Douglas Macgregor on the NATO Summit, Iran, and the Risk of Wider War
Glenn Diesen interviews Colonel Douglas Macgregor on the NATO summit, US policy toward Iran, and the risk of escalation with Russia.
Summary
Glenn Diesen interviews Colonel Douglas Macgregor — decorated combat veteran, author, and former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense — on the outcomes of the NATO summit in Istanbul and the trajectory of US foreign policy. Macgregor argues that Trump's performance at the summit was strategically incoherent, driven by flattery and last-minute influence from the wrong advisers, and that his statements on Ukraine — including floating a no-fly zone and endorsing deep strikes into Russian territory — represent dangerous escalation that Washington is militarily unprepared to back up. He contends that the war against Iran is fundamentally a war prosecuted on behalf of Israeli interests, that Trump is operating under some form of duress in relation to Netanyahu, and that the underlying financial fragility of the Western economies — particularly the US ten-year bond rate approaching 5% — will ultimately force a reckoning that no amount of military posturing can prevent.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Opening: The NATO Summit and Trump's Strategic Incoherence
Glenn Diesen: Welcome back. We are joined again by Colonel Douglas Macgregor, a decorated combat veteran, author, and former adviser to the US Secretary of Defense. Thank you for taking the time. I'm sure you've also followed the NATO summit, and I was hoping to get your take on it. This happened around the same time as Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov argued that due to NATO's involvement in this war, it's no longer a special military operation but a war. All of this is deeply troubling, and I thought I would ask you first what your takeaway was from this NATO summit.
Douglas Macgregor: That's an interesting question, because I suppose depending upon where you are and what you think, you're going to have a different takeaway. Mine are fairly straightforward. Once again, I'm always stunned by the complete lack of any strategic coherence in anything that Donald Trump says or does. That makes him very entertaining — that's why he was successful as a reality TV star — but I think it creates havoc and uncertainty everywhere he goes. Perhaps that's something he likes and thinks he benefits from.
So I was surprised that we went back to Greenland and the criticality of occupying Greenland to keep all those Chinese and Russian ships from somehow threatening the United States via Greenland and Europe. Hopefully everybody was just as disinterested in that as I think Giorgia Meloni was. I was impressed with the level of complete contempt with which she treated Trump. A very wise move. Unfortunately, others were far too interested in cultivating him.
Other than that, I think it should be clear to people — even to the Israelis, who I don't think completely grasp this — that his decision to lift sanctions and provide the F-35 to the Turks is not aimed at Israel. The Israelis are justifiably very concerned with the threat from Turkey, because it's quite real — not at the moment, but that's something they're going to have to live with if they survive this round. More importantly, I think Donald Trump is bribing Erdogan once again to stay on side, to leave the Israelis alone, to distance himself from Moscow, to reduce his cooperation with the Iranians, and, quote unquote, be our friend — which really means do what we tell you to do.
Now, the fact that he was able to turn these F-35s over to Erdogan may or may not guarantee any of that. Erdogan is innately mercurial. He'll move in whatever direction he thinks benefits him and his country. But I think for the moment that's what Donald Trump wanted to achieve. And Donald Trump loves ceremony and loves to be celebrated. The Turks did a marvelous job of providing him with all the trappings of power and glory that he could have ever wished for — much better than anything he gets in the United States.
Beyond that, the Europeans retreated to the usual rhetoric. The man is a broken record in the sense that he just keeps repeating: you're not spending enough, you're not doing enough, and every time I deal with you I'm frustrated, I feel I should withdraw, and so forth. This in turn feeds the European desire to find a way to drag the United States into direct military confrontation with Russia. So all the emphasis on providing more money and more equipment and more nonsense to the Ukrainian regime — which is very much on its last legs — is part of this effort to drag us in. But it's not just a question of dragging us in. It's also a question of baiting President Putin.
This is something Europeans have tried now for at least the last three years, but now it's gotten very serious. It is blatantly obvious that Lithuania, other countries in NATO, Finland — countries that border Russia — are not only openly providing bases and even potentially nuclear weapons on their soil for potential use against Russia, they're effectively letting it be known that they're quite willing to cooperate with Ukraine in any way possible to facilitate harm to Russia. This is catastrophic. This is where President Trump, if he were genuinely interested in any sort of stability in Europe, would put his foot down immediately and say, "That's out of the question. That's unacceptable." But he hasn't done that.
In fact, what he did — after much cajoling and private hustling — was sit there and listen to Rubio, our Secretary of State, explain why it was so important at this phase, if we were going to make progress with negotiations to end the war, that we help the Ukrainians strike deep into Russian territory. If that wasn't enough, President Trump then had to intervene and say, "Yes, I think this is an escalation, but I think that's the path to success in negotiations and peace." Incomprehensible. All of it reflects complete ignorance of the true situation in Europe and in Russia, but that's not really new.
Historical Parallel: FDR, Strategic Failure, and the Pattern of Ignorance
Douglas Macgregor: You have the most blatant amateurs that I think we've had, certainly since FDR. Everybody tried to tell FDR over and over again — they did Churchill as well — and said, "Look, we're 100% for defeating the Nazis, we understand that, but there is no point in creating a situation that is beneficial to the Soviet menace." And they openly said it. You can read this in the General Staff notes from the Imperial General Staff of the British Army: Stalin's communist Russia represents a far greater and more permanent threat than Nazi Germany. People tried to tell him these things over and over again. And what did we get back from FDR? "I have a hunch. Uncle Joe's a good man and we can work with him."
After which, with all the information available, the people around him — everyone from Harry Dexter White to Harry Hopkins and Felix Frankfurter and Henry Morgenthau, most of whom we would call today Zionist globalists who were pro-communist — fed him a lot of nonsense which he eagerly ingested and repeated. So we had no strategy for the Second World War. And when it became clear that we were finally going to enter Central Europe, that's when Churchill shows up too late to the party with no real voice anymore — because he's now a vassal state of greater America — and says, "Ike, it would be good if we controlled Berlin, Prague, and Vienna." It was too late. And the rest is history.
People celebrate World War II as great. No, it wasn't. It left us in a terrible state of conflict and hostility that lasted almost fifty years, that we could have all done without. Then when it finally was overcome, we couldn't wait to double down on it once again in the hopes of destroying this Russian state that had recently liberated itself from communism.
So what do we have with Donald Trump and Istanbul? The same kind of ignorance, the same foolishness, demonstrating once again that he is most influenced not just by the people around him, but by those who talk to him just before he opens his mouth. Because if you'd asked Trump some of these questions two weeks ago, I think you would have gotten a different answer. On more than one occasion he says, "I don't want to send any more money to Ukraine. I want the Europeans to deal with this. I want out." Well, how do you get out when you essentially step in and effectively take over, which is what he's done?
This is of course music to the ears of the globalist cabal — Macron, I don't know how he's doing right now, but certainly Starmer, and Starmer's successor who is another Starmer in different clothing. The whole thing I think was deeply disappointing.
Now there are others who were there who didn't say much, and they're the ones we should look at very carefully — specifically the Hungarians, the Croats. They're singularly disinterested in this war against Russia. The Slovaks, even the Poles, if you look at the polls recently and the return of the Order of the White Eagle by Zelensky to Poland — because they're sick of Ukrainians for a whole range of reasons. They're also disinterested in losing another ten thousand Polish soldiers in a war with Russia, which is what they did earlier. So Zelensky said, "Here's your white eagle, take it." And then they celebrated this Nazi Bandera and his friends, who were not satisfied just to kill Jews — they wanted to kill Poles and killed over 100,000 of them. And this was celebrated in Ukraine. Insane. Makes no sense.
So I think Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary are going to be more and more influential. They border Russia. They border Ukraine. They have an interest in what happens there, and at some point they're going to step up. But as far as we're concerned, everybody wants us involved. But if you're going to try and fight Russia, or if Trump's notion of a no-fly zone over Ukraine is something he tries to do — what are the Poles, Hungarians, and Slovaks going to do? What are the Romanians going to do? Are we going to start flying all of our sorties out of Sweden and Finland? Are we going to start flying them out of Denmark, Norway, England? I don't know if anybody's thinking about it, but that's insane.
So I think the whole thing was a catastrophe — except for Donald personally, and he enjoyed himself immensely.
The Shift in US Policy: No-Fly Zone, Patriot Licensing, and Deep Strikes
Glenn Diesen: Seemingly so. But what do you make of the shift by the United States? All this talk, as you mentioned, about a no-fly zone — perhaps it shouldn't be exaggerated, it was more of a casual response, I don't think he thought it through at all — but also now licensing the manufacturing of Patriots to the Ukrainians, and comments by Rubio that strikes into Russia are a good thing. Does this signal a shift in US policy, or is it just throwing a bone to the Europeans? Because as you said, the main objective of the Europeans appears to be to pull the US into a war with Russia. And towards that end, the Europeans seem willing to swallow any insults coming their way — whether it's about Spain, Greenland, Meloni, or whatever. As one journalist asked, have you no self-respect? We didn't used to be this much of a satellite state before. But it was quite remarkable — embarrassing, but remarkable. Do you see a shift in US policy, or is this just talk? Because it's hard to tell sometimes with Trump.
Douglas Macgregor: No, I think that's a legitimate question. On one level it's dangerous — very dangerous. If you go back to Casablanca in January of 1943, this is where FDR suddenly announced his demand for unconditional surrender. Churchill was shocked — you could see the film, he sort of turns around: "What? We've never discussed that." Even Stalin, who is by no means a humanitarian, was smart enough to say, "We think we should negotiate with these people. We have contacts. The Germans may be willing to come to some sort of a negotiated end of this. Why are you doing this?" Well, FDR decided it in isolation. He decided it looked and sounded good. Somebody said, "Where'd you get this?" And there was some confusion, and somebody said, "Well, US Grant during the American Civil War — unconditional surrender."
Why am I bringing that up? Because that's Donald Trump. It's off the top of his head. "I thought this was a good idea." Now, what do you do if you're a Russian? That's the question. And I think the Russians are taking all of this very seriously.
What have we continually done poorly? We have always misjudged Moscow. We have always dismissed them out of hand. We grossly underestimated them from day one. And even now, we continue to effectively dismiss them militarily. How one could do that at this stage is incomprehensible. But Glenn, I'm sure you've seen it — I see it all the time here in Washington. "Ah, Russians, they won't do anything." It's the idea that you poke the cobra and you poke the cobra. The cobra sits there but doesn't strike. "See, he won't strike." And you poke the cobra, and eventually what does the cobra do? He strikes. You die. That's what we don't get. That's where we're headed. That's what we're pushing for.
The other thing is that there's a tendency on the American side to bloat a great deal, to talk out of turn, to make promises we can't keep. And when all else fails, we bully people. You cannot bully the Russians. You cannot bully the Iranians. You cannot bully the Chinese. Forget it. It's over. It's done. So what do you hope to achieve? I think we're losing a lot of support in the Gulf as well as in Europe. It's not popularly appreciated or known here in the United States, but it's real. I think that's only going to get worse.
I'm afraid it's very dangerous. But I don't think President Trump has any idea how dangerous his statements are, how foolish he looks in front of the world, and how easily he's being manipulated by the wrong people — whether it's the Israelis or the Europeans, it doesn't matter.
The Financial System, the Bond Market, and the Coming Reckoning
Glenn Diesen: Well, I think this tendency to underestimate the Russians probably comes from the hegemonic peace — because during the Cold War we knew we had to be cautious. But after the Cold War, when you have a hegemonic peace, by definition, if your security depends on being so powerful that it doesn't matter what the Russians think, the whole logic is that it's safe to ignore them. Once one admits you have to take their concerns into consideration, you essentially recognize that the hegemonic era is over. So this is a leftover of the unipolar moment. But the Europeans — how are you reading their intentions or strategy? Because they keep making the point that we need an immediate ceasefire and peace, and as soon as that's in place we can put our troops in Ukraine, give Ukraine a kind of NATO membership. Is this stupidity or belligerence? Are they seeking to prevent a peace, or have they bought into their own war propaganda that this is an imperial war by Russia with nothing to do with NATO expansionism? How are you assessing the Europeans?
Douglas Macgregor: I don't know what the average European who votes thinks. I have some inkling of it in Germany. My experience with most Germans is that they're very unhappy with the government in Berlin. They don't support all-out war against Russia. They're much more concerned about the wave of criminality that has come into the country since 2015 thanks to all of these non-Europeans. They would like to rid themselves of that problem.
Beyond that, Germany — and I would argue Great Britain as well, and to some extent ourselves — is de-industrialized. They're on the verge of economic collapse. The financial system won't support them much longer. And people say, "How can you say that?" Well, all you have to do is look at the numbers of people who can't find work in Germany, the numbers of people who are officially on the dole and entirely dependent on checks from the government — including vast numbers of these unwanted migrants. Same thing is true in Great Britain.
What does war always breed? War breeds inflation. And right now, in order to cope, we're raising interest rates. We have no choice. We really don't control them anymore. And if you look at the ten-year bond in the United States — which is very, very important — oil has already inched up to almost $80 a barrel. Now that the Strait of Hormuz is shut down again, it's going to remain shut down for some period of time. I don't know how long. People think we're going to be on a yo-yo: pause this week, war next week, pause the following week, war the next week. The markets can't cope with that.
And eventually, all of the efforts undertaken by the financial gurus that surround Trump — his friends and billionaires in New York City — to suppress the cost of oil by shorting oil repeatedly and exploiting public statements at the right point in time, that's going to fail. It's not going to work anymore. And when that does, if you look at the bond market today, the ten-year bond is up to something in the neighborhood of 4.5% or higher. Everyone I know tells me the same thing — and I'm not an expert on this, but I don't think you have to be to figure it out. When that ten-year bond interest rate hits 5%, we're through. We cannot service the debt. We cannot borrow any longer. The destruction of credit, which is inevitable at that point, is going to bring everybody in the West down. And that's where we're headed right now.
A lot of people, including me, thought Trump understood the danger — which is why I thought he made an intelligent statement when he signed the memorandum of understanding. Everybody knows that MOU is anathema to Donald Trump and his administration and to everybody in Washington. It's essentially an admission that we are not the hegemonic power. It's a surrender document. What we've said is: we're not the hegemon anymore. And that's perfectly fine with me and most Americans, because we don't want to spend the money on that nonsense. It's unnecessary. We don't have to be the hegemon. We have to defend ourselves and our true interests. But that's not the attitude in Washington.
So I think we're going to hit that wall. We're going to hit that 5%. It's going to break, and then we're going to be in free fall. That's going to bring everything to a screeching halt. When does that happen? I don't know. It could happen next month. It could happen at Christmas. It could happen in October. But I think we're headed there. I don't see how you stop it.
The Europeans, I think, don't believe that. They believe that somehow magically we can rig the system and carry on with this enormous debt load. I don't think so. I think the British — I used to think it would be the French, but I've begun to think the British are the first to go under. You have to look at their gilt market. They have similar problems. They almost went under under Liz Truss. Everybody since Liz Truss has essentially been putting band-aids on the economy and on the financial system. That's not going to last much longer.
Britain is very close to open warfare in the streets. You can only tolerate Pakistani rape gangs and other thuggish elements in your unwanted migrant population hunting British citizens who are not armed, until finally somebody says enough's enough. So I think bad things are coming.
The other thing is this overlaps with not just economic disappointment but with a very serious class war. That's true in much of Europe, because the globalist elites are largely out of touch with the majority of the population. They don't care. If you listen to people like David Betts, he'll tell you that the people in parliament don't understand the world just twenty kilometers away. They have no idea what's going on. I think that's more and more the case in Paris. You have this sort of bureaucratic parasitic class that sustains itself and thinks that life will go on regardless, and they don't care what happens to the population as long as they get to hold their position of authority and get their paycheck.
In the United States, it's all the people invested in pension funds, which we're borrowing against at a very high rate, and those people are going to lose everything. That's my generation — the so-called boomers who have been paying into these things for years. All of this is going to happen. That is finally going to change everything.
But in the meantime, the danger is that the stupid remarks we're making about things we really cannot do — and if we try, we'll fail — are essentially bait for the Russians. We're baiting them. Prove that you're serious. Prove that you can do this.
And the one thing I would give President Putin great credit for is that he's avoided taking the bait and he is progressing. I sat down the other day with someone experienced in Russian matters who understands the military and the problems they have — all militaries have problems, and the Russians have theirs. But along the forward line of troops, that continues to advance westward. There's no question about that. It's slow because if it were not for these thousands of drones that have to be dealt with, I think things would be over in a few days. But when you finally create a cauldron and surround it, it takes two weeks to reduce it, to destroy the people that have been there, and then move in and move forward. But they're getting closer and closer to the edge.
The drone is an irritant. It is not the strategic game-changer that people in the West think it is. It's a serious strategic irritant to Moscow. Their public is furious over it. The Russian people are sick of it. And so when Peskov comes out and says effectively the special military operation is over — war is now — this is not really new, because we've been listening to many people, including Sergey Lavrov, say we're already in World War III. That would have been enough for me, had I been a Secretary of State or something, to immediately go to the White House and say, "Look, we can't allow this. We've got to sit down and talk with these people. The last thing humanity needs is World War III." Well, the Russians are prepared to fight it. We are not. And neither is Europe. The little Lilliputian armies aren't going to be able to do anything. When you look at the numbers of troops we have on the ground — about 110,000, maybe 113,000, maybe more — what are you going to do with that? And then you have to fuel it, sustain it, move it, protect it against all these threats. We're not prepared for any of that.
So what are we going to do? Rely on air power? Our air power is largely committed to the Persian Gulf and the war with Iran. I don't know what is really on the backs of these people's minds. I think most of the time it's a bluff, but I do think there's a certain amount of self-delusion that we are really the same power and in the same position as we were in 1991.
Lavrov's Warning and the Risk of World War
Glenn Diesen: Do you agree with the sentiment of Sergey Lavrov that we're already in World War III, or are we heading there? How do you see it?
Douglas Macgregor: I think if I were in his position, viewing the things that are being done that are fundamentally antithetical to Russian national security, I would feel that way. On the other hand, I would be very interested in disabusing him of that thinking, and I would take concrete steps to reassure him. We don't want to do that. We act as though we're the only people that count and whatever they think is irrelevant. It's this parent-child relationship that Trump attempts to establish everywhere he goes with everyone.
You know, haven't you heard him talk about that? "Oh, the Iranians are desperate. They want a deal." Well, guess what? The Iranians are on a full war footing. Are we? No. And if you're going to fight them in the region where they live, on their doorstep, you better think long and hard about what that means, because you're in for a long fight in a real war. And again, we're not prepared for that. I don't give a damn what he says publicly. We're not. The Navy has now admitted that they have more launchers and more tubes for missiles than they have missiles to fire. That's out in the open. That's kind of extraordinary.
The Iran War: Israeli Interests, Netanyahu's Strategy, and Trump Under Duress
Glenn Diesen: Well, I think this tendency to talk down to all these people — it's not just Trump, I think it's also again part of the hegemonic order after the Cold War. Diplomacy was replaced with this teacher-student relationship, where we're no longer doing mutual understanding for compromise. Rather, it's the civilizational teacher telling the rest of the world how they should make unilateral concessions to be more like us. We continue to say these things, but the rest of the world isn't listening anymore.
But I'm glad you mentioned Iran, because at this NATO summit they didn't only go after Russia. Trump was quite vocal about Iran — he argued that the memorandum of understanding is dead, the ceasefire is over, he called the Iranian diplomats scum. Is the US now heading back into all-out war? Because as you said before, the assumption is often that we have escalation control — we can do this yo-yo thing, war, pause, war, pause. But the Iranians have their internal politics too. It seems their hawks are being proven right that the opponent wouldn't abide by these deals. At some point, why would they want to end the fighting if the off-and-on fighting is always on their opponent's terms? At some point they wouldn't grant this escalation control to the US. I don't see the strategic value in going back to war against Iran — not like this, at least.
Douglas Macgregor: Well, first of all, this is a Jewish war waged against Iran. I say Jewish because it's by no means exclusively Israeli. It involves the Jewish lobby here in the United States and the massive numbers of billionaires that constitute the backbone of it. They effectively own, lock, stock, and barrel, not just Donald Trump, but the Hill.
Netanyahu, when he embarked on this war, was talking in scorched earth terms from the very beginning. What I call the Mongolian way of war — once the Mongols went to war with you, you were finished. They would do everything in their power to utterly eradicate you, leaving only enough people alive to pay tribute and govern in your absence. I think that's kind of what Netanyahu has always wanted. And if you look at the strategy for Russia, it's the same strategy for Iran: we're going to destroy you, we're going to cause the disintegration of your state and society, you will be divided and fragmented, and we will determine who ultimately rules. That's the Netanyahu program — not just for Iran, but for the Middle East. And you can either submit to that or you can go down. That was always the Mongolian answer: join us or die, submit or be destroyed.
We are executing on behalf of Israel. Trump is executing on behalf of Netanyahu and the people that put him into office. That's where he is. Now, people say to me all the time, "Well, what's going on, Doug? Why would he do this?" All I can tell you is I think the man's under duress. I don't know what it is, but this is not something I remember him expressing much interest in. On the contrary, I remember him as being very disinclined to be involved in any of this in the Middle East. So it's not just a tremendous change in him personally — there's something else going on.
And I think we'll learn more when Netanyahu comes to Washington next week and there will be closer coordination and war planning. Somebody said to me the other day, "Well, you know, the Israelis have privately made it clear that if for some reason we should disengage from the war, they will use nuclear weapons — because that's their answer." Well, I don't know what to say except that if they were to do that, that would be the end of the Israeli state once and for all. No chance whatsoever in my judgment for that state to survive. But I guess the answer is: okay, we understand, and we don't want that to happen, so we'll do whatever you want us to do. Perhaps that's the answer they've been getting. They certainly seem to get anything they want. They have access to anything they want, including intelligence, and now increasingly to our entire military potential. And no one on the Hill seems interested in obstructing. In fact, most of them are eager to turn everything over to them.
Then you have to look at the hundreds of millions of dollars that have been spent over decades to buy up these politicians. They own them now. At some point this can't go on. Now, I keep saying I think it's the financial system and the underlying economic fundamentals — which are so weak — that will bring this to an end. I hope that happens before something worse comes along.
And of course, when you listen to President Trump and he is so capable of flip-flopping, I worry that he suddenly flip-flops in the wrong direction and says, "Well, then let's use a nuclear weapon." He's said repeatedly he won't do that. He thinks that's insane. He's repeated that publicly, repeated it within the last couple of months. But then we've seen him say a lot of things and then do a 180-degree turn. That's what he's just done on the MOU.
But in fairness, the MOU was never acceptable to us because we were surrendering hegemony. We don't want to do that. And we're not going to prevail upon the Israelis to do anything because they're the ones who seem to have control over us. I don't know how else to interpret it.
The MOU, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Limits of Military Options Against Iran
Glenn Diesen: No. Well, I didn't expect the US to implement the MOU. This whole idea of paying all this money in reparations, unfreezing the assets, ending all sanctions — it wasn't in the cards. I think it was impossible to do as well. But I thought the US would gradually just string the Iranians along, try to renegotiate, say, "Ah, we can't pay any reparations because Congress" — something just to open up the Strait of Hormuz and put an end to this on more favorable terms. But going back into war now, which would only harden the Iranian position — that doesn't make any sense strategically, at least unless they have something up their sleeves I'm not aware of. But when it comes to Trump's new threats — he was making the point that we attacked Kish Island, but we might seize it as well — how do you make sense of this? There must be a reason why they didn't do it in the last two rounds. Why would it go to this extent now? Or is this again just talk?
Douglas Macgregor: Well, you remember the operation in Isfahan where we tried to insert special operations forces with considerable air support and expertise from the CIA, on the grounds that they were within range of plutonium that could be acquired and spirited out of the country. That ended in disaster. It was covered or concealed by this supposed officer who had been shot down and had to be recovered — that was kind of a cover story. And what we discovered was that in a part of Iran where we thought they would be vulnerable, they didn't turn out to be vulnerable. So once again, it was a question of: have we underestimated the regime? Have we underestimated the military establishment, its various systems, human and remote?
Well, I guess we did. And I think a number of people said — in fact, I know they did — they were grateful that this happened because it put an end to the fantasy that we could replicate what we did in Venezuela. Remember, Venezuela worked because we bribed everybody in sight. But even so, as someone with a lot of experience in that area told me, "Doug, you know that all these operations are very fragile and failure is only one RPG away. All you have to do is hit one helicopter flying by with an RPG or a high-powered automatic cannon, and you have a disaster on your hands." That's what people don't understand.
Special operations forces have remarkable capabilities, but they also have extraordinary limitations. They depend on a degree of accurate information and intelligence in a way that nobody else does. If you're in the regular fighting force before you go and execute a mission, you don't say, "I'm sorry, I can't do that mission because I don't have perfect information, there are too many risks involved, I'll probably get killed because there are too many enemy out there." That doesn't exist. You get the mission, you go — end of discussion. But special operations forces know their own limitations very well. Especially in my experience with Army special ops — very realistic people.
So I think a lot of them were relieved after they saw this fail, because we avoided heavy casualties and got out. I think that was taken to mean: look, you want us to go into an island — that's very dangerous. We could probably get there, I don't know if we'll get there without losses, but if we do, what do we do? We're in the island. Do we dig giant holes and jump into them and wait for somebody to rescue us? Are we just going to be a pincushion for every ballistic missile and unmanned system that's out there?
You do have people who have talked about Chabahar — seizing that port, because it's outside of the Gulf — in the theory that if you gained control of that, it would give you leverage over Iran. I haven't quite figured out what that leverage is strategically. I think the Iranians would probably take the Russian position: well, if they're going to seize Chabahar, we'll defend it if we can, but if we can't, we'll make sure they seize nothing. So then are you going to use the ruins of Chabahar as your launchpad for penetrating Iranian airspace once again with helicopters and V-22s to take control of, say, Bandar Abbas? Or are you going to try and fly from the UAE right across the Gulf?
I think everybody's saying, "Wait a minute — this is just not, if you're looking for something clean, decisive, and effective, this may not be a good option." But I don't know who's there. You've listened to General Kellogg and General Keane. I think they would probably support any of those options. I assume so. They'll do whatever in order to widen this war in the hopes that by doing so they can bring Iran to its knees. I don't see that happening.
Turkey, Israel, and the Shifting Balance of Power in the Middle East
Glenn Diesen: Notice that Trump removed Syria from the list of state sponsors of terrorism — at least he said he would, at the same summit. I'm not sure if that's intended to widen the war, but I did want to follow up on something you said earlier — that the Israelis now see Turkey as a growing threat. What is it about Turkey and Israel that sets them on a path to more conflict?
Douglas Macgregor: In 2013 I was invited to a conference in Israel that celebrated the anniversary of the 1973 war. It was a very good conference. I learned a great deal — I was writing a book at the time and I covered the Egyptian front of the 1973 war, and I got to meet some interesting people who were in it. While I was there, I was asked to brief and talk about the future. And I had a slide about Turkey. This is posted on the internet — if you want to Google my name, you can see the presentation I gave.
At the time, I told them: don't misinterpret America's desire to disengage its forces from much of the region as evidence for lack of support for Israel. We will help you defend yourselves. The problem is everybody's now realized we're not helping them defend themselves — we're helping them kill everybody they don't like. There's a huge difference between defense and that sort of thing.
But I put a slide up about Turkey and said: Turkey has been through a rather profound but steady evolution away from the Atatürk model, which was fundamentally secular and rather European-oriented in so far as modernization was concerned. That's over. The Turks have discovered their roots. Their roots are not in Europe. Their roots are in the Middle East and Central Asia. They are different in terms of religion, culture, language, and race, and they are now celebrating that as opposed to suppressing it — because they perceive that Atatürk, who is still widely revered and for good reason was a brilliant man, was seen as suppressing those things that cannot be suppressed. It's unnatural. It would be like suggesting that all the Norwegians abandon their Norwegian citizenship and the Swedes do the same, embrace each other, and live in a giant Scandinavian state. Not likely to happen.
So I think the Turks have come around to the point that they have other obligations. They are a great power. They are not weak. They should have a greater say in what goes on in this region. And by the way, for a very long time — I've had these discussions with Turkish officers — they've said, "What are you doing in Turkey? You don't need to be here anymore. You don't need nuclear weapons here. We don't have bad relations with the Russians. We don't want bad relations with the Russians." I think there's a view that the region can do without us, and they're looking at the Sunni Islamic countries and saying we should have better relations with them and be prepared to help and support them in the future.
I think the Pakistanis and the arrangements they've now made with the Saudis are just the beginning of that. You're going to see more integration and cooperation militarily aimed at defending the Islamic world against outsiders — not just Israelis, but anybody who wants to come in and rule. And that's why in that fourteen-point memo it says: no more US bases in the Persian Gulf. It's time for you to get out. You're finished here. They make that point.
I'm somebody who agrees with them. I think we ought to get out. But an awful lot of what we have and what we do is mortgaged to vanity. By the time the British Empire was liquidated, there were a lot of people saying, "Gee, we held on to that for a long time. We should have gone out earlier." At some point you've extracted all the benefits you're going to get. And I think we should go. That's not necessarily a criticism of us — it's in the nature of the world. But that's where we're headed, and the Turks fit in with that. They also have interests that diverge sharply from NATO, sharply from the EU, and sharply from us. Doesn't mean we have to have a war, but it means we have to respect it.
Glenn Diesen: But why would Turkey be more of a concern, say, than Saudi Arabia for the Israelis?
Douglas Macgregor: The Saudis couldn't conquer anybody. The Turks can, and the Turks can put a million men into the field in thirty days. And they have modern weapons. They have their own industrial base. They can build their own weapons and equipment. And remember, you've heard Erdogan say this publicly — he wags his finger: "Don't lecture us, Netanyahu. Don't tell us what you have. We know what you have and we're not afraid." What's he talking about? Nuclear weapons. Because the Turks have always known that they could turn to Pakistan if they needed a nuclear weapon.
What we don't seem to get is that both the Turks and the Iranians and others see value in being what I would call a nuclear threshold state — potentially capable of building one, but not actually being a nuclear state. If you don't have to have a nuclear weapon, why do you want it? It's more trouble than it's worth. But you want to be in a position where if you need it, you can be a threshold state.
Unfortunately, by our behavior and the way we've approached things in Iran, I think we're making it increasingly likely that many states will now develop, build, and establish nuclear weapons. In other words, we're achieving the very opposite of what Donald Trump continues to harp on. They may never have a nuclear weapon — okay, good luck with that, Donald — because everything we've done has sent an unambiguous signal: you're fools if you don't build one. But I don't think even now they really want it. I certainly wouldn't. I wish we had none of them on the planet. We'd be better off.
Nuclear Deterrence, Threshold States, and the Logic of Minimum Deterrence
Glenn Diesen: I think that's become the new nuclear deterrence — that is, if you develop nuclear weapons, you incentivize others to get them as well. But to be a nuclear threshold state — if Israel attacks Iran with a nuclear weapon, the Israelis know that the Iranians can build a few by the end of the week. I think this essentially will be sufficient — a middle road that is to have the deterrence without the proliferation.
Douglas Macgregor: Well, I can't remember the gentleman's name right now — maybe you'll remember — but the Frenchman who developed and built the French nuclear deterrent force was asked by a visiting US Army officer, "Well, how many nuclear weapons do you think you really need?" And he smiled and said, "One." He said, "One?" He said, "Of course — these things are so damaging, they are so destructive. One is enough." Well, there's a lot of truth and wisdom in his statement. You don't need very many.
Now, the Russians — and this is back to where we began — why is it so dangerous when someone like Sergey Lavrov, who I would call one of the more balanced, thoughtful men in international relations today — in the old nineteenth century we would point to him as the sort of dean of the diplomatic community, viewed in those terms as Bismarck was at one point, or Gorchakov — these were professionals who had spent years if not decades in these communities, and when they spoke, everyone listened, whether it was Metternich and so forth, because they had the reputation for integrity, accuracy, and seriousness, and they were educated men. So when I hear Lavrov, that really should get everyone's attention. It doesn't, because those things that I just mentioned are not respected in Washington. If they were, most of the people sitting there wouldn't have a job.
Glenn Diesen: Well, I think the Frenchman was de Gaulle who made this comment — that a nuclear weapon only needs to impose unacceptable damage. It's a bit like the Swiss strategy during the Second World War. They didn't need to turn back the Germans by denial. All they needed to do was make sure that it would be too painful for the Germans to take Switzerland. That kind of puts a limitation on how many nukes you need, I guess.
Douglas Macgregor: Yeah. And I think the nice thing is that this ISR strike capability — the intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance matched to strike weapons — demonstrated by the Iranians suggests that most mid-size and smaller powers can build that and impose exactly what you're talking about. The cost becomes suddenly so high: let's forget it. That's not the way forward. Let's talk. We're learning this lesson the hard way.
Glenn Diesen: Well, that's historically been the source of peace — when the weapons favor defense as opposed to offense, you usually have some period of stability. But anyways, thank you very much for taking the time to share your perspective. Thanks again.
Douglas Macgregor: Sure. Thank you, Glenn.