More from General McPeak

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More from General McPeak (former Chief of Staff, US Air Force) from last night on Aaron Brown’s show

Yes, I think that’s more a political gamut. And quite frankly, I’m a lot less optimistic on the political side. I think we ought to make a sharp distinction here between two types of criticism that are being made. Some, even retired senior officers, are criticizing the plan, saying we don’t have enough force there, one way or another.

I disagree with all that. And I don’t think it’s helpful. Our guys on the ground are doing great. The plan is being executed well. We just have to be a little patient.

But there’s a second kind of criticism that says the political run-up to this thing was pretty ugly. The administration has managed to back us into a position where we’ve lost a lot of friends. Our closest neighbors, Canada and Mexico, are not on our side. Some of our oldest allies, France.

And so we’ve done a pretty good job on splitting NATO, the most successful military coalition in history. And so we’ve reduced our friends and multiplied our enemies in the political run-up to this, and that I think has enormous strategic consequences.

Remember, we never lost a battle in Vietnam, we just lost the war because the politics of it was so clumsily done.

More soon.

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