Retired Army Colonel Douglas Macgregor joined “Tucker Carlson Tonight” on Monday to discuss whether the Pentagon is lowering military standards in the name of diversity.
MACGREGOR: I think the last twenty years had a profound, negative impact on the U.S. military, especially combat forces that had to go through these long occupations, long deployments, without clear missions and achievable goals. We also fought against a very weak enemy, an enemy without air forces, air defense, without armies, and people under such circumstances drew wrong conclusions about the nature of battles. I think to some extent that is what is happening now. I think these policies are in most cases detrimental and probably divisive.
None of our potential opponents – whether in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, Eastern Europe, it makes no difference – none of them will under any circumstances think of taking any of these positions and policies. They are training for the Super Bowl. I think it’s important for us to understand. We fought or played against pickup teams. We do not practice, do not organize, [a] fighting power to handle the Super Bowl. They are. I think we’re looking for a real surprise. Many of the assumptions we make about what may or may not work will be destroyed.
The Pentagon talks about China all the time because they link their budgets and core structures to this enormous Chinese threat they are hyping. I think it’s exaggerated. It will make a lot more sense if we talk to the Chinese, because we are the ones sailing battle groups up and down the Taiwan Strait. It is we who challenge the Chinese in the South China Sea. I think we may find that the Chinese are willing to talk to us and that we can avoid clashes that way.
Until you fight a really capable enemy, you can make a lot of assumptions about the power that is wrong. I think this is where we are. We assume that certain things will work because they worked in Iraq or Afghanistan. They have no chance at all of working against the Chinese, the Russians, the Turks and any number of people. We need to agree with that and return from some policies that I do not think have been thoroughly considered in context.
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