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BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
Dana Lewis is a veteran World Affairs Correspondent. He's been everywhere. From global war zones to the streets of London where he is based.
He has been based in Jerusalem, and Moscow.
And he loves talking to people about whats behind the headlines. Award winning. "A real in the trenches reporter". Great interviewing skills and easy to listen to.
BACK STORY WITH DANA LEWIS
US Broken Promises and the Russia Ukraine Conflict: Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges
What will be the outcome of the Ukrainian conflict? Join us as Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, former commander of US Army Europe, shares his perspective on the ongoing war in Ukraine and the critical missteps in US foreign policy. We contrast media portrayals with on-the-ground realities, focusing on Ukrainian counteroffensives towards Kursk and the sluggish Russian advances.
Somehow, the narrative in much of the media not the pros like you, but in much of the media is like the Russians are remorselessly advancing, advancing. It's just not true. In fact, the Ukrainians are treating that as a secondary effort, and their main effort was this counteroffensive that they launched up in the direction of Kursk, because they could see that the Russians are moving at glacier-like speed.
Dana Lewis :Hi everyone and welcome to another edition of Backstory. I'm Dana Lewis. There are a few people who seem to have a more realistic understanding of what's happening in Ukraine than this week's guest. To have a more realistic understanding of what's happening in Ukraine than this week's guest, lieutenant General Ben Hodges, formerly the commander of US Army Europe, is a NATO mentor and regularly visits Washington and other strategic decision-making capitals involved in the support of Ukraine. Sure enough, the picture isn't rosy. Ukraine hasn't received a lot of the support it was promised. The Biden administration has failed to give Ukraine battlefield advantages, so has Germany, so has Britain, so has France.
Dana Lewis :Putin's Russia presses on, oblivious to Russia's isolation and even the tens of thousands of Russian soldiers killed in action. I'll tell you more about that at the end of the podcast. That's Russia for you, but all is not lost either. Claims of battlefield advances by Russia are often over-dramatized and Ukraine could still turn the tide. Ben Hodges is a former US Army commander in Europe. Lieutenant General Ben Hodges, good to see you again, sir. Good to see you, daniel. Thank you, army commander in Europe.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Lieutenant General Ben Hodge, it's good to see you again, sir. Good to see you, Danny. Thank you.
Dana Lewis :You were in the US for a while campaigning.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Yeah, this summer I went back for six weeks. We go back to the States three or four times a year actually, but in the summer we take an extended trip and I was there for two weeks of work in DC, including a week at the NATO summit and a little bit of a vacation there in South Carolina, which is my stateside residence. But then, for the first time in my life, I decided to get involved in the political campaign supporting candidates who were challenging MAGA incumbents in South Carolina, virginia, north Carolina and Pennsylvania. You know, I thought I can't just sit at home and worry and complain about. You know what happens if Trump and all these people that enable his terrible behavior. I can't just complain about it. I wanted to get on the ground and try and help.
Dana Lewis :Is it? I mean, you've been out there talking to people. How much of the US vote do you think will I don't want to say revolve around, because I don't think any of it will revolve around foreign policy but how much of a factor will foreign policy and things like Ukraine be part of the debate, do you think I?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:think there's probably more people who, when you take the time to explain how what's happening in Ukraine affects them, in Pennsylvania or Virginia, for example, then you can see people going like oh okay, I never thought about that, I never heard about that, and so you know. So, in the broader sense of security and defense for the United States, helping to explain why NATO matters, why a stable, secure Europe is important for our prosperity and why helping Russia defeat Ukraine sends a powerful signal to China that will help deter China from making a terrible miscalculation. I think that resonates. But, as is traditional with US elections, foreign policy almost never plays an important part. You may remember, during the last presidential election, there was zero mention of Afghanistan in the debate.
Dana Lewis :Incredible right, and it was so close to Trump's negotiations with the Taliban the undermining of the mission in Afghanistan. And then later on, you know, president Biden would have Afghanistan under him and he didn't have very many troops to pull out after that. He only had I mean, originally Trump brought it down from 5,000 to 2,500. And then the Taliban kind of could see and so could all of the Afghans see that one administration, one or the other would eventually just pull out and the Taliban then started positioning themselves to take over. Whoever was in the Afghan army probably started to find the exit door at that point.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Well, you know, of course, blame for our failure in Afghanistan cuts across all four presidents. Failure in Afghanistan cuts across all four presidents, from Bush to Obama, to Trump, to Biden, all of them because only in the first year did we have a clearly defined objective. After that first year and that first year it was all about, you know make sure that Afghanistan could never be used as a base for recruiting or training or launching attacks by Get rid of al-Qaeda, and so that was accomplished the first year.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:We should have left, but we didn't, and so the next 19 years or so, you had policies in search of a strategic end state. It was never done. So that is a responsibility shared by all the administrations and the congresses that enabled them to do this.
Dana Lewis :Policies in search of an end state Right. And here we are with Ukraine. How would you?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:draw a parallel with that. We're in exactly the same place. I mean, we have terrible policies like you cannot use a TACOMS against a target inside of Russia, or this drip, drip, drip of aid. We've delivered less than a quarter of the Humvees that we promised we would deliver. I mean, it's just, it's not only bad policy, but it's also bad performance of bad policy, and it's really we're missing an opportunity.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:But it goes back to the failure of this administration to clearly define the objective of why this matters. And then, if you don't have an objective, then it makes it very difficult to explain to the American people why this matters. Now I would say you know, back to the Afghan army, though, why this matters. Now I would say you know, back to the Afghan army, though, one of the mistakes that we made, and I'm partly responsible for this. We built an army that was very good and looked exactly like us, which means it requires thousands of contractors, enormous amounts of logistics, exquisite intel and endless amounts of firepower. So when we left and we took all that with us, of course the thing collapsed. It was not an army that reflected Afghan culture, and so that was a mistake. And then I would also say, in addition to us talking about Afghanistan as if it was an island and believing somehow Pakistan was really an ally. That was wrong.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Not one American paid a penny in taxes for this war. So there was. Unless you had a family member or you lived next to Fort Bragg or Camp Lejeune or something like that, it didn't affect you, and so there was no pressure on the Congress or on the administration any administration to say what the hell we're still. We're still in Afghanistan. For what? And so you know, when I think about where we are now with Ukraine, the fact that there is still not a clear definition of what we're trying to accomplish. Of course, as you know, I believe that strategic objective should be for Ukraine to defeat Russia, because this war is about more than Ukraine. It's about stability and security in Europe, which affects our prosperity, and it's about deterring China.
Dana Lewis :I remember you leading a brigade in Iraq when you were a lieutenant colonel. Colonel, were you a lieutenant colonel?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Colonel, colonel, were you a full colonel at that point? A brigade commander in the Army is typically a full colonel.
Dana Lewis :So you know it's hard to believe Marching into An-Najaf 40 degrees I think it was Celsius Soldiers, you know, dropping back backpacks, and some were passing out. Some were still wearing chemical gear, although I think some of you were allowed to drop some of the chemical gear on the way in. But um, how big was that brigade?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:well, the typical brigade of the 101st is, with all of its attachments, including the artillery battalion, the engineers, logistics, intelligence signal, etc. Etc. You know it was around 5 000 soldiers. Attachments including the artillery battalion, the engineers, logistics, intelligence signal, et cetera, et cetera. You know it was around 5,000 soldiers, but that would have been true of the 2nd Brigade and 3rd Brigade as well. That was about our size.
Dana Lewis :So President Zelensky does a recent interview now. He says he was in the process of trying to form up 14 brigades. He could barely equip four of them. Now I don't know what the 14 were for that that's in addition to what he already has on the front line. I assume he could barely put together four of them with the gear that he had been promised but never got like things that you just mentioned, like Humvees, but never got like things that you just mentioned, like Humvees. So you know 10 brigades times you know 4,000. Conservatively I mean that's 40,000 troops short. But he indicated that really the problem wasn't the numbers of boots, it was equipment, you know ammunition, rifles, armored, armored, whatever armored personnel, carriers around them. I mean that's pretty pitiful given all the big promises that were made and the billions of dollars that were pledged.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:So the Ukrainians have generally used the brigade as the basic combat sort of unit, whereas the US Army divisions are our sort of unit for going to war. I think the Ukrainians are probably looking at should they go to divisions where you bring two or three brigades together, but right now that's neither here nor there. Two or three brigades together, but right now that's neither here nor there. The fact is they know that they need more units so that they can rotate units in and out of the fight and rather than having individual replacements, which is what we did disastrously in Vietnam, instead the Ukrainians are now doing what most of us do, which is unit rotations. So in order to get some guys out of the fight for a while, you need to have a brigade that can replace them. And it's also better when you've got trained women and men that fill up these brigades with all the proper equipment and then that brigade trains as a unit, then it goes into the fight Much more effective for, uh, developing combat power.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Um, but what you've highlighted is the fact that they don't have enough equipment yet most of which is supposed to come from us, uh, to fill out these brigades and, um, I'm it's very frustrating. I mean here are it's 10 and a half years of the war since it started and now, two and a half years into the large-scale invasion, or since the large-scale invasion, and we are still unable to deliver, even though we have all the stuff to give. And this is going to sound like I'm slamming people in the Pentagon. I'm not. It's the administration not having the sense of urgency and making it a priority.
Dana Lewis :I don't quite understand that because and in no way am I arguing with you about it I just don't understand. We followed it. They pledged the money. They finally got the money. They pledged the money, they rolled out different spokespeople who said there's this gallant airlift effort into you know, into Germany, into Poland. What happened to all that? I don't understand. Why do they not have the equipment?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Yeah, again, there's kind of a you know, the Pentagon is overworked all the time and there is so much going on. They always have more tasks than they have resources to fulfill those tasks. There's good hard work and intelligent, well-educated, committed people, but you have to pick priorities, and I think that this is not a priority for the administration. I mean, if it was a priority, they'd be pushing these things, uh, instead of saying, well you know, and then coming up with reasons why, well, you know, most of what they'd shoot are outside of range. Now, it doesn't really wouldn't make that much difference. And these are all bullshit excuses because the administration and in this case the Department of Defense as part of the administration, is not committed to actually helping Ukraine win, ukraine win. And so if you're not committed to helping them win, but you want to make sure that Ukraine's have just enough to avoid getting overrun, that's what we're seeing right now.
Dana Lewis :In the meantime, russian President Putin announces that you know they now want to grow their army by 180,000 troops. That'll take it to 1.5 million active servicemen, second largest in the world after China. What is what is?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:happening on the horizon. I'm very skeptical of these numbers. I've never trusted any number comes out of Russia, and they announced these big mobilizations all the time but then nothing ever actually happens. And it's also the. I mean the way they sort of package it and announce it makes it sound like it's cumulative, but I think actually they're. You know they't have that. They've lost so many leaders.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:The guys who would have to be training are training new recruits, being the cadre for new units, all of this they're dead. They're dead and gone, and so I'm not impressed with these, with numbers. But if they do to get that many more, that means they're finally going to have to start reaching into Moscow and St Petersburg and, uh, they're going to have to start using conscripts in combat. Which Putin promised he would not do is he would not use conscripts in combat. And so now you're going to have and I'm speaking to somebody of authority the other day and he said there's already amongst parents of conscripts in Russia are very unhappy that their little Ivan is being sent into combat, which is not what Putin promised, and so there's a. If this continues and increases, I think this will be a domestic problem for the Kremlin as well.
Dana Lewis :Let me read you a quote, not because he's the best source, but it's just one of the most recent things I've read from Lord Ashcroft here, who's a former deputy of the of the Conservative Party. Ukraine has been forced to fight for its survival with one hand tied behind its back, held back, tragically, by the very partners that professed to support its cause. He goes on to say American policymakers are so consumed by the fear of escalating the conflict that they have effectively limited Ukraine's ability to defend itself. Putin's regime can launch missiles, bomb cities and terrorize Ukrainian civilians, but when Ukraine seeks to retaliate against those responsible, it's told to refrain. This is not how wars are won. It is shameful. Unquote.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:I would agree with every word, letter and punctuation mark in that statement, Completely right.
Dana Lewis :Because it's not a priority or because they're worried, they're truly worried about escalation by allowing, you know, the Brits to deploy the Storm Shadow and the French the Scalp Missile and hit some of these airfields and artillery and radar systems just inside Russia.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:The administration is excessively concerned, excessively concerned that Russia might somehow use a nuclear weapon that might escalate. And so, because of that, we are paralyzed with that concern and we come up with these terrible policies that we've already talked about. And it's not just all the so-called Russia experts in the administration, who have been a part of this for a long time, to include going back to the Obama administration, but it's also there's a community of people in DC that have outsized influence, which I don't understand, because they have been wrong from for years, but yet somehow they have access and influence there on the administration, which really counsels. You know, take it easy. You don't want to poke the bear, don't want to. You know the Russians that could do this and there's no way Ukraine can win.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:And you know we don't want the regime to collapse and all of this nonsense and uh, it's, it's absolutely maddening because it makes, uh, it's poor judgment and um, we're going to regret this, we're going to be looking back at this at a gigantic missed opportunity number one. But also that the Ukrainians are suffering like they are needlessly. I mean, we are failing them, we're failing Europe, we're missing an opportunity to improve the security situation in Europe for decades by helping Ukraine defeat Russia. And maybe even more importantly, we're missing the opportunity to send a signal to the Chinese that, yes, we do care about sovereignty, freedom of navigation, international law, human rights, international agreements. Instead, we're sending a signal to the Chinese that we really don't have the political will or industrial capacity to defend those things, and it is much more difficult out in the Pacific than it is in Europe.
Dana Lewis :What's incredible to me, general Hodges, is that the debate has taken place publicly, been drawn out month by month, by month on, you know, allowing you know, take off the gloves and allowing Ukraine to hit inside Russia. Now Zelensky says in this most recent interview that he did that. You know there were a lot of Russian jets were on the ground. Of these, you know, a dozen to 16 air bases that could have been hit just inside Russia. Now they've moved most of them now anyway, because of the debate that's taken place publicly, and instead of being 150 kilometers inside Russia, they're probably 500 kilometers inside Russia and by the time you conclude this debate, if you allow Ukraine to strike Russian targets in defense, you're probably going to have to let them hit even further. Like 500 kilometers inside Russia. It sounds ridiculous.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Well, you know, I listened to the SACEUR a while back and he said General Cavoli, and he said Russia's only advantage is mass. They have these huge numbers of troops and they don't care how many of them are killed, they're willing to just keep putting them in there. So the way you defeat that is with precision, if you have enough time. That means if you can knock out headquarters, artillery, logistics, airfields, then it doesn't matter how many tens of thousands of untrained, unlucky Russian infantry there are. They're not effective without the artillery, the headquarters to direct the logistics, which is mainly what we're talking about artillery ammunition, of course, and then the airfields from which these murderous jets are taken off and launching bombs against apartment buildings.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:So that's why these long range weapons are so important, whether it's Taurus or a Tukums or a Scout or Storm Shadow, whatever, and other systems. Let the Ukrainians use those things. That's how they defeat the Russian advantage of mass. Now the Ukrainians, of course, they're not going to sit around and wring their hands. They're working as hard and fast as they can to develop their own drones and other long-range weapons to hit targets, uh, particularly oil and gas infrastructure, because that's what's paying for russia's war, is the oil that they sell to india and china. But if we were, if we were serious about helping uk actually win, we'd be pushing these things to them, not coming up with excuses why we can't.
Dana Lewis :So when you add all of this up, everything that you've been telling me, where does it leave us? Then it looks like a lot of people are saying well, they have to start talks, they have to get the fighting stopped. Wow, they have to bring Ukraine to the table and Russia to the table. But if you bring Russia, russia has no incentive to go to the table right now because they're advancing on the battlefield. And if Ukraine goes to the table, probably without the support of their own people Now, if they were trying to trade off 20% of the country, ukrainians are not probably going to accept that. So where does it go then? The pathway to so-called peace that people are talking about seems unrealistic.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Well, anybody that's pushing Ukraine to negotiate with Russia right now or thinks that Ukraine should give up some land for the sake of peace has no understanding of who and what Russia is. And they've also never looked at a map. Because when they say Ukraine should settle, give up some land, of course what they're talking about is Crimea, and as long as Russia retains Crimea number one, they'll be blocking access into Azov Sea, which means two of Ukraine's five main seaports from before the war, mariupol and Berdansk, will never be able to reopen again, even after they're liberated. And also, from Crimea, they'll always be able to disrupt energy and grain shipments coming out of Odessa and resume the attack on Ukraine after we lose interest in two or three years. So this is a nonsensical approach in my view, and the Ukrainians know it. They know what happens, but that's what the Russians are counting on is that we in the West will get so tired of this and we'll press the Ukrainians. I mean, look, this has been going on for 10 and a half years. 10 and a half years, russia had every advantage, and after 10 and a half years, they control less than 18% of Ukraine, at the cost of about 600,000 casualties of their own, not to mention the fact that the Black Sea fleet is a disaster. The Russian Air Force has failed its two main tasks of air superiority and interdicting lines of communication. And now you've got thousands of Ukrainian troops occupying part of Russia in the Kursk Oblast.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:Russia's famous attack on Pokrovsk, you know. If you read the paper it's like oh my God, you know there are Russians are rumbling towards Pokrovsk. That's absolutely not true. It is 60 kilometers. That's 35 miles for British and American listeners to your program. It's 60 kilometers from Avdiivka, which the Russians captured finally back in February, and they have only gone 50 kilometers towards Pokrovsk. So in six months, dana, six months, at the cost of tens of thousands of casualties, they are still not able to capture this town of Pokrovsk, which some idiots in the paper will refer to as a strategically important city. There's nothing strategically important about it. All right, yes, it was a transportation hub until weeks ago when the Ukrainians quit using it because the Russians had gotten close enough to hit the railroad station and things like that. But somehow the narrative in much of the media not the pros like you, but in much of the media is like the Russians are remorselessly advancing, advancing. It's just not true. In fact, the Ukrainians are treating that as a secondary effort, and their main effort was this counteroffensive that they launched up in the direction of Kursk, because they could see that the Russians are moving at glacier-like speed and are losing huge amounts of troops against Ukraine's secondary effort.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:And if you look at the map put on the map, where is Pokrovsk? It is almost as far east in Ukraine as you can get. So somehow Ukraine is supposed to now negotiate and give up land, or what? Where do we go? Well, where do we go is hopefully, either in the last few months of his administration President Biden will be thinking seriously about his legacy, or President Harris dear Lord, I hope she's elected that they will continue. At least continue what the Biden administration is doing. In my sense, based on what I've heard her say and the fact that she will get rid of all the current Russia team and bring in her own team that they will have a much more dynamic and forward-leaning approach to helping to address this important strategic problem, because this is not just about Ukraine.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:If Ukraine defeats Russia, then Iran has no friends zero. Nobody else in the world is a friend of Iran. So if you can defeat Russia, they are much less capable of helping Iran and that would undermine Iran's ability to support Hezbollah, hamas and the Houthis. So that has strategic benefit for us and it would also leave North Korea friendless, because they have no friend other than Moscow. And then the Chinese would say oh wow, the West is committed. The West does have the political will and industrial capacity which we have not yet shown. So this, I think a Harris administration will see this.
Dana Lewis :And a Trump administration. Do you think that Ukraine can fight on if Trump comes to power?
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:I think. Well, first of all, trump and all these other geniuses that are making, offering deals, they're doing it without Ukraine being involved in the conversation. So Ukrainians are going like, hey, wait, you know, we're not Afghanistan, we're going to, we're going to be here, we're going to keep fighting, because we know what happens when the Red Army shows up. So the fact that Trump would say publicly, well, I'll solve this in 24 hours, no serious person should believe that for a second. But because he has zero principles, no moral principles, he only wants a deal. He will offer something to Putin and say, hey look, do this and do this and we'll pull out. We'll leave the Ukrainians by themselves.
Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges:But the rest of Europe? They're not sitting in the bleachers here. The Europeans know that even if the US totally fails, they are going to inherit a gigantic mess. If Ukraine fails, it will be because the United States and Germany in particular, failed to do what was necessary them. Millions of more Ukrainian refugees headed into Poland, romania, germany, on top of the five or six men that are already there now. This will be an enormous burden on their economic and social systems. We'll continue to have to deal with disruption of grain shipments and energy supplies, which affects prices for all of us in America as well as Europe. And we'll have said to the Chinese we don't really have the political will to defend what we say is so important.
Dana Lewis :Lieutenant General Ben Hodges. Ben, always a pleasure, Some dark moments potentially ahead, you know, and a sobering discussion always. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Thanks for the opportunity, Dan.
Dana Lewis :Underscoring how deadly this war has been, the Wall Street Journal this week placed the number of casualties on both sides at one million One million people. The publication placed the number of Russian casualties 200,000 dead and around 400,000 wounded, citing Western intelligence estimates which would place the total around 600,000. For Ukrainian military casualties, the Wall Street Journal placed the number at 80,000 dead and 400,000 wounded. Stunning numbers, I mean, however accurate. All mostly hidden from the Russian public out of fear that people will turn on Putin's regime. If only they knew. Oddly, the story suggests that Putin sought to boost Russia's demographic population by invading and controlling Ukraine. I mean that's pretty strange, considering when Russia started its illegal war on Ukraine, roughly 600,000 Russians fled their own country, fearing anti-war arrests and conscription All part of Putin's dark legacy from his perch back in Mordor. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening to Backstory. Share the podcast, please, and I'll talk to you again soon against him, Thank you, Thank you.
