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The military needs (a) more funding, and (b) to better spend what it gets. Warfighting is expensive, especially the way we do it. For the level of performance we demand out of the military, we need to get realistic about what kind of price tag that carries per soldier and per theater, in terms of it being 2007, not 1967 or 1947. We've been kidding ourselves ever since 09/12/2001 about what this war on "terror" is really going to cost us.

Taking an axe to wasteful military spending would be great, but there's a huge amount of bureaucratic entrenchment that will fight to the absolute bitter end than let itself be reformed. There's a lot the system could do on the inside to rehabilitate itself, but pork, inertia, and territorialism are very hard to overcome.

Either way, it's the guy on the combat patrol who suffers if he can't get spare parts or adequate training. That should be our concern.

Taking an axe to wasteful military spending would be great, but there's a huge amount of bureaucratic entrenchment that will fight to the absolute bitter end than let itself be reformed

I'm hoping that the recent and unprecedented new mission of General Pertraeus = being sent back home to assume a new role at the DOD - looking at the current commanders in the field to ascertain who's still trying to fight a gorilla war with old convention tactics - and doing some shuffling around - I know, right off, of two I'd like to seek shipped back to wherever - maybe "early retired" =