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Dec. 12, 2024 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano

01:59:13

[SPECIAL] - Best of Marathon : JACK DEVINE - A look back at Russia/Ukraine Analysis

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	Hello there, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here with Judging Freedom.
	Today is Tuesday, April 5th, 2022.
	It's about 1 o 'clock in the afternoon on the east coast of the United States.
	My guest today for a return appearance is Jack Devine.
	Jack is a former acting CIA director of operations.
	He's today the president of something called the Arkin Group.
	He is one of the foremost authorities in the world.
	On the nature of the intelligence community, particularly in the area of the world that we're very interested in.
	Jack's great book is called The Spy Master's Prism.
	I don't think there's any national security secrets revealed in that book, but there's a lot revealed in that book that will fascinate the reader about the nature of intelligence and Jack's life when he was active in that community.
	Jack.
	My dear friend, thanks for coming back on Judging Freedom.
	It's a pleasure to be on.
	Thank you for noting the book.
	You're absolutely right.
	I had to go through a rigorous review.
	But in the preparation of the book, I actually found out a lot of things that were in the public record that I didn't dream were in there.
	So it turned out to be quite interesting.
	That's good, because if it's in the public record, obviously.
	Tell us about the current American intelligence assessment of the plans of Vladimir Putin.
	I mean, does he plan to obliterate Ukraine?
	Is he going to pull back to the Donbass region in the east?
	Is this a war to the bitter end?
	Is it still popular in Russia?
	Can you address these issues, Jack?
	Yeah, so I think, first of all, I think the intelligence community was spot on in terms of predicting, and I think even President Zelensky wasn't convinced they were going to invade until right the night before.
	So I think the intelligence community really nailed that, and that's one of the things that gets paid for, is early warning on an attack.
	So I give them high marks.
	Now, there you have multiple means of collecting intelligence: signals intelligence, Communications, movement, overhead pictures.
	When you talk about what's in Putin's mind, now it gets really tricky and really hard.
	So having been in those positions, I don't envy the job where satellites don't help you and intercepts are largely helpful.
	So what's in Putin's mind?
	And he has a much more restricted, contained world than most national leaders.
	I mean, whether or not he was...
	What do you mean by that?
	What do you mean by he has a more restricted and contained world than most national leaders?
	I think he took COVID to heart, so to speak, and you can see with his briefings, they're hard to imagine in an American setting where the President of the United States has people 25 feet away from him, right?
	Or at the end of the table, two generals in the COVID world.
	So I think he's limited his His mobility, his friends, I think it's a narrower world.
	Although, I do think the pundits, and I would include in their intelligence pundits and so on, may seem a little more restricted down to a handful of people.
	I think it's more than that.
	But I think he has his own counsel.
	I think he has people that he's trusted.
	You know, when you're a dictator and that's what we have, an autocrat, we'll put a nicer spin on it.
	Is he getting an accurate picture of what's going on on the ground in Ukraine?
	Are we getting an accurate picture of what's going on in Ukraine?
	I think I'm not worried about us.
	I mean, we really, our military is trained to provide, you know.
	Accurate information.
	I'm not saying there isn't a glitch here or there.
	The coordination process.
	This is one of the strengths of democracy is that you have an exchange of views.
	The views are spread out over a broader range.
	When we don't do it, that's when we have political flaps.
	Spy flaps is when we don't do the coordination.
	In autocratic systems, there's a genuine fear of telling the boss what he doesn't want to hear.
	So I think he is more prone.
	To getting, yes, sir, yeah, that's a great idea.
	Why not invade?
	And I do think that on the ground, there's a fear to report back that you're losing, right?
	Because bad things can happen to you if you lose in that tough environment.
	So I don't think, I think your assessment was off.
	And I would say it could have been honestly off.
	In other words, they weren't yes demanding.
	They all believe.
	That somehow the Ukrainians were going to roll over and that it would be a cakewalk.
	And there is some case to be made for that.
	But clearly, the determination of the Ukrainians to fight, they missed that.
	Then they decided, and they came up with a strategy, and this is the part where the warfighters, and I would defer to them, they had a grandiose strategy.
	With an army that was far less effective than Putin, I think, or anyone else realized.
	I'm surprised at how poor its logistics, its planning, even the discipline within its troops.
	And I guess we'll get the atrocities somewhere.
	So I think he spent a lot of money on high-end technology weapons, and they didn't do enough on blocking and tackling.
	The training and logistics.
	I ran the program to get the Russians out of Afghanistan for the CIA at one point.
	And the real heroes were the logistics people.
	How do you make things move on time?
	And you better pay a lot of attention.
	You don't get big awards.
	You don't get on the front page of a magazine.
	But you know, Ulysses S. Grant won the war against Lee by being a logistics expert.
	So it's simplifying.
	But my point is You know, there was a lot of poor preparation for this.
	Now, they look like they're on their back heels.
	They really took a suffer to defeat.
	There's no way you can say that the first phase of this war was not a defeat for the Russians.
	They're stunned.
	They're frustrated.
	They're angry at themselves, you know, and everybody else walks near them.
	But now they're regrouping, and I am concerned.
	They've now decided on a different strategy, which I think probably makes more sense.
	In other words, go, concentrate your effort in the East.
	So I don't think this war is over, and I think there's going to be a really tough fight down there, and it's a different fight than in Kiv.
	Do the American, does the imposition of American sanctions affect Putin's strategy at all?
	I think there's two issues.
	One, I think it's painful over a period of time.
	It's going to really grind down the Russians.
	I don't think it impacts on his strategy at all.
	In other words, I think he, his, and this often happens in American political decisions in the White House and elsewhere.
	That is, people talk about oil and the important, but it really often is just straight politics and political.
	He wanted the Ukraine to make Russia great again and to add all the stands and everything else around it.
	One of the points we miss is the reason you want it is the real enemy is us.
	I mean, this is really a 1950 mindset.
	So he wanted it, and he wants it at almost any price.
	And that's what I think we need to realize, that as good as the sanctions are, and you make them better, he's going to hang tough.
	He's going to hang tough on the sanctions, try and find every way to evade it.
	So sanctions are not going to...
	Change the negotiations.
	I'm sorry, Judge, is the fighting on the ground.
	That's the only thing that is going to change negotiations.
	What do we do about the atrocities?
	Let's assume that they're real.
	That picture that's been all over the world, I don't know if it's a man or a woman, you can't see the face, with hands tied behind the back and a bullet in the brain, and many more like it.
	It's gut-wrenching.
	So what's being said widely now is that it's not just in the place, it's more general.
	If that turns out to be the case, then what you have is what I alluded to earlier, an army that isn't disciplined and trained.
	And, you know, were orders given?
	Probably not.
	But was the lack of training, understanding of...
	How you occupy areas.
	Because what you have are troops that are so frustrated, so angry, and they're in a defeat mode that they do extreme measures and they're not thinking about the consequences.
	And the consequences are huge.
	Because once you commit atrocities, it puts you in a unique category of countries.
	And you become a genuine untouchable.
	In other words, how do you have Putin at dinner if he's responsible or Russian, the Russian general?
	So I think the world will be tremendously repulsed if this, and I think they already are.
	I mean, I think it's changed the dynamic about fighting to save the Ukrainians to this is a really, you know.
	Evil government, if you will, if it is government sponsored.
	But I think it's really government shortcomings in the sense that there weren't any checks and balances on this, you know, and their approach to war and looking at Ukrainians.
	You don't do this unless you really hate Ukrainians.
	All right.
	So does he think that...
	He captures Ukraine.
	Those wheat fields, they're not destroyed, become his.
	Zelensky flees to Geneva.
	Does he think he can, and you just said you don't think so, return to the international scene?
	He shrunk from the day his army walked into Ukraine.
	In other words...
	He was viewed as a political force in the world, a powerful guy.
	Now he'll be a shrunken, despot criminal who nobody's going to want to deal with.
	I mean, he is now in a very weakened position.
	Having said that, you know, don't write as a victory because despots can hang on.
	Look how long Castro hung in.
	You know, Chavez and Madero or Assad, you know, we're always predicting they're going in, you know, 24 hours or whatever.
	But he is a much weakened leader who could never, how can he go to Versailles in a tuxedo and have champagne with the G20 or something?
	So I think he's finished.
	There's no comeback.
	In other words, he can hold on and grind Russia down and, you know, subjugate it to the horrible repression.
	Paul Jay: Grind Ukraine down.
	No, Russia.
	I'm going to misspeak.
	I think he's going to have a bigger problem in Ukraine than it will have over the long run in Russia.
	But in Ukraine, I think if its generals are talking, they're going to say, look, occupying it and controlling the whole country is probably beyond the pale.
	But maybe we can – it reminds me of Afghanistan.
	We'll take a couple of the big cities and we'll hold it.
	But, you know, we're going to have an insurgency, and it'll be hit and run, and it'll go on.
	How exposed is Putin to being removed from office by either the intelligence community, which you told me has its own little army, he must know about that, he's a former member of the intelligence community,
	or by his senior military people?
	A lot of autocrats are walked out the door, right?
	Take it to the chopping block.
	But I think that's less likely here.
	I think the people may be unhappy, but in order to remove a leader, if you're going to have a conspiracy, it requires multiple people.
	And they're hard to organize.
	And I think he's got a grip on his own institutions.
	In other words, there's enough fear in there that if Billy tries to reach Harry, and if someone finds out they're dead, they're gone, they disappear.
	So I think the classical coup is not likely at all.
	And I think what is more likely in my view is that the system, let's say after some settlement, let's hope it's one that is not positive for Putin, once his army leaves,
	then Russia still has to live with the aftermath of it.
	And I think the citizenry gets less happy.
	The government disgruntled people to get happy.
	But the ability to organize a coup, I think, is probably limited.
	What I would predict, more likely, is that someday there's a demonstration that gets bigger and out of hand sooner, and the military and the police just, in an uncoordered way, decided they're not going to suppress it.
	And the next thing you have a change in government.
	So I think it's longer, those that are waiting for palace coup.
	Now, I could wake up tomorrow morning.
	I would not be surprised.
	If he was taken out tomorrow, right?
	But I don't really feel that that's what's going to happen or that there's a group of generals so disgusted.
	But the country, once the country is considered to be, you know, a lame country, you think the Chinese want to be in bed with them forever, who's going to be their ally?
	It'll be strictly commercial ties.
	It'll be...
	Everybody in that country really looked upon as, you know, a second, third-rate person.
	And eventually it grinds on the society.
	But we haven't really had a dictator who's waged a war like this in Europe since Hitler.
	He had no moral compass.
	Putin obviously has no moral compass.
	To whom can he turn?
	What can he say to a crowd?
	To get them to cheer that will justify what he's done to capture some plots of dirt in Ukraine.
	One thing that surprises me is that given the world we live in, the social media, I would have predicted that everybody in Russia knew the full story, right?
	And that he would try disinformation, but it would only be effective around the corner.
	But every indication that I can see is that there's a A large number of Russians that actually believe it's disinformation.
	You know, the atrocities are a Ukrainian plot.
	And so, you know, the disinformation part of this, you know, he might be able, I don't know how it's possible, but he might be able to convince a significant number of the Russian people that,
	you know, he was put upon.
	And the Americans were behind it and so on.
	All I'm saying to the judges, that wears down over time.
	You know, they had demonstrations in Berlin and so on and so on.
	I said, well, that's a paid demonstration, right?
	In other words, it's one that's organized and, you know, it's not spontaneous.
	I mean, I don't know how you can sit and look at objective, any form of Western media and not come to the conclusion that...
	What happened is evil.
	The fact that he invaded, saying that Ukraine was going to pick on him and invaded.
	How can you say that with a straight face?
	But he did, and a lot of people in his own country seem to have signed up to it amazingly.
	I don't think it's so much in the urban areas as it is in the countryside, but even there, they get the numbers that they say.
	A number of people in the cities have to think that Russia is not the instigator.
	I think no matter any objective view of this thing, it has to look at Putin as basically having undertaken an evil enterprise here.
	The energy sun is just dreadful.
	Is there a view in the State Department or the American intelligence community that they want to bring about or use this?
	In an effort to oust Putin, to bring about regime change.
	Was President Biden speaking out of school?
	Or was that just some loose thought in his head when he said regime change?
	This guy can't be allowed to stay in office.
	Some of my libertarian friends know that I'm one.
	And some of your former colleagues say that the State Department has been manipulating for regime change since this guy.
	So, on 2 March, I had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, and I said, "Putin has sowed the seeds of his own demise, right?
	Let him fall of his own weight.
	Keep the pressure, maximum pressure on him, but do not meddle inside, because the chances of it getting cocked up and turned upside down where people are saying, "Here are the Americans interfering regime change in our country."
	And I question the ability.
	I mean, listen, you're talking to a practitioner, right?
	Look, the ability to have orchestrating that type of regime change in a major state, I would really counsel that this is unwise, that you strengthen all of the economic issues,
	you make the Ukrainian fight as strong as you can on their side, but just keep them boxed in.
	And his own people will bring an end to the Putin era.
	Jack, are we fighting?
	Are we fighting?
	We will fail and it will backfire.
	Are we fighting a proxy war right now?
	This isn't one of our choosing.
	Putin decided to go in.
	I see no indication that we wanted to have a proxy war.
	But at this point, I don't see where we have much of a choice that, you know, he goes in and takes over Ukraine.
	He then becomes a more dangerous threat to us.
	So I think we have to be in there.
	Why is he a dangerous threat to us, to the United States of America, if he succeeds in Ukraine?
	Well, this is a little bit, you know, even beyond the book, you know, I was pretty tough on him.
	But I didn't see him as intrinsically evil.
	I saw him as just a hard-nosed intelligence operator.
	And I think, at the core, there's something fundamentally evil in his behavior.
	But the second thing is, I didn't realize how intense.
	I really believe, and I've warned everybody in the book, that he was trying to rebuild the Soviet Union.
	But I didn't.
	I kept saying we need to reset with them, and now I realize we're the real enemy.
	Now, there was a guy who defected.
	They called him Comrade Jay, and I think 2004 it could be off a little bit on the year.
	But Commander Jay, when he joined the KGB, they asked him what was the number one target: U.S., NATO, and China in that order.
	So when he joined in the '80s, that's what the target was.
	He said, "Well, what was the ranking priority for the KGB in 2004?"
	And he said, "Well, it was the US, NATO, and China."
	Right?
	Now, China's changed a bit.
	But what I'm saying is his overall, and it's hard to realize this where we sit, he really believes the United States is out to get him.
	I mean, and that he has to fight like Stalin.
	But I want to get back.
	I want to get back.
	So that's why it's not about Ukraine.
	It's about us.
	How are we harmed if he takes over Ukraine?
	Well, the question is, will he stay there?
	In other words, I've been successful.
	Why don't I take the Baltics?
	Why don't I, you know, look, Poland, you know, what's wrong with Poland?
	I might be able to, you know, there are a lot of Russians in Poland.
	So I think he becomes, first of all, The GDP, let's be practical, GDP, Russia is like Spain or France.
	All through history, people said if you have Ukraine, now you become a player.
	So I think he wants to strengthen Russia becomes, you know, his nuclear weapons.
	If you took them away, it'd be a second-rate country.
	But with the Ukraine, he'd have to be in the league with the big boys.
	And that's why he wants that.
	So if he wasn't aggressive towards, what's the problem?
	But I'm saying...
	He really wants to have a fight with us.
	And I think I've been slow to coming to the conviction that it's not just making himself strong.
	He really thinks that, you know, we need to be totalized.
	If his tank commanders misread their GPS devices and send projectiles across the border into Poland, And they destroy American military equipment there,
	maybe even harm some American personnel.
	What do we do?
	I think we fire right back.
	When I was doing the Afghan war, there was a discussion about the stinger.
	If you put it in, it would start World War III.
	And very senior people in the intelligence world believed that.
	I didn't believe that.
	I thought, look, what are they going to do?
	And I feel that way.
	I've been vacillating at least at the beginning on the MiGs.
	But, you know, now we're putting tanks in, and we should.
	Now I believe we should have put the MiGs in, okay, because what was he going to do?
	So here's the question.
	If he does that in any NATO country or hits any American, we must respond.
	And what is he going to do?
	I mean, you have to ask it.
	You say, well, he's not going to use it.
	You've got to punch him back.
	And he does not have an army to match what he's now demonstrating.
	He does not have an army to match Western armies.
	It's not sophisticated enough.
	It's communications, it's coordination.
	So if he wants to try that, he's getting the worst advice the head of state can get to think that he can do that and walk away.
	It won't happen.
	Jack Devine, former acting CIA director of operations.
	It's always a pleasure to hear from you, Jack.
	I hope you'll come back again soon.
	Always glad to judge.
	Thank you for that.
	Thank you.
	Judge Napolitano.
	Thank you, Jack.
	Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
	Hi, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
	Today is Wednesday, October 19th, 2022.
	It's about 3.20 in the afternoon here on the East Coast of the United States.
	My guest is a well-known regular guest on Judging Freedom.
	He is former senior management at the Central Intelligence Agency and a longtime personal friend, Jack Devine.
	Jack, it's always a pleasure.
	Welcome here.
	Thank you.
	Can the Russians lose this war in Ukraine?
	Well, let me equivocate.
	They will lose.
	They will lose.
	They can't win.
	That is not an equivocation.
	That's even more forceful.
	You're saying they can't lose.
	You're saying they will lose.
	I was being facetious.
	I was saying the declarative statement, they will lose.
	They cannot win.
	Can you explain, please?
	Well, I keep referring to it.
	I mean, there's a lot of things I wrote that I hope no one ever finds, right?
	But on March of This year, right after the Russians went in, I had an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal.
	And the top line says, "Putin has sowed the seeds of his demise."
	And I'm hanging in there.
	This is one that I'm proud of.
	And it says what he did when he crossed.
	There's no road back.
	There's no win.
	You're not Genghis Khan.
	You're not going to be able to run over the Ukraine, driving it into the dirt.
	You're in a different point in time.
	So what has happened, it's actually more drastic than I imagined when I've written it, and that is, it's not that he can't sustain against an insurgency like they tried in Afghanistan.
	He can't win the traditional part of it.
	He can't even get control over it before it starts to crumble.
	It crumbled when he went across.
	I didn't realize the poor condition of his military forces, their training, their leadership, communications, The state of their equipment.
	And the other thing that I was talking to someone earlier today, ideas matter.
	You know, struggles between major powers and ideology, ideas matter.
	And I think if you scrape everything away, defeat against communism, defeat against fascism, is because democracy and the free world is a better idea.
	What is Putin's idea?
	He doesn't even have one.
	He's not a communist.
	He might have fascist tendencies, but he doesn't have an idea.
	It's me, and I'm trying to capitalize on national.
	I don't think you can beat the West.
	He underestimated how quickly we grasped our idea.
	When he invaded NATO, everybody, it's about...
	The way the world's going to be.
	We're not really confused on that aspect of it.
	All right, Jack, you have used the phrase the West, excuse me, and you've used the plural we.
	Have we started World War III?
	Is this Putin against the West?
	It just appears to be Putin against Ukraine.
	Yeah, let me clarify my statement because I think that really, I should have said...
	I'm not jumping down here.
	It should have said the West and the Allies, Japan, you know, whatever countries you want to go with.
	Okay, I get it.
	But have we wittingly or unwittingly begun a war of the West, whoever that is, against Russia?
	Well, what I would say is we were asleep, you know, comfortable with the idea.
	Didn't think our idea was being threatened, right?
	So it was a sleep.
	It wasn't imperialism.
	It wasn't like we're going to go and take Russia and convert it into our world.
	I mean, people have to look at it.
	Russia invaded a country, a neighboring country that had a democratic city.
	Maybe he didn't like the type of it, but it was.
	They had elections and, you know, you could walk around the streets and do what you want.
	He invaded it without provocation.
	He says all these wild things.
	Russia was being threatened by a country without nuclear weapons.
	I mean, really.
	A country of smaller size.
	But when he crossed, then it became we again.
	In other words, why?
	He was challenging the behavior that we signed up a large part of the world around an orderly, democratic, free society that you don't invade each other's countries willy-nilly.
	Did the CIA participate in the overthrow of the popularly elected government in Ukraine in 2014?
	Well, I have no definitive answer, but I will tell you, I'd be amazed if they did.
	Isn't that what they do?
	Well, yeah, but I've been lecturing.
	You see Good Honey up there?
	You see Spymaster?
	You do it very selectively.
	In fact, you're really onto a hot topic.
	You know, why don't we do it in Russia?
	Why don't we destabilize Iran?
	Look at the opportunities that are falling apart.
	And Jack Devine said in that wonderful op-ed, don't do that in Saudi Arabia because you're not as good as you think you are.
	And that isn't how it's done.
	In other words, you don't decide you're going to go in somewhere and overthrow a government.
	The first step is you have to sit down and say, is there anybody in that country?
	That happens to think the way I think?
	And what does it look like?
	How big are they?
	How strong are they?
	And what is the idea that you're pushing, right?
	So my point is, and it was very explicit in the op-ed, do not run some covert action operation.
	Some guy who's been in the agency but never touched one, this guy will fall of his own weight if you let him keep doing what he's doing.
	However, just one fast thing with this judge.
	That doesn't mean we don't do anything.
	We're as strong as we can be.
	Don't meddle inside his country.
	He'll be able to rally people, and we will pick some Gucci guy who's not a real Russian, and he'll get slaughtered.
	So I'm saying let him fall in his own way.
	He is going to fall.
	There's no road back.
	Is it tomorrow or next month?
	I can't tell you.
	But we don't.
	CIA should not.
	Do you reject- I know you have a different- Audience than usual.
	I enjoy their audience.
	But CIA's role is not to overthrow government.
	It should go at it reluctantly.
	And I'm an enthusiast for action.
	All right.
	I will not read to you what the audience is saying.
	People told me they have wild, wild ideas about me.
	You know that I regard our friendship with gratitude and joy, and I deeply appreciate.
	You're being on the show, and you do bring out a lot of strong opinions from a lot of people.
	I know that, and I welcome.
	That's why this show is fun.
	I don't feel like talking to people that are going to say, Jack, we agree with you.
	Let's have it out there.
	Let's have it.
	Okay, do you accept the argument that Putin cannot keep his job or his life or his liberty if he loses?
	And therefore, will do anything within his power to win.
	Well, no.
	No.
	Okay, maybe that helps you with it.
	If he is losing, there's a mark.
	Today, I do not see him in jeopardy.
	But the grains of sand are moving under his feet, right?
	And the more he looks like a loser, the more he is a loser, the more his friends, his so-called fair-weather friends, Before he gets to that desperation, he's not the only man in Russia that's going to be looking at it.
	And when he gets into that really last round of the fight, right, and his manager's sitting there in a corner and he's bleeding and can't move his legs anymore, the talcum.
	That means before he gets to the point where you might consider a nuclear weapon, he will be gone.
	He's not going to have enough support.
	Is he still secure in his job?
	Does he still have the support of the intelligence community around him, the elites around them, and the average Russians in the street?
	There are different groups stating the obvious.
	I think the day he crossed the border, this is Jack's unscientific opinion.
	One third of the generals said, well, yeah, it's worth a shot.
	You know, we don't like the Ukrainians, right?
	Another third said, look, I'm a good soldier.
	I don't like this idea.
	We'll go along.
	Another third said, this is crazy.
	This is a bad idea, right?
	But I'm going to keep my mouth shut because if I tell anybody, I don't know whether they're going to report it and they're going to take me out.
	So this is a third that probably didn't want to do this in the upper command.
	Intelligence, whatever it is.
	The more you are experiencing intelligence, the dumber this idea looks no matter where you're sitting, right?
	So I would say today those numbers are changing.
	The only thing that hasn't changed is they're still not talking to each other.
	That gets to your second point about the people on the street.
	I don't see a cow.
	He can be thrown out tomorrow.
	I'll give your audience that.
	But I don't see it.
	It'll be a surprise, but not a total surprise.
	More likely what I think you have to see is this population, this popularity among the people fading and that there's continuing problems.
	It doesn't start, based on my experience in studying of this subject, the real coup plotting.
	That doesn't start until really late in the game.
	And I was in Chile when Allende was overthrown, okay?
	And there's a lot of popular Nonsense out there.
	Your audience is really good.
	The CIA, you know, there was a dumb attempt over stopping from becoming president.
	The CIA said, don't do it.
	And the president of the United States, Richard Nixon, said, give it the college try.
	What happens is everyone forgot that that day we got an instruction saying no coup on it.
	But there was a coup and it came in 73. As late as August, still didn't think there would be a coup in that country.
	Now, my wife was the first person that got notice, official notice, there was going to be a coup.
	When did the generals decide to overthrow again?
	I'll tell you the day.
	It was in June.
	And that was the day a group of six tanks, I think it was six, pulled in front of the mayor.
	They were drinking all night.
	They pulled in front.
	And they were going to overthrow the six guys.
	And the commander of the Chief of the Armed Forces went out and said, "Listen, you're a soldier.
	Get back in your tank and leave."
	So I'm telling you, I was part of the group that said, "Well, that's it.
	How are they ever going to overthrow Andy?
	This is it."
	You know in the day what happened?
	They left that meeting, and that's the day the coup plot started because he said, "Our military institution is crumbling.
	We will take charge."
	Okay.
	Let's come back to Ukraine.
	How much of a setback for the Russians was the damage to the Crimea Bridge?
	And were the CIA or MI6 involved in the planning of the explosions that took down a portion of that bridge?
	To the best of my knowledge, the answer is no.
	However, what I would say is, I think one of the major contributions that people fell asleep on is that the friendly nations like the United States, you know, publicly it's in the press, and I believe the press, of course, that a lot of training took place.
	The best army on the face of the earth, right?
	Because we've been fighting 20 years.
	What do you see a difference?
	They're using tactics, but they didn't need us to plan that attack.
	People keep underestimating Ukrainians.
	It's not like they've never been in a fight.
	Russia talks about the Great Russia.
	Well, Ukrainians are the ones that stand down in Stalingrad, it wasn't the Russians.
	So my point is these are people who fight.
	So I think that's the case.
	Your question about the Crimea is important because I've been saying privately for a long time, you know, Putin's out there waving the nuclear weapon.
	That is psych warfare.
	The importance of attacking the Crimea and bringing the fight there.
	You can't underestimate how that impacted the mind of the Russians, how it impacts the mind of its leadership, its military, and how it impacts on the Ukrainians.
	So I think it was a huge, huge thing.
	And, you know, I'm not ruling out that they're going to take it back by force.
	That's when the plot starts.
	You've got to pinpoint your day.
	In other words, there will be an event.
	And that's why I wanted the Chile thing.
	Today, when an institution, they're a personal institution, that's when they start plotting.
	Who damaged the Nord Stream pipeline?
	That's a good question.
	I polled a lot of people, right?
	I'll take my polls.
	It was like five, five for the Russians, you know, five, five, 50%, right?
	Another three were for Fritz, right?
	And then there was one for the Ukrainians and one for the U.S., right?
	So the point is...
	Who are these characters?
	Retired intelligence?
	No, I'm going to be fair.
	Cosmopolitan crossover people.
	They weren't all New Yorkers either.
	So my point was, when you get done with it, it's kind of where you come out.
	I mean, why would we do it?
	I can tell you why we wouldn't do it.
	We wouldn't be able to coordinate it with Congress and everywhere else.
	The Brits wouldn't do it because they felt like, I've got to tell me, I've got to tell the United States, right?
	So there's bureaucratic reasons why not.
	Jack, MI6 and the CIA will do whatever they want.
	MI6 is not going to involve the parliament.
	All they're going to do is tell your pattern.
	Look, I see we have to go out and have a bottle of cognac so I can straighten you out of it.
	You have no idea.
	I had a lawyer on my right shoulder when I became Chief of America and I suddenly got like three stars.
	They said, well, I'm going to introduce you to your personal lawyer.
	He's going to read everything you write.
	Okay, only in America will I tell you that happens.
	So my point is the CIA doesn't do what it wants.
	And this is something I'm going to stop kidding around.
	There are hundreds of covert action operations that have been run since the beginning of the CIA's formation.
	And it's been a controversy part, and I believe a really important part, by every president, starting with Truman.
	But every one of them have been approved by the President of the United States.
	You cannot find one covert action operation in its history.
	I have not, and I've studied this, found one that wasn't proven.
	After the '70s, and I don't know whether it was '76 or '74, there is no covert action operation that takes place that is not signed by the President of the United States and the Congress...
	Did Joe Biden authorize American intelligence to attack the Nord Stream pipeline?
	Putin's not going to attack his own pipeline.
	That would mean he was insane.
	I'm just going to tell you, what would happen is...
	If that was the United States, the President of the United States signed that order personally, and Congress would have to have been briefed within 72 hours.
	What do you think the chances are that that could be a secret?
	Okay, you're talking about the Gang of Eight, which is the minority majority leader.
	There was a different world.
	Let me get this straight.
	Congress, Republicans, Democrats actually could work together on Cold War items.
	There was a unanimity of how, you know, there might be a difference about how much you put into it.
	But I was never The leaks, in my experience, don't come from those meetings.
	They come from the White House, from the executive branch, because somebody has an ax to grind.
	Congress is actually pretty responsible in the area you're talking about.
	In my experience, despite all the misgivings people have about it, I have a lot of respect for that process.
	A few minutes ago, you mentioned Japan.
	Is Japan providing assistance to the Ukrainian military?
	Japan's not in NATO.
	No, but I said earlier, and that's why you rightly corrected me.
	When I say we, I would include the Japanese.
	I would include all of our allies that supported us in the past.
	In the case of the Japanese, I don't know of any specific weapon systems that they have that would be unique that would go there.
	But they're voting their support.
	I mean, as far as I know, but I've heard nothing that would lead me to believe that they need to.
	But I think if asked, they probably would.
	What is your view of President Biden's recent belligerence, both towards President Putin and President Xi?
	I mean, do we really want to get into a land war trying to defend Taiwan from the biggest military in the world?
	Well, we can talk style, and then we can talk geopolitics, right?
	And if I were talking geopolitics and I was sitting down to national security in the old days when I could sit down with Democrats and Republicans in Congress, you would say, look, and this is a really important point.
	From his childhood, believed we were the main enemy and we were out to get his Russia.
	In other words, he is a diehard, anti-West, anti-American.
	He can smile at those cocktail parties, but people really misread him, okay?
	So being tough with Putin, I mean...
	I'd love to mention my book in this context.
	I was too nice to Putin.
	I said he was a lousy strategic guy, but he was a good tactician.
	I take that back.
	He's not a good tactician, but he is a thug.
	So I'm not too worried about the political niceties of talking to him.
	She has a different problem.
	Here you have a major economic power.
	We have to get along on a lot of things of interest.
	Putin is small potatoes of where the world is going, economically politically.
	So we need to keep working to find accommodation.
	But Xi, this isn't people really, you know, I talk about communism that died everywhere.
	It died in a certain way in China, but they are communist.
	The structure is communist.
	It's a very, but they've opened and used Western techniques, but they're not looking for freedom.
	So, you know, the question of how nice you want to be in the Xi, but there's a practical side to that.
	When a guy declares war on your allies and declares war on you, in essence, it's a different story.
	So there are two places.
	I think Teddy Roosevelt had it right.
	Speak softly and carry a big stick.
	Joe Biden is not speaking softly, not about Taiwan, and I don't think he has the sticks necessary to defend Taiwan.
	The Chinese Navy will blockade the island.
	We won't even be able to get troops and material there.
	Listen, Judge, Putin thought, those Ukrainians, I'm going to roll right over them, right?
	Anytime you try and take an island, ask the people that did the Bay of Pigs.
	Islands are really hard to do, okay?
	We didn't get to this.
	That's not cost-free.
	They're not going to roll over Taiwan, okay?
	I think the Chinese, I don't want to say more than I know, I think they looked at what happened to Putin and they said, "Well, we have a 20-year plan now.
	We had a five-year plan.
	Now we have a 20-year plan for Taiwan."
	I think they're reevaluated.
	It's modern war.
	Look at this one.
	I mean, people have to get back and ask and say, "How are we going to fight wars?
	Where's the Air Force?"
	No, it's drones.
	It's javelins.
	It's a different battle out there.
	What are the big battleships and submarines going to do in Taiwan?
	Before we conclude, Jack, let's circle back to Ukraine.
	Does Putin seem to think that if he's vicious enough attacking Ukraine infrastructure and utilities, power, heat, water?
	That NATO and the United States will either stop getting involved or force Ukraine to a negotiating table.
	Is that his theory?
	He knows he cannot win on the battlefield.
	So therefore, he's not a quitter, by the way.
	He's going to double down.
	He's betting that we're weak.
	In other words, he's betting just like you've described.
	Cold winner.
	We're not going to stay the duration.
	We're sprinters.
	He's a long-distance runner, okay?
	And you look at what he's doing.
	He's firing these rockets.
	It's like the old days when we've had a threat.
	We'd shoot rockets out into the desert, right?
	And said, oh, there, take that.
	So he destroys buildings and civilians.
	He's not winning anything on the battlefield.
	It's psychological.
	In other words, why do I wave?
	He's working to break our will psychologically.
	He cannot go to the battlefield.
	When the flowers start popping, when the seeds pop in the spring, I want to see him sit down and analyze how right was it?
	And I'm going to tell you, you're going to see NATO, you're going to see the United States still supporting the Ukraine.
	You'll see them still fighting.
	So you better have a plan B. Jack, one of these days we'll have a plan B and we'll talk about history.
	I'm fascinated with the Bay of Pigs and its domestic ramifications and the overthrow of Salvatore Allende.
	We'll get to that.
	Read my books, guys.
	I've sent you autographs.
	I think I put them in gold leaf, didn't I?
	Your books?
	Yes, you did.
	I spell out under what conditions.
	This is the irony of it.
	I'm an advocate of the CIA.
	I mean, they didn't ask me.
	They don't pay me.
	They'd like me to go away.
	But I'm an advocate for the mission.
	I'm an advocate for the use of covert action before you put a big army on the ground.
	But I am meticulous in saying, don't do this as a lark in some movie script.
	This is serious stuff.
	And these are the 10, 15 principles.
	I'm going to leave you in deep suspense about what they are in your audience.
	And instead of your audience getting agitated about my...
	My audience isn't agitated.
	I suggest they read.
	They read a little bit more.
	They read and they know my personality.
	They know I like to stir the pot.
	Yeah, well, I like to stir the pot.
	They like to stir the pot.
	So do I. So we have a good group here together.
	All right.
	Jack Devine, it's a pleasure.
	You're a gentleman.
	We'll do it again soon.
	Thank you, my friend.
	And listen, I'm telling your audience, God bless America because you are allowed to have these views that you have, okay?
	Cherish them, and I welcome them.
	I'm not in spirit.
	Fire away.
	Have yourself a good time because God bless America and our freedoms.
	God bless you too, Jack.
	Until the next time, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
	Judge it well.
	Hi, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
	Today is Monday, June 6, 2022.
	It's about 2 o 'clock in the afternoon on the east coast of the United States.
	My guest today is a Judging Freedom regular, Jack Devine.
	Jack spent his entire career in the Central Intelligence Agency and knows a great deal about Russian...
	Jack, it's always a pleasure.
	Thanks, and welcome back to Judging Freedom.
	Russian invasion of Ukraine and each time you are of the view that the Russians will win, and of course you can't always tell how it's going at the time we talk, but what's your view today about 102, 103 days into the war?
	Well, I actually, I didn't think they were going to win in the sense of occupying and what I wasn't sure of is on the eve of when they invaded And just how vigorously the Ukrainians would fight.
	But I called a very good friend of mine who's well-wired there, and he said, "Jack, we're going to fight."
	So I actually believe they're going to fight.
	That they would be as successful as they have been is a real surprise.
	And that the Russians have been so feckless on the ground in terms of having an army and logistics.
	I mean, the first 70 days.
	It was pretty abysmal, and I think it was a shock to the world, including those that watch it closely in the intelligence world.
	So I've actually been thinking for a long time that you end up with a stalemate, maybe not a ceasefire, but the Russians will—they haven't done it yet.
	There's a point where they moved everything out of Kiev, and now they're down in the eastern corner.
	They're going to push as hard as they can, and the Ukrainians are going to push back as hard as they can.
	And I think once they get to that point, they can't go any further and the Ukrainians can't push it back anymore.
	Then I think you end up with a stalemate.
	I don't think at this point it'll be a negotiated settlement because I don't think either party can negotiate.
	But you can tone down without a treaty.
	In other words, you just stop firing as many rounds and you get off the air a little bit.
	So I don't think we're too far out.
	I think before Thanksgiving, if not before Labor Day, I think they're going to be near stalemate.
	You can see certain things falling into place.
	There's a limit to how far the Russians can go and how far the Ukrainians can.
	What does President Putin need in order credibly, credibly to claim victory?
	By credibly, I mean so that enough people in his own government believe him that he'll still be the president of Russia a year from now.
	I don't think he can.
	In order to do that, I think the Kyiv government would have to fall, and he would have to take the capital and most of the country.
	And there's no indication whatsoever that he has that capability.
	So I think he'll declare a victory that he has the eastern corner of the two provinces there.
	But that's as far as it goes.
	And frankly, he had unofficially sort of claimed that earlier.
	I don't see us within grasp anymore.
	And I think your point about a year, I wrote this op-ed that we talked about on March 2nd saying his days were number.
	I didn't mean literally the next five days, but his days, and he's over.
	I mean, he cannot come back as a powerhouse in this country, around the world, and it's just a question of time.
	It'll be his own people that bring him down.
	So a year?
	A year is not a bad bet.
	I wouldn't take that.
	I mean, that's not unrealistic for where.
	Is he forever going to be an outcast in the European community?
	Or will he at some point come back into their good graces?
	How can he come back after the atrocities?
	In other words, if there was a war in which it was fought traditionally and it was evenly balanced, you could say, well, we could work if it was way back.
	After the atrocities and the vicious bombing and...
	You can't worry about it.
	Who's going to have their picture taken of it?
	I mean, really.
	I mean, in his own country, I think he's going to have a hard time developing the stature.
	Before he went in, it was his high point.
	That was my thesis and remains my thesis.
	Is it normal in a limited war like this?
	By limited, I mean limited to one country versus another.
	This isn't World War II.
	For one side to lose 11?
	Is that a coincidence?
	Or are the Ukrainians, perhaps with assistance from the West, targeting the Russian senior military leadership?
	11 is a significant number.
	There's no question about it.
	But they have a different structure.
	Their structure doesn't give the captain, the major, and the lieutenant colonel a lot of authority.
	Pass down the authority, then their general has to get closer to where the action is.
	And I think that distinguishes their model from our model.
	The second thing is, and I'm not professing inside information, but the Ukrainians have been training.
	And actually, in the book, I go into this.
	You know, and that was 18, 2018.
	They are not the Army of 2014.
	They've learned some lessons.
	You know, they may not have received all the sophisticated weapons and the amount, but they clearly have been trained to fight this kind of war, where I think the Russians were still fighting, you know, going through the bulge type of war strategy.
	So I think that a lot of their techniques, I don't think the Russians were ready for it, frankly.
	There's no indication that they had any idea of what they were against.
	At some point, we should talk about the Stinger, just because of its...
	I want to make a point about...
	Well, I do want to talk about— Modern weapons change the battlefield.
	Okay.
	I do want to talk about those weapons in this context.
	Putin has warned the West that he may do something if we—he's obviously saying this for consumption in the United States—continue to arm the Ukrainians.
	What is this threat, and what could he possibly do?
	What he could do is talk loud.
	And he will get reception from people in the West and the East that are prone and fearful.
	Let me put it this way.
	I told you last time, I think I made a mistake because I sort of went along with the idea that, well, maybe we shouldn't put those MiGs in.
	And the weather was discussed in Poland.
	I thought, wait a minute.
	Why not?
	What's he going to do?
	He's going to invade Ukraine?
	He's going to invade Poland after what he just showed?
	I mean, I think it's a lot of luster now.
	He'll fire off rockets and do damage and blow up buildings, but he has no pushback.
	He can't make progress in Ukraine.
	How's he going to make it in Germany and Poland?
	I mean, so what is he going to do?
	I mean, I think we have to be careful because he threw out the word nuclear weapons, right?
	Everybody gets panicked.
	Really?
	You're going to fire one off?
	What do you think is going to be left of the Kremlin?
	It would be the end of my civilization as we know it.
	So I think we have to take these threats.
	He is a good propagandist, given that, and disinformation.
	The Russians have been working at it much more effectively.
	We really don't engage very much.
	Americans, they don't like disinformation.
	Jack, what have we gained by $56 billion in cash and in military equipment sent over to Ukraine?
	Well, I think I would reverse the issue in the sense of what would have happened if we hadn't provided either the training or weapons.
	The war would have been over in a month.
	Right.
	The thing that people really need to study is just how important Ukraine is in the history of Russia.
	Every Russian leader has lusted after Ukraine because it's the red basket of… In many ways of Europe, but it's also, you know, industrial power.
	It had nuclear weapons not too long ago.
	But a point that I would make is Russia, again, its GDP is like Spain or France with the Ukraine.
	And if Ukraine were fully developed, you know, you would have a much stronger...
	The Germans would have a hard time with it.
	In other words, in terms of...
	That would be a much more formidable threat in Europe.
	And the big thing that has emerged from this, Judge, is I don't think Putin, as bad as I viewed him as a danger, he's worse than I thought.
	I'm sure he didn't like Spymaster's Prison because I'm pretty tough on him.
	But he has shown himself to be ruthless, you know, an imperialist in real old-fashioned style.
	So I wouldn't want to be sitting in hungry...
	Estonia, Poland.
	In fact, I think he'd be aggressive in Latin America and maybe even in our own backyard.
	What is the American intelligence community telling the president and the people around him about Putin today?
	His mental stability, his physical health, his stability in office?
	I don't know what exactly they're saying.
	But I would be surprised if they are not far apart in our assessment of, A, the danger he represented, danger he still represents, and his mindset.
	And I think probably they and me have probably sharpened our concerns about his ability or willingness to take light in large numbers Too much about that.
	So I think on that score, about him and his stability, my guess is they're going to come out the same way, which is he's over.
	When it all turns to crumbles, who knows?
	But he is shrunk.
	He is shrunken as a threat to the world.
	I mean, in the sense of, you know, his bluster.
	I mean, who's going to be afraid of him after he's CL?
	Do we have boots on the ground in Ukraine?
	Well, I will say this.
	We do not have any uniformed American troops on the ground.
	That would be my guess.
	That you have really smart advisors that are Americans, I'll bet you don't.
	I would hope that we would live your way to lend support.
	Look, I'm a big advocate.
	Book one, book two, I talk about covert action.
	And that is those types of things you do without putting boots on the ground and armies.
	And that's what I did in Afghanistan with many of my colleagues who, I mean, I don't mean me, but...
	The generation of people from the agency.
	But you're better fighting wars covertly, right?
	Where you have the local people want to fight, they have an adversary, you support it to the maximum, and you don't put troops on the ground.
	So I'm not a big fan of what we did in Iraq, and I didn't like the way it turned out in Afghanistan because I think we went in too early with the real army.
	So if there's folks on the ground, it's sort of my vision of how How do you do things without getting toe-to-toe in the kinetic war against the Russians?
	You and I have talked about this.
	Somebody on the president's team either intentionally or let it slip that special forces, American special forces, were sent to Kiev to protect the embassy.
	Now that's a joke.
	Special forces don't guard buildings.
	Special forces are offensive in nature.
	So if they're there, are we not risking the slow, gradual Vietnamization of this war?
	I could be wrong.
	I don't think there's a single American enlisted man or officer that's firing any weapons at the Russians, okay?
	Then you better have tightened up your military presence.
	I mean, if you have a, you know, I don't know how many guards, Marine guards you had there who have always served their country bravely.
	But once he invaded and you still had people there, you better fortify it because your embassy can be overrun, as we saw in Vietnam and other places.
	So then we would send in and, you know, people talk loosely about he's a member of CIA when they actually mean he's in DEA or DIA.
	When they say special forces, was he, were they really special forces?
	I don't know.
	What they really should have done is tighten up the embassy, and I bet they burn a lot of documents and prepare for the worst.
	Remember, the U.S. government, at least as I read it, was offering Kalinske a free plane ride out of Ukraine, but fortunately he saw the situation quite differently and stayed.
	Thank God for all of us.
	But there was pessimism about the ability to hold Kiev.
	I'd like to know what Joe Biden's real thoughts are.
	I don't know that you can tell me this, because that $56 billion is going to be gone pretty soon.
	You mentioned stingers.
	Have we sent them weapons that are powerful enough that they can reach into Russia?
	And does that terrify Vladimir Putin?
	And if it does, what's he going to do about it?
	The reason I mentioned stingers, Judge, is we were running a war for...
	About eight years before the Stingers went in, right?
	And if you go back and read the press in 1985, the Russians were winning, the Mujahideen was running Alistin.
	If you talk to the political elite in Washington, they would have told you the same thing immediately.
	What happened is the Reagan administration decided they were going to make one big push.
	I happened to be chief of the task force at the time for a tow to sleep.
	But what happened?
	That one weapon system went in, and the first three helicopters, I don't remember, Going to see Judge, not Judge, Director Casey and shot him the photos of the shoot downs.
	And their strategy came.
	They started flying way above the range and then they were ineffective on the battlefield.
	And that's when the Russians started planning to leave.
	Now, that was the first time Stingers were introduced.
	When they were, what happened in this war, you don't hear as much about air power as you did.
	Why?
	Because the Stinger takes out helicopters, and so they were there.
	We put the Stingers in, and we put the Javelin, which is anti-tank.
	And when I was in the Afghan program, we were looking for the Milan missile to take out tanks.
	So those things were terribly, terribly important, and that's why I don't think the Ukrainians would have been able to fight on without those two weapons systems.
	Your question is, okay, now we're 100 days into it.
	And artillery is now the key and the range of it.
	So the Russians can sit there and fire artillery and the Ukrainians can't fire back because they don't have the range.
	Everything is said publicly by the president and the administration is those weapons are on their way to them.
	And, you know, I don't blame gluten for jumping up and down, so don't you dare do that.
	But I am glad that the...
	The administration sees it for what it is, and that is, yeah, what are you going to do about it?
	Why don't you back off?
	Why don't you pull out?
	Why don't you stop slaughtering these people?
	Why don't you back off?
	And then you wouldn't have to worry about whether we put them in or not.
	All right.
	We'll have you back soon, Jack.
	You said maybe Labor Day, maybe Thanksgiving, but over by Christmas?
	The stalemate between both the Russians, that would be my bet.
	By Christmas?
	You know, everyone's going to be exhausted.
	I mean, the support among the Allies is, you know, it's going to be tenuous.
	Here in the United States, if we run into some of the economic headwinds, it's going to be tenuous.
	But remember, Putin is looking in the mirror, and he's not going to get any stronger.
	He's not going to get any better.
	Fewer deaths on this battlefield are not going to happen.
	He's not going to really regain much territory.
	So I think at a certain point, You're the stalemate.
	And is there a brilliant statesman who could come in and cut a deal?
	Maybe.
	I haven't seen him, but that's possible.
	I'm more inclined to think it just sort of dries up little by little.
	And then once the fighting's over, then everyone in Russia looks at him, including his own leadership.
	And there's a lot of division in Moscow, quiet as it may be, about what a mistake this was.
	Well, once the fighting's over, they're going to have to contend with guerrilla warfare, the likes of which they've never seen.
	Well, that's the point.
	How far down can you turn it?
	I mean, that's going to be a really good question.
	You don't have the guerrilla warfare unless you think you're going to gain something, right?
	In other words, if Russia dials down, you have to be careful about forcing them to dial up.
	So will there be guerrilla warfare?
	I think all along they've had very good tactics.
	So I hope the Ukrainians, at some point, we recognize, it's like a judge, you know this, in settling a case, there's a line, and you know when both parties will agree, right?
	You know it.
	And if someone misses it, it gets really messy for a long time.
	So I think we're looking for that type of settlement where, yeah.
	It's not going to get better.
	It's only going to cost us more.
	But he's slow.
	Putin's slow at it.
	And the Ukrainians have every reason to be angry and wanting to perturb their integrity of their territory.
	Jack Devine, always a pleasure.
	You're always welcome here.
	Thanks very much, my friend.
	Thank you.
	Always a pleasure.
	Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
	Hi, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
	Today is Wednesday, June 14th, 2023.
	It's about 4.45 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States.
	Jack Devine, CIA agent extraordinaire, joins us right after this.
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	Jack, welcome to the show, my dear friend.
	So if I were the President of the United States and you were briefing me tomorrow on the status of military events in Ukraine, what would you be telling me?
	Well, I think I would be saying I don't see surprises here on your previous briefing.
	Basically, you know, the Russians had a big offensive.
	It petered out, as I thought it would, and then mentioned it on here.
	We hyped the counteroffensive.
	I don't know why we felt we needed to do that.
	When I say that, our allies, we did, the media, that there was going to be a big counteroffensive.
	I don't know whether they thought we were going to drive the Russians to Moscow.
	But I think what's happening is I think you're starting to look at a smart maneuvering counteroffensive.
	But as I said on this show several issues ago, several events ago, That, you know, I think they will make some progress, and I think they'll show some weaknesses.
	But I'm not expecting a decisive development on the battlefield.
	Either, I mean, decisive in the sense of war ending or getting to the table.
	I didn't expect it when the Russians did the offensive, and I don't expect it now.
	So my opinion about your other president is I'm sticking with it.
	And that this is going to be drawn out.
	And the real action will start after these two offensives when people reevaluate what the next move is.
	All right.
	In this mock Q&A we just did, where I said, if I were the president and you were briefing me, I think you spoke honestly and candidly from your knowledge, from open sources and from your own sources.
	But doesn't the CIA, when they brief the president, tell him?
	What they think he wants to hear?
	I hope not.
	I hope not.
	There's a long tradition in the CIA.
	It's really worth, you know, those that are interested, going back and reading about Sherman Kent.
	Sherman Kent, when they first created the state, created the analytical group.
	And they really looked at it philosophically, strategic intelligence, current intelligence.
	What went to the president?
	What was our job?
	Our job is to put the facts on the table.
	One of the most desirable documents in Washington is the president's daily briefing.
	Every day, a hand-carried briefing is brought to him.
	And that, I'm just going to use some profanity, that better well be nothing but the truth, okay?
	And first thing, as professional, you never want to bring junk to the president and have to face it.
	I mean, first of all, there's a responsibility to do what you were hired to do.
	Why join CIA if you're going to be a propagandist?
	All right.
	What is your view on the offensive?
	Has it started?
	Oh, yes.
	Oh, yeah.
	No, I think it started.
	I mean, they've got some rain issues and mud.
	And I think, again, I'm not a war planner in the sense that I'm a logistic guy.
	I can get things to places, but...
	I leave to the great war students of the West Point and so on to figure out how you run wars tactically on the ground.
	But it looks to me like they're making probes, and what they're looking for is where is the place where you can actually make a significant penetration?
	But as I said, they're not going to penetrate and get to the Russian border.
	I mean, it'd be quite amazing if they did.
	I think there's going to be a lot of focus around Crimea and the land bridge, but not to be corny.
	It might be a bridge too far.
	But it certainly is a worthwhile objective, and it would be a psychological blow if any ground was taken in that area.
	The dam, the bursting of the dam, it denied Crimea a significant portion of its fresh water, relieved the Russians of some land.
	They didn't have to defend because nobody could go there because of the water.
	Most of the people in the West say Ukraine blew up.
	I think the prevailing official estimates are that the Russians did it.
	I don't see how that's really advantageous to the Ukrainians to do that.
	There's also some discussion about just how strong the dam was, but I understand there was an explosion not too long before that.
	I'm betting on the Russians.
	You said recently that Russia is facing mounting pressures on multiple fronts.
	What do you mean?
	Well, they have pressures inside and out.
	I mean, one of the ones that I've been tracking with...
	...with you for a long time is the fight between the Wagner Group and Pergosian and the military.
	I mean, I'm stunned by it.
	I mean, I can't remember ever seeing that in a major state in conflict and getting by.
	You usually think one party or the other disappears in the middle of the night, right?
	So I find that extraordinarily telling, and I'm not sure that I can answer the question, why does it continue?
	Internally, I think...
	You're beginning to see or Russians are seeing some of the consequences of it in terms of real deaths.
	I think there's economic pressures now as well.
	So I think there's also raising their level of having trouble getting people into the armed forces and retaining them.
	So I think their best day, maybe, was the first day they invaded, right?
	I think it's been a slight since.
	Now, I was saying, and I have been saying for a long time, that it'll be a while, and I'm thinking we're several months out, before you begin to see the ramifications inside Russia.
	When that starts, then we can really talk about maybe there is some agreement that can be cut, or something will happen internally.
	And we should not comment that.
	I want to keep saying this before we get to the CIA to be covert.
	Before we get to the conditions for an agreement, which I want to pick your brain about, I want to play a clip for you, the latest from Mr. Pergosian, rather measured for him, somewhat even critical of his own people.
	But watch this.
	There are subtitles.
	I will do my best to read the subtitles aloud for the benefit of our...
	Friends who have the show on audio only, and then you and I can talk about it.
	In a few words, what's happening?
	The following is happening.
	Ukrainian began an offensive.
	I'm saying all as it is with the offensive.
	They do everything competently.
	They're cutting off certain areas in the Zaborizhia direction.
	They're moving carefully, calmly.
	They lost a couple of leopards and Bradleys.
	These are normal combat losses.
	I'm not saying this to promote them, but to judge sensibly.
	For now, in my view, and according to the valuation of the military on the ground, not enough is being done to counter the enemy.
	Are you surprised to hear that?
	Oh, I've been stunned by his statements.
	I don't know how you do it.
	I'll tell you, Stalin would never have permitted it.
	This would never have been a second statement.
	So I'm perplexed why it goes on this way.
	I'm not sure what the game is.
	All I can say is if you're in the official military, it's got to be stuck in your crawl, right?
	He has to be disliked more than the Ukrainians in my opinion.
	He almost sounded like Jack Devine.
	Well, I was going to make a pun.
	The problem with that pun is too many people in the audience are going to believe me that he's one of ours, right?
	I'm going to deny any knowledge and ability of that.
	Nothing would surprise me, and I have a very smart audience that's very skeptical of the intelligence community.
	If he was my agent, I would say, no, don't talk that way.
	You're going to think one of us.
	But I find this...
	But it's serious.
	I mean, the fact that that goes on, it's lazy.
	It's public.
	It's developing public dissent within the institutions that keep Putin alive.
	I mean, keep him safe.
	I don't get the move here.
	Okay.
	Is the CIA aware of the relationship between Purgosian and Putin?
	Do they monitor the communications between the two?
	And do they have an explanation for this kind of a statement?
	I have no idea about those questions that I would never ask.
	It's perfectly okay for you.
	Yeah, but Jack, you used to do this when you were on their payroll.
	How could you have no idea?
	I hope.
	I hope.
	But look, you know, Putin's been around the horn.
	I mean, he was in the FSB and the KGB.
	Now, I do know people in CIA, even though they've been trained, that they get on the damn phone and call people and tell them what they're doing.
	So I don't think their relationship is like that.
	But there was a very close...
	You know, they called him Putin's chef.
	If he's Putin's chef, he better watch the pumpkin soup that he's not trying to poison him, you know?
	So my point is they had a really tight relationship, and I think what I've been reading over the years is that some of the funding is coming out of the government, but, you know,
	it defies my way.
	My understanding of how you run a smooth army, I'm sure so.
	I would have fired.
	There would not have been a second comment from Progrosian.
	I mean, there's a bigger mindset here that I'm missing the grand strategy.
	It sure as hell evades me.
	If the Russians take Odessa, is that it?
	Is it over for the Ukrainians?
	There's no single place.
	People have to realize this.
	There's no single town.
	There's no single...
	They're going to keep fighting what we thought, what I thought.
	Let me stick to what I thought.
	Russians can't be as bad as I think they are.
	They're not going to be like what they did in Afghanistan.
	But when they rolled across the border, they really looked pretty ragged around the edges in terms of equipment.
	I thought originally, remember, they were offering a ticket to Zelensky to get out of there, because I think why we estimated very properly that Putin was going to invade.
	I think more people thought they were going to prevail quickly.
	And I think the estimate was they were going to have guerrilla warfare.
	There would be fighting.
	The fighting would go on.
	The Russians would not be able to subject it.
	And I would say this today.
	No matter what combination, even if they took Kiev, I don't think it's over.
	I think he got into an unwinnable war.
	And I don't know how he gets himself out of it.
	In fact, you know my op-eds.
	My op-ed says he's going to go.
	He so deceit is under the mind.
	So I don't know how he gets out of this.
	All right.
	With that phrase in our ears, even if he took Kyiv, the war won't be over.
	We're going to take a break.
	When we come back, we'll pick up the conversation.
	President Putin yesterday had a three and a half hour press conference with Russian journalists.
	We'll play a couple of clips from it.
	And hear Jack's reactions right after this.
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	So we're going to run this first clip.
	It's a little more than a minute.
	There are subtitles.
	Again, I'll do my best to pick up on them.
	I think you're going to be, if you haven't seen this, Jack, it's just me knowing you, I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised at President Putin's Kander here, he's talking about the strengths and weaknesses of the Ukrainian military to about 30 Russian journalists.
	During this time, they lost over 100 tanks and over 300, 460 armored vehicles of various types.
	This is just what we see.
	There are still losses that we do not see, that are inflicted.
	The Russian Federation has also been using high-precision weapons, attack large concentrations, so there are actually more of these losses on the Ukrainian side.
	And so by my calculations, it's about 25, maybe 30 percent of the volume of equipment that was supplied from abroad.
	Here is about it.
	It seems to me that if they can't objectively, they'll go along with it.
	But as far as I've seen from open sources, from Western sources, that's about what they seem to be saying.
	Here.
	So the offensive is on.
	These are the results to date of what I've just said.
	As I read it, he's saying that he and the West agree that About 25% to 30% of the military equipment supplied by the West and used by the Ukraines has been destroyed.
	What do you say?
	I don't have any answer to that.
	Let's say there is 20%.
	What he doesn't say, which is telling, Judge, is he doesn't tell you what's happening to them.
	They're not talking about the losses they're suffering, right?
	They're not talking about that.
	And then he talks about the precision weapons and all this.
	That means he can't fight.
	He can't use his air.
	He can't use his Air Force, right?
	What do you mean he can't use his Air Force?
	Pardon?
	Why can't he use his Air Force?
	Well, because he's going to be shot down by Singerson and other anti-air platforms.
	So he's not flying in and bombing them.
	He's using rockets on the side of the mountain, right?
	He's firing.
	It's like firing a cruise missile out in the middle of the desert, which I always got upset about.
	That was going to be a big deal.
	He's destroyed a lot of houses.
	He's destroyed a lot of buildings.
	He's killed a lot of civilians.
	But those weapons, they're not precision weapons.
	If you start looking at the place, he hit a dormitory of students.
	I mean, come on.
	I think what you're looking at, now they've had a number of defectors from the prisoners taken with the Russians, and the morale is extraordinarily low because they're scared to death of these weapons that are being provided to the Ukrainians.
	So in combat, when you're busy fighting, yeah, you lose equipment.
	They did lose some leverage for sure, but again, you're talking about hundreds and hundreds of weapons and platforms going in there.
	If he's trying to suggest for a minute that he's had some sort of pushback, show us where.
	I don't think there's any map by any Western outlet that has any respectability that shows the Russians are making any progress against the counteroffensive.
	Here's President Putin talking about what happened in 2014.
	He does not mention the name of your former employer by name.
	He does not mention Victoria Nuland by name, but I think you'll know exactly who and what he's talking about.
	Again, I will read the subtitles.
	But listen, this was not the first coup.
	And how did Yushchenko come to power in Ukraine?
	What, as a result of legitimate actions?
	Do you want me to show you how he came to power?
	We know that they came up with a third round of voting.
	What bloody third round?
	It is not provided by the Constitution.
	This was a coup.
	But at least it was passed in a relatively peaceful way.
	And we communicated with them.
	I went there.
	They came to us.
	No, it came to a bloody coup d 'etat.
	It became obvious that we are not given any chance to build normal relations with our neighbors and the fraternal Ukrainian people.
	It's all nonsense.
	The nonsense.
	What is he talking about?
	They had a fraudulent election.
	I mean, you had, you know, a number of independent advisors looking at it.
	They tried to skip the election.
	Let me know when you know of a Russian election that's fair and square in the history of mankind.
	So this is all nonsense.
	He had a puppet in there, and he got annoyed because he fell down and knocked down, and the people in the streets, you know, took over.
	Are you telling us that American intelligence had nothing to do with throwing out the popularly elected president of 2014, Jack?
	Have you seen anything in the official domain on this?
	I haven't.
	What do you mean anything official?
	You guys are not going to admit to what they did.
	No, you have to appear before Congress.
	The President of the United States has to say something.
	Is there anything out there that suggested that we provided anything to them?
	Are you saying the CIA had nothing to do with the 2014 coup?
	I would say I haven't seen anything that supports that.
	All right.
	I mean, let me look for your audience that we love.
	The CIA is not behind everything.
	I wish we were so omnipotent.
	I wish I was really that good.
	There are so many things that happen in the world because of the indigenous circumstances.
	And the CIA, you know, has a role in life with the President of the United States and Congress approving it.
	They just can't go out there willy-nilly.
	And the limitations of COVID, I thought my books are in support of it, but it talks about the limitations.
	We are suspected of everything, you know, being behind COVID.
	I mean, who knows what else we're behind.
	So you have to remember the spirit of that time.
	I mean, democracy was flowing and getting rid of the Soviet system, and it was one country after another that eventually reached Ukraine.
	And Ukraine, of all of them, is the most critically important one to Russia.
	It's small potatoes on the international screen without Ukraine.
	He needs it.
	Now, there isn't a Ukrainian today that doesn't despise Russia.
	If he thinks there'd be a vote or an election there, that they'd love to vote.
	Those that were Russian sympathizers have moved out.
	They're in Russian-controlled areas.
	Well, right.
	There are Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the Donbass.
	In fact, there's more Russian speakers.
	Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
	You have to be in a controlled Russian area.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Two days ago, the White House made some noises and Chancellor Scholz made some noises.
	I say make some noises.
	They weren't very specific.
	And Prime Minister Sunak of Great Britain made similar hints that they want Ukraine to join NATO.
	A wise move or not, Jack?
	Now, I don't know if it'll happen.
	Viktor Orban, the president of Hungary, is adamantly against it, and it's got to be a unanimous vote.
	But what does Jack Devine think?
	What does the CIA think?
	I started out in a more measured way, in the sense that I was concerned how hard we pushed Russia, what was going to happen.
	And then after, I started to look at what they tried to do and their shortcomings and the atrocity.
	I mean, what they did to that country is just...
	Shameful.
	So when I began to look at it, I thought, what if we put jets?
	What if we do whatever?
	I do not want American troops on the ground, but yeah, I put them in NATO.
	What is Putin going to do?
	Answer that question.
	What is he going to do?
	Now, there's rules of regulation in NATO.
	I don't want to be that glib.
	They will not be given during an act of war.
	Brought into NATO with the understanding that NATO will defend them because they're now a member of NATO.
	There would have to be a revision in the NATO agreement.
	So in the concept of Ukraine and NATO, sure, why not?
	But that's not going to happen during a fighting season.
	I think the rules prohibit that without a modification.
	Things can be modified.
	I would not support NATO getting in now as a force in Ukraine.
	As a member, we need some status, and when the fighting stops, that you're a full member of NATO, sure, why not?
	How do you see this ending, and when do you see it ending?
	Are American troops going to be on the ground, Jack?
	I don't see American troops ever be on the ground.
	I certainly hope they're not going to be on the ground.
	I see no reason to believe that.
	The Ukrainians seem to be doing a hell of a job without us in that regard.
	They need our support in supplies, training, all those things they need.
	They don't need us fighting on the ground.
	They seem to be doing quite well.
	I'm probably a little more optimistic than many of my friends in the sense that I don't think he can go on indefinitely at this level, and that's why the offensive and counteroffensive are important, because after that, does Putin go back and say,
	"Now I'm going to build a new army, a better army, and I'm going to come back again," or the Ukraine.
	So I think...
	The trouble really starts in the fall of this year, and it all surrounds Putin's stability.
	Will he stay or will he go?
	And how will he go?
	Otherwise, the war could drop down to a lower level of intensity and go on forever.
	And we're still at war with North Korea.
	Jack Devine, always a pleasure, my dear friend.
	Thank you, Judge.
	Always a pleasure.
	Thank you for joining us.
	More as we get it.
	If you like what you just saw, whether you agree with Jack or not, like, subscribe, tell your friends.
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	Hi, everyone.
	Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
	Today is Thursday, March 16, 2023.
	It's about 11 o 'clock in the morning here on the East Coast of the United States.
	Jack Devine joins us now.
	Jack, always a pleasure.
	Welcome back to the show.
	The last time we spoke, it looked like the Russians were going to overtake Bakhmut.
	Now it looks like...
	There's a stalemate there.
	There have been a lot of losses on both sides.
	Should the Ukrainians just give this up and not lose any more human beings?
	The city is 70% to 75% destroyed.
	There's 3,000 civilians left out of a normal population of 100,000.
	How does the Ukrainian government decide what to defend or the American government decide what to help them defend?
	Well, I think, Judge, we've talked about this a couple of times.
	Remember, you had a few guests.
	We won't quote them.
	The big offensive was coming.
	The 300,000-man army was going to roll.
	And, you know, we're talking about one town.
	Now, the problem with this is the little bit that they've got, they've paid a huge price.
	The question shouldn't be whether the Ukrainians can tough it out.
	Are the Russians prepared to continue to lose the high number of casualties?
	And for that little piece of territory.
	Then what happens?
	After the Ukrainians pull out, okay, we had that town as a victory.
	I mean, that's laughable, right?
	So are these villages or towns over which they're fighting, and of which we in the West, untutored as you are, have never heard of before, are they just victories over which you can boast?
	Are they victories for morale, or are they strategic military victories in Putin's march westward?
	I think there was a small strategic value, like it buttresses against a major highway transportation link, but that's not the only city that does it.
	However, once you say this is something we're taking, as the Russians did, and I really want to watch this, the head of Przhozhin, The head of the Wagner Group, who's made a big deal out of it, then it becomes suddenly a strategic and psychological thing.
	Now, God forbid they leave for their sake, because if they pull out, they can't take one town when they put everything in it.
	So I think it's overrated, and I think the Ukrainians...
	Can't move back.
	It's not going to change the battle.
	It's not going to change the battlefield.
	Then you have to take the next town.
	I don't know what the real numbers are, and I don't know if anybody does, but we start talking about hundreds of thousands of deaths or even a hundred thousands.
	That's a mother and father, brother, maybe sister, neighbor.
	I mean, you know, back home, that's a lot of dying.
	Reuters reported.
	Reuters reported two days ago between 170 and 200,000 Ukraine military deaths.
	I would think that that's huge.
	Yeah, I think that's all.
	But I would say whatever the number is, because I don't want to give a number because I don't really know.
	I think the Russians are losing double or triple because of their poorly led and their strategy.
	But Ukraine is a smaller country.
	So if it's just we're going to fight the last man.
	When I was out there in 18...
	I talked to a number of very, very senior heads of cabinet-level groups, and they were the same thing.
	We'll fight to the last man.
	If you fight to the last man, I mean, that eats up all of Russia's at three times the number.
	So it's horrific that we have to see this kind of war being carried on because of the mindset of Vladimir Putin.
	All right.
	You mentioned the Wagner Group.
	What does the CIA think of them?
	How does the CIA evaluate them with respect to their professionalism as a fighting force and their being subject to the Russian military chain of command?
	I just would say, if I were back to the government, this would be a nightmare.
	If I had some private sector group out there running a war, And you were in the chain of command.
	You were the head of the Armed Forces, Air, Navy, and you have a paramilitary guy out there.
	And remember where all the basic recruits are, not the better soldiers.
	He has some good mercenaries.
	Most of them are criminals living out of prison.
	And he has a problem now because there are only so many prisoners.
	In Russia, and they've been using them as cannon fodder.
	In other words, they are the first wave in every attack.
	Okay, when you say they, you mean the Russian military or the...
	No, no, this is the Wagner group.
	But the Russian military is also letting it happen.
	I think the key judge, above all things, think of yourself, Vladimir Putin, and Prigozhin is saying, you know, I think I'm going to get into politics as well.
	Suppose your contractor is criticizing the armed forces.
	Think about the United States.
	If one of the defense contracting groups was given a big mission and they kept criticizing the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, they wouldn't be around for a long time.
	That's what I talked about a year ago when we first started talking about this.
	This is dissent.
	This is not the way a smooth operation runs.
	It's the...
	The building of resentment between regular army and special forces.
	And it's out in the public because of social media.
	He is a very outspoken guy.
	Does the government...
	If I were Putin, I'd be worried.
	Does the government fund the Wagner Group?
	Or did Boghossian and his billionaire buddies fund it?
	Yeah, so this is a hard thing to read.
	I don't know how any private person can support it.
	So my guess is it started out...
	Out of the government's money and ammunitions and look like a good thing.
	You could use them out there as the point of the lance and you saved your best traditional soldiers.
	But he's got an ego of a considerable size.
	He's now taking himself more seriously, and I think they wanted him to.
	So he's now that tiger that you have to contain.
	It's your tiger, but you don't want him to bite your right leg off.
	So I think there's real dissent.
	I think he loses.
	I always bet, or at the end of the day, if Putin's there, do you side with your military, your own military team, or do you side with a guy like him?
	So there is a fight brewing, which I'm betting on Putin and the traditional military, and Perjotian will regret having played this role, I think.
	We'll see.
	It's an unusual way.
	U.S. Army would never, we would never run a war this way.
	Never.
	I'm going to show you a film of what took place over the Black Sea two days ago.
	Take a look at this, Jack.
	That's the Russian fighter jet spewing fuel.
	That's the underbelly of the American drone.
	Now you're going to see a second shot.
	It's either the same jet again or it's another jet.
	Here it is coming.
	Coming at the drone again, and this time it hits the propeller.
	If you look carefully, after the screen materializes again, you'll see that one of the propellers, propeller blades, there it is, you see it is slightly damaged, and that, of course,
	is when the controllers of this thing, which I guess are somewhere in the United States, decide to bring it down.
	Are you surprised that the American military, I don't think this was CIA, I think this was Air Force, but you can correct me, was flying drones over the Black Sea?
	And if it is, what are those drones doing there?
	Well, I hope we're flying drones over the Black Sea.
	We're in the intelligence business.
	We should be knowing where every Russian ship moves, where every brigade moves.
	I mean, we've been doing it for years.
	So I guess the point that I would make is there's nothing surprising about the fact that we have a drone up there.
	Now, this was in international order, as I recall.
	Well, there's a dispute as to whether it was international or restricted space.
	One of the American generals said yesterday he thought it was in restricted airspace, and we should never have agreed that the Black Sea was restricted airspace.
	Now, you go with the Americans on this.
	I mean, the Russians haven't said a truthful thing since the beginning of this war about what's going on.
	So I have no reason I would accept anything the Russians say.
	But even no matter where it is, it wasn't over Russian territory.
	I mean, that's my own view.
	But what happened here is they wanted, I think what I read was they did make a conscious decision they were going to take out one of our troops in an area they felt they should do that.
	It looked to me by looking at this, even if you allow for the movie's map, right?
	I don't think you have a jet and you fly at a drone and you try and clip off half of its propeller.
	I wouldn't want to be in that plane trying to do it.
	So I think there might have been an accident on that part, but they wanted to bring it down and maybe they would have just shot it down at a certain point.
	Spraying oil, that's a new one for me, and I'm not saying it's not a great technique.
	Not familiar with it.
	The point is, in my view, an aggressive act against an American platform in international waters.
	If it's over their territory, then there will be less of a fight about it.
	How did it get there?
	Back to the U-2 and Khrushchev.
	You go over your territory.
	We just shot down the Chinese, and that's fair game.
	But it has bigger ramifications, obviously, right?
	It's not...
	Are they going to continue this?
	What's our response?
	Well, here's Senator Lindsey Graham who never met somebody else's blood.
	He didn't want to shed.
	Well, we should hold him accountable and say that if you ever get near another U.S. set flying in international waters, your airplane would be shot down.
	What would Ronald Reagan do right now?
	He would start shooting Russian planes down if they were threatening our assets.
	You're going to kill a Russian pilot because he sprayed oil at an American drone in what could have been Russian-restricted airspace?
	In my books, I always address the issue of proportionality, right?
	When you get into these struggles and it's a tit-for-tat, okay, but if you double the ante, in other words, you shoot down a plane with two pilots in it, You know, and you kill a pilot.
	That's different than a machine in just about everybody's lexicon.
	Of course.
	But the question is, do you just sit and let them knock down all your platform, your multi-million dollar platforms at will?
	So you have to respond.
	This is where proportionality.
	If they did that, I'd take down one of their drones under similar circumstances, center conditions.
	Okay, but you wouldn't take down a fighter jet with one of the human beings in it.
	Absolutely would not.
	Absolutely would not.
	But I also wouldn't sit and suck my thumb waiting for more and more.
	I would allow that maybe this was one-off, and maybe you just make less of a dramatic issue out of it.
	But the second one, I would respond for sure, and I would respond in kind.
	Tell me about the drones.
	They know that we have drones watching their every movement in Crimea, and we must know that they have drones That can see traffic jams on 6th Avenue in New York City from 50,000 feet above Canada.
	Am I exaggerating?
	You aren't exaggerating in the limitations.
	They could do that in 1968, Judge.
	Today, you know, they can give you the, you know, how big is the tip of the pen, I'm thinking.
	But everyone has capabilities undreamed, unthought of before.
	You just go in with the assumption.
	Anybody that comes from an intelligence table and thinks they're hiding anything under a bush and it can't be seen or heard is in for a big surprise.
	So, yes, they know what it is.
	Now, they are hunting.
	What I understand is they're looking for the drone because they want to see what technology so that they would try to reverse engineer it if there's things on there that they don't already have.
	It's at 4,000 feet under the sea.
	It's a long way to go.
	But we've gone for submarines.
	I mean, it's a very common historical thing to try and get other people's technology that way.
	Right, right.
	All right.
	So the drone, the American drone, is looking at Crimea.
	So it can inform American intel.
	You tell me if I'm wrong.
	Which would inform Ukrainian intel of what the Russians have and what they're amassing and when it's coming.
	Chris, come over here.
	I don't think we need a drone to do that.
	I mean, let me put it this way.
	I think...
	If I were in Langley, my guess is I could probably look at every inch of Crimea without leaving my desk without a drone.
	Then why do we have the drone?
	Well, I'm allowing that there are, as it's heavy, things that they might want to know, right?
	Things that are not available just from a picture taken at an extraordinary height.
	So I don't know the answer to that.
	Okay, give me an example of what it is.
	Esoteric that the drone could see.
	Okay, well.
	You couldn't see from your office in Langley.
	Right.
	So I think the types of things you think about are communications, right?
	I mean, are, you know, battlefield communications and are people using what the Russians are doing, apparently.
	They're using the open lines on their phones.
	And so, you know, there's things to listen to.
	Now, we have satellites that do that too, right?
	Everybody does.
	But I don't want to get into it too far, but I would just allow that.
	You don't put them up for no good reason.
	So there's something they're collecting and the Russians want to get rid of it because it's an intelligence platform.
	And it's fair game except in international territory.
	Are the CIA drones better than the Air Force drones?
	They're better than the Russian Air Force drones.
	Well, is it the same hardware that the Air Force uses as the CIA, or are the CIA's different or better?
	Judge, there's an old saying, one team, one fight.
	So the agency has one role in our military, the other.
	When the drone program started, remember, they started at Langley, right, in terms of using drones.
	So they were used for non-war purposes, right?
	And I was involved because it was...
	Things in the drug area that actually stimulated interest and then terrorism.
	And then somebody decided, well, it wouldn't be fun to arm them with Hellfire missiles, and that changed life.
	But we had one mission, Collection, and maybe it was smaller frames.
	And then the military had bigger issues.
	I don't think there's any competition between the services on the platforms.
	I think they carry out different missions.
	Okay.
	I want to switch to big picture and geopolitics, which I know is your field.
	Could I just make one comment on the last one?
	Sure.
	Because I would not overblow this issue and wait and see if it's going to continue.
	One of the things that concerned me was when I passed and listened to Milley speaking, the Commander-in-Chief of our Armed Forces.
	It wasn't what he was saying.
	But it just was a flashback to a period in life where the stakes are getting higher, and you can back into problems.
	I'm not saying it was the wrong thing.
	What I'm saying is we have to be careful that we don't let any of these things spin out.
	I'm not saying that's what he was doing.
	I'm just saying I got a little tense about where we are with Russia and China.
	And largely because of their doing.
	But I think we're in a more dangerous world was my takeaway.
	All right.
	Do you have a sense that the stakes are getting higher, that we're in this thing too long, too deep?
	No.
	In fact, I actually have a different view.
	And that is, I think we inevitably had to get in.
	I mean, you just can't have a land war started by Russia.
	And why are the Europeans so forceful in this?
	Because they know that he'll go further, try to go further.
	We'll leave it.
	The Poles gave them the planes.
	Why are they giving the planes?
	Because they really, really fear this.
	But what I do think is that there's an opportunity in this that is a greater global strategy.
	He started this, and what he's really queued up is he needs to go, and Russia, this adventure needs to stop.
	If we want to have global balance in the world and more peace, in other words, it isn't enough.
	I think at this point, we have to stay long enough that Russia changes its course.
	The Russian people decide to change its course.
	You said he has to go.
	Your buddies in the CIA still think that this war should result in the removal or can result in the removal of President Putin from office.
	See, what I wrote last year in March was, when he crossed the border, he sowed the seeds of his own divine.
	Do not do covert action.
	Do not mess around inside Russia.
	Just keep this struggle going and his own failures would do that.
	But I also think if you look at the world, if he's gone and there's a more accommodating Russia, I'm not saying the democratic free one.
	It is also the way to contain the...
	Jack, we don't know who's going to replace him.
	He could be replaced by his predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, who said he wants to invade Poland.
	So here's my take on that.
	He fails.
	Why?
	Because he didn't bomb enough houses?
	Because he didn't kill enough people?
	That he didn't put his best?
	No.
	The next person isn't going to have new armies.
	The next person is doomed to fail.
	I honestly do not believe.
	I know it's an acceptable argument.
	I'm just saying that's not the assumption I'm working on.
	I'm working on when Putin goes, they're going to sit around the table, hey, enough of this stuff.
	Let's get an air gap.
	So I do not think they can't be more hostile.
	There's no more hostile play.
	It's not like Putin's laying back and being nice to us.
	So I think his departure is critical.
	And if anything is inevitable in life, I think the way this is being handled, I don't see how he survives.
	And the Wagner fight with the military is just the first sign of what the strains are going to be within his systems if he's seen as a real loser.
	Hey, Jack, I'm going to put up a full screen of a book, and you tell me if I should buy it and read it, and if I do, what I'll learn from it.
	Judge, that's a spectacular book.
	I couldn't recommend anybody more that I would rather read right before you go to bed.
	I'm proud of this book because it came out a year before the invasion.
	I very candidly and directly say he's underestimating the Ukrainians.
	If they go in, he will be underestimating what he's going to face.
	And my quotable quote was, "Kiev will be the new Berlin in the next Cold War.
	Now this is a hot war."
	But I'm going to change a couple of things in the book.
	It's going to come out in paperback this year.
	But I thought I was really tough on him.
	And I was drawing a lot of attention to Russia.
	And all my friends said, "Oh, it's all about China."
	I would be tougher on him.
	I think he's more dangerous.
	And I gave him too much credit.
	For technical prowess.
	I thought he was just a hard, tough KGB guy, formidable adversary, but I didn't appreciate...
	I knew he was badly wounded by the fall of the Communist Party and the KGB.
	I didn't realize how deep that hatred for the United States is, that we are the main enemy.
	I didn't appreciate...
	I don't use the word evil, and I know sometimes we've had discussions about evil, but it's usually in theological arguments.
	For a few people, you say they're evil.
	You say they're bad.
	Is Putin evil?
	Yeah, I think he fits into that category.
	When you kill the deaths that are mounting in Ukraine, and you're not remorseful about it, it puts you in a new category.
	So I think he's dangerous.
	And the second thing about him...
	I thought it was more political.
	I was tough on him, but I will take him down a few more notches on the big things that I thought were important.
	We needed to have an accommodation with Rush, and there was room.
	There was no room.
	He has a different mindset and is much more black and darker than I thought.
	I think it makes this problem more formidable.

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