Ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey appeared on MSNBC Tuesday and expressed his displeasure with the Obama administration’s decision to dramatically downsize U.S. military forces.
The defense cuts, to be announced formally in the president’s budget proposal next month, would reduce U.S. ground forces to their lowest level since World War II at a time when world threats are increasing.
"You can't create a fire department after the fire starts. We're moth balling Navy ships, we're standing down all the A-10 ground attack Air Force planes, we're slashing the size of the size of the Army. This is a budgetary argument, not a national security argument," McCaffrey said.
"They need to step back and think what are we actually doing? China's resurgent in the Pacific Rim, North Korea with a sociopath running a country, Iranian threats, and by the way we still got 35,000 troops in combat in Afghanistan," McCaffrey added.