Brave New World
That tagline refers not to the President’s latest bogeyman, human-animal hybrids or chimeras, but to the SecDef’s Great Leap Forward, the quadrennial defense review.
Yes, the DOD is projecting forward some twenty years, figuring out how to deal with our likely strategic competitor (China) and our potential competitors (Russia and India), and of course, everything an action movie director wants to hear about: more unmanned predator drones to blow shit up (real good), more Navy SEALS, more army special forces, more secret commando shit (real good), more high tech equipment (real good)… all at an immense cost.
Not too much on those irritating ground troops, of course, or, say, basic body armor or vehicle armor, or for example, energy efficient military vehicles (use of hybrids– vehicles, not chimeras– for example, would reduce the need for forward deployment of an oil supply line, and allow greater mobility of forces; of course, it would reduce costs and oil profits, and is therefore not logisitcally viable.)
But apparently, the essence of the review (performed by Rummy who, it seems, may well be our longest serving SecDef and the first one apparently still around long enough to do a quadrennial review himself since Congress required the exercise) is the ability to fight multiple wars against multiple foes and have American forces engaged in missions to control the world in dozens of countries at the same time.
Of course, the essence of the “plan” is to carry on the so-called “long war” (a/k/a “Iraq”), along with everything else at the same time. For timetable, just note that the 5-year plan calls for reversion of the active duty army to under 500,000 troops by 2011… in other words, what’s old is new again. Because whatever it is our military will do in the brave new world, it won’t involve the use of people, except as an irritating after-thought… after all, you go into the brave new world with the army you have, not the army you wish for or didn’t plan for…
