A retired U.S. Army officer panned the Defense Department’s increasing reliance on what he sees as inadequate military standards in pursuit of more diversity as America’s most likely adversaries focus instead on capabilities designed to defeat U.S. forces.
In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday, retired Col. Douglas Macgregor also said that U.S. military has spent decades “playing against pick-up teams” while our enemies are “training for the Super Bowl.”
To kick off the segment, Carlson noted that the Pentagon approved 15 recommendations from an “inclusion board” that resulted from a service-wide analysis following the death of George Floyd in May. One of the recommendations is to “remove aptitude test barriers that adversely impact diversity,” according to the Defense Department.
Carlson went on to report that the Pentagon is also considering changes to a gender-neutral physical fitness test because too many female soldiers are failing it, bringing in Macgregor to comment on whether the changes will hurt or enhance the military’s ability to “win wars.”
“I think the last twenty years have had a profound, negative impact on the American military, particularly combat forces that have had to go through these long occupations, long deployments, without clear missions and obtainable objectives,” Macgregor began.
“We have also fought a very weak enemy, an enemy without air forces, without air defenses, without armies, and people reached erroneous conclusions about the nature of combat under those circumstances. I think to some extent that is what is happening now, so that there is a readiness to accommodate PC demands from policymakers who, frankly, have a cocktail-level of familiarity with real war, when otherwise, senior officers would put up much more serious resistance,” said Macgregor.
“I think these policies are detrimental in most cases and probably divisive,” he continued.
Carlson responded by noting that America’s adversaries are paying attention to the policy decisions our military leaders are making.
“None of our potential opponents — whether they are in the Middle East, Northeast Asia, Eastern Europe, it doesn’t make any difference — none of them would even think of adopting any of these positions and policies under any circumstances,” Macgregor replied.
The retired Army colonel went on to make an eye-opening observation about America’s potential enemies like China and Russia.
“They are training for the Super Bowl. I think that is important for us to understand. We have been fighting, or playing, against pickup teams. We are not training, organizing, [a] fighting power to deal with the Super Bowl. They are. I think we are in for a real surprise. Many of the assumptions we are making about what will or won’t work, they will be destroyed,” he said.
Macgregor went on to suggest the U.S. take a different approach to China.
“The Pentagon talks about China all the time because they link their budgets and core structures to this enormous Chinese threat that they hype. I think it’s overdone,” he said.
“It would make much more sense for us to talk to the Chinese since we are the ones that sail carrier battle groups up and down the strait of Taiwan. We are the ones challenging the Chinese in the South China Sea. I think we might find the Chinese are willing to talk to us and we can avoid collisions that way,” he added.
Macgregor closed by arguing the Pentagon’s current policy preferences are based on false assumptions of superiority.
“Until you fight a really capable enemy, you can make many assumptions about the force that are erroneous. I think that is where we are,” he told Carlson.
“We assume certain things will work because they worked in Iraq or Afghanistan. They have no chance of working at all against the Chinese, the Russians, the Turks, any number of people. We need to come to terms with that and back away from some of the policies that I don’t think have been carefully considered in that context,” he said.
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Jon is a staff writer for BizPac Review with 30 years' worth of reporting experience, as well as an author and U.S. Army veteran. He has a BA in political science from Ashford University and an MA in national security studies/intelligence analysis from American Military University.
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