high and the defense of the bus surveys loves the high. We've got to get good at the low. And the second one's allies and partners. Got to remind President Trump, we're a country that wins. We don't, no one ever says our allies and partners are transactional. They're not. They're true relationship ones. We have shared values and interests.

You know, the values and interests he believes in, you know, democracy, capitalism. We have those shared values and interests with our allies. But our allies got to get that game up. Just like we got to get up from 3% to 3.5%. We got to drag our allies from 2% to 3% and eventually to 3.5%. He did a good job. Vladimir Putin did an even better job scaring the Europeans into 2%. But he worked the Taiwans and a bunch of the NATOs at 2% now, more than half. And we'll get them on the right track.

He did a great job scaring, this is President Trump, Taiwan. Taiwan has grown from 1.6 when he first started yelling at him to 2.7 or 1.7% to 2.6%. And they're going up and they're going to get to three. Japan has changed its whole philosophy. Again, I give the credit for that to Putin, but he worked hard on President Abe to change how the Japanese thought about their forces.

So a mix of Putin's, you know, aggression, Trump's pushing. We're in a much better position now than we were five years ago. And he should continue to push that. But he's got to recognize their value. And allies and partners have value and they have needs. And, you know, if they're going to support your needs, you need to support their needs. That's what an alliance is about. It's not a one way ticket. So I'm hoping the president can see that and and continue to develop those capabilities and capacities over the next four years.

Mark Montgomery, I always learn a lot talking to you and enjoy doing it as well. Thanks so much. And thanks to all of you who have been with us today for this conversation here on Foreign Policy. Thanks, Cliff.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Foreign Policy. If you enjoyed the show, please rate us, preferably with five stars. Ratings and reviews help give us visibility and the opportunity to reach more people who seek to understand the most critical national security and foreign policy issues. Also, make sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode.

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