What is Iran’s breaking point? Part 2

[Music] Hello everyone, I'm Bill Raggio. I'm a senior fellow at Foundation for Defense of Democracies and Editor of FDT's Long War Journal. This is Generation Jehad, the podcast that covers all things in what used to be known as the Global War on Terror, but we now call the Long War. This is part two of my conversation with FDT's Bradley Bowman and Cam McMillan to hear part one follow the link in the description. Bradley Bowman serves as the senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Cam McMillan is a senior research analyst at FDT's Center on Military and Political Power. Brad is coming out with a new book titled "Access of Aggressors, Countering the Cooperation of China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea." We will touch on some of these issues in this episode of Generation Jehad. I'm going to say something really controversial here. I don't think you guys are going to like this. But Brad, to your point about Russia supporting Iran, I mean, should we be surprised? We've been army Ukraine. We've been giving Ukraine weapons that they're using to strike inside of Russia. You know, for whatever the Russians have provided the Iranians, these attacks aren't occurring on American soil. So in a some way, I can understand the Russians doing this. It's in their interests. Right? Is it in our interests? Absolutely not. I'm not making moral equivalence because here. But I understand why if I was a Russian, I'd be doing the same thing too. It's in their interests to do so. Any thoughts on that in my question? The essence of what I hear you saying is that we should not be surprised that Russia is supporting Iran and I agree. Why should we not be surprised? Read the history that we lay out in chapter five of our book where we detail the history of Iran's relationship in recent history, at least, with respect to the other three acts of states, North Korea, Russia, and China. So anyone who knows the history, there understands that it's been a Russian-arroning history has not been all peachy-keying. There's been tension and competition, but there's also been cooperation. And after Putin instigated his naked aggression, his massive large-scale reinvasion, of Ukraine, completely unprovoked. And we've tried to help Ukraine continue to exist as a democratic people against this naked aggression. We've supported Ukraine and facilitated their ability to defend themselves and survive both politically and literally, and to take the fight to Russian, invading Russian soldiers and in some cases into Russia. Yes, that is true. And how would we expect the Kremlin, the led by the KGB former KGB colonel to respond, to look to impose pain on us anywhere they can, and one way they're doing that is supporting the Islamic power run. So no, we should not be surprised. We should see the truth. And respond accordingly. And my main point is, is that if we want to degrade, if not destroy Iranian military power, ultimately seeing this regime going the ash heap of history, we better pay attention to how China and Russia are supporting Iran both past, present, and future. And we better get a little bit more comfortable with threatening and using secondary stations, secondary sanctions on China, even if it causes a little pain for us, because that's the main, I would submit based on our, on our books analysis. That's the main, one of the main considerations that Beijing is going to look at when they're deciding whether to escalate their support for Iran or not. Will we, or will we not impose secondary sanctions if they go from simply, do you, not simply, if they go from do you support and chemical shipments to the delivery of finished weapons systems, which would be a significant escalation. How will America respond to secondary sanctions? And also, how would the Gulf countries, namely Saudi Arabia and UA in particular, respond, because Beijing is trying to very cynically play both sides of the Gulf. And they actually have, in many ways, have far more important economic and diplomatic relations with the Arabs and they do with Iran. But we really haven't put them to the test in that by really exposing for the lie of the day everything that China is doing with Iran to build a coalition with our Arab partners to have a more effective, multilateral response to all the support that China is providing to Iran. Damn, Brad, I really thought I was going to get bitch slapped for that comment, but I, I guess not. I tried to avoid saying that as a general rule as I try to keep things g-rated. What you said was we shouldn't be surprised and I agree. Okay. No, you know, sometimes it's weird. You have these conversations with people. And sometimes they just reflexively act like, but can you believe it? And I'm like, yes, I can't believe it. This is what countries with interests do. Whether I think it's right or wrong, that's a whole different story here. I sense a great insight from Cam. What do you think? Yeah. I just suggest that for anyone who would have that reaction, no one should be surprised that Russia is trying to help kill American soldiers. I mean, they've always been eager to do that. You know more about the Taliban than I ever well built, but I mean like, boundies on heads of American soldiers, Afghanistan, providing support whether directly or indirectly for countless adversaries and enemies in the United States that either directly or indirectly have resulted in the deaths of Americans. So shouldn't be a surprise. Russia, to point that Brad and Elaine and Mark making their excellent book is that these access members above all are united with the Shia Shared hostility of the United States. I can I will say and again, I'm not don't please don't take this as taking the sides of the Russians here is that bounty thing was I think a little bit overblown in the press for what I my investigations into that and really didn't amount to much from what I can tell it's far equipped multiple degrees of magnitude for the support that the US has provided you great. Now again, I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying those are in my estimation, the facts, but question, I guess for you, Cam, I'll start with you. The US used naval drones. I believe it was three of them for the first time this was a last week this occurred. What's the significance of this? Are you surprised that this is the first time the US used naval drones in combat? No, not really. I think the specific strike, the it's significance is less that this was a specific type of munitions employment that we had to use. And more so, I think, you know, Sencom has had this long history experimenting with these USVs and different types of systems. And I think that if anything, they kind of viewed it as this is kind of a testing ground to use a lack of a better term, but we're in the middle of a hot war. We can use these things in real combat. I think it's kind of similar to what we saw at the Lucas drones that Sencom employed at the beginning of the campaign. So I think it's less significant of, you know, we could have struck those targets. They hit port facilities and if you look at the video that's on ConRelease, it appears that there was a submarine in one of those docs or port facilities. So I think it's less significant of, oh, we wouldn't have been able to hit them with a different type of munition, air launch or gravity. And more so, just a way to be able to try these things in a real combat environment. And I do think it's an important step forward that we're demonstrating the ability, but the thing that I would point out, the theater where these usvs will likely have the greatest impact is in the Indo-Pacific and it's going to be at a much larger scale than this. So it's good step forward, but it's going to be at a magnitude where these things are going to have to be implied in really an area denial type of strategy or operational input into a larger operational plan. So good step forward, still a lot of work to do on that front. A bill I can jump in on that real quick on the USV, great comments from Cam as always, but just like if you look at this Corsair unmanned surface vessel that was apparently involved in some of this, this would look like a large ski boat to a lot of us, you with some kit on that mounted on the roof, if you will. And what is it up to about a thousand pounds it can put on there. And so how's that helpful? It creates dilemmas for adversaries, right? Like as a former US Army planner, staff planner, when you can create dilemmas for your adversaries, AK have different ways to strike them, then you create problems for them. And it also could theoretically at least relieve some of the pressure we have on our munitions. We all know that we're in a bit of munitions and interceptor crisis. So if we can find additional ways to strike our adversaries that create dilemmas for them and reduce some of the pressure on some of inventories, that's a good thing. And also, as we rightly are concerned about American casualties, if we can conduct those strikes in a way that reduces the threat to our folks, that's a good thing. And if I can circle back very quickly, build the previous comment, you dug into the Russia angle in the Afghanistan context more than I did, so I'll defer to you on that. And I suspect we'd agree on the, we saw a very credible reporting back in what was a 2024, I think, where you had the Russians providing satellite intelligence through the Iranians to the Houthis, so the Houthis could target shipping. So that's so back to your point that we shouldn't be surprised. I mean, there's a-- other leading example of Russian-Aronian cooperation against Americans and American interests, not to mention international shipping. And of course, the other one that all three of us are familiar with, we saw very incredible reporting of systematic, repeated planning between Russia, the Assad regime, and Iran focused on attacking U.S. forces in Syria for the purposes of victims, so far as Syria. And let's not forget that a long-standing goal, both particularly Iran, but also Russia, was to try to evict U.S. forces from the region by working together to target them. So I think we're all in alignment. We can talk about the nuances of each of the scenarios, but there's a long-standing effort where you see Russian-Aronian cooperation around shared objectives when they have them. And one of those is, is to inflict pain and casualties on U.S. forces and try to push them out of the region as much as possible. Yeah. One of the ironies in all this is the Russians really don't care about the Iranians they're using. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, it makes sense for the Russians, I would do it if I were them. Yeah. You know, on the real quick point on the drones, I'm not actually, I guess I'm surprised that we didn't deploy those drones at the outset, right? That we didn't see them being used more in the targeting at the initial stages of the operation. It just seems curious to me is why this time around now. Another possibility to hear is perhaps we don't want to show too much of our hand to our enemies what our capabilities are. I don't know. Bill, can I comment on that? I mean, you go ahead. Yeah. I mean, you brought up Russia, Ukraine a couple of times and I'm glad you did business. Incredibly relevant. I mean, I think we all would agree and recognize that what Ukraine has done and Bill, you studied this close, I know, you looked at it too. What Ukraine has done in the Black Sea in terms of basically degrading slash pushing back slash defeating, use the right, the Russian Navy without really a manned surface Navy has been incredible. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that Ukraine is the smartest, most capable, most combat experienced military in the world when it comes to at least the ones on our side, when it comes to drone, counter drone, unmanned surface vessels. And so we have kind of continue with my theme of, you know, a little bit more American humility. We have a whole lot to learn from Ukraine. And I don't have a lot of pain and none of you are saying this, but I'm talking about others right now. I don't have a lot of patience for anyone who is saying, you know, like before this conflict, Bill, how many times we're here? You know, we're good on drones. We're learning. We're talking. We're all set on drones and what just happened, you know, since January. In some ways, it's not exaggeration to say we've had our worlds rocked a little bit with drones. And that happened more than four years after Putin's unprovoked the Eurasian Ukraine where we should have been learning from like, like mad from the Ukrainians and recognizing that we did not have the drone defenses we needed. And that strike in Kuwait, for example, you know, where we had the worst loss of life. A lot of these things might have been avoided if we'd checked our arrogance at the door and spent a little time not in ad hoc manner, but in a systematic manner, learning lessons from Ukraine, learning lessons from Israeli partners and proliferating those throughout the U.S. military. And Darisade as well to South Korean Taiwan. I met with some people with this. I met with some folks, you know, who will just say we're very well positioned to talk about all things North Korea. And they were commenting, Bill, this may resonate with you, how they're, we have very good reason to believe that the North Koreans who survived fighting with Russia against Ukraine, you returned to North Korea. There's a systematic effort underway to spread the tactics, techniques and procedures that they learned fighting with Russia against Ukraine across the North Korean military. And that we are seeing the transition of the North Korean military from a kind of a Soviet style, barrage warfare, human waves way of fighting to a precision strike model where they could theoretically potentially hit anything on the Korean peninsula plus or minus 30 meters. I mean, if that doesn't change the balance of power on the Korean peninsula, I don't know what does and do we really believe that our war plans and more importantly how we resource those war plans is updated to reflect that fact. I don't think so. So that's all in with this. I think we are, I mentioned we're in a race to like pain with us in Iran. I think we're also in a race to learn lessons and proliferate them. And I worry that we're, that's, it's kind of a weird thing to say. I'm worried that our access adversaries, China, Russia, Iran, North Korea may be more effectively proliferating lessons learned so that we're not only going to have problems on the, on the western and southern end of the Eurasian landmass. We're going to have problems on the eastern end because what is the most combat experience military in, in, in, in the Far East right now? I mean, there one could say it's the North Koreans. So, you know, I mean, what we're seeing in Ukraine is going to have effects on the other side of the Eurasian landmass. And we better make sure that we are racing just as fast if not faster in this lessons learned race. And I think that's got to be more than ad hoc. It's got to be systematic. And that's why one of the recommendations and chapter eight of our book is a establishment of a, I love cheesy titles of Frontiers are Freedom Forum where we're learning from Ukraine, we're learning from Israel. We're learning from our own experience. We're proliferating the fourth and then we're sharing them with our other, you know, Belieger Democratic partners like South Korea and Taiwan. I'll stop there. Yeah, you know, great points in that the drone warfare or this is something that greatly concerns me on the issue of the defeat, the Ukrainian defeat of the Russian Navy and the Black Sea. It is a spectacular feat. This is something that really surprised me. I've been following some British historians and analysts and they're lamenting the decline. And there I say the collapse of the British Navy. The part of me wonders about the future of the large Navy's after what we witnessed in the Black Sea. Let's see is not, you know, a small pond. It's a large body of water. What is the survivability of large warships in the modern day? I mean, that's a question for another day. I just want to throw that out there that, you know, these conflicts are really making this it truly is a revolution in warfare. We're witnessing with the drones when drones can take out massaging. Did you guys see the, see the video of that one? It's a, I believe it was on a Russian naval base and these slow flying drones are flying in. And the Russians, you see these weird blue lights and lasers and all this fire, you know, they're firing missiles and machine guns at them and they can't take the stamping down. I'm just sitting here going, what am I watching here? This is like, it's, anyway, I'm, I'm granting here, but it's, we're witnessing something that is, makes me question, is our military built for the next war, for the current wars that we're fighting against an adversary like Iran? Yeah, we should be fine. But is it leading us to victory? Well, there's some bigger issues. They are more political than, than military in my estimation. But against adversaries like Russian China, I have a lot of concern. Any comments on that, Cam? You first. Yeah, the, the thing that jumps out to me is to, to both of your points, but to grad specifically of, you know, the impacts of Iranian long range, one way attack drone strikes on US forces. I, I think to make the situation, unfortunately, a lot of more raver is that that's just one element of the drone warfare that we'd have to face in the European or Pacific contingency piece. We haven't even talked about FPVs yet, right? Where the primary threat from Iran, we've seen limited cases of proxies in Iraq, utilizing FPVs to both attack and conduct ISR on American positions in Iraq. But the primary threat has been long range, one way attack drones, something I had some experience with when I served in Iraq. And the other unfortunate reality is that, Sankham is the, the primary theater where there is the most, and basically exclusive, experience in counter US for the US military. We haven't done any new, we haven't done any pay, you know, God forbid we ever have to. But in Sankham, we've been doing this not to the scale and intensity that we have been since this war started, but we have been doing this since 2020-2021. So that's really where most of our lessons learned for this type of threat have come from. And they are very unique in Sankham where they are kind of point defense of larger bases, especially now that a lot of the smaller bases in Iraq and Syria are gone, but they're large, static, fixed positions with existing infrastructure where you can integrate everything into, into a be-dog or an engagement operation center, and you've got all the right people talking to each other and you've got all these different types of systems. That's a challenge on its own right, I lived it, you know, I'm not going to diminish that. It's extremely challenging. But we take that to the next level, and it's not just long range, one attack, strikes, targeting military bases and facilities and ground lines of communication. It's also maneuver units in a place like Europe that are going to have to be distributing down to the platoon level and the squad level and the fire team level, organic counter-UAS capabilities and authorities and TTPs to engage things like FPVs in the drone environment that we're seeing in Ukraine. So the challenge is extremely important. big in Sankham, but it's actually even bigger in my view in other theaters. And we've got a lot to learn from Ukraine, not just in this long range one way attack strike, but even more so, I'd say on for that US Army infantry or armor or strike or brigade combat team soldier that's going to be out with their platoon. And they're not going to have an air defense battalion multiple air defense units responsible for defending the base that they're on. Bill, Bill, can I just real quick, I completely agree with Cam. He brings great rubber meets the road and analytical insights on that. And I agree with the premise behind your question. I mean, and Aaron McLean made this comment in the most recent edition of foreign policy with our colleague, Mariam, where you combine what we're seeing with autonomy, both air and unmanned service vessel and submarine autonomy and with AI and mass production. It truly is going to change not the nature, Closet's to tell us the character of warfare and continue with my annoying theme of the need for a little bit more American humility and a sense of urgency. Let's remember, you know, in this axis I keep talking about, our war with Iran is with one of the junior members of the axis. We're fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran. We're not fighting the people's Republic of China. And if fighting the Islamic Republic of Iran for a few months has created such a munitions and interceptor crisis for the US military, how the blank do we think it's going to go in a many months or many years long war with the people's Republic of China? I mean, give me a break. So not only is there this technology alarm we're trying to sound, I'd say, hello, if we're having a problem dealing with the Islamic Republic of Iran, how do you think it's going to go in the Taiwan straight in the first island chain? So that's why I think generally speaking, folks are mostly awake in Washington and we're starting to increase our defense production. But here we are, Bill. Once again, you have folks on Capitol Hill, you know, with my background there, who are saying, hey, you know, a lot of them are coming from the left side of the aisle, they're saying, I don't like how you Trump administration disrespect us before the Iran war, an argument I just made earlier. I'm with them on that. But then they say, but you know, so therefore we're going to not give you your request to resupply munitions or interceptors or we're not going or we're not going to support your increase in defense funding, even though it would basically, you know, keep us, we still would be barely above three and a half, certainly below 4% of GDP, well below what we spent by that measure during the Reagan buildup. And I'm sorry, what that is is that is holding our service members accountable for the decisions of politicians. If you don't like Trump's decisions, focus on the politicians, but don't deprive the service members who will be fighting and dying in the first island chain by depriving them of the means they need to accomplish their missions, return them, save their families. So what I'm saying is we got to have a recognition that we've struggled to somebody with the Islamic Republic of Iran. How much more will we struggle with the people's Republic of China? And when you look at their production capacity and our need to increase ours and we might be up for another continuing resolution and push back on the Trump administration's defense budget increase, I just really feel like unfortunately we and on in with this, we have a lot of people inside the beltway who are acting like it's 1991 when the world has fundamentally changed. And I think we're in a far more dangerous geostrategic moment, but we're not acting like it. I love these conversations because I want to go in 18 different directions and you know, I'm by no means an expert on defense spending. But you know, to me Brad, the answer isn't do we need to spend more. I think we need to completely rethink how we're spending our defense budget. Do we still need M1 tanks? Do we still need aircraft carriers? I'm not saying the answer is yes or no to those. I think everything needs to be re-evaluated. To me, what I see in defense spending is we just need to spend more. I think we're spending unwisely in many areas. We're buying weapons systems that we don't need. weapons systems that may not be survival on the modern battlefield. I mean, Russia, Ukraine war. I mean, does either of those side have a tank army left that's in theater? So again, discussion for another day, but like to me, I always bulk as they don't give me going. Bill, Bill, let's again, I think you have a perception of disagreement where we actually have unity. I would say what I hear you saying, don't let me, I'm not trying to do a slicky boy put words in your mouth. I'm trying to make sure I understand what you're saying. You're saying we're wasting a lot of money and we need to re-evaluate things top to bottom, research development test, acquisition, all that because there's a lot of waste and we're buying a lot of really expensive systems that may, I agree. I agree. And so when I work for, when I was Senator Kelly Aitz now, security vibes are not only where we are arguing for increased defense spending as I just did. We also led efforts to try to audit the Pentagon because if you're going to say we need to spend more of the taxpayers' hard-earned dollars on you better be able to say that they're also responsible stewards of those dollars. So you're not suggesting a false choice, but I would reject a false choice. We should absolutely do what you said and increase defense spending because I think time is not our friend. So if we had 10 years, I'd say, yeah, let's go through a major reform, make everything better and then spend more. But I don't think times are friend. So we unfortunately have to do both and if I get my way and we dramatically increase defense spending, we're stepping money toward industry to increase production capacity so that we don't literally are running, I have F-15 pilots running out of missiles and a war in the first island chain or don't have anywhere to land and to refuel, then we're going to have to do both at the same time and there's going to be a little waste. And I hate that because every dollar waste is a dollar we're not using to get our troops what they need. But I completely agree with you. I mean, there's so much waste, but if I got rid of all that waste bill and put that toward a good uses, it still would not me in my view our needs. So I would say I agree with you. Yes, that and increased defense spending. Yeah. And to be clear, I concur with what you said. I could live with waste if we're working towards the like all. There's good way. There's good waste and bad waste. There's good. I mean, bad waste, we all know what that is. Bad waste is if you're taking reasonable, mitigated risks in the pursuit of speed and scale, because we got it. That's why I got speed and scale. And if you're a major, a lieutenant colonel program officer and you've mitigated risks, you've been, but you say we need to move fast and as part of moving fast, you waste a little money in the service of getting things in the hands of our firefighters. I'd say that's good waste, but there's a whole lot of bad waste going on and we got to know the difference. And I'm not talking about the $2,000 thing or whatever the, like has the M1 tank become a real thing. Well, we saw what the Marine Corps did. We saw what the Marine Corps did. And I think that, you know, I HR has strong, I love HR's response on this. He says, what's a tank, right? Mobile protected firepower. Like, Kim Smiley knows where I'm going to go. Like, is mobile or stationary better? Mobile is better. It's protected. I'm protected. Protect is better. So, I mean, I bring, you know, a main gun on a main battle tank, but at the same time, let's not be naive. Certainly, HR would never be. That is so experienced knowledgeable, but about the vulnerability of these tanks. And we're seeing some of that in Lebanon, right? We're seeing some of that with Hezbollah going after armored person carriers and tanks of the Israeli defense forces. And how that's creating real problems in a very asymmetrical way. Anyway, enough from me. Back to you, Bill. And I clearly pushed the button years. So I would need probably an entire episode or an entire like mini series to capture all my thoughts on the Army Transformation Initiative, which is actually kind of trying to grab both a lot of stuff. You just, you and Brad both just laid out. I would just offer a very brief defense of these large systems. I'll give kind of two really quick thoughts as quick as I can. First one being, I think in this war, yes, drones have shown that they're really important in the revolutionizing a lot of things, no doubt about it. But I'm pretty glad we had some aircraft carriers laying around in order to conduct these operations. I'm pretty glad that the F-35 is an America's inventory. I'm really glad that we got good long range strikes so that our pilots don't get to close the target area before air defense has been suppressed. I'm really glad they should be cheaper. We should have better ways to do it. But when there's ballistic missiles being shot in American soldiers, it takes a lot of money to shoot them down. And then the other thing I'd say is that we should not assume that all theaters are all conflicts. This is something we all three of us know that they should, they are all going to be of the same character. If we look at Europe, the most obvious place to draw lessons from and the European theater is Ukraine. It's the most obvious place to apply the lessons of Ukraine though they're applicable everywhere. But what I'd say if you look at the Army transformation initiative, a lot of the lessons are the ones you're talking about, Bill, the vulnerability of manned rotary aviation, the vulnerability of large armor formations. So we look at a lot of the cuts. The Apache fleet is being cut significantly. The word cavalry is getting cuts. Armor divisions are getting cuts. All sorts of cuts to try to mold to that model. I think that's important and it's a really important debate to have and there's really good arguments on both sides. But I would just offer this, if we are in the most dangerous course of action or the most dangerous contingency in the European theater, which would be something like the Russians go and do a full-on invasion to Clinton Gride, try to cut off lines of communication to the Baltics, we are going to need to break that. We are going to need to maneuver a large combat force to break through that exposed southern flank of the Russians. I know I'm getting way too specific here, but there is still only one of those types of units that is designed to do that. And they are called Armour Brigade Combat Teams, or a mass and armored division. And we should also not assume that what we are seeing in Ukraine would be day one in that contingency. The war will not start with us in trenches in this giant field of 20 kilometers where everything is going to get hit by a drone. We are going to be moving. The Russians will be moving and we will move to meet them and we will move to match them. So I know I'm going to do a specific operational thing right now, but we should not assume that the next war we are going to be dropped into is going to start in 2026 in the Donbass with the same exact environment. There's really, really important lessons and I completely agree with Brad's point on humility. In your point, Bill, about needing to kind of check some of our priors about how to spend our money properly, but we should not assume that the F-35, for example, is obsolete in tanks no longer going to have any value in war. It's a balance, right? It's a balance. And either way, we're going to be making a risk here. We're going to be making a calculated risk of our, we put in our bets on the tanks and if we're going all in on that, I think that's pretty risky from what we've seen in Ukraine. What are we putting our bets on cheap drones with the recognition that we don't have the constraints economically and industrially that Ukraine and Iran have? I'd say that's a risk too. Yeah, I want to vary our bets. I just want to make sure that we're, those bets were making our wise. And I completely agree with you said, Dan, I agree with you said, Brad. I just want, like, we just need to be asking the right questions. I'm not certain that we're doing that at this point in time. Again, I mean, when I say, do we still need aircraft cars? I don't know the answer to that. I think we do. Do we need as many as we have or do they need modifications? These are all the questions that we should be out. I just get tired of watching us throw money at problems. I'm old enough where I've, you know, we as a society seem to think that if we just throw enough money at a problem, what's another hundred billion? You know, I'll tell you what, I would gladly take point zero, one percent of what's another hundred billion. I could just walk away and get my 200 acres and retire from this world. What's one hundred of a hundred billion? Just give it to me. If it's so meaningless, I'll take it. Bill, I guess, Tos said foreign policy a month or two back or whenever it was with Eric Adelman, who's a member of our board advisor. Someone I respect a lot. And I was making my pitch about, like, sorry Bernie Sanders, you're wrong. We're not going broke on defense spending. If you look at our defense spending as a percentage of GDP or federal spending. But Eric made the point, which I agree with and you're making maybe a version of it is that I think you just did, you know, that he would gladly take less than the 1.5 trillion, well less than that. If it could be predictable and we can know we'd get some level of specific significant funding across the Fide Depth, the future years defense plan. So if we could get some number well short, well south of that 1.5 trillion, but we could rely on an industry could rely on it. So they would make those investments on their own dime that would serve all of our interests. And I would take that. But we're built. This is kind of what I was trying to say with my 1991 comment earlier. We're not even getting that in this incredibly dangerous moment. We're not even getting that. What's the shorthand reason? It's really its partisanship, trumping good policy. Democrats and Republicans are, in many cases, are right to be angry with each other. There's some really principled serious reasons for them to be angry with one another. But in the end, do we recognize the threats or not? And do we want our service members to have what they need? Okay, if we can't do 1.5 trillion, maybe we can do something less than that. But can we, for like the first time, excuse me, the second time in the last 14 or 15 years, Congress, Article 1, Section 8, Constitution, read it, do your job pass the authorization appropriation on time. Pass it on time. Now Republicans and listening will say Brad, we're trying. Give me a break. Come on. But it's also two A street in terms of making good faith concessions at the other party where you can't. Yeah, and last point on this, because I'll ask your final question. They've not funded the budget so many times that it almost feels like crying wolf, doesn't it? Like we have survived these past 15 years without the budget being passed somehow. And we all know at some point it will be passed. There's far too many intremis. Bill, I got to call it on that man. I got to call it on that respectfully. It's just the pain, the annoyance. And also what I think their Brad is, is that there's a lack of seriousness to get to the problem where it's just, let's get this damn thing passed instead of let's get it, get the right one passed. Yeah, Bill, I'm just, that's all. Yeah, no, it's great. I would just say you rightly expressed concern about wasting money earlier. And I said, I agree with you. And now you're saying, you know, is a crying wolf to express concern about continued resolution? No, no, no, no, it sounds like it. Okay, okay, let me, let me just say something like, you know, we're like we get to every year this time. Yeah, we're not going to pass. Yeah, you're right. And yeah, our people and it's like, these are serious problems. These issues need to be dealt with. But I think a lot of the American public, you know, I talk to the average person, the guys I go shooting with at the range or just like my buddies, whatever. And they'll be wilder by these things. And when we discuss them, they're like, they said that last year. So it creates, it's a bad feedback. Yeah, Bill, I'm with you. I honestly, I've, you're inside my head now because I got to tell you, I know people get sick and tired of hearing me complain about continued resolutions because like you said, hey, we've done it 14 to the last 15 fiscal years, you know, I think that's right. And the sky has not fallen. Yeah, fair enough, fair enough. But if you accept the premise that I'm putting forward that we need to sprint in your premise and my premise that we should not waste money, there's, it is well documented and empirically true that continuing resolutions delay the new, what is the core, one of the core things that continue resolution do? It delays the start of new programs, which means a weapon system in the hands of our fighters months or years later, and it waste money. So if you want our troops to have weapons sooner rather than later and you want to not waste money, you should be an adversary of continuing resolutions. You should be a critic of continuing resolutions. It's not a panacea. It's not going to solve every problem on all this robust reform effort that you've called for that I agree with. But I'm going to continue to be that annoying guy that is saying that we should not be wasting time and money and that Congress should do its job and if people get annoyed, that not you, but others so be it because I think I actually believe what I'm saying that this is a dangerous moment. We need, we need to move quickly and we need to not waste time and not waste money and continuing resolutions is one way we do that. Yeah, and I would argue, I think you said it Brad, if I heard you right, it hinders the reform, it hinders getting programs because let's just get this damn thing packed. Bill, the essence of a continued resolution, as you know, is it's copying and pasting a budget from 12 to 18 months ago. Do we think anything changed in the world in the last 12? It's the opposite of sound strategy. It's lazy. It's copying, pasting what we thought 18 months ago onto the present reality, which is not the way to run a business much less a country. Well, look, I think we need, we actually, I know I say it a lot, we do need to do a podcast. I got excited, you got me excited there, Bill. No, it's tough squeezing this in on a podcast on our multinary operations in Iran. But these issues, it's really important. We are at war now. We are war with Iran. We need to innovate. We need to fund these operations. We need to ensure our troops have what they need and these issues do matter. Final question, gentlemen. This is pretty broad. In the US Navy deal with the, there's really three missions going on here. Actually, four, I guess deal with the blockade, deal with the straight, or hormones, the potential of a flare up in the Babelman, that the Houthis that are going to attack Saudi shipping and then the generalized strikes within Iran. Can the US military, as it's deployed in the Middle East, can it effectively handle all four of these missions at once? Kim, you go first. I've talked too much. I was going to say the one sure fire way to get Brad going is defense panic. It's like the red flag in front of the bull. Yeah, exactly. So I think it will certainly create further strains. I mean, there's just no way around that. We saw what the US Navy was tasked to do when it previously was trying to secure commercial shipping through the Red Sea. So that will involve more destroyers to provide air defense support to any commercial shipping going through it. One, maybe I'm too optimistic or a little naive, but one kind of sliver of hope maybe is if the President or the administration can have a more effective, more sound, more reasonable. a reasonable strategy towards our NATO allies if the Houthis start conducting, to start resuming basically what they were doing of attacking all commercial shipping going through the Red Sea, where the Europeans maybe not as much of a real item too, but the Europeans did play a role in a defensive mission to support and defend commercial shipping going through the Red Sea to provide missile defense in the limited counter-UAS defensive commercial shipping and I think that kind of falls more into the category of what a lot of European heads of saves shown they're comfortable with, which is they say the word a million times defensive mission and so it kind of would be a repeat back to I believe it was Euro for naval mission into the Red Sea so I would hope that that would be an opportunity if the U.S. Navy had to meet that chance that they do not have to meet the challenge alone because we properly coordinate with our allies which unfortunately we did not do to get European support and secure in the street. Go ahead, Bill. In six seconds or less and literally hold it to go like this if I go over 60 seconds, start the clock. So bottom line is our Navy is way too small. Our ability to maintain that Navy is dramatically insufficient. I'm talking about public and private shipyards. Talk about our maintenance capabilities. We're not building enough. We don't have the speed of maintaining the maintenance infrastructure that we need and China as we all know is cleaning our clocks in terms of ship production and quantity and they're more focused on one part of the world and we're trying to spread ours all over the world and every time every hour every day spent with a ship deployed is a significant number of hours it's going to spend in the shipyard and not be available somewhere else. That's the opportunity cost of what we're doing in the Middle East. I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing it but let's be aware of that. It's the opportunity cost of the Western hemisphere and this is where sorry that lack of defense spending pays off. Why don't we have a larger Navy? Why is our attack submarine fleet getting smaller? Yes, you heard me right getting smaller because we haven't devoted enough resources into building the production and maintenance capacity that we need. So Bill, we struggled with the Red Sea in 2024. That was a six month war plan that we couldn't sustain for six weeks. You heard me say that before. We had F 18s falling into the water. Bill, remember that? We had some problems. We had some problems now we're going to do the blockade and the Red Sea as well as well with the aircraft carriers burning sailing hours. So we're going to have ships and shipyards doing maintenance for years to come based on this. I'm not saying it's not a worthy endeavor but we have a shipbuilding capacity problem. Our inventory surface and subsurface is too small and China's watching. China's watching and I'll just end with that. I think that was just a little over 60 seconds. Sorry. I'm not going to hold it. You're always gracious with the time. I agree. Look, the first, the Babo man that was likely going to require an offensive operation, not just a defensive operation. It would be really nice if the Europeans would chip in here. I understand that the Trump administration didn't handle that to put it mildly, poorly handled that situation diplomatically. But at the end of the day, they're getting the bulk of what's passing through the Babo men deb and through the Suez Canal. It would be really nice if they could help us out because that offensive, the missions that we talked about, their taxing or abilities. The last thing I think we need is another mission to deal with and that is Babo men deb and Brad, I concur 100% and also add on the US Navy being too small. This gets back to our last discussion. Are we building the right ships? Are we building the right ships for the missions that we have? Do we need smaller ships and more of them? I don't know. I find myself quoting Stalin. Forget Bill, stop. Whenever you fill that tendency, I would urge you to stop. Don't do it. Sometimes friends don't let friends quote Stalin. I'm trying to intervene here. Don't do it. But he's right on this. Like do, you know, we need more. And maybe, you know, yes, I'm all for quality, but smaller, more capable ships, more of them, I think would help them in situations like this and maybe a little bit more survivable in today's environment with drone warfare. Cam, you look like you had to comment on that. Yeah, sorry. I know we're probably running on the last thing I'd add and this goes whether it's the Navy stuff or the munitions or specifically the interceptor shortage. One thing that gets lost in the conversation a lot, but I think as important is that list of issues we're going to run into on the naval side that Brad laid out. We should add personnel readiness and retention to that list as well, right? Every time that like these poor sale, their deployments are just extended, extended, extended, extended. And for any of us who have served, you know, we know what extended deployments, unexpected deployments, they kill retention like army air defense units. It's not just the interceptors. They give a massive interceptor shortage, but we also just simply do not have enough army air defense units, army air defense soldiers and retention is going to suffer the more and more of these extended deployments because they're the most deployed part of the army. And that can certainly be said with the Navy of all the things they're being expected to do as well. So again, it's not a reason not to do certain things, but it is a consequence. And if we're relying on kind of like the bare minimum to meet bare minimum requirements throughout theaters, retention in personnel is going to be an issue just as much as interceptors and hardware is going to be too beautifully said bill. You'd last comment from me. If your listeners just look at what the Gerald Ardford carrier went through and it's in on its incredible 11 month deployment in Europe, Venezuela, back to the Middle East, some of the problems they had, it'd be really interesting to look at retention rates for people who are on that deployment from the Ford carrier. So you know, so you can was right to politely call me on that. It's not just about building and maintaining. It's about the people who are employing them because you can have a big fancy worship. But if you don't have people to actually sail it, it doesn't really matter. And so I think that's a great point. Yeah, excellent point, Cam about the personnel. And I'll care a quick, quick anecdote from my time in service. I was never going to be a lifer. I just wanted to do my time, you know, see the world, you know, so I did a four year stand, but I met my wife while I was, I guess, in you two and a half three, but I would not propose to her until I was out of the military. So I got, I think I proposed her on Thanksgiving and I got out December 7 because I saw how hard deployments were on families, the divorce rates, the things, these are the things that people don't see. Only those of us who served who are around the military actually get to see, you know, and I wasn't on an 11 month deployment on a worship with limited contact. My wife was, you know, she or brother lived in Southern France at the time. She would fly in. We, you know, take a vacation. Yes, when we were, you know, basically at our honeymoon before we ever got married in Europe and it was great, but like that was just me in a essentially a peacetime army in 1993, 1994. I can't even imagine what it's like for those who served on the Ford camp or the, you know, this, the deployments that you did, Brad, you as well. I mean, even when I, I flitted in and out of the battlefield when I did my embeds in Iraq and Afghanistan with the US military, the Canadian military, Iraqi army, Iraqi police, those were one month periods and that was hard. And you're in a stressful situation. You know, think guys were doing 13 month, 13 month tours in the US army. I think the Marines had them like six or seven months. These are things that, you know, that the human aspect is what the American public doesn't see. I'm going to say one last thing controversial here. I used to be against the draft 100%. Part of me goes, you know what? The, the, I'm not saying we should have one, but I, the far too many of our servicemen bear far too much of the pain for the defense of this country and the rest of the, the American public of 90, some percent of them don't see what the, the average soldier's marine airman sailor have to go through. So, I'll end it with that. Gentlemen, Brad, Cam, great to have you on. I really enjoyed the conversation. Let's definitely follow this one up with it and keep Brad out on the defense bank. Bill, I really enjoyed it. I was such an honor to be here with my really awesome colleague, Cam. So, thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Bill. It's always, it's always a blast. Yeah, incredible conversation, gentlemen. Thanks so much. And thanks everyone for listening to today's episode of Generation Jihad.