Blackwater Founder Erik Prince told FNC's Tucker Carlson Thursday night that military orthodoxy failed in Afghanistan and Iraq and that no one in Washington is willing to think outside of the box on "hybrid" ways to continue a U.S. military presence in Syria.



"The president's instincts are right to note have a permanent American presence in Eastern Syria, that is not in the interest fo the United States," he said. "On the flip side, abandoning the Kurs is not the best idea. But there are other ways to do this. The perfect analogy is the Flying Tigers: when you had Japan in the 1930s bombing the hell out of Chinese cities, America was not going to be involved. But FDR, a beloved Democrat, allowed American Marines, Navy, and Army pilots to go work for a private company that became the Flying Tigers. and they defended Chinese cities against Japanese aggression before the United States entered the war."





"So now you could do the same thing," he said about the Syrian Kurds. "They have 400,000 barrels of oil per day that they could sell and export that could pay for effectively a contracted peacekeeping force that would keep the ISIS guys at bay, that would deter the Iranians and the Turks from rolling in. It doesn't require active-duty U.S. forces. The Syrian Kurds could pay for their own defense. But nobody in the Pentagon, nobody in this clique of the Beltway wants to think outside the box and give the president different options."



It's "more money and more troops or nothing," he said. "But there are a lot of hybrid ways to do this, but no one is willing to think outside the box."



"We have a great all-volunteer force, but the fact is that 0.5% of the U.S. population serves in the military, maybe another 3-5% knows someone who serves. Leaving 95% of Ameria with no real contact with the military. So no one feels empowered to call B.S. on the generals on this national security point."



"Everyone says they support our troops and thank you for their service, if they really want to support their troops, demand better. Demand that their sacrifice not be wasted. That we not just muddle along as some of the generals have called for," Prince said. "We have the finest officers in the world, but it seems like once they become generals it is a self-licking ice cream cone of who gets promoted and who gets approved to join that club. No one thinks outside the box. We have no George Pattons anymore. We have no Ulysses S. Grants. We have none of the swashbuckling generals that actually made things happen."



"We don't have a fantastic record of finishing wars since World War Two," he noted.