Preparing the Pentagon for a New Age
Posted in Main Blog (All Posts) on December 10th, 2008 5:28 am by HL
Preparing the Pentagon for a New Age 
Note: This essay appears in the January/February 2009 edition of Foreign Affairs. The defining principle of the Pentagon’s new National Defense Strategy is balance. The United States cannot expect to eliminate national security risks through higher defense budgets, to do everything and buy everything. The Department of Defense must set priorities and consider inescapable tradeoffs and opportunity costs. The strategy strives for balance in three areas: between trying to prevail in current conflicts and preparing for other contingencies, between institutionalizing capabilities such as counterinsurgency and foreign military assistance and maintaining the United States’ existing conventional and strategic technological edge against other military forces, and between retaining those cultural traits that have made the U.S. armed forces successful and shedding those that hamper their ability to do what needs to be done. UNCONVENTIONAL THINKING The United States’ ability to deal with future threats will depend on its performance in current conflicts. To be blunt, to fail — or to be seen to fail — in either Iraq or Afghanistan would be a disastrous blow to U.S. credibility, both among friends and allies and among potential adversaries.
Democrats Must Break With Rangel
Company gives $100,000 to congressman’s pet cause. Congressman protects company tax loophole worth tens of millions. Bam! Company gives pet cause another $100,000 check. Sounds like old times in the Republican Congress of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. But this is happening in the Democratic Congress of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. What a way to greet the new dawn of the Obama era.
