Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kill Me Show. Uh Well, when you talk about Christopher Donew, the general, four-star general, running the Clay Cucern Army base, he might be the most respected military officer, retired, or active in our country that I've had a chance to talk to and see in action. I asked him to come in and talk generally about his command, about what is his responsibility.
Now, he had to run to Washington, D.C. today, so I asked him to do it earlier. Here's what's on his docket, on his things-to-do list on a daily basis, and what his commission is. And when we talk about Africa and we talk about Europe, we talk about General Donahue.
So you can't come to Europe, you can't come to Germany and Wiesbaden in particular and talk to the command in charge of Europe and Africa without finding out exactly what that responsibility is like.
So that's why we have four-star General Chris Donahue with us. That is his portfolio. That's what he gets up thinking about every day. General, thanks so much. A very simple map.
I know it's an unclassified situation. Could you give everybody at home a sense of what the type of responsibility is on your shoulders? First off, where are we now? Point out.
So right now we're in Wiesbaden, Germany, right about here. And that's the command of U.S. Army, Europe, and Africa. Right. Also NATO land forces.
So this command right here basically controls all the land forces for Europe and Africa. And you're telling what numbers?
So how much would you do?
So on the U.S. side to include all of our rotational forces, we have about 60,000 forces out here. And then on the NATO side, any of the European 32 members of NATO that give forces over to NATO to fight, we control those. That's seven cores.
So when a country like Finland sees what happened in Ukraine and Sweden, sees what happens in Ukraine, they no longer want to be neutral when it comes to NATO. What do they add? Unbelievable capability in both the fins You know, their land force commander and the Swedish land force commander is two very good friends of mine that I've served with for many years, but also two incredibly capable militaries. By the way. Mm-hmm.
Tough, tough people. Right. And motivated, well financed with strong economies. The problem and the challenge is right here with Russia. An expansionist power?
People say, no, not really. The answer is yes. And first signs of that was Georgia. What's happened since the Georgia incursion? Yeah, so I mean, I think to.
I won't go back and replay everything, but let's just fast forward to where we are today.
So you have. NATO on that side of it, where the administration, Ambassador Whitaker, and others have gotten the 5%.
So, what that has allowed us to do is to allow to establish a concept, the eastern flank deterrence line, a capability that will hold any adversary's capability at risk. And also have the offensive and defensive capability to ensure deterrence works out here.
So obviously Switzerland's neutral, but you have obviously Germany, they seem to be motivated. Belgium, Luxembourg, small and big countries, all the Baltic nations, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia. And now we have, you can't just say, well, Russia has a problem with the Ukraine. When you see drones landing in Poland and in Romania, Do you believe that Russia made a mistake with that, or do you think they're letting them know that they have expansionist goals? I guess you've heard what the Intel community has said, but at the end of the day, it doesn't matter.
We have to make sure that none of any nation's capability can come in here. What we've been able to do is a capability that Ukraine has developed. We have now taken the US company, developed it, and that capability is now in Poland and in Romania, and ultimately it's going to go along the entire Eastern Flank. That capability has shot down over 2,000 Shahids, Gurantus, as you want to call them. But that capability is now in the US.
We use it, and other NATO nations are now buying it from a US company. And the coordination with these countries is stronger. I guess one of the biggest worries is Moldova. They're trying to have their elections have been infiltrated before. And now you have Ukraine.
The objective is to stop the fighting in Ukraine, but how it stops will decide if we're going to have fighting again in Ukraine. What are some of the intangibles or the tangibles that have to be in any agreement? Yeah, I think you know, I'm not going to get into how the negotiations are going right now, but clearly, as you've heard in the news, Things are trending in a good direction. You still have to get done. But we are postured, whatever ultimately comes out of that agreement, we are ready to go and implement that right away.
This is Ainsley Earhart. Thank you for joining me for the 52-episode podcast series, The Life of Jesus. A listening experience that will provide hope, comfort, and understanding of the greatest story ever told. Listen and follow now at FoxnewsPodcasts.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Carol, when this war starts in 2022.
How surprised are you we're still Mm. Covering it, dealing with it. They're still fighting in 2026. Yeah, I think. Anyone who's been watching this is not surprised by it.
If you look at in particular on the Ukrainian side, clearly Very tough, capable people who aren't going to quit. And obviously, on the other side, they're determined as well.
So I don't think anybody's surprised by how this is playing out right now. Although, when they initially started, we had a ton of experts saying they're not going to last 10 days. And man, is it still lasting? Also, with the Ukrainians that old that adage in war. They got nowhere else to go.
Where other the invading force does, they have nowhere else to go. This is their home. Absolutely. I mean, they're. This is existential, fighting for their life.
They're not going to quit. And you always pointed out. that if this is the biggest army, And this is the second biggest army. The last thing you want in them to be one army. That would be a challenge to all of Europe and all of NATO, which means a lot more resources and a lot more money, and you have Russia with a lot of momentum.
Absolutely. And also, clearly the administration understands this, and they're trying to get to a peace agreement. We all know we need that. And that is the key is to get to that point.
So, that doesn't happen. We need to eliminate this as a strategic dilemma to us, but rather get this to a strategic advantage, which again, everyone's trying to do. And the one thing that's beyond opinion: if you take the biggest army with the second biggest army, if they become one army and Ukraine gets swallowed up, everybody's security is going to be challenged, and more money is going to have to pour into all those other nations to meet that challenge. Correct. And if you look at the approach that the administration is trying to take, we don't want that to happen.
And clearly, the administration understands this, and they're doing everything they can to ensure that really this is no longer a strategic dilemma, to allow us to focus on other things. And that's the whole key. It is to eliminate a strategic dilemma out here. The other area you have to worry about, I guess maybe 20% of your time, is Africa. What are the challenges with Africa?
Is it still terrorism? And where is it? Yeah, so I mean, it's the, you know, in this case, we worked for General Dag Anderson down in Africa. I'm just came from his conference. But and I have a lot of time from my previous life in the military back when I was doing special operations.
But, you know, you have ISIS, Al-Shabaab, AQIM, you know, a couple other groups that are in there. But I think you're going to see some pretty novel approaches coming out that we mentioned during your show. That what will be able to directly ensure that these countries can defend themselves and eliminate as much as possible this threat. Right, so you get more in the training mode from the actual fighting mode. Let them fight.
Because do they recognize for the most part, these governments, that terrorism is an issue? Whether they're or are they fighting for the government? Yeah, no, they all understand that and they want stability, right? And the countries that you look at? I mean, well, we look at all of them, but clearly the areas you're talking about, Mali, Niger.
Uh nice uh You know, this corridor through here, Libya, over in Somalia.
So, you know, we are focused on all that. Again, the other key thing here is this is an opportunity for us to eliminate, again, a strategic dilemma, distractions, right? And do this through, let train them. Let those forces take care of it. Have other nations come in and help with the funding of this, which they want to do.
And then don't forget about all the rare earths. And by the way, if we don't go, China will. And when Russia can stand up again, they will too.
So there will not be a vacuum. Correct. And a great place for us to compete and compete in a smart way that sends a message to the world of, hey, we can do this today. General Donio has a big things to do list every single day with a lot of countries, a lot of forces, a lot of thinking. Tapping all your years of experience.
General, thanks so much. Good to see you, Brian. Thank you again.
