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Visit Shopify.com to upgrade your selling today. So let's talk about what's happening. We know about the peace talks in Jeddah, ceasefire talks in Jeddah with Ukrainian officials.
At which time they said, yeah, we'll do a 30-day and here are the parameters. And now it was up to Steve Witkoff to go over to Moscow. In the meantime, President Trump spoke to Vladimir Putin and he read the deal and he had some statements to make. General Philip Rilev joins us now. General, your thoughts about where we're at right now.
Well, good morning, Brian. And the bottom line is we're in a better place than we were weeks ago. So I want to be happy and congratulate the team that has got this ceasefire talks moving forward. I think we have to be very wary of where Mr. Putin is heading in his remarks. You know, the remarks were seen as good, but at the end of the remarks, it's pretty clear that he hasn't committed to a ceasefire. He wants to have more talks before the ceasefire. And what you should read into that is he wants to continue to pound Ukraine to change the facts on the ground to give himself a better negotiating stance. So, yeah, I think it's time for our president to get tough with Putin the way he got tough with Zelensky. President said, yeah, I'm not going to have that anymore.
That's done. That will hurt Russia big time. And also, I think that Putin was smart because I think Trump used the term partner. He said he listed the ceasefire. He says he has some ceasefire related issues. The way I understand it is Russia wants to control the everything that they've gained. They said the four Ukrainian regions and Donbass, that's a nonstarter. The Ukrainian army must be limited, not a million men.
They want like 80,000. That's a nonstarter. He also made it clear the Western sanctions need to be eased. And then they want to find out some type of resolve with Kursk. Your thoughts about that?
Well, you hit it all right on the head here. You know, essentially, Mr. Putin has set all the terms and he expects to get all the terms and he will keep delaying trying to get all his terms so he can continue to pound Ukraine. We, as you watched and I'm not complaining, but we set up a campaign of extreme pressure on Ukraine.
We cut off arms. We cut off intelligence, which cost Ukrainian soldiers lives on the battlefield. And so now what we have to see is what will it take to get Putin to the table? And if we don't have a plan for a plan of maximum pressure on Putin, then we're not going to get there until he's ready. He's driving the train right now on timing and content.
And I believe we have to take the lead and exhibit pressure just like we did against Ukraine. Yes, absolutely. So here's Mike Waltz who just got back from Jeddah talking to Sean Hannity last night, cut 16. I would imagine parts, maybe the Donbass region in particular, or areas that are heavily populated by people from Russia, that would go to Putin in any negotiated settlement.
Am I wrong in my conjecture here? Sean, no surprise, you're not wrong in any of that. And what's important is that we are discussing all of those things with both sides. We are having those discussions with our counterparts, with the Russians. We are having those discussions with our counterparts, with the Ukrainians. And we are pushing both sides together with President Trump, the dealmaker in chief that is determined to end this war.
So, you know, obviously he was going to break, but we don't know what area. It's hard to imagine the Russians giving up much of that area. That's pretty clear. They also don't want international troops, now for Ukraine and for the US. There's got to be international troops or else, General, it would be the same type of deal we cut in 2016, wouldn't it? So first let's go back to the business of land. We should never in any way entertain giving Putin more land than he's conquered. He's demanded the fill out of those oblasts in the east.
And that is a nonstarter. That is complete capitulation if we go there. By the same token, the portion of Kursk that Ukraine has grabbed from Russia is a portion that is settled by primarily formally Ukrainian people.
And many of them still speak Ukrainian. And so by the same token, that land should stay with Ukraine. And we'll see if this is actually coming out in the negotiations.
Absolutely. So I talked to the General Secretary of NATO 20 minutes ago, and here's what he said about the alliance and what has begun to change, thankfully. This act is extremely important. So I think we have two issues. One issue is that the Europeans are not spending enough. But luckily, the last couple of weeks, we have heard staggering amounts of extra money coming in from the Europeans, for example, overnight from Germany, hundreds of billions of external defense spending. So I think the Europeans are getting the message we have to spend more.
But the second issue, of course, is that collectively, and this is including the US, we are not producing enough. So he has gotten one thing that Trump has done. He's gotten Europe's attention, hasn't he?
He has. And, you know, we need to recognize that during his first four years, we didn't make a lot of progress with Russia. Russia continued to fight on the line of contact. So we didn't change Mr. Putin in any way. But we did begin to change NATO. And many of the NATO partners are now over 2 percent and some of them are way over 2 percent. And rivaling us, Poland and others are really investing in their defense. And that's important. We do give our president some credit for that, but we also give Mr. Putin credit for that because Mr. Putin, a world superpower, continues to amass his army, march across internationally recognized borders and invade and try to subjugate his neighbors.
And that has a pretty damning effect on decisions about investment as well. So, yes, credit to our president. Yes, also in a big way, credit to Mr. Putin because he continues to invade his neighbors. His neighbors are finally getting it. They're going to have to do their business.
Just one more second, Brian. You remember, everybody talks about Article five in NATO. Article five starts with Article three, which in my Georgia boy words mean defense begins at home. Article three tells the nations they have to invest in their own defense and an excess capability then to help defend the alliance. And they're finally getting it.
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The full terms at Mint Mobile dot com. Unbelievable. And the thing is, too, we have to Georgia after the incursion in 2016. Still, Europe wasn't spending until Trump said, listen, I'm not think I'm going to do this anymore and really scare them.
I don't think that now I think they take it serious. And then after the Ukraine invaded again, they still were weren't spending to the degree they shouldn't. But now they got twenty three of thirty two nations going over two percent. So Trump says, make it five.
Now, what is the state of also I talked to the general secretary. He wants the president to call it a defense production act and call it an emergency in order to produce more weapons for our allies to buy, let alone us to have. But we have an uphill battle.
I was struck by this in testimony in Capitol Hill this week. Dr. Brett Seidel on Capitol Hill talking about the state of our production cut 20 on balance. Cost and schedule performance remain challenged with deliveries approximately one to three years late and costs rising faster than overall inflation. These issues are prevalent across the nuclear and conventional shipbuilding communities, with both Navy and industry sharing responsibility. Some of our challenges include atrophy of the manufacturing sector, depressed investment, workforce shortages, diminished proficiency, as well as supply chain disruptions. That comes into the main story today about tariffs and production and manufacturing at home. We've got to start doing this to help our own defense, let alone our economy.
And Brian, let's remember, too, there's a lot of shared responsibility here every time we have a continuing resolution. It interrupts funding. It breaks many contracts.
And in essence, it raises the price and increases the length of delivery of all the major components that are out there. So what we need to do is really get on the business of turning out budgets on time without interrupting cash flows to these contracts, which go up, up and up every time we break them. Even when we in the C.R., there's more money for defense and that still hurts defense? Every time you have a C.R., you break funding streams. And sometimes we get provisions in the C.R. to not break certain funding streams. But the bottom line is every time the funding is cut off, that is a break on the government side in the performance of the contract. And this causes some people say, I don't know, and I don't want to start a rumor here, but as much as 17 percent of cost on our big ticket purchases are due to the disruptions of C.R.s. So lastly, today in Beijing, or let's say with the time change, I'm not sure, there's nuke talks with Iran, Russia and China and I might even be North Korea. And they had military exercises together on Tuesday.
Your thoughts about this emerging alliance? How real? How much is messaging? Well, you hit it on the head. It's a little of both. In fact, I think a good amount of it is messaging.
But the fact of the matter is we have to take this seriously. I am a believer that China looks at everybody else as useful lesser brothers. You know, they have done a pretty good job of getting cheap oil and things from Russia to try to carry publicly this union of those two countries in thought.
And I really believe that China is the one that's driving this and looking to benefit in the long term from it. But in the shorter term, the fact that most of these nations are providing arms and aid to Russia and its fight against Ukraine is quite demonstrative. I mean, Iran sending weapons, North Korea sending weapons, North Korea sending troops to help save Russia from losing curse.
Think about this. Russia has had to ask twice now for North Korean help to try to retake sovereign Russian land. That's how badly their military is beat up and their capabilities are currently diminished. And so this is a big deal. And as you said, this is something we need to keep our eye on. And the nuclear portion of this will become more and more important into the future. General, do you think that if Russia could do this again, knowing it would take not three weeks or three days, but three years with this type of damage, they do it?
Brian, I do. I mean, let's look at the track record. Oh, wait. They amassed their army, marched across an international border and invaded Georgia and still occupied 20 percent of Georgia. Then it comes up to the winter of 13 and 14 when they first went into Crimea and then the dome boss to peace deals. Mince one and Mince to Russia blew them up and kept attacking and were killing people on that line all the way through the interim to their massive invasion, as you know, in 22. So Russia has demonstrated a pattern of attack. They are bent on rearranging the security infrastructure of each from Europe. I think, Brian, you've read the two documents that Putin gave us before this last three year portion of this war. And in those documents, he essentially laid out the requirements and the structure of a new international security arrangement in Eastern Europe.
And it was essentially rebuilding the Warsaw Pact with all the buffer nations and getting NATO and the United States out of those buffer nations so that Russia can hold sway in them like they did before. Russia has demonstrated a pattern. And until we break that pattern, we should expect more of the same. Right. But they've been humiliated and exposed as a subpar military force.
They have great numbers, but care nothing about them. General Breedlove, always great. Thanks so much. Great to talk to you, Brian.
