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I'm Mike Boris and this is Straight Talk.
As I understand, you met Zelinsky, yeah?
I need ammunition.
Is everyone in Ukraine that badass?
You know, you can see why he is such a good leader
when you meet him in Perth,
the most effective leader of the 21st century so far.
All of us, millions of Ukrainians, wish the same.
Retired Army Major General, Ukraine,
has mastered the art of war.
You don't have to be hugely better than your enemy,
you just need to be better.
And the Ukrainians have proven,
that Russia has lost every battle it's fought.
When you start losing, it's hard to change that habit.
And he's looking to what's next.
The Chinese Communist Party is not friends with democracies.
This is not a hard concept to understand.
What are you most worried about?
What keeps you crying awake at night?
No worries, mate. It's good to talk to you.
We're going to talk.
We're going to talk about Ukraine, Putin, et cetera,
and probably touch on China.
But before we move on too far,
Senator Jim Molan, Major General in the Australian Army,
a predecessor to you, in other words,
predated you as a Major General,
passed away, sadly.
Was a great Australian,
but someone who's acutely aware of protecting our borders
and also how the region operates in a security sense.
Did you know him?
I'd known him for nearly three decades.
I first met him when I was a very young captain serving in Darwin.
And I got to spend a day or two with him when he was commanding the first brigade
in the field in Northwestern Australia and saw a very professional,
but very demanding commanding officer, which is exactly what you need
for good army combat leadership.
We got to talk many times over many years.
I used to go and have lunch with him when he commanded the defense college.
We used to have great arguments about defense policy,
about the future of the military.
And he'd always end by slapping the table,
even if we disagreed vehemently,
he'd slap the table and say,
we've got to do that again next month.
He was always open to different and new ideas.
He reveled in different and diverse range of ideas.
He was never one to suppress them.
Like we might see out of some of our leaders these days.
And, you know, I last got to speak to Jim just before Christmas.
And we talked about a few things going on.
And, you know, I knew he was sick and he talked about good weeks and bad weeks,
but hopefully, you know, there were not just some good weeks and bad weeks,
but some good years ahead.
But sadly that that wasn't to be.
I know his daughter quite well and the family.
So Jim Olin, rest in peace.
Well, Major General, it was round about, well, not quite now,
but we're about 11 months away from when you and I last talked.
It was just at the outbreak of the war,
11 days after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 24th, February 2022.
A lot's happened since then.
When we had our conversation last time that you made a prediction
that this war was going to go on for a few years.
It looks like you're on the money.
What's different now though, with the hindsight of 12 months,
what's different?
Yeah, I think a couple of significant changes.
First, Ukraine is on the ascendancy in this war.
I mean, I don't think many analysts predicted that this would happen,
but they have beaten the Russians on the battlefield multiple times,
and they're also winning the global information fight.
I mean, the Russians have tortured, raped, murdered their way across Ukraine,
destroyed cities, are currently engaged in destroying civilian infrastructure
and killing civilians, you know, with total abandon.
And, you know, I don't think a lot of people really foresaw just how brutal
and how violent this might become, even though that is the norm in warfare.
It doesn't mean that's what we want to see.
It doesn't mean we should be doing all we can to stop Russia.
But I think, you know, the trends are that this is a war that will continue
for some time to come.
They are both large, well-resourced countries,
and Ukraine certainly has good sources of supply from the West.
This is a fight that will be going on for some time,
and will continue until the Russians are thrown out of Ukraine.
What I don't understand, Mick, is, like, someone's attacking my backyard.
I'm defending the backyard, which is what Ukraine is doing.
They're defending their yard.
But at no stage has Ukraine gone,
why not just send a few missiles or a few tanks into Russia and have a crack?
What's the strategy or the lack of strategy around that?
And what's the thinking around that?
Why hasn't Ukraine attacked Russia?
Well, it's a pretty clever strategy from the Ukrainians, to be quite frank,
even though they've done a couple of attacks on Russian air bases.
These are air bases that are directly involved in attacks on Ukrainian people.
Now, the Ukrainians are defending their country.
They know that they have to put –
they have to put all their resources into doing that.
But they also know that certain countries in Europe are supporting Ukraine,
but that support is tenuous, and it's based on Ukraine assuming a defensive strategy.
If Ukraine was to do something that happened within Russian borders
that resulted in the death of Russian civilians,
you know, the Ukrainian support would come under scrutiny from many people in the West,
which would put pressure on politicians.
So the Ukrainians have a pretty clever strategy,
what I call corrosion, which is about corroding the Russian military from within,
but also corroding public opinion in Russia in the support for the war,
although that's been a slow and is an ongoing task.
So I don't expect we're going to see the Ukrainians attacking Russian soil
unless it's some kind of strategic air base or missile site
directly engaged in attacks on Ukrainian civilians.
I might add, for those who want to act like they're all sophisticated and say,
what about attacks on Crimea?
Crimea is not Russia.
Under international law, it is Ukraine,
and Ukraine will be taking back Crimea at some point in the future,
whether the medium or the long term.
Okay, so we keep hearing, or at least I keep hearing on the BBC,
which I turn on at about nine o'clock every night,
and they go straight to the war,
and we keep hearing about how, you just mentioned it,
that the Ukrainians on the ground are giving the Russians,
a bit of what for,
and they keep showing us footage,
which I'm hoping is not the same footage over and over again,
but of Russian tanks smashed up, you know, trucks all smashed up, blah, blah, blah,
retreating Russians.
In other words, indicating to us, and I'm assuming this is not propaganda,
but indicating to us, the viewers, that Ukraine on the ground
is giving the Russians what for,
and therefore creating loss, creating loss of assets,
creating loss of, you know,
how the Russians feel,
how the Russians feel about the war,
you know, maybe having a morale impact.
But at the same time, I also watched on the television
that the Russians are sending missiles, it looks like,
and I presume they're by aeroplane,
or where they're sending missiles from,
I don't know how you might be able to tell us,
but smashing the hell out of residential environments
or residential areas in Ukraine,
with abandon, as you said earlier.
How do we reconcile those two things?
Are you gonna tell me that Russia,
if they wanted to, could just press the button,
just annihilate Ukraine in a minute with the missiles?
Well, they could if they used their full nuclear arsenal,
but I don't expect we're going to see that anytime soon,
because if they did that,
the response from the West against Russia,
I think, would be quite overwhelming.
No, I mean, Russia has lost every battle it's fought
in the last few months against Ukraine.
And when you start losing battles,
not only does it corrode the morale of your soldiers,
you know, it impacts on the home front,
but it also impacts on the military as a whole.
When you start losing, it's hard to change that habit.
And that's where the Russians are at the moment.
And it's why they're so desperate
for something at Bakhmut or Salada
that they can call a victory.
Because at the moment, the Russian military are losers.
The Ukrainians have been beating them.
They've been pushing them back.
They've taken back large swathes of the territory.
They've taken back large swathes of the territory.
They've taken back large swathes of the territory.
that the Russians captured at the beginning of this war.
They have the confidence of winners
and those who are being successful on the battlefield.
Now, that doesn't mean it's without cost.
It's been at huge cost.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians
have given up their lives
just to get to where we are right now.
So the Russians in this position,
as losers on the battlefield,
have had to come up with something else
that they can use
to impact on Ukrainian will to continue the fight,
but also that they can portray
as a success back home to their own people.
I mean, domestic constituencies still matter
even to ruthless authoritarians like Putin.
So it's this missile campaign.
So they're using missiles launched from ships
in the Black Sea, from bombers that are flying
over Belarus and Russia,
and from ground-launch missiles and Iranian drones.
I mean, they're using these missiles
to portray that they are having an impact on Ukraine.
The reality is, like many of these strategic bombing campaigns
of the past, they really just strengthen the will
of those who are being attacked,
as we're seeing from the Ukrainians.
The Russians have a lot of missiles,
and they're going to keep doing this.
And it is having an impact on the Ukrainians,
but it's not changing their will to fight
and resist against the Russians.
Why are the Ukrainians so good?
I mean, Putin's had years to prepare for Russia.
He's had years to prepare for all this.
And by the way, the Russian soldiers are pretty experienced
because they've been in Syria and various other places.
I mean, there have been lots of campaigns.
So you would expect them to be good at this shit.
What is superior?
Well, war is never about absolutes
when it comes to the interplay of the two belligerents.
It's all about relativities.
And the reality of this war is the Russians
have not been as good at strategy
because they've made bad assumptions
about the Ukrainians not wanting to fight
or that Ukrainians wanted to be liberated,
that they weren't a unified nation.
And those strategic mistakes from the beginning of the war
really have flowed down to their military strategy,
how they fought in the first few months.
And the reality is the military that went into Ukraine
is one that was preparing for a very different kind of war.
I mean, they really prepared their military
for a defensive campaign to defend Russia,
not an offensive one into a neighbouring country.
That wasn't really what they prepared for.
Syria was a very different war to this one.
It was, you know, very low density.
They were invited in by a host government.
And they had a pretty significant military advantage
over the rebels that they were murdering, raping and gassing.
So the Russian military actually weren't that well prepared
And they made a lot of assumptions about the Ukrainians
that haven't played out.
And I think were understudied by most Western analysts.
And too many people probably assumed
that it was the same Ukrainian military
that had done so poorly against the Russians in 2014.
The reality is the Ukrainians have invested
in the last eight months to improve the quality of their people,
improve the quality of their equipment,
improve the quality of their leadership,
which is very important.
And that has made all the difference in this war.
You don't have to be hugely better than your enemy,
you just need to be better.
And the Ukrainians have proven that pretty much from day one.
And to reinforce that, they've learnt and they've adapted
throughout this war better than the Russians have.
So the relative difference in quality between the Russians
and Ukrainians has continued to widen as a gap.
The Russians have learned but not as quickly
and not as well as the Ukrainians.
And with the supplementation the Ukrainians received
from the West, whether it's new advanced munitions, HIMARS,
armoured fighting vehicles that are coming from Germany or US
and hopefully main battle tanks,
that will widen the gap between the two of them
and it will be something that's very difficult
for the Russians to close.
Let me skylark for a sec.
Could it be described that this current war in Ukraine
between Russia attacking Ukraine and Ukraine defending their position,
relative to the West, Western countries that are participating
by helping Ukraine, could it be said that those countries
are looking at this as an exercise, as a practice position
to see how they can defend against Iraqi drones
or they can defend against missiles
or maybe we'll put these technology things into Ukraine
and just see how that operates.
Is there any sense in that or is it they are really, really committed?
It's a bit of both and other reasons.
The reality is countries help others in war
for a variety of national and strategic reasons.
I mean Europe is helping Ukraine, one, because it's a democracy
so they see an interest in preserving democracy in all its forms
wherever it exists and that's an important thing we should remember
in Australia about Taiwan.
But they're helping because they have economic links.
I mean Ukraine is a major exporter of grain, of steel,
of manufactured goods, has a massive IT industry,
so there are commercial links there.
But also for a lot of countries you try and fight what we call,
what you might call in footy terms away games.
You never want to fight or you never want to play on your home field.
You want to fight away.
It's been Australia's strategy since Federation.
That's why we've always deployed overseas.
It's always better to fight away than home and Ukraine is doing that.
And then there is, yes, there is this opportunity to learn
about modern warfare, although that's not a leading reason.
It's a lagging reason.
It's certainly a reason.
And the US and others are looking at this war for its lessons,
for fighting Russia potentially in future on the ground, in the air,
at sea, in cyberspace and in space, and also for lessons
in the Western Pacific.
Certainly the Chinese will be studying this war in minute detail
like they did the first Gulf War in 1991,
which drove their current multi-decade transformation
of the People's Liberation Army.
Because, I mean, if I was observing it from a distance,
it wouldn't matter if it was just business for me.
I try to look at, as you say, try to watch everybody else's battles
in business and trying to work out what they're doing well
and what they did badly and try then to use it in my own world.
What do you think are some of the learnings from all this?
I mean, these clusters.
These cluster Iraqi drones.
What are we learning?
What are you as a military strategist learning about how to fight these wars
in the future or maybe just currently?
Yeah, so, I mean, that's a conversation that could take us in lots of places
over a period of a month probably.
But, you know, there's some top-line lessons here.
I guess the big ones are that, you know, big wars are still possible.
I think at the end of the Cold War, many assumed,
many hoped rightly, of course, that, you know,
we no longer had to worry about building massive military institutions
to defend ourselves and we could focus on the prosperity of our peoples.
Now, that's a good aspiration.
I mean, at the end of the day, the primary aim of a government
is to ensure the safety and prosperity of the people that it governs.
But the reality is, as we've seen in the last few years,
there are still big, capable authoritarian regimes who believe that military,
military action is the way they can achieve their outcomes.
So, you know, the big lesson is we need to increase defence spending
in democracies and to expand our ability to fight on the land, air, sea,
cyberspace and space.
So that's a big strategic issue that many countries, including our own,
are still coming to grips with because, you know, strategy,
as Bernard Brodie once told us, wears a dollar sign.
This doesn't come for free.
There's an opportunity cost.
For every dollar you spend on defence, you're not spending it on a school,
a hospital or something like that.
So these are difficult political issues.
Another lesson, I guess, that comes from this is this battle of opinion,
this influence fight that the Ukrainians and the Russians have waged
since the beginning of this war.
I mean, they have both sought, with different audiences, of course,
to influence world opinion, influence governments, influence multilateral
I think the Ukrainians have been enormously successful in this.
But it's an ongoing fight and it's not just government organisations,
There's a huge number of private citizens, of private corporations
who are involved.
I mean, the North Atlantic Fella Organisation is a great example
of memes being used to rubbish the Russians and show off their awful,
So strategic influence is another lesson.
And I think, you know, there's a lot of work to be done
to make sure that we're doing the right thing.
And I think a third big lesson is leadership.
I mean, Zelensky's, you know, now immortal words,
I don't need a ride, I need ammunition, you know,
will echo down probably for decades of examples of a good leader
who had the courage to stay and fight when things were at their grimest,
at their darkest and most uncertain.
And that leadership that he's provided
through the darkest hours and through the successes
in Kharkiv, Kherson and other places is an example
to modern politicians that you actually need to step up your game.
How many of you, including our own, can look in the mirror
and say they would pass the Zelensky test of courage,
of speaking plainly, of unifying their people?
Now, the circumstances are different but the lesson still holds right.
We want national leaders, we want politicians to be good leaders,
to care about people and not focus on their elections
but focus on good governance.
So I think there's another great lesson there.
Now, there's a myriad of military lessons that we could go into,
but for me those big three are really important ones that emerge
from this war and should wake up a lot of politicians, strategists
and people in the general community.
As I understand, you met Zelensky, yeah?
So how did that happen, Mick?
I mean, I'm intrigued.
How did you get to meet Volodymyr Zelensky?
I mean, what's the process?
I got an invitation from a Polish institution.
They were taking in a small group of scholars and analysts
to do a bit of a study tour of Ukraine and it included a meeting
with President Zelensky on the last morning.
It was a real professional highlight of my life, I can tell you,
and I thought he was brilliant.
It was, frankly, the real deal.
You know, in person he's funny, he's fit, he's aware,
he's obviously remaining well rested, which is a really good
leadership quality.
But engaging, he listens, he demonstrates all those things
about good leadership that we talk about in the military,
in business and in government.
And, you know, you can see why he is such a good leader
when you meet him in person.
So that was a highlight and I'm hoping he's able to stay around
and see this through to victory over Russia.
So would Putin be thinking to himself, I've just got to nail this dude,
I've got to, Zelensky, because if something happened to Zelensky,
I would, I don't know, I don't know anything about military stuff,
but I'd imagine that would put a big dent in Ukraine's progress
just as a nation.
Would Putin be thinking about that?
Like how can I get rid of this guy?
Oh, he would have been thinking about that before the war.
It's kind of the Russian way of doing things, right?
They take out opponents.
I mean, they do it all the time, whether it's through poison
or falling out windows or regime change.
And there's a lot of evidence that there were multiple attempts
to try and kill Zelensky and his family at the start of this war.
But the reality now, however, is that while Zelensky is a vital leader
for his nation and for the West,
he's set up a system now of not just his but a myriad of others
in his governments of interacting with Western governments
that as tragic and as awful it might be if Zelensky was to die
or be murdered by the Russians, his country now has the capacity
to continue fighting in a unified way.
I mean, if we think back to the latter parts of the Second World War
when Franklin Roosevelt died or even our John Curtin died,
I mean, these were consequential leaders that unified their nation,
built up industry and led their countries close to the precipice
of victory from the very darkest days.
But their countries survived.
They moved on and they won.
And I think Ukraine would do the same.
Now, hopefully, you know, I expect this is all just an abstract conversation
because he really has been the leader, the most effective leader
of the 21st century so far, and we should all wish him well.
Does it apply on the flip side, though, in terms of Putin?
I mean, I would imagine, too, various actors would be thinking
to themselves, let's just cut Putin off at the knees at a personal level
and that might change things.
Will Russia continue on with the same amount of exuberance
if Putin didn't exist?
You know, you've always got to be careful with regime change
because you don't always know what's on the other side.
You know, the West had that experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan
and look how that worked out for us.
I mean, it was tumultuous.
Or if you go back further, South Vietnam.
So, you know, you don't know what's on the other side of regime change
and as a friend of mine, US strategist, Eric Edelman,
has counselled on several occasions, he said generally
when the Russians change regime, it is a big change.
If you have a look at 1917, if you have a look at 1991,
these are not minor changes in regime.
They're big ones.
So we could see something major.
something major on the other side of Putin's demise that might be good, but I think it's more
likely to be really bad. And we should be very cautious about that. So I think the demise of
Putin is not a pathway to victory here. Beating Russia on the battlefield and ejecting the
Russians from Ukraine is regardless of who's in charge in Russia. Can I just switch a little bit
here? I was reading in the, I think the edition of two weeks ago, The Economist, which comes out
every week, the importance of Musk, Elon Musk's satellite system or the satellite system that
he currently has up floating around our globe, our planet, and the signaling that the satellite
system is allowing people in Ukraine to use in terms of access to the internet and putting up
stories and playing the propaganda game, given that Russia...
Is out there trying to destroy left, right, and center, all the infrastructure, particularly
just, you know, internet access. Have you given any thought to the importance of something like
that operating today? In other words, how important is it for us to have unfettered access during a
war like currently going on in the Ukraine to the internet and for people on the ground, like
citizens, to be able to upload stuff to you and me to see and for BBC to get hold of, and also just
the whole community.
Communication is game. So I guess communication is really important in war.
You know, it has been for a long time, whether using flags or runners or the telegraph or
wireless or many other means, I mean, to coordinate what's going on on the ground and a whole range of
things, it's vital. You know, in fact, funnily enough, it was in Ukraine, in Crimea, during the
Crimean War, where the telegraph was first used in military operations. And the British
used it to telegraph back to London overnight, and stories would appear in the London newspapers
the following day. But it also allowed British politicians to telegraph fuel commanders, which
was the start of this term, you know, 3,000 mile screwdriver. In more contemporary era, you know,
assured access to communication isn't just important for military institutions, as we've seen
in Ukraine, has been vital for getting out the stories and the images of this Russian invasion.
Now, that didn't happen by accident.
The Ukrainians, in the wake of the 2014 Russian invasion, invested a lot in a more robust national
terrestrial telecommunications network. And for most of this war, they have demonstrated the
ability to keep their internet working, you know, at the 80-90% capacity. In fact, Monash University,
they have a great feed of internet availability in Ukraine that's almost live. Monash IP,
I think it's called. And you can follow it on Twitter.
But that has been vital in allowing battle tracking, mapping, analysis, getting out images
and stories of Russian atrocities, destruction of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. So,
you know, that telecommunications resilience, if we would call it that, is an important part of a
wider national resilience posture that Australia and others actually have been looking at for a
few years now. But it will take...
It will take some investment. And if I was to use an example in Australia that's not related
to the military, we need to have resilient communications networks when bushfires and
floods occur. I mean, we all know in southern New South Wales and Victoria during the last
big bushfires, there was a lot of shortfalls in communications which hindered both.
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Shop now at Walmart. The firefighters as well as civilians, and we need to really redress that kind
of telecommunications resiliency, among other challenges.
As I recall during the Lismore floods, Mick Fanning, the famous surfer, somehow was able to
make contact with Musk. And Musk somehow made available to victims or people in Lismore and
during the flood period, their satellite boxes, well, the boxes, Starlink boxes that connect to
the satellite. And we're all, all of a sudden able to see a whole lot of footage about what's
going on, et cetera, and kept us all up to date and newspapers up to date and TVs up to date,
but also allowed the people who are suffering in Lismore to feel as though they could somehow
communicate better with us. Do you think, and that helps morale, do you think that in the future,
the wars will be such that someone like Russia might say, example, here in Ukraine, well, let's
shoot down all those satellites. Let's destroy those satellites from space. War will move
into space in terms of killing off communications. Well, we've been there for a while. You know,
the Russians, the Chinese, and the Indians have all demonstrated the ability to launch
missiles to destroy satellites in orbit. It's not very popular when they do it because it
creates a debris field, which has an impact on other satellites in similar orbits.
But thinking about space warfare on orbit operations, as it's called,
uh, has been going on for some time now, just because of the importance of what satellites
provide military and national capabilities. I mean, uh, without satellites, you don't get
precision navigation, uh, through GPS or Baidu or GLONASS, um, which are some of the, you know,
American, Chinese, and Russian systems. But the other important thing these GPS satellites
provide is precision timing, which is used for stock trading, which is used for trading
on energy markets, for electricity, uh, spot prices, and a whole range of, uh, basic things
in our world now that rely on precision timing, including Netflix and stuff like this. So we've
been thinking about this for a while now. Many countries have the capability to use lasers or
kinetic, um, actions to either destroy or disable satellites in orbit. Uh, they'll continue to do
that. But the response to that then has been to put up, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of, uh, a lot of
larger constellations. I mean, Starlink eventually will have tens of thousands of satellites and
there are others who are doing similar things. It's very difficult to take all of them out,
which gives you a level of resilience that you might not have had with a constellation of say,
10 or 15 satellites previously. Yeah. What I understand is that Starlink is launching
effectively one a week, but in order to take them out, you, the takeout is always going to be slower
than the launch. And that therefore they're always, some way Starlink is always going to be
Apparently Starlink have launched as many satellites as every other country put together
so far. So that's quite, quite an impressive thing. And it's Musk playing a, quite a good
economic game. And speaking about economics, did you, are you surprised with the economic fallout
globally of this war? No, every war has economic fallout. I mean, it has an impact on trade,
has an impact on the availability of commodities. Uh, it doesn't matter whether it's grain
so what we're seeing is once again, pretty normal. Uh, unfortunately, many who were commentating on
the war don't read history books and think this is a one-off and it's the first time they've seen
it. So it must be the first time it's happened. It's not, uh, the vast majority of what we're
seeing is entirely normal and has happened many, many, many times before over multiple centuries.
Uh, you know, this is why I study war in breadth of depth, because you can apply it to almost
any struggle between nations. Uh,
the year ahead will be very interesting to watch economically. You know, China will emerge out of
its, uh, COVID self-isolation, uh, but Ukraine will require increasing economic assistance because
wars need money to fight. Uh, they need to pay their people, pay their soldiers, pay their
government, pay their firefighters and police. Um, they will require economic assistance for
some time and they'll require hundreds of billions to rebuild their economy. Eventually that money
has to come from somewhere.
So the economics of this war really bear watching and, uh, in some respects as fascinating as the
military aspects. China, where does President Xi sit in all this? I mean, I mean, apart from
playing the observation game and trying to learn from it, is he secretly, do you think China's
secretly supporting Russia by commercially, by economically, I should say, by buying things from
Russia, um, and doing that in a strategic sense, or are they just being opportunistic? Or is Xi
going to say, hang on, this is too tricky. I might stay away from all this. Where, where, where is
China in this whole conflict? Yeah, it's, it's interesting, isn't it? I think it's a bit of
opportunism, getting cheap goods and things like that, but it's probably also, um, you know, they
have a relationship, uh, both Xi and Putin have a worldview where they don't want Western
democracies to be preeminent in the world. They want to challenge, uh, the, the, the liberal
internationalism. So, you know, I think it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
in inverted commas that has grown since the end of the second world war.
So China has an interest in one, distracting the West with a war in Europe. Uh, he has an
interest in getting cheap energy. It has an interest in some forms of support for Russia.
It doesn't need a collapsed Russia on its border. Uh, it needs a functioning state there for its
own security. It doesn't want to look North for its security problems. It already looks East for
that. So, you know, this, this is a pretty, uh, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
complex strategic challenge for the Chinese president before he starts worrying about the
myriad of internal challenges that he has to face over the coming years. And North Korea,
we don't seem to talk much about North Korea now, but he'd be sitting there thinking to himself,
just like you said, there's a distraction. World has a distraction. I can now do what I want.
And he keeps sending missiles, ballistic missiles towards Japan and over the top of Japan.
Or is he just toying with us or we just toy with him?
North Korea is kind of like the runt of the litter when it comes to authoritarian regimes.
They're extraordinarily inwards focused. They have nowhere near the economic capacity of the
larger authoritarian regimes like China, Russia, Iran, or some others. But they're constantly
jumping up in the air with their hand up going, what about me?
What about me? Don't forget about me. It's kind of a really pathetic strategic approach
to ensure the world doesn't forget about them. The reality is North Korea's impact on security
in the Western Pacific is primarily in the relationship with South Korea and Japan. Most
other countries, it has minimal impact. But, you know, as North Korea's impact on security in the
Western Pacific, it has minimal impact on security in the Western Pacific. So, you know,
they could be exporting those. They might be able to export more munitions to Russia and other
nations. That's where their principal challenge to global security environment lies. You know,
their regional pain in the neck that has demonstrated the capacity to build fairly
rudimentary nuclear weapons. But as a threat to the world peace, they're fair way down the
totem pole compared to China and Russia.
So, if I flip over then to the Middle East, or Central Asia at least, where's Iran sit in all
this? Maybe also Syria, but definitely Iran. Yeah, Iran is a different proposition and a
more dangerous one than the North Koreans. I mean, they're a source of ideological
ferment. You know, they export ideas around their version of Islam. And at the same time,
they are really active in,
you know, the support for foreign entities, especially terrorist organizations that target
different regimes that are against them. They also have developed reasonably effective and cheap
medium and long range strike systems, whether they're drones, or whether they are
missiles. And as we've seen, they've been able to export them to Russia and will probably continue
to do so, which makes them, that alone makes them a fairly dangerous actor.
But I think too, you know, their relationship with different countries in the Middle East
has an impact. I mean, different countries like Saudi Arabia,
Israel and others have large military forces to deal with the threat posed by Iran.
Assad's regime, does that feed into the Iranian story though? And also ultimately,
why Russia has been out there supporting both of them over a long period of time?
Now, was this part of Putin's early plan? Or is this just an offshoot of
the idea that, you know, I better assist in that region? Is this part of a bigger plan, do you think,
from Putin's point of view?
Well, I think this was about Putin wanting a presence
on the Mediterranean coast. It gives the Russians a different operating base in the Mediterranean
Ocean, which poses a challenge for European and American naval and air capacity in that region.
It also gives them leverage over Israel.
I mean, because Russia is in some respects suppressing some of the threats to Israel.
So it means countries like Israel that are developing some pretty impressive
capabilities are reticent to support countries like Ukraine that are fighting Russia.
And it means Russia is a player in Middle East politics and world
energy politics. As a major energy exporter, Russia has an interest in the Middle East
policy. So there's a myriad of reasons why Putin has forces and has retained forces in Syria. None
of them are enlightened reasons of helping out in the Middle East. You just explained a bit more of
that to me, Mick, because you just said that Russia's presence in Syria goes to some way of
restraining Israel, who has fantastic defence systems like the Iron Dome and all that sort of
stuff, which have not been exported at this stage to Ukraine. It's not because Russia is an ally of
Israel, but it's rather that if Israel starts exporting its defence systems, Russia may
unleash the Kraken out of Iran and those other places in Syria. Is that the reasoning? Is that
what you're saying? Yeah, no, that's part of the reason. Absolutely. I mean, the Russians also have
really sophisticated air defence systems in Syria.
But, you know, they've chosen not to use against Israeli aircraft that are flying in, killing
terrorists who were based in Syria. They could change that. So, you know, this is a fairly complex
and difficult environment in the Middle East. And, you know, if it wasn't complex, we would
have solved this problem long ago. We haven't. The politics of Israel, Syria, of Iran, of Palestine
and other nations in the Middle East are quite, you know, difficult.
It's difficult to sort through and no one has a full picture at any one time of everything that's
going on there. And the Russians have decided to wade in and see where they can gain leverage for
themselves and leverage over other countries. And that's what they're doing with Israel.
When we have this discussion, I mean, obviously, some of Putin's generals haven't been executing
as he would like. Of course, he's changed his leadership and his military leadership a number
of times over the last six to seven months. But when I just reflect on what you're telling me,
about Putin generally, his relationship with China, his relationship in his Middle East
territories, both with Israel, then Syria and Iran, the way he's conducting himself in Ukraine
at the moment, and his oil game, his economics game, he's a pretty smart dude. Like he's,
you know, you can't ever underestimate. He's not just a pugilist. He's not just a warmonger.
He's not just, it seems to me anyway, and I'm open to be corrected for sure,
but it just seems to me that he's not just a war monger. He's not just a war monger.
He's not just a war monger. He's not just a war monger. He's not just a war monger.
He's a lot brighter. Well, someone in his regime is a lot brighter than I've ever,
most of us have ever even been aware of. Yeah, he's certainly cunning. You don't
seize power and keep it for 20 years without having a certain ability for self-preservation,
a certain level of cleverness. I mean, you can't deny that. You should never underestimate
someone like Vladimir Putin because he's extraordinarily dangerous. But part of
his problem now is he spent a couple of years basically isolating by himself with very minimal
human contact. So someone who already lacked empathy was extraordinarily brutal and vicious
has become even less empathetic towards human beings in the lead up to Ukraine because he's
been isolated from just about all of them. You see this in these ludicrous photos of him at these long
tables early in the war with his generals. So he's been in power for a long time. He probably thinks
he's the smartest guy in the room every time he walks into one. That's always a bad start.
He has enormous military and economic potential for a range of reasons. So he is clever enough
to pose a very significant threat to Ukraine and Western Europe and other countries
in a range of different scenarios moving forward. I don't think we're going to see the end of
Vladimir Putin anytime soon. So if we were to dial back into our old friend, Jim Molan,
what would you and Jim be talking about now that worries the shit out of you?
Where's the potential escalation that might bother you?
I mean, it can be escalated more from destroying cities, raping systemically,
torturing whole populations. I mean, I'm not sure where the Russians could escalate from here other
than the use of nuclear weapons. There is nowhere else for them to go.
They've done just about every awful, disgusting thing that a human can do to another human at
mass scale in this war. So there's not much anyone can do to escalate this. And there's
no Western support that's going to escalate this conflict. Giving first world tanks to a country
that's been defending itself against an invader that's had this same capability for years is not
escalatory. I mean, it's just total rubbish.
I was talking to Jim right now, what we'd be talking about. Firstly, we'd be talking about
why Australian support to Ukraine has been so parsimonious and slow. It's been quite
terrible, actually, how backward our country has been in supporting Ukraine. I mean,
a news release is not support. And you've seen countries like Canada and Western Europe really
stump up and do it quickly and responsibly in a way that our country just hasn't.
And, you know, you've seen them be very inventive.
In sending generators, sending money to buy air defence systems, not just sending 40-year-old
armoured personnel carriers at a rate of one or two a week like we have. So I think we'd be talking
about that. And, you know, if we needed help in the future, how might people respond to us
compared to how we responded to Ukraine? I think there's an important debate there and one that our
government seems to be avoiding. I think the other thing we'd be looking at is what does this really
mean for this country? And I think it's a very important debate. And I think it's a very important
debate. And I think it's a very important debate. And I think it's a very important debate. And I think
it's a very important debate. And I think it's a very important debate. And I think it's a very important
strategic review. And what are the kind of lessons that the Australian Defence Force should be taking
from this conflict? Now, there's a cabal of tank haters in Canberra that seem to think the only
lesson for this war is the Australian Army needs to get rid of its ability to fight in future by
having tanks and armoured vehicles. That is a very bad lesson for lots of reasons, including there's
no evidence to support it. And, you know, it's more about a bunch of people in Canberra who lost
the tank debate. And I think it's a very important debate. And I think it's a very important debate.
in the early 2000s than anything else. I mean, there's a range of capabilities now that we have
or are looking at that may not be suitable for the future. Attack helicopters, I think,
are going to be very difficult to protect and survive on the modern battlefield moving forward.
Transport helicopters different, but attack helicopters. I think crude fighter aircraft.
I don't know we should be investing in any more of these things. The Russians don't fly crude
aircraft. They don't fly aircraft. They don't fly aircraft. They don't fly aircraft. They don't
fly aircraft. They don't fly aircraft. They don't fly aircraft over Ukraine. And we should be really
thinking about that for our Air Force. And, you know, proposing billion dollar bombers only
exacerbates the craziness of that debate. I think air and missile defence is a really important
capability. And we should really be looking at greater investments to defend our cities and our
military bases in this country in a way that we've never had to before. So I think there's a lot of
lessons that Jim and I would be talking about that are going to be really important. And I think
they're really interesting and that I'm just not seeing being debated by the so-called strategic
community that lives in Canberra. Who is this community? How is this
community made up, Mick? Well, you know, it's academics at
universities. It's people at the small number of think tanks that this country has. It's public
servants and senior military officers and government officials and advisors. You know,
they make up this very loose ecosystem.
People who ostensibly are interested in national security. So, you know, I'm not seeing a lot of
public debate on a lot of these issues, which really worries me. It really worries me because
in a democracy, we should be transparent about these debates to justify investment in advanced
military and other capabilities to defend our country. And we just don't have that debate in
this country, not like the Americans do or the British do.
Because if you have debates, you can expose good and bad ideas. You can be more transparent and
you can sell to the taxpayer the importance of investing in one thing other than another.
And that's something that I think the Australian polity, uniquely among many democracies,
is not very good at. Our transparency in government is not what it should be. The
transparency in a lot of the big national security initiatives is not what it should.
It's not what they are supposed to be.
But that's very interesting. When you say debate, do you actually mean, I don't know,
Mick Ryan versus, like publicly, like on Channel 7 or ABC, whatever it is, debating with one of the
policy makers in Canberra, for argument's sake? We may be ex-military, current military or a
political appointed person debating whether or not we should have tanks versus fighter jets.
I mean, is that the sort of debate you're talking about? Like,
I tune into it for sure, but is that what you're talking about?
That would be interesting TV, but it would be like the political
debates before elections.
I mean, they're made for TV stunts rather than really informative.
No, you know, the debate has to be a broader discussion
amongst all participants that's open and transparent in journals, TV,
radio, the internet, that is talking about these issues.
I mean, we were very slow in talking to the Australian people
about the threat posed by China, particularly how they were using
influence with many Australians in the business community
and in government, as the Sam Dastyari incident showed,
to shape our view of China and our view of the alliance
with the United States.
I mean, we've had some successes with the legislation
around foreign influence and stuff, but we've got to keep our eye
on this ball and we've got to maintain a very transparent democracy
because as difficult as that is, it's certainly the best option
for a country like Australia to expose bad ideas from within government
but also from authoritarian regimes that are constantly,
constantly seeking to influence how Australians think
about their relationship with the United States, Europe and China.
Do you think that our current government is a bit gun-shy
given what happened when Morrison,
sort of did what you're talking about now,
sort of talked about these things publicly and sort of had a crack at China
and then, of course, China's response was to hurt us economically.
Do you think that our current government is a little bit gun-shy
or why is it that we don't get up off our tush and have a crack at this
or is it more about the narrative, in other words, how we approach it?
We can still be respectful to China, but at the same time,
we should bring it to light.
I mean, how would you go about it if you were Anthony Albanese right now?
Well, I think, you know, the government had some very positive initial moves
on national security and statements about the alignment with the United States,
the AUSMIN conferences, speeches given by Prime Minister,
Foreign Minister and Defence Minister, I think,
have all been enlightening about their view.
But, you know, I think generally they've been very positive.
But you've got to follow up words with action.
You can't talk like China is.
The friend of Australia, it's a trading partner of Australia.
The Chinese Communist Party is not friends with democracies.
I mean, this is not a hard concept to understand.
It has no interest in furthering democratic views
or transparencies in government.
So we need to accept what kind of relationship with China we have.
We sell them stuff and they buy stuff from us.
That's the relationship.
It's transactional.
And anything beyond...
Beyond that is really just not possible
because our systems are just too different.
It's why, you know, we have a close relationship
with lots of other countries in the world of democracies.
We share common ideas, particularly about the value of human life,
of individual rights, of, you know, electing governments,
freedom of speech, freedom of religion, all these kind of things.
China doesn't have any of that.
So we need to be very careful about how we talk about the relationship.
And I think that's the key.
I think, you know, the government is still learning
that very cautious two-step.
It wants to retain the economic relationship,
but it realises that the strategic relationship beyond that
is going to be full of perils as we move forward.
I think the Defence Strategic Review is a great opportunity
to signal our resolve to stick up for what we believe in,
as well as the countries to our north that we are friends with.
And I hope the government do the right thing
and we can do the right thing.
Make the right investments as part of that process.
Well, Mick, I'm going to ask you one final question,
but so that I don't go, or maybe I should,
go running up to my farm and build a bunker under my house
and, you know, start prepping, become one of those doomsday preppers
and, you know, like stocking up on food and water and ammunition
or whatever it is I need to stock up on.
What keeps Mick Ryan awake at night in relation to defending our shores?
I mean, what are you most worried about right now?
I think I worry most about societal cohesion, frankly.
You know, I get a sense that trust in government institutions,
trust in politicians, trust in other elected
and appointed representatives is not what it should be.
I'm not sure whether it's at an all-time low,
but it's certainly not at an all-time high.
Now, some of this has been stupidly imported
from some of the crazy stuff you've seen in the United States
over the last few years.
But some of it's Indigenous, and some of it's just because
we've had some bad leadership at the state and federal level
over the last few years through COVID and other things.
So if there was one thing that I'd love to see improve
in this country is the quality of governance in this nation,
the quality of politicians, and the level of trust
that the citizens of this country have in their elected representative.
That is the core of being a sovereign and unified nation,
and I think it's something that we should pay serious attention to.
And actually, I'm with you on that because I just lack confidence in,
particularly when it comes to military and not the military itself,
but the government policy around protecting our shores
through the military.
I don't know whether they're doing the right thing or not.
Therefore, they're not doing the right thing because I'm not convinced
and I don't feel comfortable, particularly with what's going
on in the world today and given who our neighbours are
and the way that they're doing it.
And so, Mick, I think that's probably a really good way
to put a full stop in all this, and I hope to catch up with you again.
And I'm so jealous that you had an opportunity to go and meet Zelensky.
That would be one thing.
If I could do anything right now, I think this guy will go down
as one of the great people of the last 100 years
and just having an opportunity to meet and just to see the individual,
how he moves and how he sort of works the room
and just get a sense of his personality.
I think that would be fantastic.
Thanks very much again, Mick Ryan, Major General.
Mick Ryan, I appreciate all your thoughts and all your insights
into, you know, condensed into one hour, what you spend a whole year
looking at, reading, observing and talking about.
No worries, Mark.
It's great to talk to you again.
Thank you for listening to another episode of Straight Talk with Mark Boris.
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