Ukraine Is LOST, And USA Knows It | Ray McGovern

## Preview & Introduction The conversation presents a striking assertion: what looks like U.S. resolve in Ukraine may in fact be theatrical cover for strategic failure. Throughout the exchange, long-term patterns of Western policy—hesitation, public bluster, secret negotiation, and moral blind spots—surface as a coherent explanation for the current moment. The argument is not that decisions are accidental, but that they are staged to manage a narrative while diplomats and back channels do the real work. The result is a dangerous mix: domestic political theatre that pressures military loyalty, headline-making brinkmanship in one theater, and quiet efforts toward conflict resolution in another. That convergence raises questions about the rule of law, the integrity of the officer corps, and the extent to which U.S. foreign policy is driven by genuine strategy versus damage control. ## Trump's Address to Generals & the Military Oath A central strand of the discussion focuses on a highly unorthodox presidential address to a large assembly of senior military officers. The gathering, unusual in tone and setting, provided a lens on the tension between personal loyalty to a commander and the constitutional oath that binds officers to the republic itself. The conversation emphasizes how dangerous it is when military culture shifts from duty to the Constitution to duty to a person. That shift does not happen overnight: it is cultivated through rituals, rhetoric, and the slicing away of institutional checks. The claim made here is unsettling but clear: when senior officers accept a model of allegiance that prioritizes career preservation and esprit de corps over constitutional duty, the last line of defense against illegal domestic orders frays. Historical parallels were invoked—examples of popular obedience and the accommodation of authoritarian leaders—to underline that institutional habit can eclipse individual conscience. The military’s silence during the address, the conversation suggested, is not merely decorum but a symptom. The moral compulsion to resist unlawful orders exists on paper and in law, but in practice is frayed by promotions, peer pressure, and a culture of deference. An officer’s duty to disobey unlawful orders receives rhetorical support in the dialogue; its practical likelihood, judging by history and recent behavior, was judged slim. ## The Sinking of Venezuelan Ships & the Legality of Military Orders 00:12:37 What Are Trump's Foreign Policy Priorities? The episode in which three civilian vessels were struck in the Caribbean became a fulcrum for discussion about legality, proportionality, and the legacy of “following orders.” The conversational strand noted the stark contrast between responses required by law and the actions taken: civilian interdiction typically entails boarding, arrest, and due process; destruction and loss of life raise criminal culpability. Nuremberg’s legacy—explicitly rejecting “just following orders” as a defense—was invoked as a legal and moral touchstone. That precedent places the responsibility for illegal combatant targeting squarely on those who execute and those who order the action. The narrative traced a throughline from previous administrations’ use of targeted killings to the present. The expansion of executive-authority lethal options during the Obama years—when legal justifications for extraordinary targeting were stretched—helped normalize a framework in which the killing of individuals at some distance from declared battlefields was presented as administratively legitimate. Once precedent is set at the level of executive interpretation, it becomes easier for future commanders to cite past practice when presented with orders that hollow out conventional accountability. The conversation suggested a disturbing dynamic: law becomes malleable through repetition, and institutions that should restrain illegal action (Congress, courts, military justice) are either absent or reluctant to assert themselves. ## Is a "Shadow Game" of US-Russia Negotiations Happening? One of the more consequential claims made in the exchange is that while public denunciations fly, discreet diplomacy is active. The idea of “lipstick on a pig” was used to describe public bravado masking a negotiated reality—where the U.S. and NATO, confronted with strategic setbacks, may be quietly seeking exit options. The conversation sketches how informal, high-level contacts—summits, private calls, envoys—can lay the groundwork for a negotiated settlement even as public rhetoric drives audiences toward maximal positions. This shadow diplomacy is portrayed as a pragmatic response to battlefield realities. Rather than continuing an open-ended proxy war with domestic political theatre sustaining it, the U.S. might be exploring schemes that secure face-saving language while ceding ground on certain demands. The suggestion is not that the entire policy is harmonized, but that competing centers of power—White House advisers, congressional hawks, foreign capitals—create mixed signals. Public statements from leaders become bargaining chips rather than binding commitments; the theater of outrage sustains domestic political advantage while negotiators pursue practical compromises. The result is a strange hybrid: aggressive public posture plus discreet movement toward de-escalation. ## How Does Russia Deal with an Untrustworthy West? The conversation turned to the Russian perspective, emphasizing a pattern of cautious, calibrated responses. From this vantage, Russia’s leaders are depicted as wary of Western unpredictability but open to transactional agreements that secure core interests. The argument rejects caricatures of Russian maximalism—conquest for conquest’s sake—and instead emphasizes defensive rationales and strategic restraint. Crimea and the four contested oblasts are treated as hardened positions Moscow is unlikely to give up; around the margins, however, the conversation argued there is room for bargaining. Negotiation with a partner perceived as untrustworthy requires hedging. Moscow’s posture—prepared to bargain, but skeptical of Western promises—reflects lessons learned from past broken agreements and the ebb and flow of influence. This strategic caution was framed as the principal obstacle to straightforward ceasefires. Immediate ceasefires carry risks—time to rearm and reposition—that make them less attractive to either side in an ongoing conventional conflict. Thus, what looks like obstinacy can be better understood as rational risk management. The dialogue argued that Western policymakers often misread such caution as belligerence, thereby compounding mistrust and incentivizing a more rigid stance. ## Is Venezuela a Distraction? The Looming War with Iran The conversation placed Venezuela’s maritime incidents and the deployment of naval assets near its coast into a broader pattern of strategic misdirection. The claim: these moves may serve to distract or pressure domestic audiences while more consequential decisions loom elsewhere. Namely, the risk of a wider conflagration in the Middle East with Iran was presented as the most dangerous near-term contingency. The argument stressed that Israel’s frustration and desperation on one front could lead to a catastrophic decision to strike Iran, an act that would have immediate and unpredictable global consequences. The possibility of an Israeli strike, and the U.S. role in either restraining or enabling such a strike, surfaced as a moral and strategic dilemma. The conversation juxtaposed the public performance of firmness in Eastern Europe with the enabling of severe harm in Gaza, arguing that selective moral outrage points to strategic priorities rather than principled deterrence. In this framing, actions in Venezuela serve domestic political ends and provide a sense of control, while the true pressure point—an escalation with Iran—remains the one that could trigger a wider c

Ukraine Is LOST, And USA Knows It While Trump publicly berates Putin and threatens sanctions, back channels are buzzing with talk of a negotiated settlement in Ukraine. Is the whole spectacle just "lipstick on a pig" to disguise a historic defeat for the US and NATO? And as one fire seems to be dying down, could a desperate Israel be about to ignite a catastrophic war with Iran? To discuss this and more, today I’m talking again to Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst responsible for preparing the US President’s Daily Briefs. We break down Trump's unprecedented address to his top generals and what it reveals about loyalty versus the military oath to the Constitution. We also explore the "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" nature of his foreign policy: seeking a deal in Ukraine while enabling genocide in the Middle East. We discuss the sinking of civilian vessels as a desperate show of force, the history of Western betrayals that brought us here, and the looming threat of an Israeli strike on Iran that could drag the world into a wider conflict. Links: Ray's website: https://raymcgovern.com/ X (Twitter): https://x.com /raymcgovern Judge Nepolitano's podcast: https://art19.com/shows/judging-freedom Neutrality Studies substack: https://pascallottaz.substack.com Goods Store: https://neutralitystudies-shop. fourthwall.com Timestamps: 00:00:00 Preview & Introduction 00:01:12 Trump's Address to Generals & the Military Oath 00:06:30 The Sinking of Venezuelan Ships & the Legality of Military Orders 00:12: 37 What Are Trump's Foreign Policy Priorities? 00:26:24 Is a "Shadow Game" of US-Russia Negotiations Happening? 00:43:06 How Does Russia Deal with an Untrustworthy West? 00:56:45 Is Venezuela a Distraction? The Looming War with Iran 01:02:49 Where to Follow Ray McGovern's Work #Guest It's a lot of flutter, a lot of things to disguise the fact that Ukraine has lost, that the U.S. has lost, that NATO has lost. And as I try to put it—and this is not original with me—the pig of defeat needs a lot of lipstick to disguise that it's a real defeat. In my view, Putin has made it clear through Lavrov and others: "Look, we've got lots of lipstick here, okay? Just realize that we're going to make this as sensibly as possible—a negotiated deal here." #Pascal Hello, everybody. This is Pascal from Neutrality Studies. And today I'm talking again to Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst responsible for preparing the U.S. president's daily briefs. Ray, welcome back to the show. Thank you, Pascal. Ray, let's start with the address that President Trump and his Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, just gave to an entire—what was that, just hundreds of admirals and generals, right? A highly unusual meeting that they were calling. What is the news on this one? #Guest -- 1 of 17 -- It was an unprecedented kind of thing. I feared what was going to come out of it. It's really not very clear whether those generals and admirals should have stood up and walked out. But I, too, was an Army officer. I, too, took a solemn oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Now, that was a little while ago, and things have changed. But even Trump seemed to sort of think, well, nobody's going to do that here. Nobody's going to stand. So what he said was—look, he was nonplussed. He came into this audience, this big room, and nobody was clapping. Nobody was saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." These were generals and admirals. They were pretty much silent. So he says, "Oh, I've never come into a room like this in years. You can applaud when you want. It's okay. And if you don't like—this is the key here—if you don't like what I say, well, you can just leave. And goodbye, your rank, and goodbye, your future." Now, to Trump, that's very important—your rank, and what he conceives to be your future. The rest of us, at least back in my day, thought that rank carried with it privileges and demands, and the first and foremost demand was to support your oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. One little footnote here. Twenty years ago, when I was lecturing about how the intelligence before the attack on Iraq was— well, it was fixed around the policy. And finally, someone showed me the minutes of a briefing of Tony Blair, and that's precisely the words they used: "The intelligence and facts are being fixed around the policy." Be that as it may, I was asked to lecture at the Naval Academy in Annapolis to second- and third-year students. And we're talking about, you know, various things. And we're talking about oaths. And finally, I just said, "Well, now, you all, when you joined the Navy, you took a solemn oath. Well, who is that oath to?" And one guy said, "Well, the president." Is there anybody else? The president of the United States. I said, sorry, folks, if you took an oath to the Constitution, there could be times in your career where your oath to the Constitution supersedes—supervenes over—your orders from the president. Now, that was a wake-up call for me. I mean, that was the Navy, not the Army. I try not to be prejudiced, but my God, these were people going to be naval officers, and they thought their oath was to the President of the United States. I don't know how many of those generals and admirals—about 20—yes, many of them were probably there if they were from the Navy. I don't know if they got the message, but nobody got up. Nobody walked out. I haven't read the speech in detail, so I don't see if there's any real probable cause as to whether they should have walked out. But that's the kind of lemming-like devotion to the officer just one rank above, all the way up to the Joint Chiefs. And, you know... I mean, this is sort of making it a little fun, I suppose. But there are these two lemmings, okay? Lemmings, and they're on the cliff. And all the other lemmings are just, lemming-like, jumping off the cliff. And one lemming says to the other, "Do we really have to do this?" And the first lemming says, "Well, if we don't do it, we'll be violating the spirit and the honor of all the lemmings that went before us." #Speaker 03 -- 2 of 17 -- Boom. #Guest Now, my God, if that's the spirit, there is esprit de corps that Trump was advertising as the reason for this meeting. And if there's still a bunch of lemmings in our officer corps—of course, particularly at the top, not at the bottommost, but at the top, the ones that were in Annapolis when I gave that speech—we're in deep trouble. Of course, they're talking about turning the U.S. Army against cities and towns in our country. And that is, according to the Constitution, blatantly illegal. #Pascal Yeah. The... The danger right now is that U.S. forces are not only turned inward, but also outward in an unprecedented manner, right? And what you're saying is very pertinent because we already have now an instance in which the Department of Defense ordered the sinking and killing of the crews of three ships, right, in the Caribbean. Three civilian vessels that are not in any way, shape, or form— even not even claimed to be—vessels of a foreign nation. So we have the U.S. military going after civilians—whether they're criminals or not, that's a separate issue—but they're civilians, and they're supposed to be apprehended and not killed. And these kinds of orders are currently being heavily discussed in the U.S.—whether those are legal, and if the officers who execute them actually commit crimes themselves, or if they can hide behind the chain of command. What is your view on that, on the sinking of these three supposed narcotics ships from Venezuela? #Guest Well, Nuremberg made it very clear that you could not hide behind the defense of "I was only following orders." That doesn't work. Now, what about Congress? What about the Supreme Court, which is supposed to be exercising their own prerogatives with respect to the Constitution of the United States? Congress has just punted, just gone on leave about all this. Was there a prior warning to Congress as to what was coming? No. And the deed itself—those three little boats, not ships, but boats—blown up by our Navy with these missiles or something like that, there's no justification for that. Even if they were drug trafficking, even if they were human trafficking, you intercept them, you surround them, you arrest them, and you make sure that they are brought to justice. You don't just kill them. Now, this goes back to Obama. Obama, with John Brennan giving him a list every Tuesday of which terrorists had lunch with another suspected terrorist in a particular bar in Beirut last Tuesday, would put them at the top of the list. For what? For being struck down and murdered by drone. Now, when people asked, "Is that constitutional?" Eric Holder, who was Obama's Attorney General, said, "Well, I'll go out and tell the law school at Northwestern University—a fine law school, by the way—I'll tell them about it." And he got before these people and said, "Now, can we authorize killing to include not only suspected -- 3 of 17 -- suspects, but also those two American citizens that we just killed two weeks ago? Can we authorize that? Of course we can. Because if you look at the Constitution, it says we need to do that only with due process." Now, we have traditional process. So, traditional process allows us to do these things. The due process could be—In my mind's eye, I had all these Northwestern law students thinking, "My God, this is really interesting. This is probably going to be final, you know?" So even the law schools don't object when things like this happen. The profession of law, like the profession of medicine—my God. Where are the doctors on Gaza, the genocide there? And the legal people, like the ones that justified torture and killing Americans with drones, and now killing whomever on these little boats. My God. So anyhow, the people in the Navy who followed orders to missile-attack those small boats, under ordinary circumstances, they could be charged with not just following orders, but with murdering these folks. I don't wish it on anyone. It's hard to refuse an ostensibly legal order. But the Uniform Code of Military Justice does include that if you are asked to do an illegal order, you have a right—you have a duty—to disobey that command. That's what I would have done. Some of those generals sitting there before Trump, if they are asked to send their troops into Iraq—well, into Baltimore or into Knoxville or Nashville—what would they do? Will they say, "Yes, sir," and then worry about not losing their rank and their future? Well, most of them will. Maybe we'll see some people with the kind of guts that John Kennedy advertised in his great book, Profiles in Courage. #Pascal Historically speaking, we don't have many instances in which armed forces ultimately rebel against illegal orders. When that does happen, it's usually because the armed forces are treated poorly or not well paid, leading to actual uprisings. But if you look at what happened in Germany in the '30s, or how things went down in the Soviet Union with the purges and so on, there's just not a lot of precedent. It just doesn't often happen, because as soon as somebody refuses to obey, you have ten underlings who are very willing to obey if they can just get the post. So we must actually expect that the armed forces of the United States will now be used both inwardly and outwardly. What are you expecting now from this talk that you've heard today by the president? Where do you think his most important focal points are going to be? On the one hand, we still have a proxy war with Russia that seems to be intensifying again. And Mr. Trump apparently said that he's very disappointed in Vladimir Putin because Vladimir Putin doesn't want to end the war the way that Mr. Trump wants it to end. But also, everybody is currently expecting a round two in the U.S.-Israeli war a