BUCK: Poland is going to be sending a fleet of MiG fighter planes to Ramstein Air Base in Germany, which is a major U.S. air base in Germany, and from there it is believed that there will be Ukrainian pilots who enter Germany and fly them into Ukraine for use over Ukrainian airspace? Is that what the breaking news is?
CLAY: Yeah, that’s what seems to be occurring here, because there’s been talk about Poland providing planes to Ukrainian fighter pilots to be able to go head-to-head with the Russians for air superiority. And then yesterday if you remember, Buck, we had this conversation where I said, “Wait a minute. Why would Russia not go ahead and bomb Poland if they’ve got jets that are there that are otherwise gonna be handed over to Ukraine?” So it seems like the solution now is for these jets to instead go to Germany and theoretically for Ukrainian pilots to travel to Germany to Ramstein Air Force base or Ramstein Air Base, put them in those planes and then fly them to Ukraine. But —
BUCK: This is Poland essentially saying, “We don’t want to be the ones that are handing the fighter planes over to Ukraine to shoot down Russian planes.” That’s exactly what these MiG fighters are for. “We’re gonna hand it to the Americans on German soil in a NATO country and basically dare Putin to do anything about that.” It’s an escalation. I don’t think Putin is going to go after Ramstein Air Base directly.
That would be an act of war against the U.S. and Germany, therefore, NATO, Article Five, everything would be triggered. But this is a big move, folks. This is not… You know, I’ll put it to you this way. How do you think the U.S. would have responded…? Just to take it out of this context. How do you think the U.S. would have responded if Pakistan was providing fighter planes to the Taliban against us and pushing those planes across the border from Pakistani air bases? Now, granted, Pakistan is a nuclear power, by the way, but I think we would have viewed that in a very hostile fashion, although the Pakistanis did do us a tremendous amount of damage by assisting the Taliban and giving them sanctuary, the whole thing.
BUCK: But I’m just saying, if they had openly said, “We’re gonna provide the Taliban with 50 MiG fighter planes to shoot down American planes in Afghanistan,” that would have been a big problem.
CLAY: No doubt, and that’s the perspective I think you have to look at this. What we keep doing is inching closer and closer, Buck, to the idea of being directly involved. Because if I’m Vladimir Putin and his advisers, I am seeing what Poland is doing to avoid us being able to go after those jets in Poland, and they’re calling the bluff and saying, “Hey, you’re not gonna be able to fly into Germany and go get these planes.
“But the United States is effectively handing the keys to a ton of fighter jets to Ukrainian pilots that are gonna then take off and fly into Ukraine to battle against my Russian fleet,” I’m starting to think, “Hey, the United States is effectively involved in this war.” At some point, support — and I understand you can argue, “Well, there were not boots on the ground. There are not direct U.S. soldiers acting.” But at some point, the support becomes significant enough where you argue you are a combatant here.
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