Google Cloud Speech-to-Text API (Chirp) + Gemini 2.5 Flash Non-Thinking. Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00civilian casualties and are tremendously expensive, being
00:00:03tremendously expensive, so
00:00:06it's also expensive to manufacture them, and many times that is the biggest problem, because well, the United
00:00:10States spending 40,000 million dollars would not
00:00:13be
00:00:15something like it would for a European country, right, which would mean almost ruin for us,
00:00:19but the problem is that they are very expensive to manufacture,
00:00:23right, they are very sophisticated, production lines cannot be increased
00:00:27too much, so,
00:00:30there the United States faces a bottleneck
00:00:34where practically the moment it exhausts its stocks, the capacity of American
00:00:37factories
00:00:39will return to to make up for that shortage in stocks is increasingly
00:00:42reduced. This is something that happens to all of us anyway, even
00:00:45with not so sophisticated materials. Perhaps you remember in the war in
00:00:48Ukraine, artillery shells at the beginning of the war were the critical
00:00:52material and Ukraine was asking for millions of artillery
00:00:55projectiles. Well, between the United States and Europe, we were
00:00:59not able to produce as much artillery ammunition as, for example,
00:01:02Russia is producing. Why? Well, probably because we have deactivated
00:01:06a large part of our war industry. We did not think that a large-scale war would occur,
00:01:11the challenge we have, and beyond perhaps more so in the United States, less so in Europe,
00:01:13and a large part of our capacity to expand
00:01:17our war production has been tremendously limited
00:01:21since the end of the Cold War. And I am going to take advantage of the fact that you brought up
00:01:26system that figure of 1 million dollars each month in
00:01:28Afghanistan in contrast to what
00:01:30capacity in these last months the Congressional Budget Office of the United States says, which states
00:01:34that the war in Iraq alone costs the United States between 2,000 million
00:01:41historical periods, but that in let's say, created a hole in and 3,000 million dollars each month. José Luis, you pointed out something very important, and that is the capacity of the
00:01:45war industry, and you spoke of European countries, and also the
00:01:48United States. I want to ask you about the specific case of the United States,
00:01:52which is what we are discussing in this program, and that is how much
00:01:56agreements, each for the capacity and how long it can take,
00:01:59only not because this goes beyond how much it can cost, but also
00:02:01how many months or years it can take the United States
00:02:05to have the quantity
00:02:08again, just to talk about air defense
00:02:10missiles, how long it can take to recover
00:02:14those projectiles that it has lost and that the Congress estimates it has lost between
00:02:17half and two-thirds of the projectiles it had to defend itself
00:02:21from air
00:02:24changes attacks. Well, it's hard to say, it depends on the
00:02:27effort that the American government can make
00:02:30to increase the production chains of the industries that produce this type of
00:02:34weapons, but it's not something easy and it's not something that can be done in the short
00:02:38term, and it's something we've seen in Ukraine when, for
00:02:41example, they've tried to increase the quantity of
00:02:44Patriot missiles, which is one of the key missiles in air defense, it has been
00:02:48seen that it's very difficult because even opening new
00:02:51factories, there has even been talk of opening them in Ukraine,
00:02:55well, it's something that takes months, no, probably years,
00:02:58so.
00:03:00refilling its arsenals, of course, would depend on the effort made by the United States,
00:03:04but I doubt they can do it
00:03:08in less than a year, many months, no,
00:03:12it is also very difficult
00:03:14couple of naval air groups to to make an exact calculation of this, no, but if the American
00:03:17government made a great effort, probably in months the
00:03:20arsenals could be replenished, if it doesn't make such a great
00:03:24effort, then we would be talking about years, the congress is even
00:03:27more skeptical, its budget office says that it could
00:03:31take up to 5 years to recover the amount
00:03:34of stock of air defense projectiles they had until before June
00:03:39every year they would 2025. Manuel, a question also along the same lines for you, how
00:03:43well-oiled is that war industry in
00:03:46the United States to be able to replenish
00:03:50arsenals as quickly
00:03:51as possible. Well, here,
00:03:56change is needed in I would like to comment
00:03:59that each war has its own, let's say, different way
00:04:03radical one, to abandon of conducting it. In other words, to be
00:04:05clear, after the Second World War, the United States
00:04:09prepared for a conventional war with
00:04:13reduce the another great power, which was the Soviet Union.
00:04:16Eh, the Soviet Union no longer exists, Russia is not the Soviet
00:04:19Union, but it still poses a very serious
00:04:23threat to Europe and the rest of the world, but China
00:04:26does represent something similar, equivalent to
00:04:32would be three times more than the the strength of the United States. In other words, some type of munitions
00:04:35factory on the part of the United States
00:04:39has traditionally, at least in all my life and since
00:04:421945, 1945 onwards, been for
00:04:45the purpose of being able to defend
00:04:49and win a war
00:04:51against the Soviet Union or more recently in the last 20
00:04:55years, China. So, what if we continue with
00:04:59Well, I agree with the that type of philosophy of defending against those two
00:05:03types of threats? The fact that a war is coming against
00:05:06Iran, which is nothing, but nothing like those two powers,
00:05:10but it does have its way of... as they say, an asymmetric
00:05:13war in the sense that they have a
00:05:17capacity that is not what
00:05:20we are preparing for, meaning that we have,
00:05:23we have been manufacturing weapons
00:05:26that are not for this type of war and, as
00:05:29Colonel José Luis says, it can
00:05:33be replaced, that's for sure, and it depends on how long, but for
00:05:37what purpose? Because if it's to continue the war in Iran,
00:05:41it doesn't make, let's say, logical sense, and as we have seen
00:05:45in Ukraine, eh,
00:05:47every month, at least every two or three months,
00:05:51the way, strategy in which operations are
00:05:55conducted, the weapons, the types of drones,
00:05:58whether terrestrial, maritime, or aerial, change
00:06:02radically in a very short time, so
00:06:06even if the United States were to replace the
00:06:09missiles in a year or 5 years that have been...
00:06:12used, by 5 years or 3 years or
00:06:16even possibly a year, those
00:06:18weapons, in my opinion, will be obsolete even for a
00:06:22war against China. You raise a very interesting
00:06:26point, and that is the imbalance of weapons that the United States currently
00:06:29has to fight other weapons that are
00:06:33very cheap to produce. You have already mentioned drones, but I want to go back
00:06:37to that point that Manuel mentioned, and that is the kind of weaponry that
00:06:41the United States needs to defend itself from another
00:06:44country, and you brought up Manuel the case of
00:06:47China. Today, with the weapon situation and the
00:06:51arsenal and munitions that the United
00:06:54States has, how capable is it
00:06:57of defending itself against not just an attack from
00:07:00China, but beyond that, how much could it defend
00:07:04, for example, Taiwan in case China decided to attack this
00:07:08semi-autonomous territory, or how capable is the United States
00:07:11of... intervening in the Strait
00:07:14of Bab el-Mandeb in case the Houthis managed to control it completely?
00:07:18Well, let's start with the case
00:07:21of Taiwan. Defending
00:07:24Taiwan, let's say, from some kind of invasion by China.
00:07:27First of all, for now, the
00:07:31countries of South Korea, Japan,
00:07:34the Philippines, Vietnam, Australia, and
00:07:38even India would be, and other countries, Singapore, and
00:07:41others. In other words, there are still alliances in
00:07:44that part of the world that recognize,
00:07:47although they may not have as much confidence in the United States as they used to,
00:07:51eh, if there were to be a war, an invasion, where
00:07:55the United States made the decision to defend Taiwan, I
00:07:58think it would not only be the United States. So that's the first
00:08:02point, that this war in Iran, obviously,
00:08:05the United States is alone, only with Israel. So
00:08:09there would be many more allies, first. Second,
00:08:12a maritime invasion by China towards Taiwan, for several
00:08:16reasons that this program is not meant to detail,
00:08:19would be much more complicated, much more complicated than
00:08:23playing defensively, because in that case, China would be on the
00:08:26offensive, and offense, especially when you have to
00:08:29cross a sea,
00:08:33it's much more difficult. So, and the third point
00:08:37is that China is also more or less in this
00:08:40era, more or less in the
00:08:42same situation or similar to the United States' situation in the
00:08:46sense that they still rely more than anything on
00:08:50traditional weapons, and that's why I'm talking about instruments from
00:08:535 years ago, and they still haven't,
00:08:56let's say, modernized in the way that the war in Ukraine
00:08:59has shown us what is
00:09:03needed. So I think that defending against an invasion by
00:09:06China would be much more easy, not that it's
00:09:09easy, but easier than, let's say,
00:09:12against, or forcing
00:09:15Iran to release control of the Strait of Hormuz.
00:09:18And I want to ask you about that same point, José Luis, but
00:09:22focusing on the war in Ukraine,
00:09:25how much did the supply, especially at the beginning of the war, that the
00:09:29United States gave to the Ukrainians, contribute to the shortage of
00:09:33arsenal that the American
00:09:34country currently faces?
00:09:38Well, it has evidently had an influence, especially on some
00:09:42materials, which are also materials that
00:09:45only the United States manufactures, and that we really
00:09:49still need the United States to provide to
00:09:52Ukraine: Patriot missiles and
00:09:55precision missiles for tactical attack like HIMARS
00:09:59ATACMS. So,
00:10:03it is true that all that kind of material has been given to Ukraine not in
00:10:06drips and drabs, but in limited quantities. That is to say, in
00:10:09comparison with what is being spent in the war against Iran, what has been given to Ukraine is
00:10:13still little. Ukraine has been given more conventional material,
00:10:16etcetera, but yes, in some way, the war in
00:10:19Ukraine demonstrated this problem that is now being seen in all its
00:10:23magnitude, which is that we face very complex and extremely expensive
00:10:27weapon systems against other systems that are much cheaper
00:10:30and can be manufactured in large quantities, in much larger
00:10:33quantities. So we are facing what we soldiers call a
00:10:37revolution in military affairs. That is to say, we probably have to start
00:10:40thinking about changing our arsenals, our systems,
00:10:44looking for those cheaper but also technologically
00:10:47advanced systems. The thing is that's not something that can be done in a few months
00:10:50or a year. Armies to change
00:10:53their materials, the doctrine with which they are used, etcetera, would
00:10:57probably need years. So,
00:11:01that's the problem we face. I repeat that Ukraine had its
00:11:04influence, although it really brought the problem
00:11:08to light, but the problem in all its
00:11:11seriousness is now being seen in the war against Iran. And both of you
00:11:15agree that one of the solutions is
00:11:18to change that quantity or that quality of arsenals for the better and
00:11:22modernize them to be on par with
00:11:25modern attacks that are currently happening, especially with those drones. But the
00:11:29specific question I want to ask Manuel is what kind
00:11:33of change should there be, that is, what should
00:11:35the war industry develop to combat a drone that is
00:11:39cheap to produce and difficult to
00:11:42capture?
00:11:45Let's start with the fact that the
00:11:51of the US military
00:11:54industry is an enormous
00:11:57industry, enormous and one that makes
00:12:01a lot of money, paid for by the citizens of the United
00:12:04States, and it is very, it takes a long time,
00:12:08the rules for procurement
00:12:11have increased a lot, I was not an
00:12:14expert on that type of topic, but what I mean is that
00:12:18it is a system of contracting, of
00:12:21making, let's say, requests for proposals,
00:12:25etcetera, that takes a very long time and requires
00:12:29a lot of money, simply to respond to what the
00:12:32government is asking for, while, for example, in Ukraine, out of
00:12:36necessity, it is a much, much more
00:12:39agile, fast, flexible, and cheap system
00:12:43to execute, and that is what allows those radical
00:12:49in the way that they are
00:12:52contracting and manufacturing new weapons that can, let's
00:12:55say, win. Every month it has to change here in
00:12:59the United States. One starts with an initial
00:13:02contracting process that lasts
00:13:06years before they start manufacturing the particular
00:13:09weapon. So that is a first, first phase
00:13:13is to create a much more efficient and agile system that
00:13:17can respond to today's needs and not to the
00:13:21needs that we have today but that are for
00:13:24the future. When they are ready, that reality will have
00:13:27changed, so I would start there and also
00:13:30work with other allies
00:13:33to
00:13:35combine the different experiences that have been
00:13:39found in different parts of the world with
00:13:43this change. We are no longer in the war of the Soviet
00:13:46Union or even a conventional
00:13:49war with another very
00:13:52powerful power like China.
00:13:56But I want to ask you a question along those same lines, Manuel, and that is, you
00:13:59say, money and time are needed to be able to renew
00:14:03the war industry. Is enough money being dedicated in the United
00:14:06States to it?
00:14:10No, first of all, if I were, let's
00:14:13say, someone advising the United States government, I would say,
00:14:17a radical
00:14:21the procurement process for the
00:14:24purchase of weapons, but a
00:14:28what was done before and make it much more flexible
00:14:32where someone who has a new,
00:14:35innovative idea that can be useful in the
00:14:38new battlefield can show them, "Look, I have this
00:14:42product, it's ready now, you contract
00:14:45me tomorrow and you can have
00:14:48these weapons on the battlefield in a matter of weeks
00:14:52or months, not years." So we have to
00:14:56start with that radical change of a military
00:15:00industry that has a lot of political
00:15:03power in this country and that it would be, I think, difficult, let's
00:15:07say, to achieve those changes that I think are
00:15:10necessary. And José Luis, what do you contribute or what
00:15:14do you add about how that modernization of weapons
00:15:17and also of
00:15:19ammunition could be?
00:15:24colonel, with Manuel, that many times the
00:15:28problem is not so much the
00:15:31modernization as the streamlining of the material acquisition processes, right?
00:15:35I always... I give an example, right now we are
00:15:38receiving armored vehicles that were designed for the wars in Iraq and
00:15:42Afghanistan, so they are very protected, they are very
00:15:46effective at withstanding the explosion of mines, of
00:15:49improvised explosive devices, but of course,
00:15:53that is no longer the type of war we are facing. Now we are facing drones
00:15:56that attack from angles
00:15:59and with completely different attack strategies, so we are receiving
00:16:03vehicles for the war of 15 years ago.
00:16:06So that is the problem, that it takes a very long time from when the product
00:16:10is designed until we receive it in the armies,
00:16:14right? Of course, this changes with wars, for example, the Ukrainians have adapted and
00:16:18they are producing new materials, new missiles, new
00:16:21systems from one year to the next. In the Second World
00:16:24War, new tanks were manufactured, I'm not going to say in
00:16:28months, but little more than a year, so of course when countries are at war, they
00:16:32are pressured to speed that up, but the challenge we have
00:16:35is to try to speed up those... processes so that it doesn't take
00:16:39us 10 or 15 years to receive new materials in peacetime, without
00:16:42needing to suffer the disaster of a war, right? And that is
00:16:48modernization, I also want to ask you how much it can
00:16:52serve the United States to use the forces and
00:16:56arsenal it currently has for other objectives, and I ask
00:16:59Manuel specifically about the case of Israel. Earlier I
00:17:03asked Colonel Calvo if the war in Ukraine had
00:17:06weakened the US armament capacity. I want to ask you
00:17:09if helping Israel has,
00:17:15the military capacity of the United States, and I ask you because every year
00:17:19the United States provides a base of
00:17:223.8 billion dollars in military
00:17:25assistance to Israel, and so far in
00:17:282026, they have signed at least two
00:17:34amount of 2.7 billion dollars and another 2.8
00:17:37billion dollars to give Israel
00:17:41more than 40,000 one-ton bombs. If
00:17:44this were to be relocated to leave the
00:17:48arsenals or these munitions within the United States, could it be
00:17:52an option? And looking at it from a broader
00:17:55perspective, does supporting Israel not open this gap
00:17:59in the US arsenal?
00:18:01Look, I don't have
00:18:04that, that's an excellent point and...
00:18:07question. I don't have the data in front of me, but
00:18:10I have no doubt that what has been
00:18:13spent by the United States, essentially giving away
00:18:17money, because to
00:18:19Israel compared to what has been sold
00:18:23to Ukraine in many cases and largely
00:18:27paid for by other NATO countries and
00:18:30Europe, is much more than what has been
00:18:33given to Ukraine. And to put
00:18:36this in, let's say, a historical context, what is
00:18:40given to Israel is essentially what they call foreign military
00:18:44financing, which is an amount. The numbers
00:18:47you used are that money the Congress
00:18:50every year since the, I mean, it was when
00:18:53Jimmy Carter was president
00:18:57and achieved peace between Egypt and
00:19:00Israel. I think it was around '72, '73,
00:19:04something like that, I don't remember exactly, but to
00:19:07achieve that agreement, the United States guaranteed Israel
00:19:12and also Egypt, although at a lower level, that
00:19:17receive a budget from the United
00:19:20States. And now it's not that they are giving money to
00:19:23Israel, the money is used by
00:19:26Israel and Egypt, both,
00:19:29to buy weapons from the American factories
00:19:33that are making these munitions. So it's like a
00:19:36vicious circle, that the Congress gives the
00:19:40money to Israel but doesn't give it, it only gives a credit that
00:19:43they can then use to buy these things, and in that, of course,
00:19:47it will obviously
00:19:50weapons that the
00:19:53US armed forces will have available. And those bombs you
00:19:57mentioned are 2
00:20:00tons each. If all
00:20:04those, I think it's 40,000 bombs or something like that,
00:20:09bombs, the power would be much more than what
00:20:12happened in the nuclear attacks during the Second
00:20:16World War against Japan. I have the updated data
00:20:19for what you are raising, that the US Congress gives
00:20:23about 80% of the foreign military funding that
00:20:27the legislature approves solely and exclusively for the
00:20:30Middle East, not just Israel, but for
00:20:33the entire sub-region. I want to ask José Luis,
00:20:37how to understand, let's say, this funding, or beyond that, what
00:20:41could happen now with Donald Trump's intention
00:20:44to finance other countries? He recently
00:20:47announced that he would allocate five
00:20:5242 million dollars for Latin American countries that are supporting Trump's initiative
00:20:56to join the Shield of the Americas, specifically he said for
00:20:59Panama, Ecuador, Peru and Colombia, 52 million
00:21:03versus the 3,800 million dollars that Israel
00:21:07receives annually. It is still a small
00:21:10amount, but how do you understand, above all, this decision that Donald Trump has
00:21:14decided to withdraw this money that was destined especially for
00:21:18European countries as well? Some in Asia and now
00:21:21to put it in Latin
00:21:22America.
00:21:26Yes, well, I when President
00:21:28Trump won the elections, we had a meeting with
00:21:32our, I was still working at the Spanish Ministry of Defense, we had a meeting with
00:21:36our American colleagues and they, commenting
00:21:40on what the strategy, what the new American administration's strategy was going to be,
00:21:43they said, "Don't think that the main objective is China
00:21:46or the main objective
00:21:50is Europe, as it has traditionally been, the main objective is Latin America." That is
00:21:54to say, the main objective of this new administration is going to be
00:21:57Latin America, and it's true, the United States is dedicating, in some
00:22:01way, it is recovering interest in Central and
00:22:05South America, and it is, although the amounts allocated and the
00:22:09troops deployed still cannot be compared to what is in the Middle East,
00:22:12logically, but it is true that there is a certain strategic
00:22:16interest, well, and the operation in Venezuela is a clear
00:22:19case. A renewed strategic interest
00:22:22of the United States in Central
00:22:26and South America. An interest that existed in other
00:22:31recent decades was really more reduced, but now it seems that
00:22:34it is returning, and I want to ask you your personal position, and forgive
00:22:38me for insisting on this, but how do you read this policy? Can it serve the United
00:22:42States, especially in the current geopolitical landscape? And I
00:22:45give you an example, it is not
00:22:49allocating money to the Middle East, but for example,
00:22:52one of the clear cases is what
00:22:56happened with the aircraft carrier George
00:22:59Washington. Once, the aircraft carrier Abraham
00:23:02Lincoln, after spending more than
00:23:0510 months in the ocean fighting in different
00:23:09wars, is now returning to the United
00:23:12States, and the replacement for the Abraham Lincoln is
00:23:16the George Washington, which was in Asia, precisely
00:23:19to deter any attack on Taiwan. Can it
00:23:23serve the United States to move it, to move that aircraft carrier to
00:23:26the Middle East, and can it also serve to relocate
00:23:29military aid to Latin America, especially taking into account the current
00:23:33geopolitics?
00:23:37Yes, well, I think that anyway, a new aircraft carrier had been sent,
00:23:40I think it was the Carl Vinson to
00:23:44Asia to replace it, because I think the United States
00:23:47will always try to have at least one operational aircraft carrier group, not
00:23:51an aircraft carrier, but the naval air group
00:23:54that accompanies it, active in Asia. No, the thing is that
00:23:57now in the Middle East, well, they are,
00:24:01of course, putting pressure on it, and it needs at least a
00:24:04maintain the rakes when attacks occur, and
00:24:08so there is a certain regard
00:24:11to America, as I said before, indeed,
00:24:15there is a greater involvement, that also doesn't
00:24:18mean that the involvement apart from Venezuela, which is a special case
00:24:22and there has been a military operation,
00:24:25in the rest of the countries, what there is is simply an
00:24:28increase in US presence, it's not that they are also
00:24:32considered allies, Colombia, in Argentina,
00:24:35it's starting to be talked about in these countries that have regimes that
00:24:39can be considered very close to the
00:24:42American regime, to the current American government, well,
00:24:45it is increasing, it's a small increase yet, but it does
00:24:49show a greater interest, it's not
00:24:52something that will affect too much the capabilities of the United States in the Middle East
00:24:56or in the Pacific, because as I say, these are deployments
00:24:59and these are capabilities that are deployed in
00:25:03Latin America, reduced for now, I'm
00:25:06going to take advantage of you mentioning Argentina to mention
00:25:09the operations, the joint military exercises between the United
00:25:12States and Argentina that took place for most of September
00:25:16in Tierra del Fuego, in the south
00:25:20of that country, Manuel, I want to ask you how
00:25:24you see the United States moving its pieces in this international chess
00:25:26game, especially in military matters,
00:25:30where it is putting more force and where it is
00:25:32taking it away.
00:25:36Well, as Colonel José
00:25:39Luis said, the public strategy
00:25:42of the United States for this year of the
00:25:46Donald Trump administration
00:25:49is focused on America. It says it is focused on
00:25:52Latin America and they are doing much
00:25:55more, although it is relatively little globally, but they are doing much more than has
00:25:59been done, at least during my life,
00:26:02and certainly when I was in the Southern Command also in the Southern Army, in Panama,
00:26:06etcetera.
00:26:09The thing is, as I said before, a war against the
00:26:13Soviet Union, a war against Russia today or China is
00:26:17very different from what is happening today in the Middle
00:26:19East, with the defense or
00:26:23attempt to defend the Arab countries of the
00:26:25Gulf, that obviously the US bases
00:26:29also, we haven't talked about it, but let me say that they have suffered
00:26:33a lot, there has been a lot of destruction of those
00:26:36bases, and I doubt that the United States
00:26:41rebuild those bases that have been damaged
00:26:45in large part, I don't know what they will do, but I don't think
00:26:49they will go back to how they were before, because the Arab countries in
00:26:53many cases have already lost confidence that they will be able to be
00:26:56defended by the United States under these
00:26:59circumstances, so there I go to another part.
00:27:02Yes, excuse me for interrupting you, we ran out, we ran out of time,
00:27:06unfortunately we couldn't delve into the issue of the bases, which is undoubtedly of
00:27:09interest, but in 30 seconds I ask Manuel so that José Luis can then answer
00:27:13the same, given the scenario we are talking about, is the United
00:27:17States unprotected or is it alarmist to say
00:27:20this? I wouldn't say that
00:27:24it is, let's say, without defense,
00:27:27the United States still has a lot of defense, although it has lost a lot of
00:27:33of what it had before, that should not be confused with saying
00:27:37that it is not prepared
00:27:40for incapacity to defend itself, we also
00:27:44have the weapons that you just said we have in space, so that is
00:27:48another frontier of war, and José Luis, what is your answer to
00:27:52this?
00:27:54Yes, I agree, no, you cannot say that the United States is
00:27:57unprotected, yes you can say that perhaps its ability to
00:28:00influence some conflicts throughout
00:28:04the world has logically been reduced and the
00:28:08Iran war is stuck,
00:28:10so well, yes, if a big crisis arises, that's the problem, that a big
00:28:14crisis arises in the Strait of Taiwan, in the Middle East, a really
00:28:18big crisis that forces a large military deployment, then the United States could find itself
00:28:21a bit short of resources. Thanks to the retired colonels, José
00:28:25Luis Calvo and Manuel Superville for joining us and also
00:28:29thanks to the debate's editing chief Laura Garzón and the guests' chief
00:28:33Natalie Quiroga, you stay with
00:28:34us.
00:29:40The earthquake of September 19, 1985