Retired Army Gen. Jack Keane receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Trump on March 10, 2020. AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta See more of our coverage in your search results.
Add The New York Post on Google General and global power Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient retired Army Gen. Jack Keane. New Yorker. Catholic education. ROTC. Commander of the 101st Airborne. Four-star general. Former US Army Vice Chief of Staff. Chair of Institute for the Study of War. Fox News senior analyst:
Keane: “Today we’re facing the most significant security challenge since World War II. China, Russia, North Korea and Iran collaborating together against the US. No isolated incident. They believe Biden’s weak leadership exposed our vulnerability.
“Russia invades Ukraine. Hamas and Hezbollah attack Israel. One goal: Destroy Israel, drive the US away. I talked to President Trump about this for two hours. We’re facing major problems, and our leadership has to deal with that.”
Keane tells me: “Four countries collaborating is the major threat. China’s most threatening because of the strength of their military, economy and being a superpower. Iran’s most dangerous because they’re so aggressive. President Trump is stopping Iran’s aggression and predator nature of imposing their will in the Middle East for 47 years and resetting the Middle East.”
Keane: “Yes, we are prepared. It’s about military capability. Ours dictates credible deterrence. Drones in the air, under the sea, on the surface, on the ground . . . President Trump and his team are all over it . . . That’s why they need an increased defense budget. More capability, and we gotta get it quickly.
“We’ve been here before. Our founders did it. And we went through civil war. The highest percentage of deaths on battlefield that ever existed. We went through the Depression. The country was impoverished. We were brought to our knees. The greatest calamity in the history of man took place in World War II. We had 334,000 people in the United States military before war broke out. We were an inferior military power and looked down upon by the European militaries, even though we had done a pretty good job during World War I.
“Reality is we grew that to 12.2 million people under arms, which defeated Nazi Germany in Europe. We rescued Europe from the stranglehold that Germany had and we defeated imperialist Japan. And not only did we do that, then we recovered the two great powers that started that war, and the American taxpayer underwrote the financial and economic recovery of Germany and Japan because we didn’t want this to happen again. We wanted to make certain we could give rise to the people again, and they could elect those they wanted, as opposed to having dictators.
“I have great faith in the American people,” Keane said. “And yes, we have political divisions in our country. We have been here before. The American people, they are wonderful in their collective wisdom, and they provide a correcting mechanism when our government needs it, and they have done this time and time again. They likely did it in the most recent election, and will again when the time is needed.
“Some are disturbing because they have no sense of our history, American values, the Founding Fathers. I’ve seen leanings toward Hamas, a terrorist organization designed to kill innocent people.
“But my faith is in the American people. They’ll get it right. We have passed this mantle from one generation to the other. We would not be as successful as we are today, if the generations didn’t pass the values, the discipline, the orientation on believing in America and willing to sacrifice for it.”
