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Jan. 12, 2025 - Judging Freedom - Judge Andrew Napolitano
25:32
Scott Ritter : Does Russia Need North Korea?
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Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom.
Scott Ritter is with us here in just a moment.
Today is Monday, January 13th, 2025.
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Scott Ritter, welcome here, my friend.
President Zelensky claims, and we've seen photos of this, that the Ukrainian troops have arrested North Korean troops as prisoners of war.
Do you know if this is true and where they were fighting and if there's any geopolitical significance to this?
Well, what I can say is...
You're competing with Maverick.
The timing is everything, but hopefully they'll stop since the truck drove by.
It appears that these two people aren't North Koreans.
They're from Tuvan, which is a region of Russia that has Asiatic population.
The Ukrainians are trying to turn The North Korean issue, manufacturing North Korean issue, in order to create the perception that Russia can't win this war on its own and is bringing in outside forces to assist it.
And the Ukrainians say, hey, look, if it's good for the goose, it's got to be good for the gander.
If Russia can bring in these North Koreans, then certainly we can bring in the Europeans.
That's what it's all about.
And so both the Ukrainians and the United States and Europe have been playing this up.
Just to show you the absurdity of much of the Ukrainian claims, if you know anything about Russia, Russia doesn't do anything without solid legal agreements in place.
The Ukrainians and NATO and the United States were already committed to tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers fighting in Kursk before Russia ratified its strategic military agreement with North Korea that could have opened the door for North Korean troops to come.
into Russia.
There's no doubt in my mind that some North Korean units are in Russia.
Artillery units appear to be engaged and it also looks as though North Korea sent cadre elements in to attach themselves to Russian formations at certain levels so that their officers can learn about modern warfare.
With the possibility that once the officers become attuned to the Russian way of fighting a war, etc., that they can bring in North Korean troops who will have received training based upon what these officers have sent back.
The idea that Russia would allow North Korea to send in thousands of troops without any sort of integration training, familiarization training, just throw them into combat is absurd in the extreme.
Propaganda effort by the Ukrainians.
And I think most people who have looked at this have said that these are basically soldiers from Tuvan.
They're not North Korean.
Why would Russia even want or need North Koreans or any other nation's military assisting it at this stage of the special military operation?
When they're so close to achieving their goals?
According to, again, news reports based upon U.S. intelligence, this isn't about Russia saying we need help.
The exact opposite.
It's about North Korea saying, hey, look, we're getting ready to hook and jab with America and South Korea on the peninsula, and we need to get combat-hardened troops.
We need to learn about war up front, and we want to...
Come in and observe and attach.
That's why I think that most of the North Korean presence that's going to take place, and it's going to take place exclusively on Russian soil.
Notice that this is in Kursk, not in the Donbas, in contested regions, so that the Russians never be accused of sending North Korean troops to help with the fight in the Donbas.
This is about Russian territory exclusive.
But the North Koreans have made a case that they need to get combat experience, that they need to learn these lessons of war quickly, that this can't be an academic exercise.
And so I believe they are attaching, like I said, cadre forces to the Russian headquarters down to perhaps the battalion level.
They might even have some people going down to the company level to look at tactics, look at drone, how drones are used, look at fire, call for fires.
And that they probably have brought in some artillery units that will then attach themselves to larger Russian artillery formations to learn about, you know, call for fires, doing direct support artillery missions, general support artillery missions,
how to do a call for fire in the modern day and age, how to use drones to send drones out to do the reconnaissance, to adjust fires off drones, all the various techniques, many of which have been invented.
In this war, haven't yet been turned into a course of study at Russian academies, and the best way to learn this is to go straight to the front lines.
It's something the United States and everybody has done.
Whenever there's a war someplace that we're not involved in, we send military liaison people there to learn, to observe, that we attach them.
We fought in a number of British-only affairs back in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, where we've attached our troops there.
The British have attached their officers to our units, too, and they've participated in combat operations where the United Kingdom isn't a participant.
It's how you learn, especially if you're allies.
And so there's no doubt in my mind that North Korea and Russia have signed a strategic agreement.
That allows North Korea to send formations in, primarily in the combat support area, as opposed to frontline infantry, frontline armor, but fire support and then to get cadre observers attached down to battalion,
maybe down to company level in certain areas.
Are you surprised that the Ukrainians have not been expelled from Kursk, that they're still there?
Surprised? I mean, not if you...
Again, I can't put my Marine Corps hat on it, because if this was the Marine Corps mission, we'd have rooted them out and killed every single one of those son-of-a-guns already.
But we would have taken casualties.
But we're not casually averse.
We're mission...
And when we're told to close with and destroy the enemy through firepower maneuver, that's what we will do.
Are the Russians casualty averse?
Of course they are.
The Russians aren't in the business of sacrificing their troops needlessly.
They have a strategic objective, which they are focused on achieving, demilitarizing the Ukrainians, not the Russians.
It's not the Russians' job to go out there and do human...
All this nonsense you hear about human wave tactics and it's just wrong.
It's a lie.
The Russians are suffering casualties because the Ukrainians are defending hard.
The Ukrainians are willing to dig in and die.
And it takes time to dig them out.
But, you know, you could be more aggressive.
And take these people out.
But you would lose more men, more equipment.
And that's not what the Russians would do.
Putin has said on a number of occasions that we're not willing to put the pedal to the metal to achieve a more rapid victory.
Are the Ukrainian and whoever else is with them, troops in Kursk, completely surrounded so that their supply lines from Ukraine are cut off?
No, they're still receiving supplies through Ukraine.
It's difficult.
The Russians have their own drones and their own fire support.
They've identified the lines of communication, but the Ukrainians are able to push through.
Look, the Ukrainians have made very effective use of drone warfare.
And what the Ukrainians do when they want to make a movement is they flood the zone with drones.
And so the Russians are in, you know, basically...
Hide mode for a period of time.
And during that period of time, the Ukrainians are shoving forces in.
And then the Russians beat back the drones and then the Russians attack.
But this is warfare.
Again, there's not a single West Point graduate out there that understands anything about what's happening in Ukraine today.
Because they were trained to fight a completely different kind of warfare.
If they were put in charge of forces right now...
They would be overwhelmed by the chaos of what's happening there because it's a whole different approach of combat.
The Russians have mastered it, but so have the Ukrainians.
And the Ukrainians, while they're losing, it doesn't mean that nothing goes their way.
There are good days for the Ukrainians.
There are good moments for the Ukrainians.
But overall...
You know, they're getting beat.
And the Russians know this.
This is a war of attrition.
And the concept of a war of attrition is to kill more of them than they kill of you.
So the Russians aren't in any hurry to die.
They will die.
They have taken casualties.
But they are, in a very methodical manner, pushing Ukrainians back piece by piece by piece.
And when the Ukrainians say, we're here to fight and die, the Russians say, thank you.
We'll help kill you.
It may take some time, but then we'll keep on moving until you've decided enough dying and you start retreating.
The Russians have total command of the situation right now, but they aren't driven by a clock.
You see, here in the West, everything's tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock.
We've got to do it by this date, by this time.
Well, we've attached political objectives to calendar dates.
The Russians haven't done that.
They simply have political objectives.
Demilitarization, that means to kill every Ukrainian out there.
Cause them to surrender or to capture them.
They're not capturing mercenaries right now.
I thought that was a very telling admission by the Russians that if you're a mercenary, you're caught on Russian soil as opposed to in the contested areas of the Donbass.
If you're caught in Kursk and you're a mercenary, you die.
That's it.
They execute you on the spot.
You don't have any rights.
You're just scum to them and they hate you and they will kill you.
Well, there's no Geneva Convention protection for them.
That's correct.
Right. Okay.
Jake Sullivan, not one of our favorite people, has been making a farewell tour over the weekend.
I want to play a clip.
This will aggravate you a little bit, but I'd love your comments on it, claiming that because of Joe Biden, the U.S. is stronger, Russia is weaker, and NATO is in better shape.
It's like he's in another world, Scott, but I'll let you listen to it.
Solicit your comment.
Chris, cut number one.
Where across the globe could you point and say the United States is safer because of what we did here?
Well, I'd start by saying our alliances are stronger than we found them four years ago.
They're stronger than they've been in decades.
NATO is more powerful, purposeful, and bigger.
Our alliances in the Asia-Pacific are at all-time highs.
And our adversaries and competitors are weaker across the board.
Russia's weaker.
Iran's weaker.
China is weaker.
All the while, we kept America out of war.
So I think the American people are safer, and the country is better off than we were four years ago.
And we're handing all that off to the next team, as well as having the engines of American power humming our economy, our technology, our defense industrial base, our supply chains.
So the United States is in a stronger, more secure position, and our competitors and adversaries are weaker and under pressure.
I think that's the main...
China's weaker, Iran's weaker, Russia's weaker.
What is he talking about?
It's just nonsense, 100% nonsense, and he knows it.
The shame here isn't that Sullivan's saying this.
You expect him to say that.
He's the national security advisor to the president.
His job is to politicize everything.
To make sure that the national security is subordinated to the political objectives of the President of the United States.
So he's going to lie, cheat, steal, spin, do what he does, you know.
The problem is Jake Tapper.
Where's the pushback?
Where's the challenge?
I mean, Mark Rutte, the Secretary General, just said, if NATO doesn't get its act together in three to five years, all of Europe's going to have to learn to speak Russian.
How does that sound like you're doing, Jake?
If the Secretary General of NATO says we're so screwed, Because of how badly we're doing, that if we don't fix it in three to five years, we have to speak Russian.
That's a gross exaggeration.
Russia's not moving in on Europe.
But that's a mindset there.
That doesn't sound like a NATO that's stronger than it's ever been.
Gosh, Jake, didn't the Danish prime minister come out and say that if the United States moves in on Greenland as Trump will be president, Jake, you forget that, you're done.
On January 20th, Trump comes in in Denmark saying that would be an invasion of NATO territory.
We may have to go to NATO for Article 5. Why is a NATO member threatening to put Article 5 against the United States if we're so damn close and unified?
NATO is falling apart.
Did you not see the elections that just took place in the Czech Republic?
A president now is dead set against this war in Ukraine, dead set against sending military equipment.
Romania just had a presidential election overturned illegally.
Because they elected a president who said the same thing.
And Slovakia are out.
Germany is about to elect a new government, the AFD, that's out of the EU and maybe out of NATO.
He doesn't know what he's talking about.
NATO is a fundamentally broken institution that can't afford to continue and will collapse within five years.
That's the NATO that Jake Sullivan's turning over to Donald Trump.
And then we can go on and on and on.
There's not a single point in the globe today where America's doing better than we were before.
I'll tell you what, Jake, when you came in, Iran wasn't.
Three days away from having a nuclear bomb.
But because of you, Jake, you, you're the National Security Advisor.
It's your responsibility.
They are on the cusp of having it if a political decision is made.
How do we get to this point, Jake?
How do we get to the point where Iran has ballistic missiles that are threatening Israel and Israel can't do anything to defend it because your Iron Dome that you worked with Israel didn't work?
Syria fell, but is it what you wanted, Jake?
Did you really want al-Qaeda to take over?
Have you thought about the consequences?
Or are you just brain dead like everybody else in the national security establishment?
You don't know what to do about Turkey now, now, do you, Jake?
And I think, Jake, you had some conversations.
We talked about maybe we have to expel Turkey from NATO.
How does that make NATO look, Jake?
Strong? And gosh, Asian alliances?
Indonesia just joined BRICS.
Malaysia and Thailand are following, and the Philippines are saying, the hell with America, we're going that way too.
South Korea, this bastion of democracy, is getting ready to impeach and arrest their president for illegally calling for martial law.
How's democracy looking?
South Korea.
And Japan's just a basket case of a nation.
What happens when Trump comes in and that little tripartite alliance that you made collapses?
Because it's going to collapse, Jake, because nothing you did in the Biden administration is made out of bricks and mortar.
Everything you did is made out of straw.
And the big bad wolf is going to come in and huff and puff and blow it all down.
That's the reality of Jake Sullivan's world.
But Jake Tapper didn't have the journalistic integrity to even push back a little bit.
Boy, how I wish one of the two, Jakes.
I'm not sure which one I prefer, had been here to attempt to respond to you.
That was passionate, articulate, and of course, right on the mark.
What happens if President Trump pulls us out of NATO?
That would really be the death knell to it, wouldn't it?
NATO's already fatally wounded.
NATO can't survive.
Just to give you an example.
At a minimum, Trump's going to say, we can't continue to subsidize you.
You need to get your spending up 5% across the board.
There's hardly any NATO countries that can do that in a sustained fashion.
Germany won't.
If AFD wins this round, and right now the latest poll shows AFD in the lead.
You're talking about the conservative traditionalist political party, once outlawed, now on the cusp of winning in Germany.
and Germany and if they do that you know they've said the first thing they're going to do is get out of the european union the european union is the political front of this military alliance called nato if european union collapsed nato collapses immediately thereafter but even if the european union survives nato can't afford to survive let's take germany again the heart of nato Their German military,
you know, when this conflict in Ukraine started, asked for 100 billion euros to go in and rebuild the German military.
Last year, the military went to the parliament and said, hey, we're out of that money and nothing happened really, because you can't.
It's like investing into a house that's totally worn down.
It's just a money pit.
You're throwing money, money, money, and nothing gets done because I found everything.
It's easier to tear it down.
But no, Germany's trying to rebuild a military where...
Two-thirds of their air force is hangar queens because they haven't maintained them.
They can't get them off the ground.
They never will get them off the ground.
The same thing with their army in the barracks.
They haven't maintained it, haven't built new equipment in sufficient numbers.
Troops are poorly trained.
So they want to change things.
So Pistorius, the defense minister, went to the parliament and said, I need about an 8% to 9% increase in the budget.
The parliament went back and said, we don't have that money.
Our economy is collapsing, by the way, thanks to your government.
So we're going to give you about 1.6%.
We can check these numbers.
I'm right, roughly right, but I might be off by a couple of decimal points each way.
But the point is, that's below inflation.
So the German military, instead of expanding, is shrinking.
Shrinking, Judge.
As we speak, it's shrinking because the budget increase didn't keep up with inflation, which means they can't afford the military they have.
They have to cut back, and it's going to be that way going forward.
Every military is that way.
The British military is almost non-existent.
The French military, non-functional.
And now Trump's going to say, hey, you got to go up to 5%.
And if you don't, we're out.
And we may be out anyways.
NATO's dead.
I don't think it survives Trump's first term.
I think it's a finished, complete, and it's time.
It's outlived its utility.
It was viable during the Cold War, but when the Soviet Union collapsed, NATO had no mission.
Then it went in search of a mission, and it has turned into an offensive instrument of power.
It's bombed.
I mean, I love it when NATO says, Russia's bombing a European capital when they hit Kiev.
Well, NATO, you bombed Belgrade.
In Serbia, back in 1999, you started to trend.
And then you went and did regime change in Libya.
And then you went and helped justify the invasion and regime change in Afghanistan, got involved in the 20-year experiment nation building, and got the plug pulled on you by the United States, who doesn't give a damn about you to begin with, leaving you high and dry.
You had to leave.
You're humiliated.
And now you've over-invested yourself politically, economically, into Ukraine.
Not a losing conflict, a lost conflict.
NATO won't survive.
Scott, you're on fire, my man.
How do you interpret President Trump's posting on Truth Social, the lambasting that our friend and colleague, Professor Jeff Sachs, gave to Benjamin Netanyahu?
Look, Trump's always been complicated on this issue.
He is, you know, straight up supporter of Israel.
But he doesn't have good, strong relations with Netanyahu.
And I think Trump recognizes, as Jeffrey Sachs does, that Israel is behind every major war in the Middle East.
And Israel has sought to drag America into every major war, the very wars that Trump doesn't want to be a part of.
And he understands what Israel is trying to do with Iran and get America dragged into that conflict.
And while a Trump administration...
Especially given the appointments that he's put into his cabinet, very pro-Zionist, pro-Israeli appointments, isn't going to turn its back on Israel.
He's not going to be, you know, the rubber stamp for Benjamin Netanyahu.
And I think by reposting this, he's saying that's the thought that I concur with.
That's my thinking.
And look what Netanyahu's done.
He's not coming to the inauguration.
So, you know, it's going to be interesting going forward.
I think Trump's going to say, we're here to help Israel.
But not on Netanyahu's terms.
Should Trump trust Netanyahu?
Trump doesn't trust Netanyahu.
Should he trust?
He just flat out doesn't trust Netanyahu.
He knows that Netanyahu is a lying, you know, whatever.
Well, Scotty, thank you very much, my dear friend.
Much appreciated.
I know you have some interesting events coming up.
Can you tell us about them?
Well, sure.
In keeping with our discussion here, you know, there's going to be a lot of decision-making going on after January 20th about what direction America's Ukraine policies should go, what NATO should be doing.
And I have published a book together with Anya Kay, a Polish-based blogger.
She does a fantastic podcast, Through the Eyes of Anya Kay.
And she and I started doing interviews from the moment the conflict started.
You know, the best portions of those interviews and put them together in a book covering Ukraine that takes you from how this war started, how it developed, where we're at, and where we think we're going to go.
And so she's arriving tomorrow.
We brought her over for a book tour.
We've got three events, January 15th in the Bronx, January 19th at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C., and January 21st at Farmers and Chefs in Poughkeepsie, New York.
It's an opportunity for people to come and, you know, this book is the perfect, you know, concise, thorough covering of the Ukraine conflict.
If people are saying, I'm confused about Ukraine, I don't understand what's going on, etc., buy this book.
Slim volume, you can read in a day, but you're going to have to reread it several times because it's so full of information.
But we're going to be doing three events to try and...
Thank you.
Of course.
Wow, on fire, as always.
Coming up at 3 o'clock this afternoon, Matthew Ho, Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.
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