You're saying his alleged comments were surely intelligent, although you weren't in the room.
Trump's guy in the room said they were "almost too stupid for words"
That dude wasn't and isn't really a Trump guy, and lots of lifetime policy wonks in DC are just people who shove paper around all day and figure out ways to ensure they have a lifetime job.
I suspect he also didn't have the first clue about the decades of research undertaken by the U.S., Chinese and Russians regarding weather modification and no, I don't care what his title is or was.
As I watch the military talking heads talk about Ukraine (for example), I am reminded again that many of them really don't have a clue, and only see the world through the prism of their experience. That experience being the U.S. fighting guys in clay huts and on piles of rocks using AK's and a few RPG's. Not against a first world military with a real air force, real artillery, real satellites and real missiles.