Col. Macgregor: America's declining troop strength a danger amid Russian uncertainty

Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley, Kenneth McKenize, Sept. 28, 2021 in Washington DC (Getty Images)

On Monday's "Tucker Carlson Tonight", host Tucker Carlson asked retired Col. Douglas Macgregor about the dangers of America's declining troop strength and readiness.

TUCKER CARLSON, HOST: So where are we with troop strength? I think most people, including me, don’t have a precise sense of it.

COL. DOUGLAS MACGREGOR, [RET.]: No, and the numbers are hard to extract. The Pentagon doesn’t make it easy. And frankly, we’ve learned to be very skeptical about the numbers that are provided by the Department of Defense. They have been less than truthful about the numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen, or Marines that are deployed in places like Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq. So we have to approach it cautiously, but we have some large numbers that we can point to.

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Only about 30% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are actually qualified to serve in the military. That’s an appallingly small number. They’re not qualified for reasons of physical ability, medical health reasons, drug use, criminality, whatever. So we don’t have a big cohort.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW BELOW

Lloyd Austin, Mark Milley, Kenneth McKenize, Sept. 28, 2021 in Washington DC (Getty Images)